introduction to design and...

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UNIT-I

INTRODUCTION TO DESIGN AND LAYOUT

1.1 HISTORY: FROM PRIMITIVE COMMUNICATION TO THE PRINTED WORD

From primitive cave drawings to interactive websits.Our civilization has had a long

fascination with the art of graphic communications. Simply defined graphic communications

encompasses all tools and method related to conveying concepts through the use of visual media

over many millennia, mankind has progressed from the use of burnt wooden sticks and the juice

of berries to transcript on demand printing presses and satellite television. While these tools are

some more common that drawings, pictures and text are employed to provoke a response from

the observer.

Perhaps the objective is to inspire the viewer to ponder an important social issue more

likely, however, the goal is for the observer purchase a particular product or service. Whatever

the reason, the methods used to communicate ideas graphically have grown rapidly, both in the

verify and sophistication of took available as well as the sheer volume of convent being presented

to the viewing public.

Graphic design involves the creation of documents used to communicate ideas.

The process of creating or designing printed documents is also known as composition .A designer

works with typography or type. Type communications a literal message by carrying information

directly to the audience. However type also conveys a connotive message it suggests something

more than its explicit or literal meaning.

‘ Colors images, typography and other graphic elements are carefully chosen to evoke the

desired response in the viewer whether the purpose is to motivate the observer to purchase a

specific product build recognition of a company or brand or modify the reader’s behavior in

some way, the message is much more effective if it is delivered by a visually dynamic vehicle.

Graphic design is an expression of an idea. In combination visual and types work together

to communicate the direct message through word or visual.

Although design is often romanticized as act of sudden inspiration, good design is based

upon carefully considered decisions, about the use of basic design elements.


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VISUAL DESIGNING

In the post two decades a revolution has swept through editorial, public relations and

advertising. The revolution has engulfed the world of printed communication and has changed

practices. Not too long ago the principal method of producing printed material was with metal

type engraving borders and the letterpress (or) hot type method with the advent of cold type

composition the process was simplified another dramatic change occurred with the arrival of the

computer and “desktop publishing” capabilities, many communications now find that they are

functioning as designers and computers as well as writers.

Anecdote to Chapter One

It is possible to trace the originals of printing to the use of seals to “sign” official documents

as early as 255 B.C., during the Han dynasty in china. A ceramic stamp was pressed into a sheet

of moist clay. When dry, the imprint served as a means of certifying the authenticity of the document.

When paper was invented, around A.D. 105 the transition to the use of the seal with ink was a

natural one.

Early documents and manuscripts were copied and recopied by hand. Frequent copying

mistakes were made from one edition to the next; copies often differ significantly from the author’s

original. Around A.D. 175, the Chinese began the practice of cutting the writings of important

scholars into stone. The stones were placed in centers of learning, and students made “rubbings,”

or copies on paper from the carvings. The process was faster than hand copying, and all editions

were identical to the first.

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Other materials, including wood, tin, copper, and bronze, were used for the same

purpose. The idea of movable type traveled to neighboring countries. In Korea, in A.D. 1403,

King T’aijong ordered that everything without exception within his reach should be printed in

order to pass on the tradition of what the works contained. Three hundred thousand pieces of

bronze type were cast, and printing began. It is interesting to speculate on the relationship

between this event and a similar one that took place not more than fifty years later in Northern

Germany, which brought Johannes Gutenberg the title of “father of printing”

No one knows when the ideas of the seal and stone rubbings came together, but in china

in A.D. 953, under the administration of Feng Tao, a large-scale block-printing operation was

begun to reproduce the Confucian classics. Block prints were generally slabs of hard fine-grained

woods that were carved to leave a well-defined raised image. The raised portions were inked,

paper was laid over the block, and a pad was rubbed across the surface to transfer the ink to the

paper.

During the Sung dynasty, around A.D. 1401, a common man named Pi Sheng invented

movable type. Building on the ideas of block printing, he cut individual characters in small pieces

of clay. The clay was fired to make it hard, and individual pieces were placed in an iron frame to

create the printing form. Because the pieces did not fit together perfectly, they were embedded

in a mixture of hot pine resin, wax, and paper ashes. When cold, all the pieces were held together

perfectly tight, and the form was inked and printed. Reheating the resin mixture loosened the

pieces of type so they could be reused.

Introduction:


Graphic messages are possible because lines can be made into shapes that have

meanings to humans. As early as 35,000 B.C. people were drawing messages on cave walls (fig

1.1). These were probably intended to be temporary messages, but they became permanent.

They were simple drawings-merely lines-but they carried meaning to the people of that period:

“This is a mammoth,” “Oh, what a feast we had,” or “We hunted a great hairy beast.”

Development of Pictographs: Drawings that carry meaning because they look like real

objects are called pictographs (figure 1.2a). Pictographs have one-to-one relationship with reality.

To symbolize one ox (called aleph), draw one symbol of an ox. To represent five oxen, draw five

symbols. It is difficult to use pictographs to communicate complex ideas, such as “I have six

oxen-one brown, four white, and one white and brown.” It is impossible to symbolize abstract

ideas, such as love or hate, with a pictographic system.

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VISUAL DESIGNING

About 1200 B.C., in a small country called Phoenicis (now a part of Syria), a group of

traders began to realize the limitations of the pictographic system. They attempted to simplify the

picture notations in their account books by streamlining their symbols. But however they drew the

lines, aleph still symbolized one ox and beth still stood for one house (figure 1.2b).

Development of Ideographs: The next step was to have drawings symbolize ideas.

These drawing are called ideographs. With this system aleph became the symbol for food and

beth represented a dwelling or shelter (figure 1.2c). Ideographs are simple drawings that symbolize

ideas or concepts rather than concrete objects. They are a vast improvement over pictographs

because complex or abstract ideas can be easily represented, but ideographs are still clumsy.

The sheer number of symbols can be overwhelming. The Japanese and Chinese both still use

ideographic symbol systems that contain over ten thousand different characters. It could take a

lifetime to understand such a system.

Development of Phonetic Symbols: By 900 B.C., the Phoenicians had made another

change. Instead of symbolizing the actual ox or food, the picture came to represent a sound.

Whenever the readers saw the symbol, they could make the sound that the symbol represented.

When the symbols were placed together, whole words could be repeated. This ideas of

representing sounds by symbols known as a phonetic symbol system and is the basis for most

modern written languages. The Phoenicians developed nineteen such symbols, but they were

traders and were not concerned with recording all words used in everyday conversation. We

form verbal symbols by combining consonants and vowels. The Phoenician system contained no

vowels and was of little use in recording everyday speech.

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By 403 B.C. the Greeks had officially adopted the Phoenician system, after adding five

vowels and changing the names of the letters (figure1.3). Aleph became alpha and beth became

beta, which form our team alphabet.

About a hundred years later, the early Roman empire borrowed the Greek alphabet and

refined it to meet its needs. It accepted thirteen letters outright, revised eight, and added F and

Q, which gave it twenty-three all that was necessary to write Latin. The Roman system stood firm

for nearly twelve centuries. About one thousand years ago the letter U was added as a rounded

V, and two Vs were put together to form W. Five hundred years later the letter J was added to

give us a total of twenty-six letters that form our contemporary Latin alphabet.

There were still some problems to be worked out. Early Greek and Roman writing was

done by scribes-all with different “penmanship.” Some wrote from left to right, some from right to

left. Combine these differences with the lack of punctuation marks or spaces between words or

sentences, and the whole thing could be quite a mess.

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VISUAL DESIGNING

1.2 THE ELEMENTS AND PRINCIPLES OF PUBLICATION DESIGN (LINE,SHAPE, TEXTURE, UNITY, ETC)

Design:-

It is an idea or plan formed in mind. Design is a language of vision which serves as a

prime motivating factor. That brings all the elements together.

It wasn’t until movable metal type was introduced by Johannes Gutenberg in the mid-

fifteenth century that any true standard of punctuation or sentences’ structure was achieved. It

took printing technology to stabilize the phonetic symbol system as we know it today. Slight

changes have been made, but the basic composition of our alphabet has remained the same

from the time of Gutenberg.

The first usage of the design was in the form of communication – language to express his

though visually and verbally. Centuries of struggle and competition with nature, have put to the

test the cleverness and ingenuity of man in given his products from and beauty and they constitute

the basis or original of today’s design.

The sense of design has undergone a revolutionary. Industrial revolution has given birth to

new shapes and forms to suit the modern taste and needs of man. Design is an organized

intention for any contrivance or plan with some definite purpose or function, whether that end is

the painting, the making of a graft article. The designer thinks, experiences, perceives, analysis,

symbolizes, synthesizes and then organizes for the intended purpose.

It is the foundations of all the arts.

Design comes from a combination of intelligence and artistic ability.

Design Element:-

The various design elements are line, shape, texture, balance, contrast.

Line:-

This is the first element. A line is mark made by a tool as it is drawn across the surface or

a line can be designed as moving dot or point. All lines have direction ands quality. Lines may be

straight, curving or angular. A line may be bold, smooth or broken, thick or thin, regular or changing.

A graphic designers use lines in many forms to create a message.

Shape:-The element of shape is important the general out line of something is shape. A shape

can be opened or filled with color, tone, texture. A shape may be curving or angular or changing

flat or volumetric it can be seen as a rectangle, circle, square or any form.

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Shape:-


Texture:-

Texture can be created in different methods. They are patterned pen or brush strokes.

Shading films or paper pattern screens etc. Texture is bringing out or rendering a tonal merging.

They are not used regularly. It is used in special attention from the reader. It gives better

communication to the reader.

The tactile quality of a surface or the representation of such a surface or quality is texture.

There are two categories of texture-tactile and visual. Tactile texture are real we can feel their

surface with our fingers. Visual textures are illusionary. Tactile texture can be created in many

ways. You can cut and paste textures, like a sandpaper to surface. You can create an embossing

by impressing a texture in relief; you can build up the surface of a board with paint. Creating the

impression of a texture with line, value and colour is called visual texture can be created by

grouping various lines together.

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VISUAL DESIGNING

Unity:-

Unity holds a design together and prevents looseness and disorder. If things are not united,

our eyes cannot find CVI (center of visual interest). So unity aids our communication and eliminates

distraction. Here are few ideas, to retain unity in our work

§ Stick to few type styles

§ Keep your shapes, size of art and types to a minimum

§ Follow the natural flow of reading ‘(Z)’path necessary

§ Create a center of visual interest

§ Encoring everything in a border, isolating the layout with white space

§ Using boxes in layout

§ Always use familiar typography and consistently

1.3 COMMUNICATION AND DESIGN :UNDERSTAND THE GOAL, AUDI-ENCE, VENUE, BUDGET

Communication and Design:-

A complete communication consist of five parts, the sender the message, the delivery

system (medium), the audience or receiver. Finally the feed back from receiver goes to sender

that way communication is carried out.

Communication design is a mixed discipline between design and information develop-

ment, which is concerned with how media intermission such as printed, crafted, Electronic me-

dia or presentation communicate with people. The message developed by communicator should

use proper channel to ensure the message reaches the target audience. Communication design

seeks to attract, inspire, create design and motivate the people to respond to the message, with

a view of making favorable impact, which in turn builds brand and moves sales. The term com-

munication design is often used interchangeably with visual communication and more specifi-

cally graphic design. Example of communication design includes information architecture, edit-

ing, typography, illustration, web design, animation, advertising, professional writing etc.

Sender Message Medium Receiver

Feed back

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GOAL:-

Sender needs to know the reason for communication. Before you do anything else

brainstorm the reason why you are going to communicate. Know exactly what is to be accomplished

and what is expected of the person who reads the message .If the message has no specific

purpose, you can waste time and money. No one will pay attention. The words used to communicate

should arouse interest attention create curiosity and convince first element of the complete

communicate the typographer and the designer do their job very effectively.

The purpose of the design application is to provide accessible information about ideas,

products and services, to create a bond between the consumer and the client. Always

remember that graphic design is functional and it must meet the client’s and audience needs.

There are four goals you should keep in mind:

• Attract the reader

• Make your work easy to read

• Give your reader something to do

• Give the reader the desire and ability to do it.

AUDIENCE:-

Graphic design is aimed at mass audience that may vary in size and demographics. A

design may be intended for a local, national or international audience. It may be intended to

communicate with a specific professional or trade group. Defining your audience will help you to

understand whom you are designing for, while keeping their collective preferences, culture,taste

and income in mind. Even audience presents different consideration. If you can get the audience

to react, to feel, to think then you have made a connection with them i.e. you have communicated.

VENUE:-

The communicator also needs to know what media or channels the target audience reads,

views and trust. It could be radio, television, postcard, billboards, newspaper, newsletter, handbills,

magazine and so on. Communicators usually devise a communication mix that will use several

media because repetition and reinforcement are vital if a message is to be seen and remembered

.The communicator must also deal with noises that is semantic noise &channel noise. Always

use right words that understood by audience. Careful choice of words and arrangement of type

and art on page and even the choice of paper are necessary.


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VISUAL DESIGNING

Your clients are the one paying the bills. They have the products that need promotion.

They often know their market better than you do you must stay with in their budget. Get all information

from client and find out what goals the clients wants to achieve with the project. We become their

creative ability for their concepts. Also one should have the knowledge of process, raw material

cost, delivery system, manpower requirement etc.

BUDGET:-

Balance:

Balance object always look proper and secure so in printer communication balance is

must. Balance is formed when the elements are placed in equilibrium. Balancing a object can be

carried out in two ways.

· Symmetrical or formal Balance

· Asymmetrical or informal Balance

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Symmetrical Balance:

A formally balanced layout has elements of equal weight above and below the optical

center. Also left to right is same as shown in figure.

If we have a strong display type 6 picas from the top of our layout, we will need a line of the

same size 6 picas from the bottom. If we have a piece of art left of center and slightly above, we

need a similar element to the right and in the same position. Left and right, up and down, the

formally balanced layout has elements of equal size and weight.


Asymmetrical Balance:

Formal balance has its place in layout work, but it is too stiff and uninteresting for many

situations. Stability is achieved but the balance is dynamic rather than static.

When you arrange dissimilar or unequal weight on the page is called asymmetrical balance.

To achieve as symmetrical balance the position, visual weight, size, value, color, shape and

texture of a mark on the page must be considered and weighed against every other mark.

If we imagine the optical center as a fulcrum and place elements on the page so that this

fulcrum is the orientation point, we will begin to see them fall into balanced positions. It is much

like children achieving balance on a teeter-totter (or seesaw, if you prefer). If a child who weighs

80 pounds sits on one end of teeter-totter and one weighing 40 pounds climbs on the other, what

happens if they are the same distance from the fulcrum? The same thing happens with unbalanced

layouts-they appear to topple over applying this idea to layout work, if a single line of type is

placed on a page it should be at the center of the balance, the optical center, for best appearance.

The same is true with a single copy work.

introduction to design and...

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