Design Takeaways: form

This is the fifth article in our series of tips for designers and aspiring designers, Design Takeaways, which brings you practical insights into how to improve your design skills and resources you can put to use.Access the other posts here.

Imagine you’re walking through an art gallery when a painting catches your eye. What drew you in? Chances are, it was the arrangement of shapes and forms. In graphic design, shapes and forms are like the PERi-PERi spice that add depth, interest, and personality to whatever project you’re cooking up.

Link to this headingLines

The building blocks of shapes, guiding your eyes across the canvas, page or screen. They can be straight, curved or squiggly; solid, dashed or dotted; thin or bold. They can be visible or invisible – like the grids used by designers to lend structure to a page. Like other design elements, they can convey mood. For example, a squiggly line feels less serious than a straight one.

Link to this headingShapes

As this video explains, in graphic design, a shape is the result of enclosed lines to form a boundary. Shapes are two-dimensional and can be described as geometric, organic, and abstract. The word is often used interchangeably with “form” although technically, shapes have two dimensions (height and width), whereas forms are three-dimensional, with height, width, and depth.

Link to this headingGeometric shapes

Squares, circles, triangles – geometric shapes include these basic ones we learn in primary school. But they also include more complex ones, such as trapezoids or octagons. Nando’s often uses geometric shapes to house images or structure our layouts. The triangle is what we call our head shape. It represents family, and also business and metrics. The circles become our heart shape. A circle represents the collective, support, unity and togetherness. We also use our heart, flame and chilli mnemonics to spice things up. For example, in our layouts and backgrounds, we’ll often layer a base shape with a secondary shape and then a mnemonic.

Link to this headingOrganic shapes

These are curvy, flowing shapes like leaves, clouds, or a silhouette. They bring a touch of whimsy and fluidity to your design

Link to this headingAbstract shapes

These are depictions of real things without being exact representations. For example, a stick figure is an abstract shape that represents a person. Many logos and icons use abstract shapes to convey meaning.

Link to this headingNegative space

Space is the area that surrounds a shape and that creates a form within the space, which designers can play with.

AsCreative Bloqnotes:

Link to this headingPatterns

Shapes can be combined to create patterns – something we love at Nando’s.

To define a uniquely Southern African and beautifully Nando’s pattern system, we travelled back in time. We went back to the decade we were born in, the 80s! There we discovered the birth of a bright, fun and strong geometric design movement, called the Memphis style. Our look is also influenced by Ndebele art, Art Deco, Pop Art and Portuguese ceramic designs. To add even more of a taste of Nando’s, we sprinkled our brand icons into the patterns.

Link to this headingResources

Here are a few resources that may help you in your journey with improving how you use shape and form as a designer:

• Insta accounts that share helpful design tips:
  • @wejustclick.me, for example this post onadding shapes to your designs
  • @alexunderhess.design, for example this post ondesigning with one rectangle
  • @logoshift, for example this post oncreating abstract shapes
• MasterClass articleon six ways artists use shapes
• Zeka Graphic poston the psychology of shapes