There are those who are bored to tears by the thought of designing a form and those who love the fussy
challenge of creating a good, clear, usable document. Forms are seriously underrated in the world of graphic
design.
| Of the four basic design principles
(contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity), the secret to a good-looking form
is alignment. Lack of alignment is the
single biggest failure that makes a form appear unclear to the user. The other principles are
also very important, as in any design, particularly contrast to help direct the user through the form, proximity to keep groups of related pieces of information
together, and repetition to tie it all together. But alignment is the key. The
top example uses interesting typefaces and calls out the major features in bold for clarity
in communication and visual contrast and repetition, but it doesn’t look as clean and
clear as it could. In the lower example, elements are aligned, which naturally presents a cleaner look.
Cleaner (usually) communicates better. Also, the spacing was adjusted so that the elements
that belong together (like those two lines of “suggested donations”) are closer together, and
the separate elements have a wee bit of extra space between them (following the principle
of proximity). |
  |
