Today’s Plan:
- CRAP
- What Not To Do
- Works Every Time Layout
- Homework
As I said last class, I do not consider myself a designer. But I am someone who, when the occasion arises, can design something. While I might not think of myself as a creative genius, nor as someone who knows the fine minutia of the discipline, I know enough to create something that will look nice, communicate its purpose clearly, and not ended up being mocked in front of a class like this one.
What I have always liked about Rhetoric and Composition as an intellectual field is that our analytical tools, the ways of seeing we develop, are methods for generating, creating, composing. That is, we look at things to learn how to (and how not to) make them. Flyers. Speeches. Video games. Societies.
Today we work with flyers.
Basic 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.
What Not to Do
Golumbiski and Hagen’s layout sins. How many sins does your image have?
Works Every Time Layout
My bad to those on the Design team–I forgot I had a .pdf of the entire.
Homework
Redesign your ugly flyer, clean up its mess, using G+H’s Works Every Time Layout as a guide. You can use any technology you are comfortable with for your redesign. I’m not looking for a Canva template here–I am looking for you to design something (metaphor calculators vs boats).
