DESIGN

Market yourself
for Pritam

by Ute S 2013

DESIGN

Market yourself
for Hari Bhajan

by Ute S 2013

ROGRAM INDEX

day one:

Load software

Discussion: Design principles

Discuss colour

Look at colour examples

Discuss placement of content

Look at examples

day two:

Visit Irene flea market etc.

Lunch

Review Design principles

Technical training

Adobe Photoshop CS 5

Discuss focus

Continue with Exercise 1

Look at focus examples

Execute exercise 2

Watch Chip Kidd video

Execute exercise 1

Discuss the design body

Intoduce Photoshop CS 5

day three:

Lunch

Review Photoshop:

Revision exercise

Introduction to Adobe
Illustrator

Lunch

Discuss the application of

the desigin body

Start with exercise 3

Continue with Adobe

Illustrator lessons

DESIGN PRINCIPLES
Colour
3 to 5 colours

Placement of
content

Contrast

S format

Colour harmony rules

Use the entire page

One bright colour ONLY

Hierachy of
information

Balancing your use of colour

Focus

Size, shape, light

Balance
The power of a
triangle.

dont use
placefillers.

Line

Allow space for

breathing.
Keep it simple

The design body

1.

2.

3.

images
(heart)

text
(mind)

composition
(spine)

vector

Text a tool for

creating space

The illusion of movement.

bitmap
trends
All photos create an emotional
reaction. Let that emotion serve
the
higher purpose of the entire
design
Be subtle
resolution

serif and san serif

Heading
Subheading
Body text
Signature
Be playful
3 Fonts only

Rhytm
Scale and Proportion
Line
Align all edges

esign process

Conceptual:
Verbalise your message in a short
sentence, eg: We are part of a caring
community
Who would be in your ideal audience?
Design with that person in mind.
Research: look, collect, go back, get
excited.
Spend time looking at designs you admire and analysise your reaction.
Using only pencil and paper, start
thinking about what YOU want to do.
Finalise three themes. (Our first ideas
are relflections of the medias projections and are therefore often entirely
unoriginal.)
(Time: 10 hours)

Technical:
Get your text content finalised.
Stay focussed on your output perimeters and respect them:
digital vs print
Create a lay-out in Illustrator
Insert your images
Decide on a font

Limit your usage to two fonts (three at the

absolute most) to help viewers focus on
the words, not how many different fonts
are saying them.
Dan Rubin

Apply your colour palette

Print out a proof, stick the proof on
the wall, and sit back and look at it
from a distance of at least 2 metres.

I make all my decisions on intuition. But then, I must know why

I made that decision. I throw a
spear into the darkness. That is
intuition. Then I must send an
army into the darkness to find the
spear. That is intellect.
Ingmar Bergman

Ask yourself; Why is it working and

what does it still need?
Insert a visual surprise, a hook.
Add your improvements and repeat
the process.
No design is complete without shoes
and styled hair. Look at what small detail such as a glyph,
will create a rounded experience.
,
(Time: anything from 1 day to a couple
of weeks)

Common mistakes
Everything must be symmetrical. I have to use every available millimeter
of my page to get my moneys worth. My design is actually an advertisement for who
I am, and not for my message. Text is not important. photos are the only thing people look
at. Nobody will notice when I stretch an image. It is ok to put text in bold, underline it and put
exclamation marks at the end. People really care about knowing everything in detail. The more
colours, the merrier. Complicated looks clever. The more fonts, the better. Its ok not to

have one theme for my design, but three, or none at all. It takes 30 minutes to design.
The design process starts only when my laptop is switched on.The best alignment is from the
left to the right. Putting things in the middle of a page is the only good idea. I dont have to csre
about my audience, it is their job to get me.Spelling is not important. Safe design, like in that
magazine my neighbours read, is good design. Fashionable design is good design, always.

People have to understand what I am trying to say in order to enjoy it. Who I am

is seperate from the way I design. I design better under time

Design is a mystical process.

constraints.

Design tips
What is fashionable in design at the moment:
What does Google,Facebook and any good book have in common?
How timeless is the current design trend?
Start with a simple shape. Repeat it. Connect it.
Just start simple, period.
Sophistication comes with the development of a simple theme.
Always do something bold with the title. In that way it may become timeless
Look at the symbols that are already in peoples minds. Work with what is
regocgnizable.
Design is about meeting a challenge, about giving a voice to an airy nothing. It takes time, but it is in the end, a very practical execution.
When designing for yourself: Think what do you want your icon to be?
Find it, refine it, keep it, update it once every 5 years. (Look at infographic
of logos.)
An audience responds to emotion. Always. Use it.
Always design in black. If it looks good in black, it will look good in your
favourite colours.
Dont ask peoples opinion about your design. Only ask other visual creatives. Most non-designers have no idea how to give constructive critisism.
If you know something can be done on your computer, but you cant
remember how, you WILL figure it out. Its already there.
Have a question? Google it.
Experiment! Retief van Wyk: Go all the way. Do everything you want and
put it in your design. Then cut it in half.

Great design is eliminating all unnecessary details.

Minh D. Tran
Be bold. Great, or even good design is never created by playing it safe.
Have design heroes. Study their styles and techniques. It is wonderful probably the best way to learn. It keeps you from reinventing the wheel and
then expecting applause for your accomplishment.
Dont be scared to let something go - even if you have worked on it for hours.
If by letting an element dissapear and your design is the better for it, you have
learnt the most important lesson of design.
Nine out of ten of your designs will range from bad to passable. This is not because you are not good, it is because you are still clarifying your vision of the
design. This is why you keep on keeping on. Give your vision a chance to catch
up with your fingers.
All designs go through valleys of being terrible to peaks of being great. The
only trick is to STOP while you are still on a peak.
Make your audience feel special: reflect name, address their loyalty, eg. proudly South African, create a feeling of casual intimacy. Use the voice of a friend.
Give your audience a chance to respond or be interactive.

Design exercises
Day 1.
Exercise 1. Learning to look
Using the magazines given to you to create 3 A5 storyboards.
Choose three palletes of five colours each:
#Ellegant #Dramatic #Theme of your choice
Choose a font for each.
Choose lines/ draw lines that suits your theme. Look at shape, thickness and
evenness of lines

Day 2
Combine the above into 3 themed business cards
Exercise 2. Learning to analyse
Take two of the designs you like best and
combine them into a fresh design.
USe an objective that interests you - a business card, an invitation etcetera.
Although this might feel like a time-consuming activity, it is literally the best
way to become an effective designer.
In the long run, you will reap the benefits forever

Day 3
Exercise 3. Learning to make mistakes
Create your own pamphlet for output: printing
Include the following:
Background
Texture
Frame
Heading
Sub-heading
Body text
Image

Design is as much a matter of finding problems as it is solving

them.
Bryan Lawson

Perception exercises to indulge in at home:

1.
When you watch a movie at home, look at the introductions fonts. How do
they alter your expectation of the film your about to watch?

I have a soft spot for 90s drama film fonts. They are usually serif fonts, italic
and white, with lots of glyphs. It is just so very suburban white-picket-fence.
2.
As you walk into a bookstore, take a look - what book draws your attention
from 2 metres away? Why? Walk closer - is it still powerful close up, or does it
have the unfortunate sense of being pretty form far, but....
As Paul Arden states in Its Not How Good You Are, Its
How Good You Want To Be:
Print advertising should be recognisable at a hundred
paces, and it should be obvious who its an ad for without
seeing the brand name.

3.
As you scroll through websites, pay attention to the colour of the websites to
which you are drawn. It can be quite suprising. Some of us respond better to
colours that represent shock, and at other times we have a desire for calm,
which creates a different pull again.

co

lour

placement

focus

design examples

form

colour

line

content

placement

background

mood

rhythm