That’s a good point about the pilates instructor. Red and yellow probably weren’t going to communicate that relaxed quiet feeling. I guess everyone would be hungry and in a rush to leave instead.

I think the principle applies to copy. If you’re familiar with Strunk and White’s Elements of Style they say to omit needless words. It’s the same principle.

Ideally when the new design is complete I can walk everyone through my process and my design choices. I probably won’t show every design principle I’ve talked about, but hopefully enough of them.

I can say a few things about the current design now. One of my goals with the current design was to get across the idea that I’m friendly and approachable. Many of my clients had mentioned that to me in the past.

The original design was much more formal and gave the impression I was a larger company as opposed to an individual design/developer.

For this design I chose a color scheme that I think comes across as bright and inviting. I went with all lowercase on the company name as a way of removing ego. My writing became more casual. I use more gradients and curves throughout the design to give it a softer look.

I think each of the above is an example of using propositional density. The idea was to have as many elements and aspects of the design as possible communicating the same message.

Thanks for another great post. It brought to mind a meeting with a client who was a pilates instructor. She told us her classes were very relaxed, often beginning with quiet discussions to learn more about each other, etc..

When we asked the customer about the colors she wanted for the site, she said “red and yellow”.

If we had your blog post, it would have been easier for us to explain how the color combination didn’t contribute to what she was trying to communicate.

I like to think of copy as a design element and everything you mention here can be applied to copy just as easily as it can be applied to a rectangle.

It would be interesting if you could show how you applied this to a specific design problem.

thank you for these in depth articles about design. As a self-taught web designer, these are topics that are difficult to find but are essential.

Propositional density measures the relationship between design elements and the meanings they convey. Learning to increase propositional density, will lead to more interesting and memorable designs….

This post was mentioned on Twitter by gogotoh: Propositional Density: Adding Meaning To Your Designs http://j.mp/c4DBD7...