“Graphic Design School: The Principles and Practices of Graphic Design”

 Today's book is “Graphic Design School: The Principles and Practices of Graphic Design” by David Dabner. Although this is not a writing book at all, graphic design is a problem that I expect to have—e.g., a client hires and asks if I can design the brochure, website, or what have you as well as write the copy. Hopefully, knowing basic design principles will help me not only to get more jobs and help clients stay within budget, but also make things go more smoothly if and when I have to work with graphic designers.

Lessons Learned

I learned quite a bit from this book, and everything was well organized. But one thing I wish it had had was a list of beginner's problems and how to overcome them, such as a lack of inspiration. This is a particularly pressing need when you're not even familiar with all the elements of design. It would be like trying to write a story for adults with a third-grade vocabulary. If you don't even know the elements you can manipulate, your designs will always be bland. But if you're aware of the different areas in which you can experiment, e.g. font, color, layout, etc.--then you might find several new ideas and move forward much more quickly.

Form and Space

If you've ever gone to a website with text a full screen wide, then you know how important white space, which is the unmarked part of the page, is. Without it, a good number of people will instantly ignore your message as difficult to read. White space can also create effects by itself, for example keeping text to a minimum with a large image of the product to achieve a more expensive look.

Color

Everyone knows the more common colors have certain things associated with them, but I was surprised at the level of detail. Each one has a half dozen attributes or more, and given that people will always notice the color whether they read your material or not, I'm going to carefully consider it in everything I design. It needs to be balanced with other considerations—after all, you can't have the same color text and background—but deciding on the color could also give me more ideas for my writing.

Typography

You wouldn't use Comic Sans in an ad about luxury cars (and hopefully a professional wouldn't use it at all) but font is another consideration that might be alien to writers, who might be used to 12-point Times New Roman day after day. Even after you select the size, spacing, and emphasis that will deliver exactly the desired effect, you still have to take into account legibility. For example, today I saw a mural with brown and white silhouettes for a community center, crowned by its name in alternating brown and white letters. Unfortunately, these made it very difficult to read and I can't remember the name or where it was even now. Practical considerations have to come first; people have very short attention spans and if there is any difficulty at first glance, your message won't even get the opportunity to make an impact.

Clarity, Efficiency, Economy, Continuity

You can tell whether you have met these four criteria listed in the book very quickly. Take a step back and look at what you've designed. Does it seem cluttered? Is it hard to read? Is it obvious where you should focus your attention? In both writing and design I always eliminate anything that is not absolutely necessary as my overarching principle, and it's been very helpful in achieving the above four goals.