Visualizing Success

1. Designing Posters, Brochures and PowerPoint Presentations May 16, 2011 Visualizing Success

2. Today • Videos • Blogs • Web site • Smart phones • DVDs • Computers

3. Is Visual Communication New?

4. Key terms • Rhetoric • Visual Rhetoric • Document Design • Legibility, Readability, Usability • Visual Noise

5. Examples Visual Rhetoric Document Design

6. Legible, Readable, Usability Legibility Readability Able to be read easily • Capable of being read or deciphered

7. Usability • USABILITY is the ease of use and learnability of a human-made object.

8. Visual Noise Too Much Too Many

9. Visual Communication The rhetoric of visuals vary by discipline, purpose, audience, message, medium

10. Introduction Activity • Working in pair, analyze the journal pages you brought to the workshop. Make a note of any disciplinary similarities or differences you notice.

11. Consider the following questions: • What visual elements do you see here? • What purpose do these visual elements serve? • How effectively do they serve that purpose? • Are they connected to the text?

12. Consider Your Own Use of Images • How do you use images in your professional life? Your personal life? • What questions do you ask yourself when deciding to use an image or visual device?

13. Our Discussion Thinking Rhetorically about Visuals Using Basis Design Principles Working within Genre Convention

14. Thinking Rhetorically Considering Purpose and Audience for Design Subject Time Purpose Message Medium Audience Author Context

15. Why do we use visuals?

16. Consider Your Purpose • Purpose: What is my purpose in writing/designing? What message do I want to convey? What is my most important goal? • Writer/Designer: How do I want to appear in my text? What is my point of view? How can I convince my audience to take me seriously?

17. Consider your Subject • Subject: What is this document about? What other works will I refer to? Where can I find facts and other supporting material?

18. Consider your Audience • Audience: Who is my audience? What does my audience already know and believe about my topic? What do they need to know? How can I get them interested in my subject? • Timing (kairos) & Context: what recent events may affect the reception of this topic? What cultural expectation are there?

19. All together now • Medium/Genre: What medium will I use (Print, electronic, handwriting, paint, film, etc.)? What genre will I use (essay, journal, letter, photograph, story, etc.)?

20. Rhetorical Appeals • Ethos: “the sense the user gathers of the speaker’s character” (Document Design, 65) • Logos: “the logical or factual information conveyed by the document” (65) • Pathos: “aspects of the document intended to evoke an emotional response in the user” (65) • Why do we need to consider rhetorical appeals in designing/evaluating visuals?

21. Using Basic Design Principles Think PARC Location, Location, Location Knowing Color and Text: Less is More

22. PARC • Proximity • Alignment • Repetition • Contrast • CRAP • From Robin Williams, The Non-designer’s Design Book.

23. Proximity • Purpose: organize information • How to achieve: group into 3-5 visual units • Avoid: • Too many separate elements • Putting things in corners • Equal amounts of white space unless each element is a subset • Creating relationships among things that don’t belong together

24. Proximity Examples

25. Alignment • Purpose: unify and organize • How to achieve it: Be conscious of what things are aligning together • To avoid: • Multiple kinds of alignment • Centered alignment (harder to read)

26. Proximity Example

27. Repetition • Purpose: visual interest and unity. • How to achieve: Be consistent with visual elements • Avoid: Too many design elements competing for attention

28. Repetition example Image from http://www.maddisondesigns.com/blog/2009/03/the-5-basic-principles-of-design/

29. Contrast • Purpose: add interest, emphasis • How to get it: • Type face • Line thicknesses • Color • Shapes • Sizes

31. What elements to PARC? Design objects: • Shape • Orientation • Texture • Color • Values • Size • Position

32. Location, Location, Location • Layout • Order (arrangement) • Focus

33. Layout • Power Zones • Grids • White space

34. Emphasizing Information: All about Location • Power Zones & the Z pattern

35. Grids • Specific to genre

36. Grid Layout

37. White Space • In document design, negative space is often referred to as “white space.” • Some tips: • Use white space to balance the density of print and make the page inviting • Leave a one-inch margin around the page • Use ragged rather than justified right margins • Set off headings with white space • Use white space consistently to show organization and hierarchy of ideas

38. Negative space Negative space can be used to draw attention to: • Margins • Gutters Image by Frank Curkovic, “Positive and Negative Space,” http://artinspired.pbworks.com/Positive-and-Negative-Space. Positive space Negative space

39. Page Design: In Review • Place important information in “power zone” • Put related information together/white space • Break up long paragraphs (Lists) • Use numbers with lists to imply hierarchy • Use indents to “layer” information • Consider using columns to break up dense text

40. Style: Color, Type & Balance • What style do I want for my text (formal, academic, informal, fanciful, casual, etc.)? What tone should I adopt (witty, serious, etc.)?

41. Style How can you convey a visual style? • Color • Fonts • Balance

42. Activity • Select at least three colors that you feel works well together

43. Remember Less is MORE

44. Color 101 Colors • Primary • Secondary • Tertiary

45. Color Harmonies • Color Harmonies: • Monochromatic (colors in same hue) • Analogous (colors around central hue) • Complementary (colors opposite each other)

46. Color Tips • Don’t overuse color • Use the expected meaning of color • Warm colors • Cool colors • Red • Primary Colors • Pastels • Consider audience needs (color blindness) • Original Image, B. Color-blind proof, C. Optimal Image • From: http://www.adobe.com/accessibility/products/illustrator/overview.html#validation

47. Type • “Typography enables us to see writing in material terms as letter-forms, printed pages, posters, computer screens. It helps to name the available tools of representation that composers draw on to make their own means of production. [And] typography links writing to delivery . . . The visual design of writing figures prominently as the material form in which the message is delivered.” --John Trimbur, “Delivering the Message: Typography and the Materiality of Writing.” Visual Rhetoric in a Digital World, p. 263.

48. Different Kinds of Typefaces Adapted from Miles A. Kimball and Ann R. Hawkins, Document Design, p. 165

49. Tips for Type • Limit each page to 2 or 3 typefaces • Use medium-weight type. • Use italics and bold sparingly, for emphasis • Use upper & lower-case letters for most text. • ALL CAPITALS MAKES READING DIFFICULT.

50. Balance • Size • Shape • Color • Value • Position • Symmetrical • Asymmetrical