Today’s Plan:
- Hello!
- I sort of have a syllabus
- Basic C.R.A.P.
- Layout Sins
- Mini-project #1
Hello! Syllabus
I’m finally here! I’ve got a syllabus and a calendar for the first half of the course.
Let’s start there.
Basic C.R.A.P.
Before we dive into the layout sins assignment and our first mini-project, I wanted to cover four fundamentals of graphic design, plus a bonus concept.
The first design book I ever bought was in 2003, when I was teaching composition as a first-year PhD student. We had a multimodal assignment that required students to develop a CD cover (not kidding–we thought we were hip as hell). The mentor who developed the approach had us use Robin Williams’ (in)famous The Non-Designer’s Design Book. I say infamous, because a lot of people find the book incredibly reductive and/or wrong. I went on to teach courses in document, web, and information design, and used more complicated books and approaches. But Williams’ core four concepts have always stuck with me. They are the basic crap:
- Contrast
- Repetition
- Alignment
- Proximity (which I think works better as “spacing,” but “basic cras” doesn’t have the same ring to it; some people call it the basic “carp” but I assume those people are not fun)
Layout Sins
Let’s look in Canvas.
Homework: Mini-Project #1
For homework I want you to read chapter 3 of the WSINYE, in which Hagen and Golombisky share their “works every time layout.” They outline 7 parts of the layout: margins (no bleed), columns (two), visual (graphic image), cutline (alt text for image, not common), headline, copy (body text), tags (logos, etc).
You can choose to redesign one of your layout sins (bonus points if you replace the sin with your redesign) or I have something for us to work with…
One thing: whatever you redesign, I want you to take the graphic image picture. I want you to practice both taking a good picture and modifying that image in photoshop (cropping it so that it fits your area, adjusting lighting, etc–nothing major needed). I just want to see if you have experience taking a good photograph.
A few tips for taking a good photograph:
- Lighting: if you are outside, make sure the sun is behind you casting natural light on your subject. If you are inside, you want indirect light behind you–if you have a lamp directly lighting your subject, then you are going to get glare. Throw a tee-shirt over a lamp (make sure the tee-shirt is not touching the bulb or you might start a fire). Do not use a flash.
- Rule of thirds; this is a rule that you must follow until you have permission to break it
- Zoom in with your feet. Don’t use the zoom on your camera. If you want to be close to your subject, then get close.
