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Design Elements
We will have a brief look at the role of Type, images, colour and paper
on printed media
Type
Type is everything in design. It is the message and the messenger. Type
can be strong or weak. It can enhance or it can detract from the meaning of
the message. It can interpret and influence, translate and transform. Use it
wisely.
- Type can organize your content. It is the single most important
design element for distinguishing levels of content and the hierarchy o information.
It organizes and, creatively speaking, sometimes that's all it needs to do.
After you've clarified the organization of the communication with typography,
it's not necessary to add further doodads and to style your communication.
Let the type speak for itself.
- Type can interpret your message. Type facilitates meaning.
It can tell your reader which word is important in a sentence, which sentence
is important in a paragraph, or which page is important in a publication.
Your typographic choices—face, scale, colour and readability—build
on or strip away the meaning of words on the page.
- Type can be word or image. Type, and type alone, can be
the image that illustrates the concept. Design budgets are subjected to closer
scrutiny now than in the past. This doesn't mean that budgets are necessarily
smaller, but they need to make sense to the organization footing the bill.
Using type as image can produce a high-quality yet budget-conscious project.
- Type controls interest. Your words can be powerful. But
the presentation of the words, through typography, will control the audience's
ability to hang in there. Typography can turn words into texture or into poetry.
The typeface you choose, the size, the leading, and the way you break the
text into lines or phrases all influence the meaning of and determine the
reader's ability to stay with the communication.
Images
An image is worth a thousand words. Two images are two thousand words, and
six images are worth six thousand words. But put those six images on a page,
and you might as well stuff six thousand words on it. This is too much information
for an audience to absorb. Fewer, more dynamic images communicate much better
than numerous, possibly mediocre ones. There are, of course, exceptions to everything.
- Images should support the message. If an image doesn't
move the message forward, it's not worth the paper it's printed on. An image
with no meaning is as bad as a sentence with no meaning. Think of your images
as carefully selected words in a sentence, chosen to direct the audience toward
understanding.
- Images can be applied in many ways. As a matter of fact,
the terms used to describe uses for type can be used to describe uses for
images.
- Images can organise your content. Place images to provide
a clear focus for the reader. All image will draw attention before a word
will. Carefully considered relationships between images and words will pull
your reader through the page in the order and at the speed you intended.
- Images can interpret your message.An image can be foreboding
or depressing. It can also be light and humorous. It can make the words next
to it understandable or confusing. Any image that doesn't influence the message
isn't worth using.
- Images can be picture or word. An image can replace a word
in a sentence or a paragraph in a story. In some cases, photo essays with
no text have told the whole story.
- Images control interest. An image can simply break the
greyness of text, giving the readers a break. Sometimes this is necessary,
but don't use an image that's meaningless. You might as well use white space
instead.
Colour
Its impossible to eliminate external influences in decisions on colour. Colour
is probably the single most discussed and criticized aspect of a presentation
to a client. Colour has impact, meaning and presence. It can influence style
and understanding. Colour can be predictable or surprising, boring or stimulating.
Like all other aspects of design, colour choice should be based on stated project
objectives. In an effort to focus a presentation on the design concept, some
designers often present ideas and layouts without colour, creating the presentation
in black and white with a supplement of colour swatches to indicate possible
applications of colour. This forces the discussion to focus on the thinking
behind the idea rather than which colour is the client's favourite.
Paper
Choose the paper carefully so it will reinforce your communication objectives.
The choice of a paper stock has more impact on defining the message than most
of the other choices you'll make in the course of designing a project. It's
not just the choice of a paper stock that influences the message, it's also
what you do to the paper. The characteristics of the materials you use—weight,
opacity, colour and texture—and what happens to these materials during
manufacturing—folding, scoring—will either hinder or help the communications'
success. Paper can help your concept evolve into more than just another piece
of printed matter. Must the piece be rectangular? Should it be a standard 8'/,
by 11 inches or billboard size? Must you trim the piece conventionally? Can
you rip or burn it instead? Don't stop at the usual or expected. Explore alternatives.
Now go to design principles
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