Saturday, 30 January 2010

Design Tips

penguin 
  • Don’t underline anything (underlining was only used with typewriters).
  • Capital letters are more difficult to read.
  • Only use capital letters for emphasis, and only if you have to.  Make the caps smaller than the rest of the typeface so they fit within the surrounding text.
  • Kerning and Leading – you can kern in Quark and InDesign.
  • Use Leading for emphasis/de-emphasis.
  • Make sure your typeface is readable and legible.
  • Look at the spaces in the book – how do they work?
  • Make a grid in In-Design to work within.
  • Decide on the paper quality you want.
  • Paper proportions (A4, square, etc).
  1. KISS – Keep It Simple, Stupid!
  2. Smaller text.
  3. More white spaces.
  4. The PICTURES are the story.
  5. Contrast and tension.
Order out of Chaos
  • Repeatability
  • Composition
  • Communication
Five Steps to Good Design
  • Consistency.
  • Hierarchy.
  • Typography (fonts).
  • Materials (paper, etc).
  • Layout (grids, margins).