Two times in the last few hours I’ve found areas of a design that could be improved by using one simple trick:

By shifting my perspective, literally, I was able to see the design in a different way. Here are some practical exercises to literally shift your perspective:

• Turn the entire design upside down. While it may look funny to turn a laptop upside down, it’s totally doable and allows you to see how a design flows vertically.
• Look at the design on the screen from an extreme angle left or right to see how the design flows horizontally.
• Zoom way in and pixel-peep design. I did this to confirm the baseline was consistent by zooming in and literally holding a ruler to my screen.

Do you consistently use any of these tricks to help you look at design?