I'm color blind but my designs don't suck. Here's how.

_{Day 38/100}

Friday here, it’s Tim.

Let me tell you a secret.

I'm color blind in one eye and style blind in the other.

But my content still looks decent.

How? I stopped trying to be a designer and started thinking like one instead.

A quick confession

I've been building websites since 2001.

My first? A rollercoaster fansite that became the UK's most trafficked coaster site that year.

Suck it, Theme Park Review.

(Yes, I peaked at 14. No, I don't want to talk about it.)

Fast forward 20+ years, I designed the entire Penfriend site myself. People constantly ask me who designed it.

And then they ask if I'll design their site.

The answer is no. Always no. I love design. I hate designing for other people.

"But Tim, I just need a quick landing page..."

NO.

"I'll pay you double..."

STILL NO.

But I will teach you how to do it yourself using three stupid-simple principles.

Fake It Till You Make It: Design Edition

Most design advice is overcomplicated garbage.

You don't need 27 rules about visual hierarchy or a course on color theory.

You need these three things:

1. Contrast Is Your Secret Weapon

Here's what separates amateur content from pro content:

CONTRAST.

Not fonts. Not fancy graphics. Just clear visual differences between elements.

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Make your headlines BIG if your body text is small.

Make your backgrounds DARK if your text is light.

Make your important stuff STAND OUT by keeping everything else minimal.

That's it. That's the whole principle.

I've seen "professional redesigns" that cost thousands and did nothing but add contrast to existing assets.

You can do that yourself in 5 minutes.

2. Alignment Creates Instant Credibility

Want to know why your DIY designs look... DIY?

Poor alignment.

Everything should line up with something else.

Don't center some things, left-align others, and then randomly place images.

Pick ONE alignment approach and stick with it religiously.

Left-align everything if you're not sure. It rarely fails.

When I fixed the alignment on my old blog, engagement jumped 32%.

I didn't redesign it. Just made things line up properly.

3. Repetition Builds Recognition

The difference between a random collection of content and a "brand" is simple:

Repetition.

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Same colors. Every time. Same fonts. Every time. Same spacing. Every time. Same image style. Every time.

Boring? Maybe. Effective? Absolutely.

Our brains LOVE patterns. Create them intentionally.

The first version of Penfriend had:

• 7 different blues

• 5 different fonts

• Inconsistent spacing everywhere

I picked ONE blue, got the complimentary orange, TWO fonts, and a standard spacing system (8px, if you read my newsletter on the A24 website, you’ll know why).

The feedback? "Love the new professional look!"

There was no "new look." Just consistency.

The "I Need This To Look Good Now" Toolkit

When you need instant design help:

• Canva → Templates for everything

• Coolors → Color palettes that don't suck

• Remove.bg → Remove image backgrounds instantly. The one in Canva is also legit.

That's it. No fancy software. No complex techniques.

Just three tools and three principles.

These are literally the only tools I used to design Penfriend's site. The one everyone asks me about. The one I won't recreate for you no matter how nicely you ask.

(Unless you're my mum. Hi mum.)

Until tomorrow, remember: you don't need to be a designer to think like one.

✌️ Tim "My Color Palette Is Just Vibes" Hanson
CMO @Penfriend.ai

P.S. Found out I'm actually potentially color blind this morning. This is not a joke. Just discovered this today. The irony of writing a design newsletter while potentially color blind is not lost on me. At least now I have a legitimate excuse for any questionable color choices.

_{Also, as a Brit, it kills me to write color and not colour. But eh, the squiggle red line under colour is enough for me misspell it for you…}