LIKE HUMAN BODY LANGUAGE, graphic design expresses similar
implied non-verbal business attitudes or values. Graphic design is a
method of differentiating business or products in the market. Graphic
design is considered of equal value to other intangible assets like
special customer offerings or an in-house mailing list or goodwill.
Design builds a sense of community or habitat for customers and
employees. Graphic design really is the body language of business.
THERE ARE TRADITIONAL
positions for elements for different format like newsletters, a
letterhead, a business card, a catalog, etc. It's best not to deviate
from tradition. People search the usual spot for information. If it is
not there, it becomes a barrier to understanding. This is where
creativity becomes a negative. Examples: Headlines should usually be
below a photo not above it. On a brochure, ad, or slick, the logo and
address should occupy the bottom right-hand corner. Place it anywhere
else and people can't seem to find it. (In web page creation, this is
called usability.) Are things where people expect them to be? Placement
of design elements is also influenced by printability, mailability, and
postal codes.
THEMES FOR A BROCHURE or website grows out of
client communication goals. It affects all design elements. It needs to
be appropriate to the audience. It may use a metaphor, a stereotype, or
a cliché. These can accelerate understanding. A theme builds upon
historical emotional cues to alter the buyers perception of companies
and products. Words, color, fonts, images, and symbols all orchestrate
to create a unified theme.
Color combinations remind customers of
feelings, emotions, and memories they've had in the past. They
powerfully reinforce a theme (but they are not the entire theme, just a
component.) Instead of preoccupation about colors, it's best to focus on
what your client wants their customer to feel when they see the
literature or website. That feeling is easily translated into acceptable
color palettes. Colors can also be sampled from photos or generated
using Color Harmony Theory with software to select complementary and
harmonic color schemes.
ALL WORDS AND SYMBOLS can be evaluated, ranked, or scored. There are 3 aspects to any word or symbol.
1.
Evaluation is the degree of favorableness. How good-bad, fair-unfair,
valuable-worthless, honest-dishonest does the word seem.
2.
Activity is the degree of movement or activity in an object or event.
How fast-slow, active-passive, varied-repetitive, vibrant-still,
dynamic-static does the word seem.
3. Potency is the feeling of
strength and weakness. How strong-weak, heavy-light, hard-soft,
serious-humorous does the word seem. Sometimes an intensity (or potency)
of certain words increases the connotation like the following: 1.
confused > insane; 2. trusting > gullible; 3. thin > skinny; 4.
unattractive > revolting; 5. sensitive > unpredictable. Can you
feel the difference in these words?
Meaning may be derived from an
elements position in relationship to other page elements. Two different
symbols or images side-by-side can imply a third unspoken meaning. Or
something on the page may imply something is happening off the page. The
human imagination fills in the blanks. This is called implication. Our
imagination is the great special effect method.
THE GRID CONCEPT
is from the German Bauhaus design school (1919-1933) The Bauhaus
believed industrial potentials were to be applied to satisfactory
graphic design standards, regarding both functional and aesthetic
aspects. The Grid concept affected all design fields from architecture
to product packaging. This invisible grid is consistent from page to
page and consists of rows and columns. It is the skeleton for the
design. Breaking the grid causes tension in the viewer. Project
limitations (time, budget, energy) define what page format will
influence the invisible typographic grid. The grid is a structural
layout tool. Some grid patterns work best for certain formats, like
12-columns on a newspaper. A grid produces beautiful books, brochures,
magazines, and websites. Grids make it possible to bring all the
elements of design typography, photography, and drawings into harmony
with each other. When telling a story sequentially, over a series of
pages, contrast is needed on the overall sequence as well as on the
page. Two opposites: the need for order and the need for variety are
needed. Without order, the reader is likely to become tired, frustrated,
or bewildered by an overabundance of details. Yet without variety, the
reader may become bored, overwhelmed, or numbed by too much repetition.
MARKETING ADAGE: e2 = 0
means Emphasizing Everything equals Emphasize Nothing. There is a
hierarchy of page elements. This affects placement, size, visual weight,
color density, and more. No emphasis creates confusion and visual
noise. Obviously, two things cannot be dominant or emphasized at the
same time. The page needs a hierarchy of dominant, subordinate, and
accent ranking of colors, typography, and images. Without a hierarchy,
there is no emphasis. Without emphasis, there is confusion or chaos. The
idea is to communicate. Without emphasis, the viewer doesn't know what
to focus on and gets overwhelmed and frustrated. Bad pages have weak
focus and weak hierarchy. The central theme or idea would be muddled.
Order is determined in the human mind, but there are visual cues that
help direct our mind from most important to least. This is not always
easy. Sometimes we have to discard something we really like to achieve
the right emphasis.
PHOTOGRAPHY IS A PRINCIPLE
communication device for design. Good photography generates interest and
curiosity. It has energy. The most powerful or novel words in the body
text, when converted to images, enable the viewer to quickly fill in the
blanks. Photos frequently influence the theme color palette. If
photography is beyond the budget, illustration sometimes works in its
place but not necessarily for products. Products need the realism of
photography even if it's only a dummy or mock up. The potential customer
will generally not believe an illustration or drawing is a real
product.
Text placed over photos usually ruins the type and the
photo simultaneously. About 30% of space in a publication is allocated
to photos, as a rule of thumb. Besides photography as rectangular boxes
on the page, it adds interest when we include a cutout photo object or
two. A cutout is a photograph from which the background is removed to
produce an organic edge. This image breaks the grid. Word wrap can be
used around the edge. It's a visual break from monotony and gives more
life and freshens a page.
Photography helps the customer visualize
what a product will be like in their possession after delivery. This
should give a feeling of empowerment to the customer (not for the
product or company.) The customer gets to be the hero, not us.
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