Color, Shapes, and Letters: The Building Blocks of Graphic Design
Look at your favorite cereal box or a stop sign. Someone chose exactly which colors, shapes, and letters to use so you would notice it fast. That someone is called a graphic designer, and today you will learn three tools every graphic designer uses.
What You'll Learn
- What a graphic designer does - How color sends a message before you even read a word - How shapes make us feel different ways - How to design your own simple picture
What Is a Graphic Designer?
A graphic designer is a person who plans how something looks so it is easy to understand and fun to look at. Graphic designers pick the colors on a cereal box, the letters on a book cover, and even the pictures on your favorite app icon. Every choice they make is on purpose.
Colors Talk to Us
A stop sign is bright red and shaped like an octagon because red is a color that grabs our eyes fast and means stop or danger. Green often means go or grow, like a green traffic light or green grass. Yellow often means happy or be careful, like a yellow smiley face or a yellow caution sign.
Today, try to find three red things. What do they want you to notice: stop, danger, or excitement?
Shapes Have Feelings Too
Circles feel soft and friendly, which is why many logos for kind, gentle brands use circles. Triangles feel sharp and point in a direction, which is why warning signs and arrows often use triangles. Squares feel strong and steady, which is why buildings and boxes are often drawn as squares.
A logo is a small picture or design that stands for a company or a person, like the golden arches that stand for a burger restaurant.
Flashcards — click each card to reveal the answer
Why do stop signs use the color red?
Which shape usually feels soft and friendly to people?
Design Your Own Lemonade Stand Logo
On paper, draw a simple logo for a pretend lemonade stand. Pick one main color and one main shape, like a yellow circle or a green square, and write the word Lemonade next to it in big letters. Show your logo to a family member and explain why you picked that color and shape.
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