1. Design EssentialsKnow your story: Part 1| 00:04 | Design begins pretty much in the
same place that a road trip begins.
| | 00:10 | Before you take a trip, the first and most
important thing you need to know is where you're going.
| | 00:19 | I mean, it doesn't matter how efficiently you
pack or how well you drive, if you don't know
| | 00:24 | where you're going,
you're not going to get there.
| | 00:30 | So, step one is to Know Your Story.
| | 00:33 | I have an example of a good way to know
your story, but I have to tell you a story.
| | 00:40 | A number of years ago a young woman, a thirty-ish
woman named Jennifer Diamond died of a rare
| | 00:47 | form of cancer, and her family chose to
establish a foundation in her name to educate others
| | 00:57 | about this type of cancer.
| | 00:59 | So they formed the Jennifer Diamond foundation,
and right at the outset they brought in designer
| | 01:05 | Karen Barranco to help them develop a logo
and a look to really make the work visible
| | 01:15 | to the public, and they sat for a long time
and exchanged stories back and forth of Jennifer
| | 01:23 | and her life and what was meaningful to
her and what they--they wanted the foundation
| | 01:29 | to represent and to look like, and out of that
came a list not a long list, but a list of keywords.
| | 01:39 | As it turns out the image of a dragonfly
was important to Jennifer in her life.
| | 01:46 | I guess in Eastern thought a dragonfly means a healing
messenger or can represent a healing messenger,
| | 01:55 | and they decided this
would be the appropriate image.
| | 02:01 | So at that point everything got written
down on paper, and everybody signed off on it.
| | 02:09 | Karen understood what they were looking for,
and they understood what they were looking for.
| | 02:13 | And I'll tell you up front that the client
sometimes doesn't know, the client sometimes
| | 02:18 | can't articulate what he wants.
| | 02:23 | So it's up to the designer to work
with them until they get the definition.
| | 02:28 | But once you have it, write it all
down and everybody sign off on it.
| | 02:33 | This does two things: one, it gives everybody
an understanding of the goal, which is vital
| | 02:41 | to a good design project, and two, it keeps
the conversation at a high level, and by that
| | 02:47 | I mean we all have personal artistic
preferences, you know, I like red, you like blue.
| | 02:56 | And what you don't want is to bring a piece of work
back to the client and start getting it nitpicked.
| | 03:02 | Gee, could you make that a different shade
of green or could you move this thing over
| | 03:06 | here and make this a little
bigger or bolder or whatever.
| | 03:09 | You don't want to go there, and having a
creative brief will prevent that, because now you bring
| | 03:14 | a piece of work back to the client and you
can put it on the wall and everyone look at
| | 03:21 | it and say does this design fulfill the goal?
And you can set personal preferences aside
| | 03:29 | for the most part and evaluate it that
way, much better conversation to have.
| | 03:37 | Karen sat down with her
dragonfly and began sketching.
| | 03:43 | First step was to get the correct view, you
know we're not talking about a dragonfly like
| | 03:49 | the insect with sticky little feet, but
rather kind of the regal four-winged creature,
| | 03:57 | and so she just began sketching.
| | 04:05 | And when she added this circle that
represented the head, she realized that she had--
| | 04:12 | she had found something special.
| | 04:15 | So this is the one that she rendered in
Illustrator and presented to the client
| | 04:19 | and the client was thrilled with it.
| | 04:22 | Except for one thing, you
know that red/blue thing.
| | 04:25 | The client does get a vote.
| | 04:28 | And the two lines that
converged near the navel reminded
| | 04:34 | Mr. Diamond of the feeding tubes that were in
his daughter as she lie dying, and he asked
| | 04:40 | Karen if she would remove those,
and of course, yes, she would.
| | 04:47 | And when she did, the logo became fantastic.
| | 04:54 | It's beautiful, it's feminine, it's angelic,
it's stately, you see in it a woman, you see
| | 05:03 | in it a dragonfly, you see in it an angel,
looks very much like a healing messenger.
| | 05:14 | It's a fantastic logo and it became the
symbol for the Jennifer Diamond Foundation.
| | 05:21 | It's as good as it is for two reasons, one
because Karen is the designer she is, but
| | 05:27 | two because everybody got very clear
up front together what they wanted to achieve.
| | 05:37 | So this is the--this is the creative
brief process, vital part of any design.
| | 05:46 | When you're branding it's more important than
if you're just, you know whipping out a quick
| | 05:51 | flyer for something, but even there
you have a story to tell.
| | 05:56 | As a designer, you need to
know what that story is.
| | 06:00 | So, know your story.
First step, know your story.
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| Know your story: Part 2| 00:04 | Okay, the second part to knowing your story is that
once you know it, you need to be able to execute it.
| | 00:11 | I have an example here of a woman who knew
her story but then didn't quite realize it.
| | 00:19 | Angela Lantain sent me her
business card a few years ago.
| | 00:23 | Angela is a Craft designer up in Canada.
| | 00:28 | She works by herself and sells her artwork
locally, displaying it in local store and
| | 00:34 | she wanted a business card so
potential customers could reach her.
| | 00:39 | And so she designed this and sent it to me for a
critique, and I'll go off on a little tangent here.
| | 00:46 | One of the problems is the acronym AMD.
| | 00:50 | I am not a fan of acronyms, especially when
you have a small business trying to connect
| | 00:56 | with its customer and put a
human face on the business.
| | 01:00 | The problem with an acronym is
that nobody knows what it means.
| | 01:02 | AMD could say, you know, it could be anything.
| | 01:05 | And so not only do you have to design your
acronym, you have to then design an explanation of it.
| | 01:15 | It puts some distance between you and your
customer, you know much better to just,
| | 01:20 | to just use your name.
| | 01:23 | With Angela, looking at Angela's card
without even critiquing the graphics,
| | 01:29 | I can't see in it the work that she does.
| | 01:32 | So I asked her if she had a website or
something or I could see her work.
| | 01:37 | She directed me to her site and I found
all kinds of very attractive craftwork.
| | 01:41 | And I said, "Angela, if you have this...
why would you show someone this...
| | 01:51 | "To tell your story, let's put
your craft right on your card.
| | 01:59 | Add your name. You can put all
your contact information on the back."
| | 02:06 | Another cool thing here is that you could
have different pieces of art on different cards.
| | 02:11 | You know, we have moo.com,
print up a whole card deck for you.
| | 02:16 | And now when you hand your card to a customer
or a potential customer, they can see you.
| | 02:22 | They see the work you do, and they
have your contact information.
| | 02:27 | You've made a great connection,
you've told your story.
| | 02:31 | So here's a case where once you have your
story, you want to make sure that the work
| | 02:39 | you do is telling that story.
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| Keep it simple: Part 1| 00:04 | When it comes to communicating a
thought or an idea, simple is best.
| | 00:11 | By simple I mean basically less stuff, fewer
elements, simpler elements, less to look at,
| | 00:20 | less to process, less to think about.
Just reduce your message to its essence.
| | 00:27 | This is what can make it tricky because
to do that you need to know your story.
| | 00:34 | Right up front. You can't
just add stuff to your page.
| | 00:38 | I mean, how many pages have you tried
to improve by adding things to them?
| | 00:46 | The correct answer is to know your story and
take everything away that's not telling your story.
| | 00:53 | And I have some examples of that.
| | 00:57 | This PowerPoint slide was sent to me by a man
who was kind of worried about the design of it.
| | 01:05 | He had set it in Times Roman
which was kind of his default.
| | 01:08 | He has a shadow on it, he has a blue bar on
the left side and a bar across the top and
| | 01:14 | he was concerned whether the colors were right,
if he needed two bars instead of one, maybe
| | 01:19 | he needed a curve or
starburst or something like that.
| | 01:22 | And he is just was having trouble getting
the design of this to look right, and the
| | 01:27 | problem is not any of the
graphics that are on it.
| | 01:29 | The problem is basically that what
he has here is his published notes.
| | 01:36 | Everything about this slide is wrong.
| | 01:37 | He shouldn't be putting these
words up on the screen at all.
| | 01:41 | These words are for him to say and what you
want when you're making a PowerPoint presentation
| | 01:48 | is to have your slides just be simple, memorable,
memory hooks that support what you're saying.
| | 01:58 | So here is our makeover.
| | 02:01 | Two elements, one photograph, one headline,
clear as a bell, couldn't be simpler to design,
| | 02:11 | couldn't be simpler to design.
| | 02:14 | The question engages the audience, it's an
intriguing photograph, all the difference in the world.
| | 02:23 | Now the thing is, the after although it was
much easier to design, it was harder to do.
| | 02:33 | Because you had to think through to the story,
to what you are actually trying to do with
| | 02:41 | this slide rather than just
throw your notes up there.
| | 02:46 | So a lot of work went into the simplicity of this.
The payoff, however, is enormous.
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| Keep it simple: Part 2| 00:04 | Another example is to use simpler photos,
especially if those photos are going to be small.
| | 00:10 | Here is a case where we're
making just a very small web ad.
| | 00:15 | So, it's not only a small size,
but it's in low resolution.
| | 00:19 | And there is this perfectly good
picture of the New York waterfront.
| | 00:22 | But when it's reduced to small
size, it's not particularly clear.
| | 00:28 | So, the solution here is to not do that at
all, but to rather choose a simpler picture.
| | 00:34 | In this case, it's an iconic
one of the Statue of Liberty.
| | 00:39 | Has a clear silhouette, much
easier to see at small sizes.
| | 00:45 | Similarly, we have a gorgeous kitchen here, but to
use at small sizes, it becomes very difficult to see.
| | 00:54 | So, just pick an object or two from the kitchen,
and picture those instead, add your words to it,
| | 01:00 | and you're done, you have
a very clear simple presentation.
| | 01:07 | Of course, if the kitchen itself is your product, or if
that waterfront itself is your product, this won't work.
| | 01:15 | But you get the idea.
| | 01:18 | Simpler pictures just communicate
better than complicated ones.
| | 01:25 | Another way to simplify is to use fewer
elements, and often make them bolder as well.
| | 01:33 | Here is an example of a banner.
This could be a web banner.
| | 01:37 | In this case, it's a large banner that's
going to go near the ceiling on a tradeshow floor.
| | 01:44 | We're seeing a logo, we're seeing a large
black rectangle that really is a non-communicating
| | 01:51 | element, and we have an attractive photo.
| | 01:54 | It's all very busy, lots of information that
you're going to want your customer to know,
| | 02:02 | but there's too much to this.
Here's a solution.
| | 02:07 | Simply eliminate about half the words, stick
with your main thought, "Big sound, quietly."
| | 02:14 | Give your name, say where you are, in this
case in Booth 12, eliminate that huge oppressive
| | 02:21 | rectangle, and let the photo
just open into white space.
| | 02:25 | Now when I saw this after, I had to get out
my ruler to convince myself that the photo
| | 02:31 | in the after was the same size as the one
in the before, because it looks much larger.
| | 02:37 | But it is indeed the same size
and the same cropping.
| | 02:41 | If you compare these side by side, you can
see the enormous difference, and you can really
| | 02:45 | see the difference when we
put them on the ceiling.
| | 02:48 | First the before...
| | 02:52 | And then the after...
| | 02:56 | The simpler design is the far more powerful design.
So, use fewer elements.
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| Keep it simple: Part 3| 00:03 | Most designs are not inherently simple. There's
just a lot of stuff that you need to put on your page.
| | 00:11 | A magazine cover is going to be an example
of that, nameplate, headlines, photographs,
| | 00:18 | date folios, all of that.
| | 00:21 | And so the solution here is to make all the
elements that are in the mix simpler and place
| | 00:30 | them in simpler ways.
So, here's an example.
| | 00:36 | The Ambient Photography Club publishes a
monthly magazine whose cover showcases the work
| | 00:41 | of one of its photographers.
| | 00:44 | The nameplate is set in a massive slab style
with an outline on it, a drop shadow behind it.
| | 00:54 | The photograph itself has a frame
around it with its own drop shadow.
| | 01:00 | The headlines are in a swashy calligraphic
typeface, the background is this electric Kodak yellow.
| | 01:08 | Any of these elements are fine by themselves.
| | 01:10 | But when you combine them all, they
make a busy, distracting presentation.
| | 01:17 | And to see just how distracting, watch
what happens when we take them all away.
| | 01:24 | The nameplate, the date folio, those swashy headlines,
the Kodak yellow, there is still a frame here, it's a phantom.
| | 01:38 | The way to get rid of that is to enlarge
the photograph to the sides, and drop it
| | 01:44 | to the bottom of the page.
| | 01:46 | And now we have a presentation
that's as simple as it can be.
| | 01:50 | It's just one photo and one field
of white separated by a single edge.
| | 01:55 | Now, we need to add all
these elements back in.
| | 01:59 | So, we'll start by sampling the dark edge of
the photograph and coloring the page black.
| | 02:06 | This simplifies it further.
| | 02:08 | Now we have an entire cover that's predominantly
black with just the attractive photo showing
| | 02:14 | on the page, and we'll
add the nameplate back in.
| | 02:18 | Now, in this case, the nameplate is set in
Helvetica Neue Light, and it's much more expressive of the name.
| | 02:26 | I mean, the word Ambient is kind of a soft--
it's a soft word and is kind of an airy light word,
| | 02:35 | and so our typeface now reflects that.
| | 02:39 | It has round forms,
there's a lot of air space in it.
| | 02:45 | Sample a color from the
photograph, and color it.
| | 02:50 | Add the date folio back in.
| | 02:51 | Now, the date folio is also
set in Helvetica Neue Light.
| | 02:56 | So we've simplified the
typography by using a single typeface.
| | 03:02 | And at this point, let's
stand back and have a look.
| | 03:06 | Now we have to add the headlines back in.
| | 03:09 | This is where it could get busy,
so here's a trick.
| | 03:12 | We are going to set the headlines also in the
same typeface which again keeps the type simple.
| | 03:25 | Set the first half of the headline, the
second half of the headline in bold type.
| | 03:31 | Now, instead of centering the block, we'll
find the dividing point between the light
| | 03:37 | and the dark areas and center to that instead.
This is how they do it in the movies.
| | 03:43 | And it makes a visually
interesting crystal-clear presentation.
| | 03:50 | Put this back on the page, and we're done.
| | 03:54 | Now, you are going to be tempted to fill the empty
space above the headlines, but don't do that.
| | 04:01 | It does two things: it keeps the page quiet,
and it also makes it look intentionally designed.
| | 04:08 | So, let's review this.
| | 04:10 | We now have the same cover with exactly the
same material on it, but it's been simplified.
| | 04:18 | Instead of many different things,
we now have several similar things.
| | 04:24 | We have a photograph separated from its
background, not with lines and borders and shadows,
| | 04:29 | but with a single clean edge.
| | 04:31 | All the type is set in the same typeface, and we
have an extremely small color palette for everything.
| | 04:43 | So, a complicated cover simplified.
| | 04:50 | And as you can see, the simplified version
is far more attractive than the complicated one.
| | 04:56 | And what's fun is that it
was also easier to design.
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| Have a focal point| 00:04 | Another way to keep things simple is to
make sure your design has a Focal Point.
| | 00:10 | A Focal Point is typically the biggest
or the brightest or the boldest or the most
| | 00:15 | different element on your page, and
it gives your reader a place to focus.
| | 00:24 | Bin of green apples, they are fine apples,
but we really have nowhere to look until we
| | 00:30 | turn one of them red, and
then it becomes obvious.
| | 00:36 | And you've actually simplified your
presentation for your viewer in doing this.
| | 00:44 | Here's an example of a magazine
spread that's partly designed.
| | 00:50 | We have an attractive base here.
| | 00:53 | By base, I mean a basic layout here.
| | 00:56 | But you'd have to be really motivated to read
this story, because it's just all gray text,
| | 01:03 | and you have to read in order
to discover what the story is about.
| | 01:12 | All this changes when we add a Focal Point.
| | 01:17 | Our model now could be what the story is about or it could
be about summer or what she is wearing or whatever.
| | 01:26 | But now with this big attractive picture, the rest
of the article becomes very easy to read,
| | 01:35 | very light to read, and as you're reading, you're
kind of relating to what that picture is conveying.
| | 01:45 | You can make a Focal Point just using type.
| | 01:49 | In this case, a massive
word FIRE anchors this design.
| | 01:56 | And with that, it's very easy to
read the remainder of the copy.
| | 02:04 | Here's another example.
| | 02:06 | We have a simple black-and-white flyer with two
graphics, a logotype, a headline, and some text.
| | 02:15 | All are about the same size.
| | 02:17 | They all have similar color
value, no Focal Point on this page.
| | 02:23 | We'll make a much more attractive design
as well as make the page easier to read.
| | 02:27 | We can do this simply just by making one of
those graphics quite large, and the others smaller.
| | 02:37 | This gives your eye a place to go.
| | 02:39 | As this is a hierarchy of big, medium, and
small, it makes the page more attractive,
| | 02:45 | easier to read, simple
solution, create a Focal Point.
| | 02:51 | Here's an example that's more complex.
| | 02:53 | Now, this is the inside of a three-panel
brochure that was sent to us by the
| | 02:57 | Southwest Mental Health Center in San Antonio, Texas.
| | 03:00 | It's just three gray columns of type
with blue tombstone style heads over them.
| | 03:08 | And concealed in all this gray are at least
five stories, and they're interesting ones.
| | 03:15 | And so, for the makeover, the first step was to create
a focal statement that was also the visual Focal Point.
| | 03:28 | And in this case, we needed to dig through
the copy and find kind of an overarching
| | 03:36 | statement, sort of the umbrella statement, which
turns out to be there is hope for children and youth.
| | 03:44 | Set that large in two colors, added
photographs of children, and put it
| | 03:52 | in the upper-left corner of the brochure.
| | 03:54 | And this now becomes the Focal Point.
Next step was to add the second-level story.
| | 04:03 | And you'll notice that there
are some bold portions of this.
| | 04:09 | Those bold phrases actually create kind of a
third-level story that you can read very quickly.
| | 04:16 | I mean, you can peruse very quickly and
get a sense of what the copy is about.
| | 04:21 | Down in the lower-left corner was added the
biographical information for the hospital itself.
| | 04:28 | We made it in gray to recede a bit, added
the picture of the boy to tie to the photos
| | 04:37 | that are in the headline, and then finally
added the four primary services of the hospital
| | 04:43 | and just listed them 1, 2, 3, 4 with their
own orange heads, tied the whole thing together
| | 04:49 | with the theme of a butterfly.
| | 04:52 | So, now what we have on this page is
a hierarchy of big, medium, and small,
| | 05:00 | things you see first, things you see second,
things you see third.
| | 05:03 | But the key here is that the big head, there is hope for
children and youth, sort of influences everything on the page.
| | 05:14 | When I say it's the Focal Point and the focal
center of the page, you now read the top story.
| | 05:22 | And as you're reading, you're thinking
there is hope for children and youth.
| | 05:27 | And as you're reading the biographical
information for the hospital, you're thinking
| | 05:31 | there's hope for children and youth.
| | 05:33 | And as you're reading the services of the hospital,
you are thinking there's hope for children and youth.
| | 05:38 | So, that's the effect that a Focal Point has.
| | 05:42 | It just sort of projects
itself into the entire design.
| | 05:48 | A last example, this is typical of where
you have a large space to fill, in this case,
| | 05:56 | an 8.5x11 inch cover, and not
a lot of material to go on it.
| | 06:01 | Our tendency is to just kind of
make everything big to fill that space.
| | 06:06 | But you'll get a stronger
design if you do the opposite.
| | 06:10 | If you actually reduce your design area and
focus it, has the effect of intensifying it.
| | 06:20 | So, in this case, we'll just throw all the
big things off the page and basically reduce
| | 06:27 | the page size to about half, and then
along a centerline put all the heads back in.
| | 06:39 | Lift the lizard out of its background, and
set him into our new design area, kind of
| | 06:48 | overlapping as his tail is kind of
spilling out onto the page, and that's it.
| | 06:56 | We have now a stronger,
more focused presentation.
| | 07:01 | So, we've kind of used the entire contents of the
cover as a Focal Point and thereby improved it.
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| Get extreme| 00:04 | Another kind of focal point, another way of
getting simple is to do what I call Get Extreme.
| | 00:13 | And this usually takes the form of making one
element on your page extremely big. Here's an example.
| | 00:25 | Take a simple Dingbat Font.
| | 00:28 | Dingbat fonts are full of tiny graphics that
are small enough that you'd normally overlook.
| | 00:35 | And just enlarge one of those graphics to
super size, add your line of type, and you've
| | 00:43 | really created a dynamic, a kind of exciting,
interesting to look at poster out of something very small.
| | 00:55 | Another example is the clock.
| | 00:59 | In this case, the art on the clock is
kind of the scrawled handwritten name.
| | 01:07 | Key here is that it's so big
it doesn't quite fit the space.
| | 01:13 | It bleeds out on to both sides.
It's very attractive.
| | 01:17 | It is the focal center of the clock.
It doesn't have to be handwritten.
| | 01:22 | Here, we're using Helvetica Neue-Black
with very much the same effect.
| | 01:30 | Key is to make it too big to fit the space.
So, get extreme with it.
| | 01:36 | Another example, a magazine ad
built around a single statement.
| | 01:44 | In this case, we've taken the number 48 and
just enlarged it to super size, bled it right
| | 01:50 | off the left side of the page, added the copy,
added a photograph, picked a color from that
| | 01:59 | photograph to color the 48, and just by
getting extreme, created a handsome design,
| | 02:10 | clear focal point, clear hierarchy,
simple presentation, easy to read.
| | 02:18 | A last example, we're creating a poster out
of two visual elements: the Geisha and the fan.
| | 02:27 | We have a favorite design instructor who
will tell her students to make one element large
| | 02:32 | and the other one small, and typically
they will come back with this.
| | 02:38 | And one is larger, in fact, and one is smaller.
But that's not what she means.
| | 02:43 | What she means is this, one element
extremely big, and the other one tiny.
| | 02:52 | Place the fan on top of
the Geisha, and add the copy.
| | 02:59 | And what's interesting here is that the
copy which is beautifully set becomes kind of
| | 03:04 | a second focal point on this poster.
| | 03:08 | And every line on the page, note, I mean
her nose, her line of sight from her eyes,
| | 03:16 | her lapel shapes are all pointing straight
down the page to the fan and the headline.
| | 03:25 | She is so big, she doesn't fit the space.
| | 03:29 | So, an extremely large picture, a
tiny image makes a very handsome poster.
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| Put white to work| 00:03 | Another essential is to make use of white space.
| | 00:06 | Now, this is going to be
similar to the focal point.
| | 00:12 | White space is a requirement for all design.
You can't really design without it.
| | 00:19 | And to see how that works,
just look at the stack of coins.
| | 00:22 | It's like those apples that we saw earlier.
| | 00:25 | They are just all over the place, a lot
of coins, no real clear place to look.
| | 00:31 | We're going to have a stronger
presentation if we get rid of half the coins.
| | 00:36 | Now, we have a coin half, a white half, and we
have an interesting line that divides the two halves.
| | 00:46 | In this case, we'll turn the white half green.
We still call this white space.
| | 00:52 | You can think if it as negative space, perhaps.
| | 00:55 | Add our headline and logo
and have a handsome design very simply.
| | 01:03 | Another example, here we have a page with
a picture of the Sage and its description.
| | 01:10 | But along with that, we also have a gradient
fill on the background, we have some shadows,
| | 01:16 | we have some rectangles, we have a border around the gradient
fill, a lot of extra non-communicating material,
| | 01:24 | or I should say it's not non-communicating,
it actually is communicating, but it's noise,
| | 01:31 | it's not communicating anything about
the Sage or about the copy or any of that.
| | 01:36 | So, the solution here is to get rid of all that
material, and rely on white space as your canvas.
| | 01:44 | Get the photograph out of that box, make it
large, reduce the size of the word Sage,
| | 01:53 | add the copy, and you now have a
very calm, minimal presentation.
| | 02:00 | The only things on it are the key communicating
elements, the photograph and the text.
| | 02:06 | Very handsome, simple to design, you
didn't have to make all the decisions about,
| | 02:12 | gee, should I put a border or a box
or a background or a shadow or anything?
| | 02:17 | You just don't have to
make any of those decisions.
| | 02:20 | Just present the material simply
and clearly in open white space.
| | 02:27 | Here is a way to use white that's especially
useful if you're printing on an office desktop
| | 02:35 | printer, one of those ones
that can't print to the edge.
| | 02:38 | So, what happens typically is you'll get
an unprinted white frame around your image.
| | 02:47 | The real problem with that is
that it's an undesignable space.
| | 02:51 | On some printers, it's wider on one side
than the other, and it's going to mess up your
| | 02:58 | design, at least if you have a
design that wants to bleed to the edge.
| | 03:02 | So, the solution for this sounds
paradoxical, but it's to create more white.
| | 03:12 | You bring your image in a long way from the
edge of the page, and now that frame disappears,
| | 03:19 | and just use the pure white background basically as a design
element, very handsome cover using the material at hand.
| | 03:32 | Several ways to arrange this, you can center it, could
be flushed to the right, flushed to the left, whatever.
| | 03:41 | But in every case, the key is to make that
undesignable white become your background
| | 03:50 | in your canvas, and make your positive
space, your images smaller on the page.
| | 03:58 | This allows you to shape them, to move
them around, to create hierarchy for them.
| | 04:05 | Great solution.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Unblock it| 00:04 | We seem to live in a world of rectangles.
| | 00:06 | Paper is rectangular, our computer screens are
rectangular, our mobile devices are rectangular,
| | 00:12 | photographs are rectangular.
| | 00:16 | What happens with all these rectangles
is we begin designing rectangles.
| | 00:20 | The problem being that rectangles by
themselves are not very good communicators.
| | 00:27 | So we'll get better designs if we
think literally outside the box.
| | 00:34 | Here's an example of a typical situation.
| | 00:37 | We'll start with a rectangular
field and put a rectangular photo on it.
| | 00:43 | It looks benign enough, but when you put a
rectangle on top of a rectangle you actually
| | 00:48 | are creating more rectangles.
| | 00:51 | Your mind probably filters these out, but
your eyes see them and need to process them.
| | 00:57 | We'll add a headline and in this case
it's in all caps which also is rectangular.
| | 01:02 | I will add a block of type,
justified on both margins.
| | 01:09 | It, too, is a rectangle and finish with two
more photos both of which are rectangular.
| | 01:18 | What happens when we do this is that
we're not really designing the story now.
| | 01:25 | We're designing rectangles and arranging them,
moving them around the page and so on to get
| | 01:31 | rectangles to look good with one another.
| | 01:34 | A better solution is to just
completely ignore the rectangles.
| | 01:38 | Let's take the eagle out of his box, lead
him to the right and to the bottom edge of
| | 01:44 | this, add at our headline back in, in this
case very large in upper and lower case
| | 01:51 | which is quite non-rectangular.
Add our map back in but out of its box.
| | 01:59 | Then finally add the type and we
have a far more handsome design.
| | 02:08 | We're designing the elements now.
We're designing the photos.
| | 02:10 | We're designing the map.
| | 02:12 | We're designing the text rather than
designing rectangles. Great solution.
| | 02:22 | Think out of the box.
| | 02:26 | This kind of an interesting example.
Angela Versari is a designer.
| | 02:31 | She is an Italian living and working in
South Africa and she designed a business card for
| | 02:37 | herself and sent it to me for a critique.
| | 02:40 | Readers will typically do this when
they're not entirely happy with their design.
| | 02:45 | Angela sent along some commentary,
though, that was very useful.
| | 02:50 | She said she loves Times Roman and she loves red
and black and she wanted a card that was not girly.
| | 03:02 | She actually has a great combination of things
going on here, which you'll will see in a minute,
| | 03:09 | but her card consists of her A-V initials, one
in black, one in white on a red rectangular
| | 03:17 | field, her name in a swashy calligraphic
typeface centered near the upper left side of the card,
| | 03:27 | and her contact information in
a single line along the bottom.
| | 03:32 | I asked her, I said, "Angela,
what's with the squiggle?"
| | 03:32 | And she said, well, she put the squiggle in to try
to soften the design, because it just was looking too rigid.
| | 03:44 | Well, the rigidity is
coming from the rectangles.
| | 03:48 | You have a rectangular red logo on a rectangular
card with a rectangular line of type along
| | 03:54 | the bottom, and it leaves kind of funny
rectangular white spaces in the middle of the card.
| | 04:01 | All of that begins with her
initials that she put in the box.
| | 04:07 | Look closely at this and you'll see
a Times Roman A in front in white.
| | 04:15 | Behind it is a Times Roman V.
| | 04:18 | It's actually Times Roman bold, which is not
nearly as attractive a typeface as Times Roman,
| | 04:24 | but it's larger and in the back you have Versari along
the bottom all in upper case Times Roman with a shadow on it.
| | 04:32 | So you have the A with both its serifs.
| | 04:37 | Basically, the A has--or should have
its feet on the ground.
| | 04:43 | It's sitting in a stance with
these two legs. But it's floating.
| | 04:49 | You have a light source
coming from usual area, the bottom.
| | 04:54 | The light normally comes from the top.
| | 04:57 | But the real problem here is when you take
all this and stick it inside a box, you begin
| | 05:05 | immediately to create other shapes, because the
letters now will begin interacting with that box.
| | 05:13 | In this case the letters are triangular,
so it creates a lot more triangles.
| | 05:20 | All of these things are
non-communicating elements.
| | 05:25 | The rectangle of the box, the triangles that
are happening inside the box have really nothing
| | 05:30 | to do with your initials.
| | 05:33 | In this case the solution is very simple and
that's just take everything out of the box,
| | 05:40 | we'll start with the letter V.
| | 05:44 | Make it in red.
This is Times Roman.
| | 05:47 | Make a copy of this, turn
it upside-down for the A.
| | 05:53 | Now we've colored the A black, because
it's the stronger of the two letters.
| | 05:59 | It's planted on the ground.
It's in the dominant position.
| | 06:03 | So it gets the dominant color.
| | 06:07 | Because we don't want the A, though, to dominate
the V, we'll split it, and I've separated these
| | 06:14 | just so you can see what's going on
and send one of those legs to the back.
| | 06:21 | Suddenly, we have a very attractive image.
| | 06:28 | It's red and black, very
strong colors in Times Roman.
| | 06:33 | There's no bold here.
There's no shadows. There's no box.
| | 06:37 | It looks very much like a Roman numeral
which is appropriate, certainly in this case.
| | 06:42 | We'll add her name and we have a great result,
very simply using all of her original elements.
| | 06:54 | But it comes from getting things
unblocked or unboxed.
| | 07:01 | Now to make her business card, we'll just--
we'll center this on one side of the card,
| | 07:07 | add her name to the left, her last
name to the right in corresponding color.
| | 07:13 | we'll put her contact information on the back.
The design is the same.
| | 07:18 | We have her name in upper case type,
Angela in black, Versari in red.
| | 07:25 | Everything centered, same theme as the front.
Crystal-clear design.
| | 07:31 | You might be tempted to make
the back of the card also red.
| | 07:34 | That would be a little overwhelming.
| | 07:36 | It's easier to read the black and
the red when they're against white.
| | 07:42 | So we're using this
because the type is so small.
| | 07:47 | But now we have a very, very handsome result.
This logo looks great on a T-shirt.
| | 07:56 | It looks great on a shopping bag, just a very,
very simple, very handsome, very focused design,
| | 08:08 | and it all started with getting it unblocked.
| | 08:18 | Another simple example that you can use
all the time is with cropping your photos.
| | 08:24 | Photos come out of the camera rectangular,
but you know in this case the dog doesn't
| | 08:30 | really live in a rectangle.
| | 08:33 | The solution here is a simple one and that's just
to crop a piece of the rectangular background away.
| | 08:43 | Let his ear poke up outside the frame.
| | 08:47 | That's all it takes to sort of free him, free the dog,
give a sense that he's in real life, rather than in a box.
| | 08:57 | A more dramatic example is
going to be with this jet aircraft.
| | 09:02 | We crop half of the background.
| | 09:04 | In this case which is the
sky, crop half of it away.
| | 09:08 | We can have the jet flying into its background.
It can fly out of its background.
| | 09:14 | Add a small block of text
in the upper left corner.
| | 09:19 | It's a really handsome result.
Now this is a result, this is not subtle.
| | 09:24 | I mean, the reader is going to notice this cropping,
but that's kind of what's cool about it in this case.
| | 09:31 | So, great design by unblocking your design.
Another example, this you'll encounter a lot.
| | 09:41 | This is where you have a brochure panel and
a block of type to go on it and what happens
| | 09:47 | because that type is justified and
probably even it wasn't justified,
| | 09:53 | you get kind of a rectangle inside a rectangle.
| | 09:58 | An easy way to mitigate that effect is to
just add line leading, or line spacing.
| | 10:07 | There's still a rectangle there, but because there's
so much airspace in there you don't have
| | 10:12 | the sense that there's just a little block
sitting on the page inside another block.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Set type boldly| 00:03 | Type is art.
| | 00:06 | Type designers spend a tremendous amount of time
and effort to make their lines and shapes beautiful.
| | 00:15 | Well, make artistic creations.
We designers can take advantage of that.
| | 00:25 | One way is to not be timid in our use
of type, but rather to set it boldly.
| | 00:33 | Here's an example, you've seen this already,
of a massive typeface called Giza in contrast
| | 00:43 | with a smaller serif typeface all
set in this rectangle. Very handsome.
| | 00:50 | This design is carried by the typography alone.
So, set type boldly.
| | 00:58 | Another example is our CD cover.
| | 01:01 | This is a cool, fun technique where type has
been set boldly and has created a pattern,
| | 01:08 | somewhat abstract pattern that nevertheless is
easy to read by setting the type in a variety
| | 01:16 | of sizes and coloring it a variety of tones and
just running it across the center of the field.
| | 01:26 | You can use this technique for all kinds of things,
create a pattern out of your type by setting it boldly.
| | 01:35 | Monterey Classics Week is cool
because of the huge contrast in type styles.
| | 01:40 | Futura-Extra Bold is this massive sans serif typeface contrasted
with this very light, airy, flowing script named Sloop.
| | 01:52 | The bold type is in the bold color, the
light face type is in the light color, and then
| | 01:58 | the dateline below the bottom is the smallest
and spread out so there is mostly air there.
| | 02:04 | But you see enormous contrasts all on a
centerline that give this setting its artistic presence.
| | 02:18 | Another example, this one would be commonly
used in a publication on a page where you
| | 02:24 | have two stories and you could do this with
three or four even going into the same space.
| | 02:32 | Set some of your type very large on a
wide column in normal serif text type.
| | 02:40 | Then set your other article in a
contrasting typeface much smaller bold sans-serif.
| | 02:50 | So you have contrast in type style.
You have contrast in type weight.
| | 02:56 | You have contrast in type width,
and you have contrast in type size.
| | 03:02 | Easy-to-read presentation, but it
begins with setting the large type boldly.
| | 03:11 | Taking text type that you'd normally set
at a normal size and making it very big.
| | 03:18 | Another magazine example.
This two-page spread is made entirely of type.
| | 03:25 | Whitespace also plays a key role here.
| | 03:30 | Whitespace that we haven't filled the space
with copy, but left plenty of white and that
| | 03:36 | allows us to then move
the blocks of type around.
| | 03:40 | But the focal point of this spread
obviously is the large initial letter B.
| | 03:46 | We have smaller headlines off to the left
of it and then the blocks of text are set
| | 03:54 | in justified columns in and around it.
| | 03:58 | On the right-hand white page you can see
that the two callouts have been set in green
| | 04:05 | and they have been set in a rectangular area.
| | 04:08 | So this whole thing has been constructed like
Legos, like building blocks are making a very
| | 04:14 | handsome layout using nothing but type.
| | 04:17 | You have a look twice to realize there is
actually no image on this page, it's just all typography.
| | 04:25 | A favorite technique of mine is to set two words with no
space between them and differentiate the words in two ways.
| | 04:37 | One is by an extreme contrast in type weight.
| | 04:42 | In this case, we have four pixels set in
Gotham Ultra contrasted to a superlight typeface.
| | 04:51 | Very, very bold, very lively
differentiation makes for a very bold setting.
| | 05:00 | Similarly, here we have names and titles all
set in Gotham Ultra with no space between them.
| | 05:09 | The differentiation here is in color.
So we leave the four names.
| | 05:14 | These are our four pixels in white on the left and
the titles in various shades of color on the right.
| | 05:24 | Again, the design becomes lively. It's vivid.
It's artistic. It's fun and very easy to do.
| | 05:34 | Here is a way to set type that's
bold and low key at the same time.
| | 05:43 | This is a technique that you would use
for anything kind of classic or classy.
| | 05:50 | And that is to set your words normally.
| | 05:55 | Here we have the St. Philomene Shelter of Seattle,
Washington, with a single image centered on the page.
| | 06:02 | The type is two lines, upper case.
| | 06:05 | Now, just add a lot of
letter spacing to those words.
| | 06:11 | That's an effect I think of as panoramic,
just spreads the word across the page and
| | 06:17 | gives it a sense of titling, a sense of importance,
of grandeur, of authority, all while being very low-key.
| | 06:27 | Note that the OF SEATTLE, WASHINGTON has been
reduced in size and made gray instead of black.
| | 06:35 | So it recedes in importance.
This is a simple technique, it's used often.
| | 06:41 | You will see this is often used in the movies.
| | 06:45 | Just set your type panoramically and
thereby making a bold presentation.
| | 06:53 | Here we are looking at two pages from
an ordinary black-and-white newsletter.
| | 06:58 | What's a little unusual about
these is how dense they are with type.
| | 07:01 | I mean just top to bottom,
wall-to-wall solid type.
| | 07:07 | What's a little harder to see is that there
are actually six editorial articles here as
| | 07:12 | was too small advertising bits.
| | 07:17 | But because the type is all so much alike,
it's almost impossible at a glance to see that.
| | 07:24 | Our makeover has almost as much density of
as the before, but in this case you now can
| | 07:33 | see the six articles, because there is more space.
We added space in the gutter, between the pages
| | 07:39 | and between all the columns,
made the type slightly smaller.
| | 07:45 | But most importantly made the headlines bold.
| | 07:49 | So here is a close-up look at those heads
on the before, the type is all the same.
| | 07:58 | It's the same style.
It's pretty much the same size.
| | 08:02 | We have a bold or a semi-bold
headline in all caps.
| | 08:07 | We have a byline that's in small caps and
justified type, all of which runs together in a gray blur.
| | 08:16 | The solution to that was to
create bold type contrasts.
| | 08:22 | So the new headline is still in
bold caps, but now it's bolder.
| | 08:27 | This is ITC Franklin Gothic Heavy, and it's
the in high contrast against the byline which
| | 08:36 | is now set in every white
face called Horley Old Style.
| | 08:42 | Note the author's name is small, but
in upper case and spread out somewhat.
| | 08:50 | There is some letter spacing added there.
| | 08:53 | The University of Maryland is
all obviously in lower case italic.
| | 08:59 | So you have several kinds of contrasts.
| | 09:02 | You have contrast of size, contrasts of style,
contrasts of weight and contrast of spacing.
| | 09:11 | Then there's a small underline, a short
underline, and the text begins with a three-line
| | 09:17 | drop cap, which really gives
your eyes someplace to focus.
| | 09:22 | Note the first three words coming off of that
dropped out are set in small upper case type.
| | 09:29 | These are a little bit bigger than small caps and note, too,
that they have been letter spaced, or spread out somewhat.
| | 09:39 | So these bold typographic contrasts are a good solution
on what is otherwise a very mundane, very routine project.
| | 09:54 | Make the stories stand out,
give each one some distinction.
| | 09:58 | So set type boldly.
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| Use beautiful color| 00:04 | Color is like magic.
| | 00:07 | We are so attracted to color and so repelled
by color we don't like that the coolest design
| | 00:14 | in the world could be presented to us, and
if we don't like its color, we don't like it.
| | 00:20 | This is true of clothing. It's true of cars.
It's true of all kinds of consumer products.
| | 00:29 | They can have the greatest design, the
greatest cut, and the fabric, the nicest material,
| | 00:35 | the highest quality craftsmanship.
| | 00:39 | And if we don't like the color,
we're not going to buy it.
| | 00:44 | So what I like to show you here are several
ways to get good results using color.
| | 00:53 | These are easy repeatable things that you
can do working on really almost anything.
| | 01:00 | In this case we're going to work with
an image and make a magazine spread.
| | 01:07 | So it begins with the photograph.
| | 01:10 | I've picked this photograph on purpose, this
particular picture on purpose, because it's quite neutral.
| | 01:18 | Flash tones, light brown hair, neutral.
| | 01:23 | What we want to do is begin by finding
the color palette that's in the picture.
| | 01:29 | The easy way to do that
is to pixelize this photo.
| | 01:34 | This could be done in Photoshop.
It could be done in Illustrator.
| | 01:38 | And reduce it to large squares.
This averages these colors together.
| | 01:42 | Once you get experienced with this,
you don't have to take this step.
| | 01:48 | But for now, it's worthwhile.
Just select colors from around the picture.
| | 01:55 | You're going to want to get the big
colors, meaning that colors there's most of.
| | 02:02 | You're going to want to get some small
colors, the colors there is least of.
| | 02:07 | You're going to want to get some
shadows and some highlights and some midtones.
| | 02:14 | Now what you can do is take any of
those colors to color the facing page.
| | 02:22 | You could do a medium brown, a
dark gray, a light sandy tan color.
| | 02:32 | They all look nice.
| | 02:35 | The reason they all look nice is because
they are all native to that photograph.
| | 02:40 | So they just automatically go with it.
| | 02:44 | You can get great results this
way with almost with any photograph.
| | 02:49 | Use colors that are in the photo.
| | 02:53 | Depending on your picture, sometimes you'll
find that you need a wider range of colors.
| | 02:59 | In some cases pulling colors solely from
the photo can make it look a little flat.
| | 03:07 | To do that you'll need to
bring in the color wheel.
| | 03:10 | The color wheel we use is just an old
fashion artist's wheel with the three primaries of
| | 03:17 | Red, Blue, and Yellow on it.
| | 03:20 | It's used for paining. This is not an RGB wheel that's on
your computer in Photoshop, or combination RGB/CMYK wheel.
| | 03:29 | It's used strictly as a guide.
| | 03:32 | The wheel that we use has 24 different
colors on it and shades from light to dark.
| | 03:38 | Anyway, bring the wheel over and
now select a color from the photo.
| | 03:46 | Your first step is going to be
to find it on the color wheel.
| | 03:50 | It doesn't have to be an exact match.
| | 03:53 | This is just a guide, but find it on the
wheel and that color will then give you what we
| | 04:01 | call a monochromatic range from light to dark.
| | 04:05 | And you can use any of the tints and shades
in that range will work as a color for you.
| | 04:14 | A little wider range of color,
the colors we call analogous colors.
| | 04:19 | That's the color that you find in the photo plus
the colors immediately to the right or left of it.
| | 04:26 | Sometimes you can go to two slots
to the right two slots to the left.
| | 04:30 | In this case, we're going for a
fresh lime green as well as yellow.
| | 04:38 | Analogous colors always work well together.
| | 04:42 | That's because they have a lot of color in common.
In this case, all three of these colors are full of yellow.
| | 04:50 | And because the original color came right from the
photo, they just will all go naturally with the photo.
| | 04:59 | If you use colors on opposite sides of the
wheel, you have what we call complimentary colors.
| | 05:06 | These have nothing in common.
Compliments are the highest contrast colors.
| | 05:13 | Purple and yellow which is what we have in this case
also have the highest value contrast of all colors.
| | 05:21 | Purple being very dark, yellow being very light.
| | 05:26 | They, too, will go with your
photo, as you can see here.
| | 05:31 | Purple facing page, light word summer.
| | 05:35 | Again, both go with this kind of neutral image,
but they are all based on or both those colors
| | 05:42 | are based on the colors
that you see in the image.
| | 05:46 | Similarly, you have the triadic colors.
These are colors in thirds around the wheel.
| | 05:52 | In this case because we're starting with
yellow, our triad happens to be the primary colors
| | 05:59 | of Yellow, Red, and Blue.
These colors always go together also.
| | 06:04 | Note here that we're using Red, Yellow, and
Blue pretty much at full strength, fully saturated,
| | 06:11 | or almost fully saturated.
| | 06:14 | But if we change that, if we keep the Red,
Yellow, and Blue, but move the sliders
| | 06:18 | out toward the shades and the tints,
we get a much more desaturated look.
| | 06:25 | So it's a lower key look,
more sophisticated look.
| | 06:30 | You might call it a classier look, but they are the
same basic colors, just different tints and shades.
| | 06:38 | Here we've stared with a darker shade of Yellow,
which changes the other two triads as well.
| | 06:46 | Very handsome results.
| | 06:47 | In this case, we're using a very deep Blue Green and
a very light Magenta to go along with the sandy color.
| | 06:57 | Just by changing the two to a lighter blue
green, we now change the look of the page as well.
| | 07:05 | All of these combinations are easily
used with any photo or in any design.
| | 07:15 | Remember that you can use light and dark
shades of the same color and they'll always work,
| | 07:21 | giving you good-looking
repeatable results every time.
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