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Creating Stunning Notion Pages: The Ultimate Design Handbook

Are you struggling to create visually appealing Notion templates?

Do you want to take your templates to the next level with pro design techniques?

In this newsletter, I’ll guide you through the art of crafting stunning Notion templates that will 10x your Notion design skills in < 5 minutes.

Notion Design ≠ Graphic Design

Designing pages in Notion is NOT the same as using graphic design to create a flyer or a website or a logo.

However…

It’s very similar. And you can apply the same principles of design to any Notion page you build.

Here’s what I mean:

The Principles of Design

I don’t have time to give you a 100 hour course on graphic design, but here are the 3 things you need to understand to be able to design like a pro:

Principle #1 - White Space is key 🔑

White space is a fancy term for creating

v i s u a l s p a c e s.

Give things breathing room. Like…lots of breathing room.

More than you think they need.

Why? 2 reasons:

☝️ It gives the eye a place to rest (avoid visual overwhelm at all costs)

✌️ It drives the eye to where you want it to go (hello, focus!)

Principle #2 - Colors are great…in moderation

There’s a reason I only use 1 color in 99% of my Notion designs:

Simplicity.

And if you’re a novice at design, this is your best friend.

Pick one color and stick to it.

Every icon, every image, every callout.

Trust me, it will look better than having 2-3+ colors overwhelming your user.

Principle #3 - The “One Breath” Rule

Okay, I made this up.

But it’s been the best way for me to teach newbies this trick.

See, many design newbies tend to throw a HUGE chunk of info down on a page without any visual breaks.

And the truth of the matter is…that doesn’t work in the digital era.

We’re used to reading tweets and fleeting text on Tik Toks now.

Giant paragraphs just don’t cut it.

So, your new rule is this:

If it takes you longer than ONE BREATH to read the text out loud, it’s too long.

It either needs a line break (look at this text as an example) or something else to visually break it up.

Which brings me to our first lesson …

Notion Design Tip #1: Callout Boxes

Callout boxes are the secret weapon for all things design.

Plenty of people disagree with me on this (which is fine, they’re wrong, but it’s fine 😉)…but callout boxes are the best way to visually separate information in Notion.

And they have the added benefit of being SUPER versatile.

For example, you can use callouts to:

• Create visually stunning hyperlinks with icons
• Create “sections” in your pages
• Add clean edges to your databases
• Build menus, columns, and more

Here are the top 3 ways I recommend using callouts when it comes to design.

Option 1: The Callout Menu

Using a callout box, you can create a menu that visually separates a list of data.

You can use this to add page links (I often do this), buttons, or hyperlinks.

Option 2: The Database Callout

Callout boxes are one of the best ways to make seemingly-overwhelming databases look more clean and organize.

I especially love this trick because the callout box puts edges on the databases.

Otherwise, the database will run off the side of the page which makes it seem visually cumbersome.

Option 3: The Callout Section

If you’re building a client- or customer-facing product, this is your new best friend.

Introducing: The Callout Section.

Using a colored callout box, you can create a visually stunning page section to highlight a piece of information or to signify a new “chapter” or topic.

There are plenty of ways to build these and make them look gorgeous.

Mess around and get creative!

Notion Design Tip #2: Color Contrast

Colors is an excellent way to visually separate information in your Notion templates.

Not only that, but how and when you use color can completely change the feeling of your template.

For instance, take a look at these 2 callout box layouts.

Notice anything different about them?

The one that uses color cohesively likely drew your attention more.

That’s no coincidence. Cohesive color in design is crucial and can make the same information feel “high end” (even if the writing is only so-so!).

Notion Design Tip #3: Layouts & Spacing

Getting your layouts and spacing right is the difference between an amateur-looking template and a pro-looking template.

But what the heck does that mean?

It’s simple! The layout of a page is how you structure it based on columns and sections.

Just like I told you to use callouts and line breaks to visually separate information, you need to do the same with your columns.

Want to learn how to do this extremely well?

Here’s a quick exercise:

1. Go to 3 of your favorite websites that are designed well
2. Try to recreate the layout of their homepage using Notion

This will teach you how to mimic quality design using only Notion blocks.

Then you want to focus on spacing.

One of my best tips for spacing in Notion?

Add blank blocks.

Yep, that’s the lesson.

After the end of a section, just hit “enter” once and leave that blank block there.

This might feel weird at first, but I promise it’s going to create the right visual spacing your reader needs to avoid feeling overwhelmed.

By mastering layouts and spacing, you can create Notion templates that are easy to navigate and digest.

BONUS: Advanced Notion Styling Tricks

With the right styling techniques, you can make any Notion page feel like a website.

Here are few rapid fire tricks to do that:

• Only use narrow-width pages
• Use lots of empty blocks between sections
• Use 2- or 3- column layouts with images
• Add buttons/callout-buttons with hyperlinks

PLUS! If you want to create beautiful sections for things like email signups or even form embeds, do this 👇

1. Create a callout box in a “default” color
2. Type “.” + “space” and then remove the period to blank out the text
3. Add a header and subheader text
4. Embed your form
5. Add a blank box at the end

Adjust the styling as you see fit, and voila! You have a gorgeous newsletter signup form on a regular old Notion page.

Weekly Spotlight 🔍

Meet Luis Rincón! (@rinconelloinc)

Luis just redesigned my website (asimplenotion.com) using Super.so as the foundation.

If you’re unfamiliar, Super is a service that lets you build an entire real website with Notion as the backend.

Meaning you can publish all of your content and posts (like this one) in Notion and design the frontend of it in Super.

And Luis?

Luis is THE PRO at building websites in Super.

If you’re looking to create a high-end, well-designed website with Notion, reach out to Luis and tell him I sent you 😉

See you next week!