How to make a design look less generic
Why a poster, flyer or post reads as a template, and the six moves that fix it: a real type scale, one colour that leads, a cropped and treated photo, a grid with one focal point, texture from a process, and taking things away.
Intermediate7 min readUpdated 27 September 2026Editor · Guides, type and filters
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Diagnose it first
Look at the piece from across the room, or shrink it to a thumbnail. Ask five questions. Every yes is a specific fix, and the fixes are the sections below.
- Is the biggest text less than twice the size of the next biggest? (Type scale)
- Are there more than two colours doing equal work? (One colour leads)
- Is the photo used at its original crop, with the subject in the middle? (Crop and treat)
- Is everything centred, or does nothing line up with anything else? (Grid and focal point)
- Is every surface perfectly flat and every edge perfectly clean? (Texture)
Move 1: a real type scale
Templates set headings about 30 per cent bigger than body text, which reads as timid. A designed piece has a scale: each level is a fixed ratio bigger than the one below, and the top level is many times the body. For a poster, a ratio of 1.5 or more and a headline eight to twelve times the small print is normal. Try it below: the same words, and only the ratio changes.
Two more rules that separate set type from typed text. Tighten headlines: large type looks loose by default, and about -0.025 em (in Voidcanvas, tracking in pixels, so about -2.4 px at 96 px) makes it look deliberate. And use one family with several weights before you reach for a second font. Typography fundamentals has the numbers for measure, leading and pairing.
Move 2: one colour leads
Generic palettes are three or four mid-saturation colours sharing the work. Designed palettes have a hierarchy too: one colour owns the piece (60 to 70 per cent of the surface, often as the background), a neutral carries the text, and one accent appears in two or three small places, so the eye goes there. The accent works because it is rare. If you are unsure, take the accent from the photo with the eyedropper and make the leading colour a deep or pale version of it.
Contrast is part of this. Text on a mid-tone background is the surest sign of a template. Put text on the darkest or lightest colour you have, and check it: the brand guideline builder in Studio flags text and background pairs that fail WCAG contrast. Colour that works covers ramps and the screen-to-print gap.
Move 3: crop the photo and treat it
A photo placed whole, subject centred, with the sky and the floor still in it, is a snapshot. Three things make it a design element. Crop until the subject fills the frame or is cut by its edge; a face cropped at the forehead is more confident than a whole head with air above it. Treat it so it matches the palette: a duotone in the leading colour and the neutral, a black and white with lifted contrast, or a coarse halftone. Place it so it touches at least one edge of the page, or sits in one cell of the grid, not floating in the middle.
If the photo is small or poor, the treatment is the rescue: a halftone or a heavy duotone turns low resolution into a style.
Move 4: a grid and one focal point
Centre everything and the page has no tension; align nothing and it has no order. A grid gives both. Divide the page into columns (four or six is enough for a poster), set generous margins (a tenth of the page width is a good start), and align every element to a column edge. Then choose the one thing the eye should land on and make it the largest, the highest contrast and the loneliest element on the page. Everything else is smaller, quieter and grouped away from it. Empty space is not wasted; it is what makes the focal point a focal point.
Asymmetry is the cheapest trick in the book and it works: headline top left, facts bottom right, photo bleeding off one edge. Layout and composition goes deeper on reading order and balance.
Move 5: texture from a process
Perfectly flat colour and perfectly crisp edges are what software produces by default, and the eye reads them as software. Real print has grain, slight misregistration, ink that is denser in some places. Borrow one of those, lightly. A film grain at low opacity over the whole piece; a halftone on the photo only; a second colour shifted by two pixels behind a headline. One texture, used consistently, is a style. Three textures is noise. The workflow Make a risograph or screen-print look builds a full example.
Move 6: take a third away
When the first five moves are done, the piece usually still has too much on it: a second logo, a tagline nobody asked for, a decorative shape, a third weight of type. Remove things until removing the next one would lose information. Templates add; designers subtract. The white space you get back is what makes it look expensive.
How to do it in Voidcanvas
- Grid: choose View, New guide layout… and set the columns, gutter and margins. Snap is on by default, so layers land on the guides.
- Type scale: in Studio's Brand guideline builder, the Type tab sets a scale (Minor third to Golden ratio) and a base size and lists every step in pixels. In the Editor, set sizes in the Character panel and tighten headlines with Tracking in pixels.
- Colour: save the leading colour, neutral and accent as swatches, or as a brand kit so every piece in the series uses the same three.
- Photo treatment: add a Black and white or Curves adjustment layer, then Filter, Filter gallery… for Duotone, Halftone or Film Grain as an editable layer you can fade or mask. See Filters in the Editor.
- Texture: put Film Grain or Noise as a filter layer at the top of the stack and lower its opacity until you only notice it when you switch it off (hold \ for the before view).
- Restraint: hide layers with the eye icon rather than deleting them, look at the result, and delete only what you did not miss.
Common mistakes
- Adding a texture to hide weak layout. Do the grid and the scale first; texture on a generic layout is a generic layout with grain.
- Two accents. If two colours are rare and bright, neither is the accent. Pick one.
- Cropping the photo, then centring it. Cropping gives you a strong element; centring throws away the strength. Put it against an edge.
- A scale with too many steps. Three or four sizes on a poster. Every extra size makes the hierarchy flatter.
- Trusting the zoomed-out view. Check type sizes at real size, or print a page of it.
Quick checklist
- Headline at least four times the small print; a ratio of 1.5 or more on posters.
- One leading colour, one neutral, one accent used two or three times.
- Photo cropped hard, treated to match the palette, touching an edge or a grid cell.
- Columns and margins set; one focal point; everything else grouped away from it.
- One texture, at low opacity, consistent across the series.
- A third of the elements removed since the first draft.
Why does my design look amateur even though it is neat?
Neatness is not hierarchy. If every element is similar in size, weight and colour, the eye has nowhere to start, and that reads as amateur even when nothing is misaligned. Make one thing clearly dominant and everything else clearly secondary.
Is using a template always generic?
No. A template is a grid and a scale someone else set, which is a fine start. It becomes generic when you keep the template's photo crop, its three colours and its decorative shapes. Change the photo treatment, reduce the palette and remove the decoration, and the template disappears.
How many fonts should a poster use?
One family with two or three weights covers nearly every poster. A second family is for contrast of structure (a serif headline over a sans body), not for variety.