visual design
workshop
The following images show alternative elevations to a house design. The various alternatives reflect
peoples’ different perceptions and preferences for house appearances.
1. Which of the elevations above would be your preferred style if you were selecting a house for yourself?
What is it about the elevation you have chosen that led to this choice?
2. Which of the elevations would be your least favourite? What is it that you dislike in the elevation?
3. In your choice of elevation, how much do you think you were guided by your own values and aesthetics
and how much were you guided by the principles of good visual design?
4. How close do you think aesthetics and visual design principles are? Do you think it is necessary to
distinguish between the two in design activities?
visual design
workshop
Drawing with Microsoft using Powerpoint
In the workshop today, your tutor will take you through
an introduction to Powerpoint, the tool you will be
using for most of your work in the workshops in this
module.
In particular, you will be exploring the drawing tools in
Powerpoint so you have some sense of the various
features and functions that you can use as you develop
and practice your design skills.
1. Creating a Powerpoint File
• Open Powerpoint from the Office menu
• Choose FILE > New Presentation from the Toolbar
• A new Powerpoint presentation opens showing a title
page
• Click to select the text box
• Press delete to delete the selection
3. Creating a Drawing
• Click to choose a drawing tool in the toolbar
• Click the cursor in the Powerpoint slide show and
drag etc. to use the tool
2. Creating a Drawing
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4. Saving a Drawing
Choose VIEW > Toolbars from the Toolbar
A screen shows the selection of available toolbars
Choose Drawing
The drawing toolbar shows.
• Choose FILE > Save as from the toolbar
• The Save dialgue box appears
• Name the file and use the menu to choose where it
will be saved
• Click Format to save as a graphic file eg. JPG
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6. Creating New Slides
• Choose INSERT > New Slide from the Toolbar
• A new slide appears in the slide show
• The bar at the bottom of the slides shows the slide
number
* use the scroll bars to move between the slides
5. Graphics Files
7. The Powerpoint Formatting Palette
The formatting palette provides a quick way to choose
formatting options.
There are a variety of graphics formats that can be
selected.
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The options button in the Save dialgue box provides a
number of options for saving Powerpoint presentations
as graphics file.
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Choose VIEW > Formatting Palette from the toolbar
The formatting palette appears
Use the palette to add new slides
Use the palette to format text, insert graphics and to
change slide appearance.
8. Drawing Toolbar
The Object Tool Includes options to
create and modify objects which form
the drawing. Includes line options,
grouping options, changing order,
rotations etc. See below for detailed
description of parts.
The Selection Tool Selects objects.
Free Rotation Rotates a selected
object to any desired angle.
Text Box Draws a freeform text box to
any size. This can be positioned
anywhere in the document, even
overlapping other text.
Insert WordArt This is a gallery of
styles useful for headings, etc. The
options offered in the gallery can also
be further enhanced for colour, size,
orientation, shape and font choice.
Clipart Includes a wide variety of
pictures, photographs, and animated
gifs to insert and use.
Insert Picture Allows you to insert a
picture from a file outside of the clipart
gallery.
Line Tool A quick link to drawing a
line of any length.
Rectangle Tool A quick link to
drawing a rectangle or square to any
desired size.
AutoShapes Draws a variety of
shapes (i.e. rectangles, circles, lines,
block arrows etc.). Includes objects for
flow charts as well as action buttons
that are useful for web pages.
Lines & Line Style A quick link to
drawing lines that are straight, curved,
free form or free hand. The second
icon allows you to alter the thickness
and continuity of the lines.
Font Colour Allows you to select or
change font colour.
Line Colour Allows you to select or
change the colour of a line.
Fill Colour Allows you to select or
change the background colour of an
object. Includes an effects option to
alter the gradient, texture or pattern of
the background/fill colour.
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Activity 1 Powerpoint Drawing
1. Open a new Powerpopint presentation
2. Delete the text boxes from the first page
3. Open the drawing toolbar
4. Open the formatting palette
5. Draw several rectangles on the first page along with
your name
6. Save the presentation to your workspace as a JPG
7. In your Web browser open the file you have saved to
view how the graphics display.
8. Add a slide to the presentation
9. Draw some more graphics
10. Use the options in the Save dialogue box to save
the second slide alone.
11. Experiment with the compression and size options
to vary the size and quality of the files you produce.
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2. Design Activities
The purpose of this design exercise is to help you to
develop some design and drawing skills and to develop
some resources for your portfolio demonstrating these
skills.
a. Four Square Activity.
In this activity, you have to take 4 squares of the same
dimension and create 4 graphic images to represent and
express the following six moods;
• order,
• increase,
• speed
• bold,
• tension and
• playful.
2. Use the Powerpoint drawing tools to produce the 6
sets of images. Use a different page for each of the
moods.
1. In the space below, sketch some samples of the
images you will draw. For each of the images, note
down which of the following visual design
principles that the images demonstrate.
• unity and variety,
• hierarchy
• proportion
• scale
• balance
• rhythm and repetition
Figure1: 4 squares representing order
3. When you have finished save the file as a JPG so
you can use the images at a later date. All your
designs and activities from the workshops will be
used in your portfolio and Web site later in the unit.
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b. Black and white problem.
The black and white problem asks you to explore the
graphic concept of negative space. Negative shapes
refer to those elements of a graphic that appear to be
missing. We take images that appear on the screen or
page to be positive, while anything that appears further
back in space as negative. This activity is an
interesting exercise in graphics design that involves
using positives and negatives to convey meaning.
Your tasks is to use negative shapes to interpret the
following subjects visually:
• clouds,
• whipped cream,
• Moby Dick,
• Jaws,
• polar bear,
• flour
• smoke,
• ice cream and
• steam.
2. Once again, draw the images onto Powerpoint
slides and save as JPG when you have finished so
the files can be used at a later date. Save your
files!!
1. In the space below, sketch some samples of the
images you will draw. For each of the images, note
down which of the following visual design
principles that the images demonstrate.
• unity and variety,
• hierarchy
• proportion
• scale
• balance
• rhythm and repetition
3. Posting Best Examples
Before you leave the workshop, your teacher will
organise you to look around the class and to find some
good examples to post to the unit web site to showcase
and demonstrate to other members of the class.
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