--- title: 7 Practical Tips for Cheating at Design | daily.dev description: Improve your designs with practical tips that don't require a background in graphic design. Use color and weight to create hierarchy, avoid using grey text on... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/7-practical-tips-for-cheating-at-design-rsan9ustv twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: 7 Practical Tips for Cheating at Design | daily.dev og:description: Improve your designs with practical tips that don't require a background in graphic design. Use color and weight to create hierarchy, avoid using grey text on... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/7-practical-tips-for-cheating-at-design-rsan9ustv og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/Rsan9usTv.png og:image:alt: 7 Practical Tips for Cheating at Design og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # 7 Practical Tips for Cheating at Design **[Community Picks](https://daily.dev/sources/community)** 路 1 min read 路 216 upvotes 路 11 comments ## Summary Improve your designs with practical tips that don't require a background in graphic design. Use color and weight to create hierarchy, avoid using grey text on colored backgrounds, offset shadows, use fewer borders, avoid blowing up small icons, add accent borders for visual flair, and consider hierarchy when designing buttons. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Community discussion Top comments from developers on daily.dev. **@thomasheideman** 路 3 upvotes > Good article, but why call it cheating? That's such a negative mindset, all of these are just solid tips to get a grip on some of the most fundamental principles of design, so instead of thinking of it like cheating, just think of if as expanding your skillset 馃殌 **@jsnelders** 路 2 upvotes > Some excellent UX and design advice for developers. I highly recommend everyone who struggles with design have a look and use this as a reference,. **@danclarke** 路 1 upvotes > This is a great resource for quick and simple design hacks for those of us uninitiated in design. > > Thanks for sharing **@sevensolutions** 路 1 upvotes > Thx for this helpfull article. 馃憤 **@frixou89** 路 1 upvotes > Excellent article! 馃憤 ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Don鈥檛 just attend KubeCon \+ CloudNativeCon, Merge Forward your experience\!](https://daily.dev/posts/don-t-just-attend-kubecon-cloudnativecon-merge-forward-your-experience--l0rpp73x8) 路 CNCF 路 1 upvotes 路 0 comments - [Announcing H2 2026 KCDs](https://daily.dev/posts/announcing-h2-2026-kcds-m96goajm1) 路 CNCF 路 1 upvotes 路 0 comments - [Two months of Open Community Groups](https://daily.dev/posts/two-months-of-open-community-groups-asf52zhbs) 路 CNCF 路 0 upvotes 路 0 comments --- Tags: [#webdev](https://daily.dev/tags/webdev), [#typography](https://daily.dev/tags/typography) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/7-practical-tips-for-cheating-at-design-rsan9ustv) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"7 Practical Tips for Cheating at Design","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/7-practical-tips-for-cheating-at-design-rsan9ustv","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/7-practical-tips-for-cheating-at-design-rsan9ustv"},"datePublished":"2024-05-19T08:37:17.346Z","dateModified":"2024-05-19T08:37:15.454Z","description":"Improve your designs with practical tips that don't require a background in graphic design. 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That鈥檚 such a negative mindset, all of these are just solid tips to get a grip on some of the most fundamental principles of design, so instead of thinking of it like cheating, just think of if as expanding your skillset 馃殌","datePublished":"2024-06-14T09:05:58.419Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/Rsan9usTv#c-97Wnzbo20","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Thomas Heideman","url":"https://daily.dev/thomasheideman","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--W_wsq3IM--/f_auto/v1718275304/avatars/avatar_2GWqomz23eEYGNpAr69bU"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":3}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"Some excellent UX and design advice for developers. I highly recommend everyone who struggles with design have a look and use this as a reference,.","datePublished":"2024-05-20T00:41:12.070Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/Rsan9usTv#c-2sRxIutEK","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Jason","url":"https://daily.dev/jsnelders","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--O0TOmw4y--/f_auto/v1715772965/public/noProfile"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":2}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"This is a great resource for quick and simple design hacks for those of us uninitiated in design.\nThanks for sharing","datePublished":"2024-06-14T09:15:24.999Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/Rsan9usTv#c-apkEhspgU","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Dan","url":"https://daily.dev/danclarke","image":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/97691636?v=4"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":1}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"Thx for this helpfull article. 馃憤","datePublished":"2024-05-19T20:38:31.582Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/Rsan9usTv#c-rquh6TS2k","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Daniel Peinhopf","url":"https://daily.dev/sevensolutions","image":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/84123899?v=4"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":1}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"Excellent article! 馃憤","datePublished":"2024-06-07T12:14:53.115Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/Rsan9usTv#c-ROcSfrCUP","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Marios Frixou","url":"https://daily.dev/frixou89","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--3t_p5UtK--/f_auto/v1718003833/avatars/avatar_v88L3RVPmwsVKjwUQ8bUj"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":1}}]} ```