User:Andrew/Presentation-VisualDesignGuide

Presentation

Design Vision and Principles

• Get to know the vision and principles that inform the visual design.

Style

The following style elements provide a palette to express your own unique vision while also being part of a shared community vision.

• Use colors consistently. (Merge into existing [color] guidelines
• Ensure backgrounds and edges honor the design vision.
• Icon use should be consistent throughout the interface. (Merge into existing [icon design] guidelines
• Layout visual elements to reduce clutter and ensure balance.
  • Use appropriate size and spacing to create breathing room.
  • Follow the alignment guidelines.
• Treat typography with the same care as any other aspect of the visual design.
  • Keep wording consistent and easy to understand.
  • Take care about localization of your project.
  • Do not apply capitalization except for titles and in case of sentence style.
  • Apply standard control labels in your app.
  • Use static text for main instruction and supplemental information.

Building blocks

• Building blocks help make it easier to design applications that satisfy the design vision without needing to always create your own custom UI elements.

Tools

• Try the mock-up toolkit to help with designing your application.
• Ask for help and share your visual design ideas on the KDE Visual Design Group forum.