Revelations in the field of design, for non-designers

[Gare]

If you have some artistic skills, Xara makes it easy to express your ideas on the page.

But when you need a drawing, text, a list, and other elements in a composition, it's no longer a drawing in Xara...it's a design.

Now, I think the phrase "design" is a lot like the term "logo"; we instinctively state that we know what it is, but often fail to get to the gist of it when someone asks you for your wares.

Daniel Higginbotham claims to have a 5-minute design primer at the link below, but it will take you longer than 5 minutes to pore through it. It's got, as we say, "good stuff" in it, the finer points of good composition from concept to execution:


° ° ° ° Take five minutes to ponder these design issues ° ° ° °

It's truly worth a look. I get questions relating to design issues almost daily, and I also find myself scratching my head over a "Good Design" almost as often.

There's some answers here, even if you're an Art Critic and not an artist.

My Best,

Gary

[stygg2003]

Thanks for posting that article Gary, I found it personally an eye opener, elements I would never have considered, although I must admit there was a few things in it we had already learned from the design a flyer tut. by you so perhaps we may see a future tut. based on the article from yourself. I think it would make an excellent follow up to the car-boot sale flyer, something more in depth, although it might not be to every ones preference, it is a fact that sometime or other one will have need of such a know how to make a flyer, article or whatever more readable and presentable, me for one

Stygg

[Gare]

I was just throwing Daniel's article out there because he provides a wealth of information for the untrained in a remarkably succinct way. He puts the burden of thinking it out on the reader, unlike "recipe" tutorials, "click here, go there...".

I'll seriously consider putting together a potpourri of page design tips in the months to come on Xaraxone, stygg. It's a field I have less experience in than others on tg, but I remember the lessons from my teachers and some of them were the best. Peter Blank was my Materials and Processes instructor my fourth year, and he went on to redesign Newsweek in the late 1970s, understanding the design "rules" so well, he successfully broke a lot of them.

I think necessarily, I'll have to do an overview again, this time with different rules, examples, and so on, because Desktop Publishing is a study, not a single video! I could present something more like, "Page Design: What you Do Before you Learn DTP".



This is a good (but not great) example of how to handle an intro to an article about ugly toys, which features four photos on a facing page spread. This sort of think, the gist of how to approach it, could perhaps be taught in a few minutes without the nuances or subtlties. It is based on a grid for its structure and the treatment of the grid is called a "checkerboard layout" on the right page.

Here's a good generalized point to make to get you primed, though. Always consider the dimensions and aspect ratio of the page before you begin to design a print layout. If it's landscape, start thinking what you can do creatively with it to arrive at your goal. If it's HTML, you need almost an entirely different concept of the layout: the fonts are different, the contrast is different, a whole lot of considerations before Pen stroke #1.

My Best,

Gary

[mwenz]

This a good article, Gary. Thanks for posting it.

I would welcome layout tips & tuts. I think that it is a study much under appreciated. Quite often I see hurried advertisements come in the mail and remake them for fun...something that the designer could have done with a few moments of thought before plopping elements on a page.

[Gare]

@Mike, agreed!

That's why we should work from the outside in, from the coarse design to the finished points, and not consider a layout as a piece of art. It's not: it's the container for art, the frame, the way elements are supposed to strike the audience, in which sequence and how much or little.

Headlines, cropping, rotating photos on occasion to skew them on the page thus making them more eye-catching, body text, coupons perhaps, callouts, all elements (a partial list); you're the chef, you have to know how to cook the elements so it looks appetizing.

-g

[Rik]

Read the article a few times.
Very informative and educational.
Thanks for posting the link, Gary.