John Kellejian

Have you ever heard of the design principle known as C.R.A.P.? If not, that’s okay! C.R.A.P.  is a design term coined by Robin Patricia Williams and stands for Consistency, Repetition, Alignment, and Proximity? By knowing C.R.A.P., you can consistently deliver effective design whether it’s for a website, a landing page, a social media post, or even a banner ad. I like to keep the tongue-in-cheek principles of C.R.A.P. in mind every time I work on a design for a client. I find it super helpful to create effective yet stylish graphics for the business at hand. Below, you will find this a broken-down explanation of C.R.A.P that will help guide your business’s design from here on out!

First and foremost, I find the most important aspect of C.R.A.P is consistency. For example, if the logo you had designed for your company has the colors green and blue, then every marketing material you have created should have those colors incorporated in some way or another. Those will be your brand’s colors, and in the world of marketing, keeping a consistent brand is extremely vital to have the general public be able to recognize and remember your company. It is of the utmost importance to keep your color selection consistent. No changing shades or saturation at random. The aesthetic of your brand should be the same through-out all of your media, ranging from flyers, postcards, and business cards to website design and online postings.

In conjunction with the first principle of design, the second principle helps you create harmony within your brand. The rule of repetition demonstrates that you should reuse some key motifs in your design so that the client can easily recognize and identify your brand. However, this goes beyond just brand colors. If you’re having your first few marketing materials made by a designer and your logo uses a brutalist and strong typeface, you can have the designer mimic the strong shape of the typeface with a more rectangular silhouette and a similar typeface for all your headings and bodies of text. Then your brand needs to keep that similar style within every print publication you order. (That is until you decide it’s time for a brand refresh after a couple of years, but until then, try and remember to keep the rule of repetition in the mind.)

The third principle is alignment. Alignment refers to the placement of all the design elements and motifs on the page. You wouldn’t place the text body at the top of the page, the header at the bottom, or the logo in the left-center of the page, because visually it will read like a jumbled mess. Not to mention the general public won’t understand what it is that you’re selling or promoting. But if you carefully arrange the design elements on the page so that all the images and text align with each other, you’ll create a flow throughout the design that is logical and will be pleasing to the viewer. And anything that is pleasing to read is easier to understand! As a general rule, there should be an invisible line that connects the design elements to the edge of the page and all elements should have a consistent length from each other

The final principle is proximity. Similar to alignment, the rule of proximity is to ensure that all related graphics, text bodies, and titles are visibly grouped as one. This arrangement will allow for more optical negative space, thus, will communicate the information of your advertisement in the most minimalist way possible. Your readers can quickly see the most important elements of your advertisement and will know right away if your services are right for them. And the quicker you can get a reader hooked, the longer you will keep them engaged.

It is easy to see how keeping with the four basic principles of C.R.A.P. will allow you to showcase your brand’s message and ethos in the most effective way possible. It’s not always about being the most extreme or the most outrageous to get people in the door. It’s about being consistent, inviting, and most importantly, approachable. If you found this helpful, share this post to a designer in your life and spread the word of C.R.A.P!

By John Kellejian. Video Intro by Sydney Brashear.