Historically,
the designer’s primary concern has been the visual presentation of a message. Most
aesthetic principles can be organized into two overlapping categories:
structure and legibility.
Designers
use grids to organize content and manage the clarity of a message. Newspapers,
magazines, and periodicals are an obvious example due to their typographic grid
system, but grids can be applied to most print, digital, and even
three-dimensional work. A grid is an essential aesthetic device that will allow
the designer to walk the reader through that content, one specific message at a
time, without actually being there.
Grid
systems allow the designer to create visual clarity through organization,
movement, and grouping. Basic grid structures include margins, columns, and
gutters. Adding horizontal lines provides additional visual continuity. The
most common horizontal inclusion is a “hanging line” or “flow line” from which
headlines, quotations, or body copy can flow. Grids allow the designer to
easily delineate segments of the layout for specific content.
Grid can
also impart a sense of time or show direction. Considering eye movement and
rhythm when working with a grid enhances the skimming and scanning of
information, helping the viewer to locate relevant content quickly. In
addition, grids allow the designer to connect groups of content by placing them
in proximity and alignment with one another.
In the
context of design, “hierarchy” refers to the ordering of pictorial and
typographic information sets so that the viewer can quickly gain an
understanding of their relative importance. It requires two processes: first, a
quick grab or overview; and second, a more detailed consumption of the content.
In creating hierarchy, employ color, spacing, position, or other graphic
devices to create that initial focal point.
Web
designers consider variances between the way different monitors and platforms
display color, and how luminosity affects color pairings. Print designers
adjust for the way paper will absorb ink, how ink changes based on the hue of
stock on which it’s print, how saturation and value change from coated to
uncoated stocks and how varnished affect tone.
As we grow
older, we begin to lose the ability to differentiate color clearly, and many people
suffer from a loss of ocular focus. When that happens, it is best to follow ADA
guidelines. These standards ensure that more uniform typefaces are used, and
that overly thick or thin stroke widths, and overly condense (thin) or expanded
(wide) letter proportions are not used. San-serif styles tend to work best as
opposed to serif styles, which often have very thin areas within the letterforms.
Also, the larger the type size is better.
This week
is a very busy week so I couldn’t finish the chapter yet. I will finish and
continue to summarize it. This is one of the really first books I’ve read about
design. It is very good because it taught me many things about design
especially information graphic. I know more about the history and the design
fundamental. I hope that this book will help me to improve my skills for my
projects, not only in information graphic class, but also other classes in
CommDe.
No comments:
Post a Comment