From the course: Graphic Design Tips & Tricks

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Your design needs a focal point: Dramatic photo anchors a strong makeover

Your design needs a focal point: Dramatic photo anchors a strong makeover

From the course: Graphic Design Tips & Tricks

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Your design needs a focal point: Dramatic photo anchors a strong makeover

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- Hi everybody! John McWade, Senior Author here at Lynda.com. A few years ago, I ran across this book. Bryce Canyon, Utah is a beautiful place, but this designer did almost everything he could to conceal that. The Canyon lands, the sky and the background all run together in an indistinct blur. The colors and the textures are so similar and so evenly distributed that it's like, where do you look? A good design will always have a focal point. It must have a main thing to look at or it'll have no holding power. And this design has a focal point. Problem is, it's not the Bryce Canyon vista, but the big yellow rectangle. A focal point can be many things. It can be an object or a color or just the size of something or whatever. However it's portrayed, it's that thing you look at most or first. It's the anchor, and whatever it is, it should be the centerpiece of your design, the beautiful thing, the compelling thing. So, let's look at how to do that. If you were standing where this…

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