Lecture and other thoughts
Applied design has to do with practical application of design and aesthetics to objects of function and everyday use, not just decoration or intellectual stimulation. We covered signs, signage, maps, info-graphics, web interface, kiosk interface, apps, periodical, daily news, motion graphics, kinetic typography, point of purchase display, window display design, experiential design, environmental/holistic design, social media design, blog, small screen PDA design, brochures, informational display, instruction manuals, annual reports, package design, web design, business identity cabinets, toy design, info graphics, event design, exhibit design (convention/museum), apparel design, applied illustration, branding, in-store projection, event design, way finding, and museum display.
The concept of experiential design was a key point. Experiential design is all about user experience and creating products and environments with the goal of creating a particular experience within the user. This is different than a traditional design approach that has the goal of developing a relationship between the designer and the user—the user is expected to take on the designer’s frame of reference. In contrast, experiential design “sees the designer as a creator of possible user experiences.” (http://www8.informatik.umu.se/~jwworth/MetaDesign.html)
As examples of experiential design, we talked in class about universal design (accessibility to people with and without disabilities), environmental type, wayfinding systems, and responsive web sites (modifying code to make a site fit the device it’s being viewed on so that brand, look and feel, and content stay consistent. We also talked about wayfinding systems and what a designer chooses to put on a map to make it really useful when anyone with a phone can find a map of their own. The maps at bl.uk/magnificentmaps are examples of creative design solutions.
David Armano has an interesting presentation on experiential design: http://darmano.typepad.com/logic_emotion/2007/06/experience_desi.html
Armano references this Wikipedia entry:
Experience design is the practice of designing products, processes, services, events, and environments — each of which is a human experience — based on the consideration of an individual’s or group’s needs, desires, beliefs, knowledge, skills, experiences, and perceptions. An emerging discipline, experience design attempts to draw from many sources including cognitive psychology and perceptual psychology, cognitive science, architecture and environmental design, haptics, product design, information design, information architecture, ethnography, brand management, interaction design, service design, storytelling, heuristics, and design thinking. Another term for experience design is experiential design.
And he talks about experiential design as people-driven design. I loved this slide from his presentation:
I discovered a firm called Percontor that specializes in experiential design. Here’s how they describe it on their site:
Experience design is a design approach which focuses on the quality of the user experience during the whole period of engagement: from the first impression and the feeling of discovery, the moments of engagement (touchpoints) through aspects of usability, cultural relevance and durability, to the memory of the complete relationship. This puts users firmly at the centre of the design process, with their input and feedback being integrated throughout the whole design process.experience design is driven by consideration of the moments of engagement, or Touchpoint, between people and brands, and the ideas, emotions and memories that these moments create. Commercial experience design is also known as customer experience design, and brand experience. In the domain of marketing, it may be associated with experiential marketing. Experience designers are often employed to identify existing touchpoints and create new ones, and then to score the arrangement of these touchpoints so that they produce the desired outcome.
Local agency specializing in experiential design: http://www.popagency.com/
Flood restaurants are an example of experiential design:
So is Candy Chang’s ‘Before I die…” project featured on http://designmind.frogdesign.com/blog/remarketables-41311.html
Here’s an interesting project on environmental type:
http://design.org/blog/design-school-environmental-typography-design-project
Terminology
Raster: Image format used by programs like Adobe Photoshop, as well as photos from the Web or a digital camera. Raster images are made up of a grid of pixels, called a bitmap. Raster graphics are stored as jpeg, gif, or bmp files. Can be scaled down without losing image quality, but scaling up can cause pixilation, so vector graphics are often used instead for images that need to be easily scaled up.
Vector: Image format used by programs like Adobe Illustrator that uses points to define a specific path (as opposed to using pixels as in a raster image). Paths are defined by a start point and end point, along with other points in between to create lines, curves, angles, squares, and curvilinear shapes. Since they are not made up of a specific number of dots, vector images can be easily scaled up or down without losing image quality, making them a great solution for logos, which can be small enough to fit a business card or large enough to fill a billboard.
Typeface: Describes characters of the same design. The characters can include, letter, numbers, symbols, and punctuation. Different than a font, which describes a specific size and style of typeface.
Font: Describes a particular size and style of a specific typeface. For example, Verdana is a typeface, but Verdana 10pt bold is a font.
Serif: The finishing strokes on a character in a typeface. Not all typefaces are serif, some are sans serif. Examples of serif typefaces are Courier and Times New Roman. Traditionally, they have been widely used in printed materials. They are less preferred for online content.
Sans serif: Literally means without serif, or finishing strokes on a character in a typeface. Examples of sans serif typefaces are Arial and Verdana. Historically thought to be easier to read online, though plenty of online content breaks this tradition.
M-space: An em dash is a symbol used to indicate a break in thought or to introduce a phrase added for emphasis, definition, or explanation. It’s called an em dash because originally an em was a unit of measurement defined by the width of a capital M in the given typeface. For example, one em in a 16 point typeface equals 16 points. The symbol looks like this: —
Ascenders: The portion of a lower case letter that extends above the x-height. Traditionally, the x-height of a typeface is the height of the letter x in a font, also the letters u, v, w, and z. Usually an x is exactly one x-height in height, but in more decorative or script designs, that may not always be true. Examples of letters with ascenders are b, d, k, and l.
Descender: The portion of a lower case letter that extends below the baseline, such as y, g, q, and p. The baseline is the line where most letters “sit.”
Kerning: The process of adjusting the space between characters in order to achieve a (hopefully) visually pleasing result. In a well-kerned font, the blank spaces between characters appear to have a similar area.
Leading: The vertical distance between baselines in lines of type. Refers to the original days of hand-typesetting when thin strips of lead were manually inserted into the forms to increase vertical distance between lines of type. You adjust leading to increase readability and/or to fit the space allowed for the text.
Bezier: Describes a type of curve. In vector graphics, Bezier curves are used in programs like Adobe Illustrator to model smooth curves that can be scaled indefinitely. They are also used as an animation tool to control motion.
Reading
The first part of this week’s reading (pages 12-22) covered graphic design as a discipline—taking ideas, concepts, text, and images and presenting them in an engaging way in order to reach a target audience through print and electronic media. It also discussed the history and evolution of graphic design as a discipline with the emergence of a consumer economy in the post-WWII years. Out of that economy, there grew a need for forms of visual communication to reach audiences in various socio-economic groups. This evolved into the current responsibilities of today’s designers, which can include print buying, website programming, photography, page layout, materials selection, art direction, freehand illustration, computer-generated illustration, project management, client account management, storyboarding, editing and pre-press production. The reading also addressed the roles of the designer which are to satisfy the design brief and execute the job. The designer makes decisions based on what they think is essential to communicate and how best to get that message across. Different work roles, office size, and work relationships were also discussed. Internships, account managers, project managers, freelance, sole trader, and partnerships are some of the different ways a designer can work. Added to that are the variety of companies a designer can work for—large vs. small, local vs. national or global. Each work arrangement and environment has its pros and cons, and it’s up to the designer to figure out what best suits their personality and work style.
The second part of the reading (pages 74-87) covered the graphic design process. This includes all the steps necessary to execute on a project, from creative brief, sketches, contract agreement, and account management to all the steps in actual production. The number of people involved, the complexity of the project, and the range of media involved all affect how the process is structured. Large clients or agencies may need more steps in the process than smaller companies, and each role demands a specific skill set.
A key concept of this reading is target audience—the main recipient or demographic of the message or product.
The need for and role of the creative brief was discussed, as was the need for a designer to understand how people make buying choices (qualitative/quantitative), as well as how people take in information and that they take in information in different ways so they may not understand a design on all of its different levels. This includes the target audience, as well as clients and marketers. There is the potential for conflict between the needs of all those different perspectives with that of the designer with their years of training to support their design choices, but I thought the best line was “a designer does not design for themselves but to satisfy the needs of a client who may have a better sense of what the ultimate target group will respond to.”
Influences on designers and design include urban environment, art, movies, and culture, music, and found objects.
Design is all about problem solving, and a key part of the design process is overcoming obstacles. It’s important to be able to get a view of what the obstacles actually are, and asking questions is even more critical than delivering answers to get at the root issue. It may be that the client didn’t ask the right question before they initiated the project with the designer. There may be more than one way to approach the problem the client is trying to solve, so it’s the designer’s responsibility to ask plenty of questions—the right questions—to help the client get their desired outcome, which may not even involve working with a designer. It’s also important to figure out whether the obstacle affects the overall strategy (macro) or if it is an issue within a process or task that is just one part of the strategy (micro). Design can’t fix issues with non-design problems.
Empirical, chunking, clustering, lateral thinking, opposition, top down and bottom up, and substitution are different ways to approach a problem. This comment on problem solving stood out to me:
Experienced creative designers refrain from following the same processes every time; using different methods allows a problem to be viewed from different perspectives, which provides a means for the unexpected to enter into the piece.
Taking creative approaches that may challenge the current way of doing things is another method of problem solving, as are the KISS principle, the python philosophy, TIMTOWTDI (There Is More Than One Way To Do It), and Ockham’s razor.
One of the suggested methods of problem-solving that stood out most for me is User-Centered Design:
The needs, desires and limitations of the user are placed at the centre of every stage of the design process and require designers to foresee how users are likely to use the resulting product. This method focuses on the goals and tasks associated with the use of a design, rather than focusing on the needs, desires and limitations of the user.
Wit and humor were also presented as design approaches.
awrothwell 