Design Exercise 7-2: Design School

in Design Exercises (List Page)

Can you learn to be a graphic designer in a week, with a single lecture and a little bit of reading? Of course not. But, a little bit of practice might help you become a better designer. The goal of this assignment is to help you connect the things we will learn about to actual designs.

Note: this module has three (small) Design Exercises. This is the second of three.

This design exercise will be turned in as Design Exercise 7-2: Design School (due Fri, Dec 12). There is a hard cutoff of Monday, December 15th for late assignments.

Read about some principles (and learn about them in lecture), and then apply them.

Readings

To give you some “principles” to think about, I want you to do a little reading. You should be aware of the principles from The Non Designer’s Design Book (but you can get those from class), and you should read something else of your own choosing.

In class, I will discuss the principles from Robin Williams’ The Non-Designer’s Design Book. Reading the chapters may be redundant, but I provide them since she explains things better than I can and has good examples.

  • (optional) Robin Williams. Overview. Chapter 1 and 6 of The Non-Designers Design Book. (Canvas File)
  • (optional) Robin Williams. Promixity. Chapter 2 of The Non-Designers Design Book. (Canvas File)
  • (optional) Robin Williams. Alignment. Chapter 3 of The Non-Designers Design Book. (Canvas File)
  • (optional) Robin Williams. Repetition. Chapter 4 of The Non-Designers Design Book. (Canvas File)
  • (optional) Robin Williams. Contrast. Chapter 5 of The Non-Designers Design Book. (Canvas File)

I also want you to read one more thing about graphic design, of your own choosing. Here are some suggestions (but feel free to pick something else):

  • (alternate) Design Principles 1: Visual Perception And The Principles Of Gestalt. Smashing Magazine. (url)
  • (alternate) Design Principles 2: Space And The Figure-Ground Relationship. Smashing Magazine. (url)
  • (alternate) Design Principles 3: Connecting And Separating Elements Through Contrast And Similarity. Smashing Magazine. (url)
  • (alternate) Design Principles 4: Visual Weight And Direction. Smashing Magazine. (url)
  • (alternate) Kadavy, David. Composition and Design Principles. Chapter 6 of Design for Hackers: Reverse Engineering Beauty. (Canvas File)
  • (alternate) Kadavy, David. Visual Hierarchy. Chapter 7 of Design for Hackers: Reverse Engineering Beauty. (Canvas File)

From these readings, you should have at least 5 principles to apply to think about graphic design (4 from Williams, and at least one from the others)

We will ask you what you read, and for 1-2 takeaways (principles) that you learned from it.

Applying the Principles

For this assignment we are asking you to provide examples of graphic design. Each one could be a web page, a poster, a business card, the cover of a book, a sign, an instruction sheet, … You need to provide a picture of it (if it is a web page or software take a screen shot).

The rules for the “find” parts are similar to a Seek and Find: provide a picture of something that meets the prompt. It should not be something that was made just for this class.

A Good Example

Find an example of something (involving graphic design) that you think is well designed.

Explain how it applies the principles that you learned about. Your explanation should include at least 1 of Williams’ principles, and at least 1 concept from the other reading you did.

A Bad Example and a Re-Design

Find an example of something (involving graphic design) that you think is NOT well designed. And then you need to re-design it! Create an “improved” version where you apply the principles you learned about. Explain how you used at least two of the principles in your re-design. Note: your submission needs to have two images in it - before and after.

For the re-design part, it is helpful to pick something simple (like a business card or flyer or poster or a sign) that you can re-create easily. In the past, most students used something like PowerPoint to create their re-design, but you are welcome to use anything you like (including drawing by hand). We’ll see lots of examples in class. You don’t need to re-create all the aspects of the original - just enough that you can show how you would apply principles in order to improve the design.

How will we grade this?

We are not testing your skill as a graphic designer. We will check for your ability to identify how principles contribute to a design and how fixing things to follow principles can improve designs.

Mechanics.

This design exercise will be turned in as Design Exercise 7-2: Design School (due Fri, Dec 12). There is a hard cutoff of Monday, December 15th for late assignments.

The questions (so you can prepare your answers before uploading):

  • What did you read for your reading beyond Williams? If it is on the web, please provide a link.
  • Give a few takeaways from the reading (what are some principles you could apply in your own designs)?
  • Upload your example of good design (please upload an image file, such as a PNG or JPG).
  • Explain where it came from (include a link if it is from the web).
  • Explain how the design demonstrates the principles for its good effect. (You should include at least 2 principles, at least one from Williams and one from your other reading).
  • Upload your example of bad design (please upload an image file, such as a PNG or JPG).
  • Explain where it came from (include a link if it is from the web).
  • Upload your redesign (please upload an image file, such as a PNG or JPG).
  • Explain how your redesign applies the principles to improve the original.