Be Bold! Be Brave!

Be Bold! Be Brave! That’s going to be my new desktop publishing mantra reminding me to implement the principles and techniques I’m learning and to experiment with creating more daring and varied flyers, worksheets, and newsletters. I’m certain that my future visuals will be more effective because now I know about Robin’s rules of Contrast, Repetition, Alignment and Proximity. And since I know these concepts, I’ll be able to put them to good use by practicing and applying them.. I’m ready for this long overdue change – my personal electronic publishing make-over.

I realize, I’ve got a lot of work to do. After all, I took typing in school on a manual typewriter during the LBJ administration. I’ve always put two spaces after the period at the end of sentences, defaulted to Times Roman or Helvetica type, underlined text, used stupid quotes, centered headings and indented paragraphs five spaces. But NO MORE! Starting today all that is going to change. It’s time I stopped treating the PC like a typewriter. I realize that the rewards, though they may go unspoken, will be great. If I apply these principles, my documents will be more sophisticated; readers will take notice and pay more attention to the content; students will understand, comprehend, and remember the material better.

Through Robin William’s straight-forward, practical approach to design. I’m gaining a sense of what looks good and effective techniques to get these results. I’ve started a paper file with sample newsletters and brochures that incorporate strong alignment and contrast so I can refer to them as I do my own publishing. I felt I learned so much from the Gertrude’s Piano Bar menu example on page 29 that I’ve Xeroxed it and will keep it handy and review it.

Like others in this day and age, I have dabbled with design. In the 1980s I owned a computer business in Virginia, and I created the store’s newspaper ads, did some desktop publishing projects, and even taught Harvard Graphics seminars. For years I’ve prepared flyers, newsletters, cookbooks and brochures for PTO and volunteer groups I’ve belonged to. Although some of the ideas in the chapters were familiar, I have never put it all together into a cohesive, unified whole. I thought mixing fonts on the same page was taboo and have not been vigilant enough in leaving white space around text, I may even have been guilty of using dorky borders. I was a psychology major in college, and I am surprised how many design principles make perfect sense once you are introduced to them and how many (like closure, figure-ground relationship, and Law of Pragnanz) are based on Gestalt theories of perception.

I'd like to share some of the highlights that I’ve learned about four principles of design:


Proximity
- Related items on the page should be logically grouped together in physically close proximity, so at a glance, they are seen as one cohesive group.

- The goal is clear communication.

- One should not be afraid of allowing white space in the text.

- If two elements are not related, separate them.

- Changing headings from all caps to lowercase with appropriate capitals makes room to allow for a bigger, stronger header font size.

- Body copy does not have to be 12 point. Even 7 or 8 point font is ok for subsidiary text. You can alter text size within the line to deemphasize something.

- When you look at a page of text, your eyes should stop 3-5 times. If this is not the case, make adjustments.


Alignment:
- Nothing should ever be placed on the page arbitrarily. When you place other items on the page, make sure each has a connection or visual alignment with another item on the page.

- Centered text is sedate and tired looking – try other alternatives like aligning to the left or right side of the page.

- Never center headlines over flush left body copy or text that has an indent. Don’t center illustrations, rather align them with an edge or baseline.


Repetition
- Repeat some aspect of the design (bold font, thick rule, bullet, color, spatial relationship, etc.) throughout the entire piece. This consistency unifies all parts of the design.

- To add visual interest, find existing repetitions and then strengthen them with a consistent element. For instance, take headlines on the page and put them in a stronger, bigger, different font.


Contrast
- If two elements are not exactly the same, then make the different, really different i.e. match large type with small type; thin lines with thick lines; warm colors with cool colors.

- The reader should be able to glance at the page and know what’s going on. Create headline to catch eye, and use lines short enough to easily read through. Pull out key phrases to set in bold type, so that the visual contrast catches the readers’ eyes and pulls them through the page.


I was amazed that visual literacy cuts across so many disciplines including philosophy, psychology, visual arts, art history, perceptual physiology, sociology, cultural studies, media studies, instructional design, semiotics, communications, and educational tech (Adobe White Paper), Today it is important that children learn to interpret and read visuals, to discern meaning and to create effective visuals themselves in order to be able to communicate successfully. Educators must assume the responsibility to model and help students gain these abilities. Teachers in all content areas must provide good design examples and encourage students to try different design combinations and approaches and then help students to step back and evaluate which results are most effective.

I was fascinated with the cross-disciplinary design principles in the Lidwell book. For each of the topics I found that I was drawn to the right-hand page with the visuals first – which shows the compelling nature of illustrations, graphics and small amounts of text.

I was especially interested in the engineering design examples of affordance and mapping. Affordance is described as a property in which the physical characteristics of an object or environment influence its function - like round wheels afford rolling. An efficient design matches the affordance of an object or environment with its intended function. For instance, when designing a website, one should use graphics that will help users will intuitively know what to do – like incorporating buttons to push or slidebars for volume control or trashcans for throwing away garbage. Underlined text had come to signal hyperlinks, but perhaps some felt it created too much "noise" by breaking up the text, so the different color text roll over hyperlink emerged.

This week I experienced first-hand a conflicting door affordance at a Subway restaurant. On the way out, I was prepared to push the door open, but then I saw a handle, so instead I pulled, but the door didn’t budge. That handle sent the wrong message and should be removed. My son said that he has experienced similar conflict with glass doors on the new theater at his college.

Mapping is the relationship between controls and their movements or effects. In effective designs, the outcomes are predictable and can be anticipated by the user. The book explains that it is more effective for a car's automatic window opener to be mounted on the car door itself rather than on the armrest or console because not only is it in closer proximity to the window, but it operated more intuitively because you push the lever down to make the window go down and up to make the window go up. My car’s automatic window opener is on the armrest, and I have to push forward to open and backward to close the window. Still after years of driving this car, I sometimes rock the switch the wrong way. This week I thought about it and noticed that there is a bump where I push to open the window and a depression in the control rocker to close the window. This probably was intended to make it easier to operate while keeping your eyes on the road or in the dark. The cruise control on the steering wheel has a corresponding bump and depression – you press the bump to turn on or increase the cruise speed; and press the concave depressed area to decrease the speed.

I think that the Nintendo wii controllers would be a good example of mapping. In various games, you move the controller in an analogous way to movement you would make in real life like when swinging a tennis racket, casting a fishing line and reeling in a fish, turning a steering wheel to drive. The wii controller is so much more intuitive than moving characters or driving cars with the arrow controls on the computer keyboard.

I also noticed that the controls on my VCR and DVD player use mapping by conforming to the Western standards of reading from left to right. The button to advance the media forward is on the right side of the machine, while the button to rewind the media backward is located on the left side of the machine and the play is in the middle. This matches the user’s expectations. When creating visuals or website controls, designers should use these types of conventions. Though, as the book points out, not all conventions cross cultures (In England you turn a light on by pressing the switch down. But come to think of it, in my house I have some confusing light switches oriented sideways on the wall, and I cannot for the life of me tell you which way is on – poor mapping design.)

The time I spent learning about design principles this week has been invaluable. I never realized how big a role visual design plays in our lives – it’s everywhere!

- Karen