Extra Mile Design - Design Tips

1. Know your audience.
- Start with good planning. How much do they already know about the subject? How much time are they likely to spend reading this piece? What information would be of interest to them? What format is appropriate for the audience?
  
  Take your reader’s perspective. Your goal is to interact with them, not talk at them. Your audience is probably comprised of a mix of people, but they have a common denominator: they are all very busy with many distractions fighting for their attention and a multitude of things on their minds. Keep it simple, direct and clear. Focus on “what’s in it for them?” and deliver answers to that question.
  
  The temptation is to tell the audience all about this great event, collection, or opportunity. But first, ask yourself if that’s what this audience has the time or energy to hear. Keep to the essentials without losing the enthusiasm. If you’re talking to the right audience, the content will make them enthusiastic more than the writing style will.
  
  How much does your audience know about the subject? The left flyer would be appropriate for people who are already interested enough to come to the concert, while the right image would be better for advertising the event to a diverse audience that may or may not like polka music.
2. What is the purpose of this design?
- Design to the purpose. Is it a bookmark people will pick up and take with them to read later, a poster that they might walk by and glance at, a flyer they can take home, or a web page that they are browsing? The purpose will greatly determine how it is designed.
  
  There is always a very short attention span to consider. A poster will need to be seen by people on their way somewhere else. What will grab their attention in a 3-second glance? It has to be clear and have good visual hierarchy. It also can't tell the whole story. Its purpose is to get the reader interested in more and then provide a link to more information. Example: a poster for an event should clearly state the event, date, time, location, and a brief description. Sponsors might be listed. You might wish to include a related photo to support interest in the event.
  
  A flyer your reader takes with them can tell more. By designing the content well, readers won’t be intimidated by longer text and more detail. Think in terms of an outline to a school paper you’re writing. Keep topics separated and keep the text brief.
  
  With web pages, it’s imperative to keep the text brief and to the point, so you must break up the text with subheads and images.
  
  The left example shows a poster, but there is too much content to catch the eye of a busy passerby. This would be fine for a flyer handed out at the event about the musicians as you already have the audience interested enough to come and taken home they would have more time to read all the content. The right example is simple and clear and more likely to capture attention as a poster.
3. Visual hierarchies.
- Design the first thing they see to be the one thing they need to know. Your content outline will help you prioritize the message from most—to least important details. It’s exactly how your audience wants to read it. By creating this visual hierarchy of the design, you spoon-feed the message to the reader, starting with the most urgent message, and fill in with details. A page full of items all demanding the same attention will feel stressful and difficult. Good design makes it easier to get the message to the reader.
  
  Use subtle design emphasis to encourage the viewer to understand and relate to this hierarchy. Bold a title and use a larger font. Keep the date, time and location bold, but make it a smaller font. Usually three levels of hierarchy are enough. Sometimes details can be told with bulleted copy that’s simpler to read than full sentences.
  
  It’s important to know when to cut visual clutter. Too many levels of messaging and formatting will create the feeling that there are more items on the page. Make it easy for readers to find your message!
  
  The three levels of hierarchy include:
  
  #1 Do you like to dance to polka music? and the image
  
  #2 Dance to live music this Saturday at 5pm and www.polkas.com
  
  #3 the detailed description
  
  This example is not successful. Too many items compete for the viewer's attention and the clutter pushes people away. There isn't a visual flow established to help guide the reader.
4. The 3-Second / 30-Second / 3-Minute Rule.
- A good design tool: It helps you present your information for three different levels of commitment:
  
  Three Seconds is how long you have to get the attention of someone who is in a rush.
  
  The 3 seconds is usually the title and should be most prominent (Example: Do you like to dance to polka music?).
  
  If you get that attention for 3 seconds and deliver the most important message, you might get 30 more seconds because now the reader is curious.
  
  Use the next 30 seconds of their attention to deliver the next most important things they want to know. This is where you put all the yummy details. Now their curiosity turns to interest and leads them to give you more time for more information.
  
  The 30 seconds draws the reader further (Example: Dance with live music this Saturday at 5pm). The 3 minutes is for people that really are interested in this topic and want to read more about the details.
  
  This division of the information helps people make decisions about whether or not this is relevant to their interests without taking up a great deal of their time or energy. Each bite of information is designed to tempt the viewer to keep reading and looking.
  
  This is a good rule to keep in mind—not just for posters, but all designs.
  
  Good examples of using the rule.
5. Use chunking.
- Humans have a much easier time looking at a page with small blocks of information. The same information presented in one huge copy block, or visual block, is intimidating and can prevent readers from committing an equally big block of time to read. (It’s why people can remember phone numbers and account numbers that are “chunked out” with dashes.)
  
  Use chunking to break that one long column into many smaller sections. It's like taking a big job and breaking it up into smaller, more achievable tasks. It feels easier to handle.
  
  The titles to the sections will draw the reader in and the casual scanner will get some information from the headers alone. Make section titles short, interesting, and informative.
  
  The left example shows a flyer without chunking. The reader would have a hard time getting into this unless they are avid fans. The right example is much more interesting with the long blocks of text broken into sections with interesting titles. The added images and white space help break it up and add visual interest as well.
6. White Space makes it easy on the eyes.
- White space is an area of your design that doesn't have images or text on it. You might think that that's a wasted space and want to fill it up with more copy or images. But resist the temptation!
  
  White space:
  • allows the reader rest time
  •visually accents the content hierarchy of your design
  •balances the elements
  •allows for focus within the composition
  
  A design with very little white space runs the risk of appearing demanding, cluttered, and difficult to read. The reader doesn’t knw what to look at first and wants to run from the task of sorting that out.
  
  You can judge the white space by squinting while you look at the design. Does it look dark all over or does it appear to have good contrast between white space and dark areas?
  
  Notice how the left poster has plenty of white space. It allows the reader to focus on the most important aspects and provides rest space. This allows it to seem less stressful to the reader than the right example which looks intimidating.
  
  This poster has very little white space and is intimidating and unbalanced.
7. Legibility through line width and left alignment.
- Studies have shown that a maximum character width of 72 characters is ideal. Count each letter, punctuation, and space from the left of a block of text to the right to determine the character width. A very wide block of text, such as on an 8.5x11 sheet of paper horizontally will cause the eye to have trouble focusing and it might skip to other lines. If readers find it difficult to keep you’re their place, they tend to abandon the effort.
  
  A very skinny block of text is also difficult to read. It requires increased concentration as long words are often broken and there is a great deal of movement for the eye back and forth which causes the eyes to become tired. Paragraphs that are seventy-two characters wide are easy for everyone to read.
  
  Another way to lend more legibility to your design is left alignment. While centered text is good for accents or titles, it can turn long paragraphs into a chore, requiring your reader to search for the beginning of each line.
  
  Ragged left (or right alignment) is usually not a good choice either. Likewise, justified text rarely makes the content easy to read, since it creates visual gaps and words that now have to be hyphenated.
  
  The best choice is usually left aligned for body copy and centered for short statements.
  
  The car example shows how centered text for long blocks interrupts the flow of the eye from left to right and also how difficult skinny columns are to read as your eye must go back and forth and long words are hyphenated. The polka example has a good example of using centered text for headlines and then left alignment for larger blocks of text. It also shows the optimum character width. The long lines of the car ad lose the eye halfway across the page.
8. More is not always better; sometimes it's just more.
- Use restraint in your design. Everything should have relevance to the idea you are trying to communicate and actively help to communicate that idea. If you are using images, make sure they are appropriate for the subject and help you to use fewer words. Remember a photo tells a thousand words as well as being less intimidating to the reader. There’s no reason to say in text what the copy tells readers. Use words to complement images.
  
  Use no more than two fonts. A Sans Serif font works best for a heading while a Serif font works best for body copy. Don't combine two serif fonts or two sans serif fonts, as they will clash. Any more than two fonts and you will be overdoing it. The font conveys the voice and tone of your organization. It's kind of like a lady who wears all of her furs and jewelry—you want to be elegant, not ostentatious. Use elements within the font family, such as italic or bold to create emphasis. Keep it simple and legible.
  
  The flowers in the polka poster, above, while pretty, don't inform the viewer at all about the subject while the accordion and music symbols do. The flowers do work well on the gardening poster.
9. Black and White.
- Black and white documents intended for photocopying should have high contrast elements. Un-doctored photos can look muddy and difficult to read. Try increasing the contrast on the photo or using a line drawing to get the desired results. Make sure you use the master for photocopying, as using copies to make copies will degrade the quality.
  
  Watch out for muddy images when photocopying! Increase the contrast and test it to make sure it works.
10. Using Color for power!
- Color can be a powerful tool to create a mood and represent the personality of your organization. Remember that no color is seen the same way by any two people and it can have different meanings to people in different cultures. For example Red and Green together may indicate the Christian holiday of Christmas. Red is often used as a warning color. Yellow for caution.
  
  The amount of color and its placement near other colors is a science. Experiment with color against color to judge the best result for your readers.
  
  Colors are divided between warm and cool. Red, orange, and yellow are considered warm colors, while blue, green, and purple are cool colors. Warm colors convey sensations of warmth, comfort, and friendliness. They can also incite hot feelings such as hunger, emphasis, urgency or confidence. Cool colors can convey the emotions experienced in nature.
  
  Warm colors advance and cool colors recede. Combining cool and warm colors in the right amounts, in the right proximity and intensity is true artistry. Experiment with warm and cool opposites (example: red and green, turquoise and orange, purple and yellow) to find interesting effects.
  
  Make sure you use colors that are appropriate to your audience. Remember if your favorite color is purple that many people may not share that love. Design for the people you are trying to communicate with. What color will help them “feel” your message?
  •If it's a piece about food, you may want warm colors.
  •If it's a design focused on finances, you may want to match a color association with using green.
  
  The poster on the left uses a green colored paper to further associate the green of growing living things with the viewer. The bright orange flowers look cheerful and connote spring. The red and green choices of the right poster are terrible. They remind the viewer of poinsettias and Christmas instead of a spring gardening workshop.