prof. anselm spoerriscils@rutgersmultimedia production course visual & web design – overview...

Prof. Anselm SpoerriSCILS@Rutgers Multimedia Production Course

Visual & Web Design – Overview

Graphic Design Brief History of Graphic Design Education

Communication Model

Practical Foundation

Swiss Design School & Grid SystemTypography

Grid Construction

Grid System – Heuristics

Web DesignUser Behavior Design Implications Design Specifics

Summary

Requirements for Web Pages

Food for EyesColors MagazineMore Colors

Visual Essay AssignmentVisual Storytelling


Graphic Design

Graphic Design– Brief History of Graphic Design Education– Communication Model– Practical Foundation– Swiss Design School & Grid System

Sources– Katherine McCoy, “Education in an Adolescent Profession”– Josef Mueller-Brockmann, “Grid Systems in graphic design”


Brief History of Graphic Design Education

Pre-Modernism– Focus on Image Associations– Lack of Formalized Method: early luminaries self-taught– Premium on Creativity: “BIG IDEA”– Learn from “Samples and Examples”

Functional Modernism– "Swiss School" of Graphic Design– Based on Bauhaus– Focus on Formal Purity rather than Content

Post-Modernism– Influenced by French Literary Theory– Variety of Cultural Contexts and Personal Experiences– Possibility of Multiple Interpretations – Question Rigidity, Minimalism of Graphic Modernism – Subjective, Personal Layers of Meaning & Complexity


Communication Model - Sender

Sender Transmitter ReceiverDesign School

Pre-Modernism Functional Modernism Post-Modernism

Guiding Discipline

Art Science Language

Focus on

Personal content and creativity

Systematic presentation of objective information

Audience's response due to different cultures and subjective experiences


Communication Model - Transmitter



Guiding Discipline


Focus on





Communication Model - Receiver



Guiding Discipline


Focus on





Communication Model



Guiding Discipline


Focus on





Future of Graphic Design

Digital Communications Design – Different Design Strategy than Perfectionist Graphic Design– Less Control, More Conceptual, More Interaction– Users Co-Creators

Requires Deeper Understanding of the Communications Process

Combines Art, Science and Language

Needed Expertise– Multimedia Design: Visual Art, Music, Film– Communications Theory– Cognitive & Perceptual Psychology– Social Sciences & Cultural Anthropology– Computer Science


Practical Graphic Design

Graphic Design = Organic Process– Cultural, Contextual, Personal– Client & Designer Interaction

Good Design is “Stolen”– Emulate what speaks to you

Need Practical Foundation– Functional Swiss Design School– Grid Systems


Swiss Design School

Based on Bauhaus– Form follows Function – Minimalism, Universality, Rationality, Abstraction and Structure

Focus on Formal Purity rather than Content

Grid System– Divide 2-D plane or 3-D space into Smaller Fields– Intermediate Space so that Captions and Pictures Don’t Touch


Grid System – 8 Fields Example



The great Swiss innovators of the 1950s and 1960s

can be seen as representing the classic phase of

modernism, the heirs to Bauhaus graphic design

and other early modern European graphic

designers. These Swiss innovators applied the

Bauhaus functionalist ethic to a systematic graphic

method that shared the Bauhaus values of

minimalism, universality, rationality, abstraction

and structural expressionism. This fresh and highly

professional graphic design was first transmitted

beyond Switzerland to the rest of Europe and the

U.S. through Swiss design magazines and a few

books, notably Graphis and the "Swiss" bibles by

Muller-Brockmann, Gertsner, Hoffmann and Ruder.

Then, in the late 1960s, several professional offices

began to practice these ideas to solve the needs of

large corporate clients in Holland, Great Britain,

Canada and the U.S.

The method, symbolized by the typeface Helvetica,

was enthusiastically adopted by several corporate

and institutional design groups, including Container

Corporation, Ciba-Geigy, Herman Miller, IBM and

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Montreal's

Expo '67 was a feast of Helvetica and systematic

environmental signage, as well as advanced

architecture. Eventually, American corporate culture

embraced "Swiss" school graphic design as the ideal

corporate style. Although "Swiss" graphic design was

first adopted in U.S. by professionals in their design

practices, soon several leading U.S. graphic design

schools followed suit, going directly to the source.

Caption Text

Swiss Design School



Swiss Design School

Caption Text

The method, symbolized by the typeface Helvetica,

was enthusiastically adopted by several corporate

and institutional design groups, including Container

Corporation, Ciba-Geigy, Herman Miller, IBM and

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Montreal's

Expo '67 was a feast of Helvetica and systematic

environmental signage, as well as advanced

architecture. Eventually, American corporate culture

embraced "Swiss" school graphic design as the ideal

corporate style. Although "Swiss" graphic design was

first adopted in U.S. by professionals in their design

practices, soon several leading U.S. graphic design

schools followed suit, going directly to the source.

The great Swiss innovators of the 1950s and 1960s

can be seen as representing the classic phase of

modernism, the heirs to Bauhaus graphic design

and other early modern European graphic

designers. These Swiss innovators applied the

Bauhaus functionalist ethic to a systematic graphic

method that shared the Bauhaus values of

minimalism, universality, rationality, abstraction

and structural expressionism. This fresh and highly

professional graphic design was first transmitted

beyond Switzerland to the rest of Europe and the

U.S. through Swiss design magazines and a few

books, notably Graphis and the "Swiss" bibles by

Muller-Brockmann, Gertsner, Hoffmann and Ruder.

Then, in the late 1960s, several professional offices

began to practice these ideas to solve the needs of

large corporate clients in Holland, Great Britain,

Canada and the U.S.


Grid System - Motivation

Solve Visual Problems with Greater Speed & Confidence

Maintain Consistency– Title Location– Annotations Location– Image Rhythm

Create Visual Hierarchy & Rhythm

Invisible Guiding Hand

Information Presented Clearly & Logically – Read More Quickly– Understood Better– Better Recall


Typography

Readability - how easy it is to read a lot of text– Serif Typeface Better if a Lot of Text– Type Size: 10 – 14pt– Line Length– Leading or Space between Lines

Legibility - how easy it is to recognize short bursts of text – Sans Serif Typeface is Better and Easier to Read on Screen

7 - 10 Words Per Line– Overlong or Overshort Lines Tire

Column Width Proportional to Type Size

Bold and italic used for small blocks of text

Enough Contrast between Type and Background


Grid Construction

Need to Know How Much Text and How Many Images to Be Placed

Each Work Raises Many Questions– How Many Columns?– White Space and Margins Have Visual Function?– Annotations, Footnotes, Captions?– Large and Small Images? How Many?

Each Work Requires its Own Specific Grid– Create Small Sketch– Number of Columns Depends on Type Size– Wider Columns Need Larger Type Size than Narrow Columns


Grid System – 8 Fields


8 Fields Grid - Image Size Options


Grid System – 20 Fields


20 Fields Grid - Example 1

Although "Swiss" graphic design was first adopted in U.S. by professionals in their design practices, soon several leading U.S. graphic design schools followed suit, going directly to the source. A number of Swiss teachers and their graduates, from Armin Hoffman's Basel school in particular, put down roots in schools including Philadelphia College of Art, University of Cincinnati and Yale. (The Swiss influence seems to have been particularly strong in U.S. and Canadian schools; Europeans have often expressed a certain mystification at this North American reverence for the Basel method.) Manfred Maier's book, Basic Principles of Design, on the Basel foundation program, was finally available in the U.S. in 1977, spreading this method farther. Under the influence of this highly structured educational method and its emphasis on the prolonged study of abstract design and typographic form, these American schools began to carefully structure their curricula. Based on objectivity and rationalism, this educational system produced a codified method that was easy to communicate to students, giving them a foundation for a visual design process and composition ..

This classic modernist graphic aesthetic is distinctly different from the predominantly semantic imagery of the "big idea". It stresses the grammar of design and is rather neutral to content. Regrettably, this language of structural geometry has often resulted in a sameness of form that is more the look of function than truly communicative function-- an emphasis on formal purity rather than content. As this aesthetic spread, however, a number of Europeans, particularly in conjunction with the Ulm school in West Germany, began to apply semiotics to visual communications problems. Related explorations in the science of signs were taking place in structuralist philosophy, linguistics, literature and film theory. Other efforts to develop scientific design processes through communication theory and computer design method began in Great Britain and at the Illinois Institute of Technology during this period. Although the Swiss never embraced these communication theories, some of the sounder graphic design schools outside Switzerland have gradually begun to incorporate theory into their curricula …

Swiss Design School


20 Fields Grid - Example 2

Although "Swiss" graphic design was first adopted in U.S. by professionals in their design practices, soon several leading U.S. graphic design schools followed suit, going directly to the source. A number of Swiss teachers and their graduates, from Armin Hoffman's Basel school in particular, put down roots in schools including Philadelphia College of Art, University of Cincinnati and Yale.

Swiss Design School

(The Swiss influence seems to have been particularly strong in U.S. and Canadian schools; Europeans have often expressed a certain mystification at this North American reverence for the Basel method.) Manfred Maier's book, Basic Principles of Design, on the Basel foundation program, was finally available in the U.S. in 1977, spreading this method farther.

Under the influence of this highly structured educational method and its emphasis on the prolonged study of abstract design and typographic form, these American schools began to carefully structure their curricula. Based on objectivity and rationalism, this educational system produced a codified method that was easy to communicate to students, giving them a foundation for a

visual design process and composition that went far beyond the superficial emulation of their heroes.This classic modernist graphic aesthetic is distinctly different from the predominantly semantic imagery of the "big idea". It stresses the grammar of design and is rather neutral to content.

Poster Designs byJosef Muller-Brockmann

Caption describing the poster designs. When they were created. Who the client was and their effectiveness.


20 Fields Grid - Example 2a

Swiss Design School

Poster Designs byJosef Muller-Brockmann

Caption describing the poster designs. When they were created. Who the client was and their effectiveness.

Although "Swiss" graphic design was first adopted in U.S. by professionals in their design practices, soon several leading U.S. graphic design schools followed suit, going directly to the source. A number of Swiss teachers and their graduates, from Armin Hoffman's Basel school in particular, put down roots in schools including Philadelphia College of Art, University of Cincinnati and Yale.

(The Swiss influence seems to have been particularly strong in U.S. and Canadian schools; Europeans have often expressed a certain mystification at this North American reverence for the Basel method.) Manfred Maier's book, Basic Principles of Design, on the Basel foundation program, was finally available in the U.S. in 1977, spreading this method farther.

Under the influence of this highly structured educational method and its emphasis on the prolonged study of abstract design and typographic form, these American schools began to carefully structure their curricula. Based on objectivity and rationalism, this educational system produced a codified method that was easy to communicate to students, giving them a foundation for a

visual design process and composition that went far beyond the superficial emulation of their heroes.This classic modernist graphic aesthetic is distinctly different from the predominantly semantic imagery of the "big idea". It stresses the grammar of design and is rather neutral to content.


Grid System – Heuristics

One Column– Little Freedom for Pictures in Small, Medium and Large Size

Two Columns– Text can go in First Column– Illustrations, Images in the Second Column– Text and Images can be Placed in Same Column

Three Columns– Variety of Ways of Placing Text and Graphics

Four Columns– If a lot of Text or Images Need to be Placed– Statistics with Copious Figures and Graphs– Can be Subdivided into 8 or 16 columns


Web Guiding Principles

Diversity of Users & Rapid Change– Diverse users, diverse computers, diverse skills, diverse …– Rapid evolution of technology and expectations– Short attention span

Common Sense– No right way to design

Make it short– More likely to be used and remembered– Cut in ½ and cut in ½ again

Don't make me think– Get rid of question marks - each item has clear purpose

Make it work at a glance– People have little time

Support intented task - manage expectations


Basic Design Principles

Alignment– Don't Mix Alignment Styles - Simplicity– Create Sufficient Left Margin– Constrain Total Width of Page

Proximity– Related Things Close Together

– Spatial Separation = Conceptual Separation

Repetition & Consistency– Grid Layout, Navigation, Graphics Color Coding, Typeface– Creates Ease of Use

Contrast– Bigger, Bolder, Color, Spatial Distance– Guide the Eye and Create Visual Hierarchy


User Behavior

Scan pages - don't read them

Look for anything = Search Interest Decide quickly Choose first “reasonable item”

Muddle through Don't figure out how things work Resist forming models

Stick to what works


Design Implications

Scan pages - don't read them • Design for Scanning Make text short - cut words • Make page work at a glance Sufficient left margin, 640x480 = main message

• Create Visual Hierarchy


• Make obvious what you can do on a page

• Make obvious what is clickable


• Don't make users think Get rid of question marks Each item = clear purpose

Stick to what works • Repetition & Consistency Grid Layout, Easy Navigation, Graphics, Color Coding, Typography


User Behavior Design Implications Design Specifics

1 Use Grid System

• Maintain ConsistencyHelps you decide: location of primary & secondary navigation; location and sizes of images; location of headlines, main text, annotations etc.

• Create Visual Hierarchy & Rhythm

• Present Information Clearly & LogicallyUsers can read info more quickly.Facilitates understanding and recall.

• Invisible Hand guiding users and creating sense of place

• Design for Scanning Make text short - cut words • Make page work at a glance Sufficient left margin, 640x480 = main message• Create Visual Hierarchy

• Make obvious what you can do • Make obvious what is clickable

• Don't make users think Get rid of question marks

Each item = clear purpose

• Repetition & Consistency Grid Layout, Easy Navigation,

Graphics, Color Coding, Typography

User Behavior Design ImplicationsUser Behavior Design Implications Design Specifics




Stick to what works

User Behavior



2 Create Visual Hierarchy & Guide Eye

• Important Things = Visually Prominent(More Important = Larger / Sharp Contrast)Use headlines to guide the eye

• Visual ContrastUse sharp changes in size (headline), light intensity (bold), color, texture, motion to create contrast.

• Proximity: related things spatially closeSpatial separation = conceptual separation.Don't mix alignment styles.

• Use Grouping & Nesting to Increase Information Density (Short-term Memory = 3-7)Use bounding shapes.











Stick to what works

User Behavior



3 Typography Heuristics

• Sans Serif type is easier to read on screen

• Type size 10 -14 points

• 7 - 10 words per line

• Column width proportional to type size

• Bold and italic for small blocks of text

• Enough contrast between type & background











Stick to what works

User Behavior



1 Use Grid System• Maintain Consistency

Helps you decide: location of primary & secondary navigation; location and sizes of images; location of headlines, main text, annotations etc.

• Create Visual Hierarchy & Rhythm • Present Information Clearly & Logically

Users can read info more quickly.Facilitates understanding and recall.

• Invisible Hand guiding users and creating sense of place

2 Create Visual Hierarchy & Guide Eye • Important Things = Visually Prominent

(More Important = Larger / Sharp Contrast)Use headlines to guide the eye

• Visual ContrastUse sharp changes in size (headline), light intensity (bold), color, texture, motion to create contrast.

• Proximity: related things spatially close.Spatial separation = conceptual separation.Don't mix alignment styles.

• Use Grouping & Nesting to Increase Information Density (Short-term Memory = 3-7)Use bounding shapes.

3 Typography Heuristics • Sans Serif type is easier to read on screen • Type size 10 -14 points • 7 - 10 words per line • Column width proportional to type size • Bold and italic used for small blocks of text • Enough contrast between type and background











Stick to what works

User Behavior


Requirements for Web Pages

Layout Presents Info Clearly & LogicallyFacilitates Understanding & Recall

Visual Hierarchy Guides Eye to Important Things• Where do I start?

• What can I do here?

• What site is this?

• What page am I on?

• Options at this level?

• Where I am? Go higher or home?

• Major sections of site?

Web Page needs to easily answer

Web Navigation needs to easily answer

Site ID – logo, image, text

Page name

Primary Navigation Top Row or Left Column

Simple text hyperlinks, icons, rollovers, image-maps, pull-downs

Secondary Navigation Below Top Line or Left Column

Expanding / Nesting Hierarchies Static or Dynamic Outlines

Color Coding, BreadcrumbsPrimary / Secondary Navigation


Food for Eyes – Colors Magazine


Color Magazine


Colors Magazine


More Colors

Colors Magazine : Select “Archive”

Initial Designer: Tibor Kalman

#2 : Immigration : placement of text on image background

#3 : Evolution : placement of text along image contour

#14: War : effective imagery and good copy

#20: Marriage : simple, effective image and good copy

#24: Death : simple, effective image and excellent copy

#25: Fat : simple, effective image and good copy

#47: Madness : simple image and good copy : website animation


Visual Essay - Goal

Visual Storytelling

Visualize idea you want to communicate

Create Layout of images & limited text that "tells visual story”

Create layouts with clear Visual Hierarchy & good rhythm

Ask: What is most important?

Images = "adjectives“ in story

– Close ups, Faces, Detail, Shows action, Matching reaction

Make sure that key idea is visible “above the fold” (640x480 area)

Introduce pauses in your animated GIFs.

Can use several animated GIFs to guide the eye across page


Visual Essay - How

Find Images to Support Storyline– Scan from Books or Magazines

– Scan at high enough resolution

– Web Images– “Save As” in the Browser: saves images in supporting folder– Mouse Right Click on image and use “Save Target As”

Fireworks / Photoshop– Resize or Crop original image– Create Selections (rectangle or polygon)– Create Collages by combining layers– “Export / Save for Web”: JPEG if rich in color, GIF if limited colors

Create Grid & Layout– Resize images if needed (via image handles + SHIFT key)

or Crop image

prof. anselm spoerriscils@rutgersmultimedia production course visual & web design – overview...

Documents

graphic design slide

anselm spoerriscils

personal content

subjective experiences

content postmodernism

complexity slide

different cultures

personal layers