August 27, 2026//Design, Insights//Katie Parry

Design for dummies: Takeaways from an unvisual person in a visual world

If there is one category of person that consistently rubs me the wrong way, it is Renaissance (wo)men.

Why? Jealousy, pure and simple.

I am not, and will never be, a cartoonist/geologist/creator of the world’s finest madeleines. There are whole fields of human endeavor in which I have not the least modicum of knowledge or talent. These include—deep breath—sport, dance, music, wine, anything scientific, and all forms of the visual arts.

Am I ashamed of this? Yes. Do I periodically vow to better myself? I do. But the sustained effort required to fill in these gaps has proved, so far, beyond me.

With one exception. Since joining LEFF, I have been forced to engage with—and occasionally even have views on—the world of Design. This is not a position I ever imagined myself in. I’m a words and numbers person, and had previously rather prided myself on not being swayed by anything as frivolous as font choice.

But slowly, my colleagues—and the excellent work they do—have changed my mind. Below, I summarize my key takeaways from the three years I’ve spent watching some of the best in the design business practice their craft. While these takeaways may seem unbelievably obvious to the visual among you, they have been revelations to me—and I hope they will be to others as well.

Design is much more than looks alone          

Without realizing it, I had been conflating “design” with “visual style.” While how something looks is important, true design excellence incorporates structure, logic, and a degree of predictability. What this means in practice will vary by content type. A well-designed website must be easy to navigate across devices, rather than simply beautiful to look at. A well-designed one-pager should draw the reader’s eye immediately to the key messages. And a well-designed long-form report should use spacing, font choice, and visuals to make the reading experience as enjoyable as possible.

Co-creation between editors and designers benefits everyone

I’d previously thought of Design as something of an afterthought—the cherry on top of the cake that my carefully chosen words had already rendered delicious. But then I saw the magic that can happen through close collaboration between editors and designers.

Take a recent project we did for a global professional services firm. I’d done a first draft of a white paper, and it ticked all the boxes: clear structure, distinctive insights, compelling evidence. My design colleague took a look, however, and gave me a couple of pieces of feedback. They thought shorter topic headings would provide better visual anchors for a skimming reader. They highlighted two paragraphs as being too long, creating visual fatigue. And they felt we could spare the reader some heavy mental lifting if we converted a section with several narrative comparisons into tables that synthesized the information.

Pride stung, I went to the text. They were right. With a two-way feedback loop between writers and designers in place, a final product can, it turns out, be much more than the sum of its parts.

‘Visual voice’ is more than just jargon

While I still don’t love the term “visual voice,” I now fully understand the importance of the concept. Design is a direct reflection of who you are and what you value; the choices you make in terms of style, spacing, and layout are the design equivalent of body language.

In the milliseconds before taking in a single word, a reader evaluates layout density, typography, and color palette, mostly unknowingly. And in doing so, they’ll have already developed a sense of your brand. I am told that dense grids and high-contrast typography, for example, generally signal academic rigor and precision. Generous white space and muted palettes can convey calm authority and clarity. And if you want your brand to feel innovative? Try bold colors and dynamic layouts.

A clear visual voice is particularly valuable in today’s cluttered digital landscape. It acts as a subconscious balm to a reader’s brain, lowering cognitive load so they can focus on your core argument.

Are you a design philistine in need of conversion? Or just aware that your content needs a design upgrade? Get in touch. Our creatives* would love to help.

*You won’t be put through to me. Just because I now appreciate design doesn’t mean that I’m allowed to do it. Want to know how much input I had into the beautiful, perfectly judged image at the top of this page? None whatsoever.

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