Speaker 1: Most designers know a thing or two about hierarchy and very few people actually use these techniques or they just don't use them effectively. The first golden technique will actually lay the foundation for making your next project totally awesome. So when you have your design concepts and your ideas finalised in your mind it's probably time to think about the three flow rule and this will actually open the door for hierarchy to be born on your artwork. The three components of the three flow rule that you need to ask yourself are 1. Where are the viewer's eyes initially going to land on your design? 2. Where is the likely second place the viewer's eye will actually move to? and 3. Where will the viewer's eye finally finish up? Seems pretty simple right? It is yeah but it's a really fundamental way to make good and effective designs each and every time. This pet play feed poster starts the journey with the bold white topography for the starting point then the parrot for the secondary stop off and then the information to the left for the final end to the viewer's journey. Will every single person view this design in this way? No of course not but it's actually a streamlined avenue that most viewers will be able to use and a way they can obtain information from your design easily. And this leads me nicely onto the next technique in today's video. The vast majority of designs will loosely use one of two techniques to form a basis of hierarchy especially in the western world. The F pattern suggests viewers start their journey in the top left of a design because that's a natural way that a lot of people tend to read a book left to right. Then they move over to the right and then below that most content will be aligned to the left and extend out towards the right. The second method is the Z or the Z pattern depending on where you're from. Again we start in the top left then we move over to the right but this time we go diagonally down to the bottom left and then finally over to the bottom right. This is the instinctive way that most people will view and actually look at a design and so by knowing this alone you can then apply hierarchy to your designs accordingly which we're going to look at right now. Now you could have absolutely nothing in the top left or top right but have a focal point in the very center and then the viewer will scan from the top left and then move down into the middle then perhaps move to the bottom left and then finish in the bottom right where maybe a link or a contact might be. This still follows both of these patterns if you actually think about it. Of course these are just templates to keep in mind when you're designing something. They're actually just there for you to use in conjunction with hierarchy to build a framework of your designs. And speaking of more techniques what about something that people think is so obvious and so easy to do but which they often don't apply properly in graphic design? Size is probably the easiest way to achieve hierarchy, right? Simply because the viewer will notice it in a millisecond and it just stands out so easily. But here's a really good way for structuring that hierarchy in terms of size and all you have to do is think of these three levels. So we have 1. The hook 2. The secondary detail and 3. The finisher Now most designers will say the most important parts of your design should be the biggest on your design and I say yes that's true some of the time or quite often actually but there are other times when that doesn't actually apply. If your design is about a product then the hero of the design will actually be that product itself as you can see here. The drink is the focal point and it's the largest on the design. It's that initial hook. However if we look here the focal point is more of an artistic visual hook and the important information would be the dates and the location of this event. So try and make the hook on your design the largest and it doesn't have to be the most important thing but a lot of the time it will be. Then secondary detail is second largest and finally the smaller sections are where you want the viewer to finish and actually take in crucial information. This would also be where your CTAs go. So once a viewer is actually hooked onto your design from afar then they start to go on that journey across your design then they should finish the important information. This logic works really well when you combine it with the Z and the F patterns from earlier. So there's actually a really neat trick that you can use with hierarchy when you have grouped objects on your design. Now if you place one of the objects larger and in the center of a group with then equal sets of other objects either side then it automatically stands out and creates hierarchy. However if we arrange the objects differently the level of hierarchy will be diminished but again this actually works on specific grouped objects on the design so it's not actually going to be applicable just everywhere but yeah it's always good to know and it's a pretty cool trick. Now one mistake I see time and time again relates to the next golden technique of visual hierarchy. So when thinking about typography on your designs in regard to hierarchy it's actually a really good idea to think about that three level rule we spoke about earlier. The hook, the secondary detail and then the finisher. So here the typographic hook is the future big gun section and then just below that the secondary text and then finally the book a visit call to action in the upper right. I don't necessarily think this is a particularly good CTA. It's not too shabby and you can see how it fits into that three level rule when talking about hierarchy. Your designs don't need to strictly follow this technique but they are great to keep in mind as a basis when implementing hierarchy on your designs. Now if I was to ask you what is the best friend of hierarchy in graphic design what would you say? This design uses it and so does this design right here. Hierarchy literally cannot survive or work without white space or even just proper use of white space. The space allows distinctions to be made by the viewer so hierarchy can actually be identified subconsciously and if you want to learn all about white space in terms of macro, micro, passive and active just click that video on screen and until next time guys design your future today peace