Visual hierarchy is something that you’ve probably come across and maybe not realized that it’s incorporated into every design, especially marketing or advertising graphics. It is used to highlight the part of the design that you want people to see first, so you can control where and how someone views the design. You’re drawing attention to one part of the design over other parts.

Take the following poster as an example. When you first look at it, it’s the title that stands out, big and bold, across the design. This is the simplest way to add hierarchy to a design – by using size. Take one part of your design and make it bigger than everything else. You’ve grabbed the viewers’ attention first by announcing the store is open. This then draws the eyes down the poster, in order of size, and finally reaching the store’s opening hours:

Figure 7.8 – An example of hierarchy use on a clothing...