Alena spent five years and hundreds of client projects learning why a design looks off, and how to fix it. Here’s a free piece of it.
About five minutes: three color checks, two fall palettes and one real design fix from the full version, which opens October 9 at noon ET.About five minutes: three color checks, two fall palettes and one real design fix from the full version.
Before
After
Back to the coral at the top. Before, the teal fights it and the gray adds nothing. After, it sits between a dark and a light. Three things changed, and each one is a check you can run on any combo.
Only one color gets to be bright. Two bright colors don’t make a piece brighter, they cancel each other out.
Squint until the shapes blur. If two colors melt together, they’re the same lightness, and one has to go lighter or darker.
Tip: Designers call this value, how light or dark a color is.
When the loud color stops feeling special, there’s usually just too much of it.
That’s one lesson. The full version has all of them.
Why It Looks Off has every lesson like this one, sorted by the problem you’re stuck on. It’s $39 until it opens October 9 at noon ET, then $69.Why It Looks Off has every lesson like this one, sorted by the problem you’re stuck on.
Check one: one loud, two quiet
The move: The green is dialed down on purpose: it’s the only reason the red reads as hot. If the loud color isn’t popping, it’s usually the background.
Use it when: Your design has one focal point, like a big illustration or a headline, and everything else stays quiet.
The exception: when two colors sit close
The move: Squint and the background and the pear almost blend, on purpose. Check two would flag it, but the plum is much darker than both: two colors can sit close if a third is much darker.
Use it when: You want a calm design with no bright colors, and your text or logo can go much darker.
You knew all three before you knew their names. The names are how you explain your choices to a client.
That’s color. More often it’s everything around it: fonts, spacing, where your eye goes first. That’s what the full version covers.
Starting out
$25
Two years later
$10K
Today
Daily
Why It Looks Off is everything I learned about why a design feels wrong, written down so you can use it in your own work.
Over 5 years and 100+ projects, I spent a lot of late nights (and grew a few white hairs) staring at designs I knew looked off. I’d change the font. Still off. Resize everything. Still off. Eventually I noticed it was the same couple of small things every time.
So I wrote them all down and sorted them by the problem you’re stuck on so you can go straight to an answer instead of learning it the slow way like I did.
Alena
Know why your work looks good, and be able to explain it. That’s what clients pay more for.
Branding and marketing that looks like you hired someone.
Skip the years of guessing.
Every part of it works like this page: the problem named in plain words, then exactly what to change.
Buy before it opens and send in one design you’re stuck on by then. Right after checkout you’ll see where. On launch day Alena picks three and goes through each one in writing, start to finish, the way she does her own client work.
Design audits aren’t offered as a service, so this is the only way to get one.
“It looks homemade and I can’t say why.”
Before
Eight fonts on one poster. One for the headline, a handwritten “of art”, and one for each of the six labels.
The labels don’t sit in the same place. Four are at the top of their card, two slid to the bottom.
The cards don’t match. Rounded corners, square corners, and one card with an outline none of the others have.
After
One font. The headline, then all six labels in it at one thickness and one size, because they do the same job.
Every label bar back to the top. Same spot on every card.
Every card the same. Same corners, same height, lined up in even rows.
Nothing was redrawn. Each problem is a small decision that isn’t wrong by itself, which is why it’s so hard to name. Together they break one rule, the law of similarity: things that do the same job should look the same.
You saved the palette. Here are the hex codes, and which color goes where.
Find them by the color you’re stuck with or what you’re making, with the black and white check already run.
The reel is fifteen seconds. Here it’s every step, written out.
In simple language, for whatever you design in, plus how Alena came up with the idea so you can start coming up with your own.
Flowers + x-ray
Lace + script
Stickers + fruit
Watercolor + scribble
Cross stitch + type
Text + images
You can tell yours looks off. This tells you which one it is, and what to change.
Start from how it feels, and a few yes or no checks point you at your fix.
Before
After
Before
After
