Alignment derives from the standardized horizontal and vertical placement of design objects. Textual alignment is a deeply ingrained method to signify a textual design object's classification (such as paragraph or headline) and semantic importance. At the document level, alignment of text, images, and other graphic marks fosters effective use of white space.

Alignment is heavily connected with other design principles:

• Alignments must be consistent to equate similar design objects and create meaning effectively.
• Moving a design object out of alignment grants it explicit contrast.
• Design objects that share alignment are visually associated, which implies their semantic similarity.
• Alignment is a primary method to establish order and informational sequence (ex: an indented bullet list).
• Alignments create visual patterns and thus contribute to a document's balance.