Before&After: Design Without Rulers
Put away your ruler; here’s how to design the way you see!
We need a typeface that feels like the image. The image is full of texture; it has a rich, detailed surface and a lot of “leafy-ness.” The leaves are pointy, evenly spaced and actually look a lot like serif type. This 21-page article from issue 47 of Before&After Magazine takes you along as we design a page—not with a grid, but with a picture as our visual guide. Its lines, shapes, proportions and their relationships will govern our choice of type, sizes, colors, layout and everything else.

Color plays a major role in design. The easiest and best place to get a perfectly coordinated palette is the image itself. Sample color swatches with the eyedropper tool, then arrange the swatches by color and value.

© John McWade/Before&After Magazine, courtesy of Gaye Anne McWade.
Commenting is easier and faster when you're logged in!
Recommended for you
Before&After Design Tip: Differences Establish Hierarchy
How to add appeal and at-a-glance clarity to a bland flier
Before&After: How to Design a Second Page
You've designed a beautiful outside. How do you follow it up inside? Simply.
Before&After Design Tip: Multi-Caption Photo Tells Many Stories
Use more than one caption to unpack the detail in an image
