Hot answers tagged design-principles
20
Two spaces after a period at the end of a sentence started when the typewriter replaced hand set printing presses. When type was set by hand the spacing was carefully crafted to make sentences and paragraphs easier to read. Typewriters use a monospace font that make it hard to distinguish the end of a sentence without adding the extra space.
Modern fonts ...
15
This old quote from US broadcaster Ira Glass puts it really well. It's something I believe is true for every creative profession:
Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me.
All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good
taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make
stuff, it’s ...
14
In addition to Philip's excellent answer (money always gets their attention), point out that the MMs are changing the documents so that they no longer reflect corporate standards. "The company branding is being diluted" is a good way to put it. Your job is to make everything look good and look consistent, and they are damaging the company's appearance.
If ...
13
You have a problem with how the process of creating these marketing materials gets handled, and some clear policies need to be put in place.
At my company the designers, and only the designers, create layouts and make changes. Any changes that the MMs want simply get marked up and handed over. A few rounds of changes aren't out of the ordinary, but the ...
12
I made this another answer since this is to comment on your design:
You tell us that you can easily recreate professional templates. In fact i doubt it.
You really have to learn a lot about webdesign. Seriously far to go, but you are eager to learn and therefor i made this mockup to explain some things. This is not to bash you, seriously no offence meant, i ...
11
As DA01 mentions, having a focal point doesn't necessarily mean the page will be unbalanced. It's good to have at least one focal point in the sense of accentuating the main message(s), for example a call to action.
Now, elements can be distributed differently across a design and still be balanced (if you are using a grid, then you start with a certain ...
10
From a newsletter I sent out to author clients a few years ago (edited to remove monospace information already covered in Chris's answer):
When people made the switch from typewriters to word processors and proportionally spaced type, the term "typing" stayed with us. It makes sense: "I'm word processing a letter" is a clumsy mouthful, so the simpler, more ...
10
Advertising. While it's a noble idea that it was done for readability, newspapers, in general, have columns that are overly narrow compared to most given readability information/data.
Having multiple columns allows for a very versatile ad grid, and, traditionally, newspapers were in the business of selling ads.
It also allows more stories to appear on ...
9
In a word: "No." Your concerns are exactly on point, and I'd echo Philip's and Lauren's suggestions. There is a point where office politics on the one hand, and the scramble to meet deadlines on the other, become destructive. If ever there was a case, this is it.
Besides the points already covered, I would suggest looking to an InDesign/InCopy workflow as a ...
9
Linked below is a short but good read summarizing different studies on line lengths. Studies were done as far back as the 1880s demonstrating that optimal line-length for reading was between 3.6 - 4 inches. Even 50 years later, this was still the deal:
One of the best studies was done by Tinker and Paterson in 1929. Using 10-point black type on white ...
8
I don't have current statistics, but studies done by Smashing Magazine in 2008 and 2009 found that 94% of popular blogs and 89% of design portfolios were center-aligned. It's a small sampling of websites, of course, but it indicates that the overwhelming trend is toward center-aligned websites.
If I had to venture a guess, I would say that the reason for ...
8
You're delving into a matter of taste here. There are many ways to be minimal. You have done it successfully, in my opinion. I suspect it is the extreme reduction in styling that is bothering your friends.
All critiques are not equal
The first question you should ask is, are your friends representative of your target audience? If not, find some people who ...
7
I don't know whether this question should be closed or not
we have lots of similar question on
this site you can check all of them
one by one there are lots of good
resources to start with :
Composition web design rules
Correct set of principle design
What is the single most influential book every designer should read
Tips and sources for ...
7
I asked a similar question on the usefulness of the Golden Ratio on the User Interface site. Unfortunately, there isn't any compelling and objective evidence that the Golden Ratio actually does what everyone says it does, despite the plethora of blog posts about it.
That said, I don't think that using the Golden Ratio hurts a design. It's an eye-pleasing ...
7
The most important file format he should give you is a vector format, typically in .eps, or vectorized .pdf. He should also give you some high resolution transparent png format as well. But if you have the .eps format, then you can make pngs in any size or resolution later. If he cannot or refuse to give you the logo in vector format, then you hired the ...
7
As Jin says, you need a vector file. EPS is the most versatile of the formats Corel Draw can export, so be sure to get that. (You can import EPS files into Word or Pages to roll your own stationery, besides sending one out to a printer.)
Based on long experience, you'll only ever use the .cdr file if you're sending to a designer who uses it or one of the ...
7
How to make your website look professional in my eyes, in no particular order, oh... and in short:) If you need more explanation what I mean, just tell me:
Base your color palette around the corporate identity of the client.
Listen to his needs carefully so you can suit the style he wants
Design for usability. You can make a jaw dropping design but if the ...
7
All the principles of design that you already know apply equally to monochrome as they do to multi-colored work. Working with a single ink (whether it's black or any other color) may feel unfamiliar, but it is not fundamentally different. I suspect that it is unfamiliarity that is making you uncomfortable, not any lack of skill.
A good design will always ...
7
In reality, since the implementation of multiple artboards in Illustrator the reason for using Indesign compared to Illustrator changed a bit. Pre CS4 the immediate reason was a single Indesign document rather than separate documents for each page with Illustrator.
Nowadays, there are still reasons one may prefer Indesign over Illustrator but, similar to ...
7
A good aesthetic eye is something that takes a little experience to develop. And being a good designer means also being your number 1 critic (not number 1 fan, which many poor designers tend to be). Good designers are perfectionists, just like any other good artist.
There's no simple way to achieve these things, but one very helpful method is to immerse ...
6
How long are you planning on having it up? If it's going to be permanent you're going to want to consider something that will hold up to wind and UV long-term better than vinyl (e.g., plastic / metal / wood). If the side of the building has windows you might consider vinyl graphics (of course, the people sitting in the rooms with the windows might not ...
6
Robin Williams, the friend to all beginning designers, points to four things that are critical: Contrast, Repetition, Alignment and Proximity (and yes, the acronym is CRAP!). You should get her book, "The Non-Designer's Design Book" and study it. Everything in it applies to the web as much as it does to print. It's easy to read and very clear. Then get "The ...
6
You should probably consider establishing upper and lower limits and making the area of concern flash (possibly a red or yellow background with a black line flashing back to the normal waveform) if values go above or below those limits. For example:
ETCO2 values above or below baseline (35-45mmHg)
HR below 60 (considered bradycardic) or above 120 ...
5
The visual flow of an interface does matter, and here's why:
Every interface screen should have a primary action or actions that are to be performed. The visual flow should naturally draw the eye to the primary action.
The less distance the eye has to travel, the easier an interface is to comprehend and use. Studies (pdf) on form design bear this out as ...
5
It is all matter of balance between size, color and alignment. With experience you will know what and when use those tricks to attract attention. Luckily on the website we can track this attention and there are a lot of scientific studies on this matter, for example there are good data in Jakob Nielsen website.
About the Eye tracking I want to say that for ...
5
As koiyu mentioned in the comment, eye tracking is what you should be after. You can create designs with the intent of leading users along a path, but the only way to really know if you're accomplishing your goals is to do an eye tracking study.
That said, you might find my answer useful for the question, How to draw attention to a specific area of a ...
5
I would recommend a Gantt chart here. This is specifically designed to show the components and length of multiple and/or nested time-based events. The time frame is certainly on a different scale, but the principles are still the same. Change weeks to seconds (or even microseconds) and the Activities into yours.
5
Small columns of text are easier to read than large ones. Imagine a newspaper sized line that stretched across an entire page. It would be very easy to skip a line. Using columns can make it easier to read, especially when the focus is on text on very large papers.
The same concept is used in brochures, which tend to be folded over paper.
5
Short answer: you can't.
Technical answer:
RGB is additive. The more color (made of light) you add, the closer you get to white.
CMYK is subtractive. The more color (made of ink, which is reflective, which subtracts light) you add, the closer you get to black (or actually a muddy brown).
CMYK has a smaller range, or gamut, of colors it can reproduce than ...
5
This is answer is purely from a website standpoint.
Media querie, curtesy of CSS3, gives us more control over how a website will look at various resolutions. As you scale down the width of the browser it will swap to the code for that width.
Some info on Media Queries - http://www.stuffandnonsense.co.uk/blog/about/hardboiled_css3_media_queries
This falls ...
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