Up until now we’ve been preaching about alignment and order. But, what about the more organic, rough, and random designs? Randomness plays a large part in design, but it is a specific kind of randomness. Let’s call it ‘design randomness’.
The difference between ‘design randomness’ and other forms of randomness is purpose and execution. With design, your main goal should be communication – what does this piece need to say to consumers? Is it saying it in a clear way? How can I make the communication stronger?
For example, let’s have a look at a design that uses type in a way that could easily be deemed ‘random’ but that has purpose and intention. This poster by Heath Killen for the film ‘The Killer Inside Me’ mostly uses scratchy, hand-rendered type, and where it uses typefaces, the letters and words are kerned and spaced sporadically and irregularly.
This piece layers the hand-type and positions it in a very random way that some people would say hinders the legibility. But, this was done with purpose – the intent being to represent a scrambled and warped psyche.
Herein lies the difference between ‘randomness’ and ‘design randomness’. If this design were applied to a poster for a children’s movie about cheerful talking animals, it would seem random, and wouldn’t communicate the right thing at all. But, in this case, the random design communicates the movie’s themes perfectly.
Also have a look at this design by Laura Berglund that uses a degree of randomness to create an organic-looking, collage-like effect. While this piece looks like it was slapped down onto a page and instantly looked stylishly rough and dishevelled, have a bit of a look at it and note how many design conventions it actually does use.
Look at how each element has actually been strategically positioned, leading lines have been implemented to guide the eye around the piece, and there has been a selective balance between flat colour, texture and photography.
Check out this design by Juan Camilo Corredor. This design has opted to represent randomness, with strange shapes, textures, illustrations, all cropped unusually and arranged in interesting ways.
This design appears random, but if you dissect its elements, you’ll notice that certain parts of the design have been aligned (bottom left blue shape perfectly aligns with the green pointed shape next to it, etc.), the layout helps the eye flow across the page, and there’s even some hints of a grid at work.
The point being – things don’t have to be neat and orderly to be classed as design. Representing ‘randomness’ and playing with a few avant garde designs can be effective and super fun.
Take a leaf from Juan Camilo Corredor’s book and resize elements in strange ways, throw in a tail of an ‘a’, crop a chicken’s head off, but try to do it while being aware of design conventions and your overall purpose.