Organization & Structure
“Designers use grids to organize content and manage the clarity of a message”
– Jenn & Ken Visocky O’Grady
Visual Design thinking has many moving parts that need to work together. One thing I learned this week is that every good design starts with intent. That is, a Visual Designer must remember the basics, hierarchy, and composition. One of the basics is structure. In Graphic Design for Everyone, Caldwell points out, “No matter how simple the design, it needs structure – an ordered and logical way of positioning elements” (Caldwell, 133). According to Caldwell, using one of the three most common structures will help you achieve the goal of guiding your audience to the important pieces of your design in a logical way. The most common structures she describes are the Golden Ratio, the Rule of Thirds, and the Modular. Reading our required reading reminded me of a quote from Jenn and Ken Visocky O’Grady’s book The Information Design Handbook. In their chapter on structure and grid systems, they say “Designers use grids to organize content and mange the clarity of a message” (O’Grady, 98).
Focus the audience
When designing a layout, along with organization and structure, a hierarchy helps guide the eye to the areas the designer wants it to focus on. This is important because there is a purpose to the content being consumed by the audience. Connie Malamed, a visual designer and instructional designer with over 20 years of experience, suggests that there are two primary reasons for directing the audience’s eyes. In her book Visual Language for Designers: Principles for Creating Graphics that People Understand, Malamed states you want “to steer the viewer’s attention along a path according to the intended ranking order and to draw the viewer’s attention to specific elements of importance” (Malamed, 71). Martina Bretous, a writer for the HubSpot marketing blog, echoes a similar tone on the importance of good hierarchy. In her article 7 Visual Hierarchy Principles for Every Marketer, Bretous says “create a visual structure that facilitates understanding and guides the user” (Bretrous, 2023).
Patterns Emerge
At this point, as a newer designer, I was becoming overwhelmed, but I began to recall a previous reading I had done as an Instructional Designer about hierarchy and pattern planning. In her book Visual Design Solutions: Principles and Creative Inspiration for Learning Professionals, Connie Malamed reminds us that, as humans, when we read, there is a pattern to how we view things. She explains that “The most common eye-scanning movements of people who read in left-to-right languages is an F pattern. The next most common is the Z pattern.” (Malamed, 160). Knowing this eye-scanning movement helps designers be thoughtful and methodical in where they place images, text, and calls to action, so the audience does what the visual design was meant to do. Below is an example of the website I based my project on, specifically for event promotion. Notice how the viewer starts left at the logo (1), then moves across to the right for the login (2). Then, as they scan diagonally down to the left, a “hero” image or video is in the middle. As they arrive at the lower left, there’s useful information (3), and finally, they move to the lower right, where the call-to-action (CTA) is, which in this case is to play the game (4).
Promotion
So, for this week’s project, we were tasked with creating several assets as part of an event promotion. We could choose any large-scale event. It had to be large-scale because the assets we created for the event were:
- Flyer
- Poster
- Facebook banner
- Instagram posts (3)
- VIP Invitation
- T-shirt
The event I chose was the annual CitizenCon. This is similar to Comic Con, but instead of a PC Game, my son and I have been backing it for the last 10 years. Each year, they hold the conference in different locations. This year’s will be held in Manchester, UK, at their headquarters (HQ). Since I’m vested, I’m attending this event. Below are the various assets I created, along with a brief explanation of the choices I made.
Flyer and Poster
First up was the flyer. I had a poster from a previous project that I used for this event. However, I wanted to update and give it a fresh look. As you can see in the sketch below, I was planning to reuse the venue as a focal point and rearrange the elements around it. I was always trying to keep the event logo in the center of prominence, as the event was what was important. Using the design ideas from our book, I attempted to assign a ranking order to dominance. As I delved into the design, I abandoned the venue idea and incorporated the element that the game is about, outer space.
Social Media
For the social media piece, the focus, as stated earlier, was on Facebook and Instagram. Here, I had to look up the dimensions to ensure they fit appropriately. For Facebook, I found and used the dimensions 1920×1005 pixels, and for Instagram, it was 1080×1080 pixels. The Facebook design features the event logo over a sepia-toned image of the venue on the left. In line with the inclusion of important elements, I also aimed to engage my audience by incorporating a few well-known characters voiced by celebrities, such as Mark Hamill. Each of the Instagram posts had its own intention as well. The first would be the initial post to get the audience “psyched up” to attend. The next post would entice those who enjoy the cosplay experience. The final post was aimed at appealing to the “nerd” who wants to meet the celebrity who voices their favorite character in the game.
VIPs Only Please
Designing the VIP invitation was probably the most enjoyable part, next to creating the T-shirt (coming up next). Maintaining the flyer and poster theme was crucial to maintaining the cohesion of the entire event. First, I sketched the invitation to determine the elements I wanted to include and the ranking I would give them. However, the twist on this asset was that I made the invitation as if the player (as an officer of the game’s military) was receiving a direct invitation from their highest-ranking officer. I felt that using the storyline element woven into the design would intrigue the person who would receive this invitation. As an incentive, I included a sample of the swag item they would receive (a collector’s badge based on the level of ticket they purchase) on their invitation.
Everyone wants a T-shirt
As with a few of the assets I delivered, I had an idea for a T-shirt design and drew it up on my Remarkable pad. The initial design didn’t pan out because I needed to ensure consistency across all elements in the print and digital promotional assets. Therefore, my final design retained some of the main elements, such as the prominent event logo, the location of the event, and incorporated a few of the characters to draw the audience in and encourage them to come and receive or purchase the swag.
Citations
Bretous, M. (2023, June 20). 7 visual hierarchy principles for every marketer. HubSpot Blog. https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/visual-hierarchy
Caldwell, C. (2019). Graphic design for everyone: Understand the building blocks so you can do it yourself (R. Skene, Ed.). Dorling Kindersley Limited.
Pernice, K. (2019, August 25). Text scanning patterns: Eyetracking evidence. Nielsen Norman Group. https://www.nngroup.com/articles/text-scanning-patterns-eyetracking/
Soegaard, M. (2021). Visual hierarchy: Organizing content to follow natural eye movement patterns. The Interaction Design Foundation. https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/visual-hierarchy-organizing-content-to-follow-natural-eye-movement-patterns#:~:text=The%20Z%20Pattern%20%E2%80%94%20In%20designs,what%20we%20want%20to%20know.
Malamed, C. (2011). Visual language for designers: Principles for creating graphics that people understand. Rockport Publishers.
O’Grady, J. V., & O’Grady, K. V. (2008). The Information Design Handbook. How Books.
Malamed, C. (2015). Visual design solutions: Principles and creative inspiration for learning professionals. Wiley.