The Opposite Of Design Fails: 50 Times Designers Nailed It And Got Praised On This Group

The community we're covering this time has a pretty straightforward name – r/GoodDesign. It's where people find and showcase great design. It's not particularly large in numbers. Although created in 2012, in more than 11 years it has amassed a modest 30k members.

And although that might not seem like a lot in these times of viral content, it's still in the top 5% of all Reddit communities. Bored Panda reached out to the moderator KingDrude of the subreddit. He was kind enough to tell us more about how the community is doing and what it's like moderating it.

The story of how KingDrude became the moderator is pretty straightforward. "They needed moderators and I applied," the Redditor simply says. "I had been following the sub for a while and I quite enjoy moderating."

Small numbers don't always mean less work. The mod tells us that the workload depends on the activity of the community members. "I have been [a] mod on other subreddits with the same amount of people and that was much more work because it was more active," KingDrude tells Bored Panda. "This sub isn't extremely active, so not a lot to do."

r/GoodDesign is not the only community that KingDrude moderates. He is the head moderator of r/AntiA-holeDesign. Or, more accurately, was. "It's no longer active because me and my team decided to join the protest against the API changes back in June," the Redditor admits.

Since he's been moderator of two design communities, it's pretty obvious KingDrude enjoys interesting design solutions. "I am a fan of satisfying and innovative design," the Redditor says. "Although the main reason I moderate is because I love moderating. I do quite enjoy the content of the subs though," he adds.

What makes a design good? This time, let's talk about the graphic design world. Whether it's a website, a book cover or a poster, there are seven main principles that designers should adhere to. The first one is emphasis. It's the first piece of information the designer wants the audience to see. It should stand out – either be the largest, in an eye-catching font or a contrasting color.

The second principle is to balance and align the elements of the piece so that the visual weight is distributed equally. Think about designing a piece as a room. You wouldn't want to cram all your furniture in one corner, would you? The same applies here. That doesn't mean good design can't be asymmetrical, but it still has to have a balance.

The third principle has to do with contrast. It's how well a designer arranges opposing elements to entice the viewer visually. Designers do this either with color, texture, shape and size. Graphic designer Meg Reid refers to this as what people mean when they say that a design "pops!" Examples can be a bright background with dark colors or small objects positioned next to a large one.

Repetition is the fourth principle of good design. Repeating a font, a group of colors or a text can create a motif. That in turn helps brands create an identity. If something appears only once, it can be simply an error. If it appears more than once – that's already a pattern.

The fifth principle of good design is proportion. There can be bright colors and differently sized elements in a design, yet it still can be pleasing to the eye. What's the secret to that? Looking at a design in sections rather than as a whole.

Designers can group small elements together to establish their relationship with the parts around them. Ticket information on a concert poster, for example, is in a small box at the bottom of the poster.

A good design should lead the eye from the most important information to the least important. That's where movement comes in. If there's one element that draws the eye as if it's in the wrong place – it might need adjusting. The viewer's gaze should move organically from one design element to the other.

The last principle of good design might be the trickiest. It's not about what a designer does, but more about what they choose to leave out. It's white space, also referred to as negative space. Particularly perilous to beginner designers, it's the unmarked area that lets the viewer's eyes rest.