I have been impressed by the amount of practical design advice that has been included in our readings and in the Margaret Kiernan video. White Space is not your Enemy has been especially helpful. I thrive on checklists, and very clear "Dos" and "Don'ts", so I am optimistic that these design guidelines will be very useful going forward! The "Works every time" layout showcased the ease and practicality of finding a few templates that can really work for you, and using these templates with each design. In many cases, the simple design is appropriate. I do not expect to need wildly artistic and "rule breaking" design schemes to display the information that I need to convey at my job.
Additionally, I found Margaret's advice both practical and comforting. I appreciated that she explained her journey of learning and developing graphic design skills and I think she made graphic design appear accessible for educators at any level. So much of what Margaret said emphasized the importance of understanding design rules, design elements and the basics of graphic design. Her attitude and discussion really underlined the need to research and practice the basics of design, and then incorporate them into your presentations. She also did a great job of emphasizing the importance of good design for readability and comprehension.
I look forward to practicing these rules and guidelines, and hopefully seeing my designs come together more easily and more professionally!
Golombisky, K., & Hagen, R. (2010). White space is not your enemy: A beginner's guide to communicating visually through grahic, web & multimedia design. Amsterdam: Focal Press/Elsevier.
Hi Erika,
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you, I think the White Space is not your Enemy was helpful and a great read. In the delve of this course I have been very overwhelmed with the amount of information and how much there is to know about technology. However, in reading White Space is not your Enemy I found it to be an easy read and very informative and supportive with this course in general. Although I had no clue initially what I was doing when looking at websites and analyzing the design principles I found after reading the four chapters in White Space is not your Enemy really helped me in what I was looking at when analyzing the different websites. In addition to this read I really enjoyed watching Margaret’s interview. It really helped to put into perspective for me on what I would need to know about design as an educator. Although I find that I know a decent amount of information about technology I found that this week’s readings helped put design and technology into a different perspective for me and has changed the way I think about it when viewing/analyzing it.
This book definitely really helped organize a lot of stuff I'd already kind of knew in various different parts of the back of my mind. I personally didn't really like the 'works every time' section because I'm not the kind of person that prefers a guaranteed strategy over a bunch of little things I can use to combine into one coherent thing. However I can definitely see how that would be exactly the opposite mindset as someone else and how this might appeal strongly to someone with the checklist oriented mind you described. Several of the important concepts like the rule of threes are things that I've actually heard about from friends who went though actual art school, but at the same time when I went to visit the webpage of the friend who taught me that one I saw that his website was actually rather bland. I think I'll be lending him this book once the semester is over and see if he can apply the web design skills in it to his otherwise photography oriented degree.
ReplyDeleteHi Erika,
ReplyDeleteGreat post! I think the checklists are a great idea especially as novices. It is nice to have a guide alongside as initially thinking about designing something can be extremely overwhelming. It is great that the book helped ease some of the stress by creating a "works every time" layout as a backup that one can always use. Having a security blanket like that is a great way to explore graphic design without feeling nervous about making a massive mistake. There are such great benefits for teachers to learn and understand some basic graphic design elements. It can elevate success in the classroom with just a few quick and easy tips.