12 transparent background skills to help you quickly improve your design level.

The background of graphic design is a bit like paint or wallpaper on the wall. ...

Do it right, you will get a great background, fully integrate and explore attractive space;

Making mistakes is a visual disaster, which will distract attention from the carefully selected furniture and works of art in the room.

Although the background of a website, flyer or social media picture looks like a relatively small detail, you don't want it to distract the audience like the wrong paint or randomly selected wallpaper.

Then let's look at some inspiration ideas and learn some skills that can make full use of the design background. There is nothing wrong with basic white or solid color, but this paper focuses on how to increase the transparency of the background, which will be an effective and omnipotent tool.

0 1. Simplify the messy background

Icons or graphic backgrounds can make the design more personalized, but they may also make the design more complicated or obscure the copy. How to solve it? Overlay a translucent background on the layer.

The background of this activity poster is a beautiful retro illustration, but if there is no white transparent layer at the top, the background will steal the limelight of other parts, and the text will be difficult to read (especially small fonts). Please note that the white part is not completely transparent, which can soften the details of the illustration, but it is also transparent enough to show the texture. Most design software can adjust the transparency level through the opacity setting, usually ranging from 0% (completely cleared) to 100% (completely opaque).

Look at the following case. The circular background on the postcard covers a part of the landscape photos below, adding a simple and colorful background for typesetting, which is another brand-new design skill …

02. Make the text more conspicuous

Photos are a popular choice for print and online backgrounds-whether it's product advertisements, website titles or social media pictures. However, depending on the composition of the photo and the purity of color and brightness, it may not always be suitable for putting text at the top.

In this picture, a series of transparent shapes are superimposed to create a background for the text (otherwise, the details of the black and white photo below will not be visible). The gradual change of light transmittance from mild to moderate on the red background will also bring very interesting visual effects.

Let's look at the following case. It is precisely because of the transparent white background on the web page that the black text is still clearly visible in the darker photos.

Similarly, this technique can be reversed: color photos, dark transparent background and white text.

If you are looking for photos to use in your design, we recommend that you choose free photo resources.

03. Create a fresh and brisk style.

If we can see some details through the design, it will create a simple and spacious feeling for the overall layout. For example, the following website design is a series of looming background pictures with clean fonts and neat layout, forming a minimalist style.

The cover of this series of catalogues has been extremely simplified in different ways, based on a transparent background and three primary colors, and then a photo and several paragraphs are used to cut out some pages.

04. Guide the audience's attention

The transparent background does not have to cover from one side of the design to the other, or even form a three-dimensional shape. It is easy to get ideas through transparency-you can create different shapes of cuts or windows for the audience, or use transparency to improve (or blur) the audience's attention to specific parts.

These movie posters combine colored transparent backgrounds with cut letter shapes to create effective visual focus and help viewers quickly pay attention to the protagonist in each poster.

In the following design, the direction and position of the transparent triangle in the background guide the line of sight to the beauty's face.

05. Display internal information

For the design of packaging, container, lid or any other closure, transparency can well show the contents inside or at the bottom, so that the product can speak for itself.

The magazine in the picture below arranges the title on a fully transparent background, which not only adds extra luster to the cover, but also has a softer touch, further enhancing the underlying photos.

The following two examples illustrate that transparent background is particularly effective for food packaging. At first glance, through these transparent "bean bags", you can directly see the color and shape of beans:

This simple set meal designed for a cafe named Voyageur du Temps (French for "time traveler") can't hide delicious bread. It makes bread delicious through translucent materials, and at the same time adds brand sense and additional visual interest points with retro astronomical patterns related to the theme of time travel.

06. Create a structured design/make the design more layered.

One advantage of using transparent backgrounds is that you can overlay multiple backgrounds or transparent backgrounds with other design elements. By layering different colors, photos or shapes, the layout will be deeper and produce interesting visual effects.

This series of activity posters juxtapose portraits and patterns through transparency in the foreground background, and add additional transparent background shapes at the bottom of the text. This layering of colors and elements gives the overall effect a distinct dynamic and contrast, and at the same time makes the typesetting layout deeper.

Here is another example of layering, which perfectly combines photographic photos, transparent color blocks and patterns.

07. Let the texture "penetrate"

In the first point, we said that a transparent background can hide distracting details. In a slightly different way, it can also make some great textures add some visual interest to your design.

The following clothing retail advertisements reveal the textile plaid shading through the incision in the transparent background, forming the main typesetting. The texture is faintly visible through the background, which makes the overall design more cohesive visually.

The following case contains some of the techniques mentioned above, such as highlighting text and designing layers. Because the transparent circle and the picture overlap, we can also see some interesting texture details in the picture through the green transparent circle.

08. Add some soft color gradients.

Transparency also offers many possibilities for adding color to the design. Compared with a solid background, transparent colors look softer and more delicate, especially when your colors are not so bright.

The following figure uses soft and transparent light colors to create space for the text above the photo. The background is not a solid color shape, but a gradient. As the opacity of the page gradually decreases, the pattern finally becomes completely clear. Transparency and gradient are very well mastered.

This is another example of APP UI using transparent gradients. This gradient involves changes in purity, hue and transparency, which makes the design more lively, but does not steal the limelight of the text.

09. Make the mixing effect creative.

Many design softwares have their own hybrid models or hybrid tools. You can creatively mix and layer colors, photos or other elements, and you can also create various visual effects through transparency and other settings. This method usually covers some of the techniques we have talked about, such as layering, using textures and photography.

The background of this design is very rich, which is composed of old photos, handwritten paper textures, ink marks and ingenious colored water patterns, forming a lively retro style work.

The combination of so many design elements, the effect is interesting but not depressing, largely thanks to the use of transparency, which makes all parts effectively blend together to form a harmonious whole.

The background of the picture below mainly focuses on how to integrate and interact with each other. This mixed color effect is very popular.

10. Strengthen brand image

When designing, the background need not be considered in advance. In fact, they can be used as another way to express the identity or style of the company more thoroughly and clearly through brand colors or other recognizable visual elements.

For example, the following conceptual project is a new design conceived for Google's annual report, which perfectly blends the bright colors of the brand through transparent background modeling.

The following website designs use a similar method to extract colors and geometric shapes from the company logo to form transparent backgrounds and graphics.

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Transparent backgrounds, especially those with striking colors, can highlight important text content or other design elements.

This print advertisement uses a transparent red banner, highlighting the special promotion information with the help of the overall black and white design.

This design also uses red transparent shapes (a common eye-catching choice) to selectively attract people's attention to specific parts of the website.

12. Create ingenious combinations

Finally, the old saying goes: Be creative!

Transparency and opacity settings are widely used, and you can create various interesting effects in your design.

Come on! Try it, maybe you can create a very unique design.

Let's look at several cases of using transparent background creativity:

First of all, the concept of book cover is very plastic. As shown below: the simple and transparent blue rectangle represents the ocean, which, combined with the title typesetting, implies that there are dangerous shark fins on the water.

Then look at another example. In the personalized poster of classic music movies, the transparent background can instantly show a variety of creative uses: it highlights the key moment of the movie, provides the background for the white title typesetting, and symbolizes the rain, which is closely related to the theme of this paragraph, that is, all these can be combined with other design elements to create ingenious and concise design works (you can add my qq group: 7606 10867 if you want to learn ps graphic design).

From the movie theme to the film festival poster, the transparent circle in the following design adds a touch of bright color to the background. At the same time, using the same shape with different colors highlights the difference between the two opposing images.

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Is it inspiring? We hope that this series of design cases can help you understand the potential of transparent background in design. From color to composition, they always provide effective solutions for your design. Now, it's time to make full use of them-enjoy the design as always!