Overview
A little background. I am not a graphic designer. But I was, in a past life, a web designer. Over the years I’ve learned to teach graphic design well enough that other people who know graphic design don’t think I am terrible at it. In other words, I know my limitations.
I think my biggest limitation is that I only really know a collection of rules, the fundamental principles. But I am no artist. I can appreciate when someone constructively, thoughtfully, provocatively chooses to break the rules. But I cannot teach you how to think about doing that. No, my way of ushering you into design involves teaching you a few rules that you probably shouldn’t break unless you are Adrien. If you follow them, you probably won’t make something award winning, but you are way less likely to make something that I would pull off the wall and mock (which is the first assignment in ENG 328).
A short post-script to this introduction. The rise of AI has seen the rise of AI design generators. Unlike with writing, I will *not* be incorporating those tools into my 328 class in the spring. Why? Because my emphasis in that class is on teaching the fundamentals. I want you to be able to both “see” and “do” minimalist, rhetorical design. Design that communicates information clearly and accessibly. I want you to learn some rules. And, from what I have seen of AI generated design, it is bad on these counts. It produces things that are colorful and engaging, but pretty awful at the basic C.R.A.P.
Robin Williams’ Basic Design Principles
My first foray into design was Robin Williams’ Non-Designer’s Design Book. In it, Williams lays out the basic C.R.A.P.:
- Contrast
- Repetition
- Alignment
- Proximity
These principles still ground a lot of design theory two decades later. Those who read White Space will encounter them with some different names, but the principles remain the same. For instance, let’s check out the website Clean Up Your Mess, which offers an example of Williams’ principles in action.
Golumbiski and Hagen’s Design Sins
Let’s talk a bit more about what *not* to do. Here’s a link to G+H’s White Space book. Let’s start with the Lay Out Sins.
Creating a G+H Works Every Time Layout
First, some materials. We need properly sized placeholder images. Either 1/3 of the page or 2/3 of the page.
- 1/3 Image
- 2/3 Image
Second, an acknowledgement. G+H’s aesthetic grows out of a late modernist emphasis on clean, efficient, “modern” design. And this kind of design still wins awards today. Take, for instance, the 2022 Graphic Design USA Inhouse Award Showcase winners. But there are more contemporary approaches to design, approaches that are a bit more idiosyncratic or chaotic (see 99 Designs 2022 awards). Designs that play with asymmetry. Designs that are loud. As I mentioned above, these are harder to teach and to assess. So, recognizing my limitations, I don’t try.
At the start I mentioned my issue with AI designers. I have similar issues with Canva. I also want to point out the Canva has the fucking worst interface of any design tool I have ever used. If I change the size of a box, it changes the size of the font. What sweet hell is this.
Okay, now back to G+H’s White Space book. Let’s look at the works every time layout. How do you start designing something?
Side note: what does “graphic” mean? [Irony: graphic from graphikos, which means “text” and maybe “image”]. When designers say, “I love it because it is so graphic” they typically mean bold, high contrast, and/or the use of a large, impactful image.
Let’s watch something that is kind of helpful and also ridiculously dumb.
For Next Session
Read the Corder and complete the Canvas assignment.
For next Wednesday (in the computer lab): redesign the “American Chemical Society” flyer I handed out in class. No Canva. If you are a novice designer, then you should use Google Docs or Word to do this. I encourage you to go out and take a photograph to use as your graphic base (don’t worry if the photograph doesn’t have anything to do with the subject, consider it a placeholder).
