The Page Layout
Surviving with style
Safe rules:
keep it simple
use a grid
no backgrounds
no more than 2 fonts
always use Helvetica; etc
Copying others
Go with a system (tables, etc)
Consider focus of attention
Avoid arbitrary gestures
Convey multiple messages
Flirt with the rules
Play with metaphor
Look for and listen to your critics
Consider scale and size
Consider usability
Consider your audience
Consider trends
Incremental design and improvement
...
Colour and Contrast
Structuralism
Difference
Opposition
Engagement, a coherent narrative of oppositions
Contrast (perception)
Green
Red
Blue
Green
Yellow
Cyan
White
Black
Red
Blue
Magenta
Green
Yellow
Cyan
Red
Blue
Magenta
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Contrast of hue
Light-dark contrast
Cold-warm contrast
Complementary contrasts
Simultaneous contrast
Contrast of saturation
Contrast of extension
Itten, J. (1970). The Elements of Colour: A Treatise on the
Colour System of Johannes Itten based on his book The
Art of Colour (E. Van Hagen, Trans.). New York: Van Nostrand
Reinhold.
5. Simultaneous contrast
http://www.deviantart.com/view/1380989/
http://www.deviantart.com/view/1380989/
The frame
Edinburgh
Design
Digital Media
Architecture
Lack of control of contrast
Attention drawn to the unimportant bits (eg edge)
Faces looking the wrong way
Arbitrary use of symmetry and other formalisms
Busy and distracting background
Fear of white spaces
Fancy fonts
Failure to capitalise on subtle humour/irony/incongruity
(When a layout is so bad the viewer
focuses on the inaccuracies.)
Edinburgh
Design Digital Media
Architecture
Architecture
Digital Media
Edinburgh
Design
Design Digital Media Edinburgh
Architecture
Design
Digital Media
Edinburgh
Architecture
“Anti-compositional” approaches ...
(balance, harmony, discord ...)
Catalogues/collections/ledgers ...
Multiples
System
Method
Content is everything
Communication
What do you want to achieve/say?
Optimising legibility
Functionality
Being historical
What does the medium want to do?
...
On being self-evident
“Welcome to my poster …”
QuickTime™ and a
TIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
http://www.circolocheguevara.it/images/che%20guevara.jpg
On drawing a horse
QuickTime™ and a
TIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
http://www.show.me.uk/dbimages/chunked_image/2005_5315.JPG
http://www.interfield-design.com/
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/turnerprize/history/hirst.htm
A page can pass all the tests of
usability but still not fulfil design
ambitions.
It can be boring, uncool, old
fashioned, lack nuance, lack humour,
be naïve, quaint, convey the “wrong”
message ...