What Makes Good Design — Issue 04
It's been a while since I've done one of these emails in the What Makes Good Design series, and I've found four rad pieces lately that I thought I'd share with ya.
If you're new here, What Makes Good Design is a series where I grab pieces of sweet design I've found around the interwebs and dish a little more on what makes them 'good' — in my opinion. 😜
First up, this piece from ATOZ Branding on Behance.
This was the piece I saw when I was trolling Pinterest that actually inspired me to send another one of these emails! I was like 'damn that is slick, and oh shit I should do another What Makes Good Design email', lol. I think it was part of a branding project, and this was one of the tempaltes/layouts for Instagram stories.
Why I dig it 👉It's SO SLICK. The font is super high quality and bold, I love the sea-foamy colour, and the photography is profesh too.
What I think could be a tiny bit better 👉The font used in the circle text on the top left corner doesn't look as high qual as the main font. It looks half finished or like they forgot to update it or something? It looks like Gotham, or the same font on the right hand side, but it'd look way better even if it was all caps, and spaced out a bit better.
Next up, Voyage Typeface on Behance.
As soon as I saw this floating around in my Pinterest home page I was like YES, I dig.
Why I dig it 👉The creamy colour combined with a super cool font and a black + white photo? Ultimate dream team. Also this rounded rectangle shape is rad + different. We did something similar for the Branding I just finished up for Madison Morrigan and I really dig it. It's simple and easy to use in multiple ways, but not so basic that everyone is doing it (yet, lol).
What I think could be a tiny bit better 👉Nothin! I dig all of it.
Auburn Welcome Kit on Creative Market.
I actually brought this a couple of months ago when I was updating my client PDF files and I just wanted some layouts and I couldn't be fucked doing my own, lol. I think all of the layouts in this kit are SUPER SMOOTH. They're so profesh.
Why I dig it 👉It's super easy to use as a base document, then add your own fonts/colours/etc, and adjust it from there. This is also why I got it. Aside from the design, it could come in handy if you're a creative who needs to whip up some proposal-type docs and you need help structuring the actual content — as this kit will help you a lot with that side of it too. But yeah, overall it's a super high quality piece of design!
What I think could be a tiny bit better 👉Nothin! I dig all of it. I think the earthy toned blobs are a bit over-done these days, so I wouldn't recommend keeping them (unless you want to look like a lof of other brands, lol).
This piece by Nathan Riley.
Why I dig it 👉The LAYERS! As you may or may not know, or have noticed in my design work, I fucking love me some good layering. This original design was actually a website design so it's animated, but it's just as rad as a flat graphic if you ask me. The outlined text that's in the background, the solid text in the front, and the two layers of photos in the middle are solid. Overall it's pretty balanced and slick.
What I think could be a tiny bit better 👉I don't love how the font looks as an outlined version, where the letters are thinner it looks kinda weird. If I was to re-create something similar I'd try some different, thicker fonts that look better outlined.
