November 2013 Xara Xone Tute: Page Design Part One

[Gare]

I'm still upset that Sir Paul didn't re-record that song when he turned 64!

What, do you think a wife his daughters' age and finally getting a good hairpiece can let you deny your age?

C'mon, Sir Pauly, do like the mortals do when you visit Earth from Asgard: it's not okay to pretend you're young when you're not, but it's fine to act immature 'til the day that you take the Big Dirt Bath.

And in the end, the love to take is equal to the love you make.

-g

[angelize]

"Will you still need me will you still feed me..."

Now I have that song stuck in my head! here is another version from me.

[stygg2003]

Another one, this one with Script text and a play with the Header

Stygg

[Gare]

@stygg, and @Frances—

I look at your pieces, and I feel as though you’re putting more of your hearts than your design skills into this, sorry to be less than positive!

They’re very orderly, very structured, and that’s not the gist of “love”, not to me, at least.

At the risk of sounding like Morpheus in The Matrix, “free your mind!”

What color other than red signifies “love”? Try something inspired and unobvious.

Is there a way to “say” one of the phrases typographically, that makes it stand apart from the rest? My choices of fonts in the original were spur of the moment, but as I do more video tutorials in the “Page Layout” series, you’ll see that you can achieve some “visual gestalt†” that captures your audience’s attention and fancy if you stop, reflect, and try to use your design skills to match up the perfect font with the perfect statement.

Loosen up. This thing is for education and not for points.

This is not a perfect example, but look here at the simple phrase “Green is fresh”. Look how the designer stretches the bounds of legibility with the somewhat eccentric use of a typecase, making it perfectly logical to stack text every which way, but still get the phrase across.



Practice visual brinksmanship like this. What’s that saying, “Shoot for the moon. And even if you miss, you’ll reach the stars.” Or some such?
Playfulness is at least 50% of Good Design, and if you’re not having fun, don’t design on that day, because your sobriety will register with your audience.


Let it flow, don’t get in your own way, pretend your career has no deadlines.



Happy New Year, and out with the unlucky 13!

—Gary

† Visual Gestalt is the essence of the visual, the literal transformation of an idea to a graphic. The visual literally is, with no ambiguity, the thought behind its on-paper representation.

[angelize]

After a busy day running errands and un-decking the halls I've had a bit of time for a cup of tea and to play with this. This time I decided to have a bit of fun with the fact that this is a set of rules and went with a chalkboard theme.

[Gare]

I think that's an ingenious approach, Frances, nice visual metaphor for "learning", right?

I'd love to see you loosen it up still more,, a little more helter-skelter, as though several people contributed, the text might run downhill once or twice, different handwriting styles, and so on.

You're making a personal artistic statement here with text that the client gave you, and told you to turn it into artwork.

Also imagine it pays well, just for additional motivation.

:)

-g

[Rik]

Would you have this as a number plate on your car?!

[Gare]

Rik—

I like it! The whole poster should be a cork-board with messages pinned to it using different media; (we call a number plate a "license plate" in the US), paper, rough cardboard, even tin foil.

Mmmm?

Here's a try at what I was talked about earlier. I paid very careful attention to the fonts: Celestia Antique, Charlemagne, Celetia Antique Ornaments, and Garamond.



-g

[stygg2003]

I like the chalkboard theme Francis, looks good. I've posted my new attempt with alterations to the text.
Difficult to express text as Gary suggests, as a Gestalt image, well maybe not the text as such but the overall Love Rules concept as a picture, all what the text says in one defining image. Getting out of my depth here so I'll leave it at that.

Stygg

[Rik]

Rik—

I like it! The whole poster should be a cork-board with messages pinned to it using different media; (we call a number plate a "license plate" in the US), paper, rough cardboard, even tin foil.

-g

My assumption was (and I could be completely wrong) that you may be looking for all the sayings to be displayed, together.
But, I wanted to do just one and see where and how I would use it?
So, that's when I thought I would do that one, on a number plate (license plate for our American friends!).
I hope that was OK to do?!