Design, Week 3 Lecture

Researching content…
It is important to research what is needed to be put in any commercial or informational piece. It is good to think about three factors when designing something like this, which are the subject, the audience and the message.

A Map of Pearl Lake, http://www.pearllake.com/frameset.htm

This is a map of Peal Lake, which has points of interest for divers listed. When the designer was approached to make the map they would have needed to research lots of different information. Amongst others they include:

• What and where are the points of interest? This could involve looking at previous maps (secondary research), asking people knowledgeable about the lake and perhaps even diving around the lake themselves (primary research).
• How deep the lake is.
• How will it be used underwater? Colours can get distorted underwater, and light levels may be affected.
• Practicalities of the map. How big should it be for it to be workable and useable for divers?

On the Pearl Lake website (http://www.pearllake.com/frameset.htm) it offers a black and white copy of the map as well.

Black and White copy of the Map, http://www.pearllake.com/frameset.htm

This could be the version that divers are likely to use because of easy visibility whilst including the information needed by a diver.

By implementing the colour map on a dive, they may have discovered that it was unusable or inadequate for underwater reading, so the design was changed and developed. Kolb’s Learning Cycle explores that design process:

Kolb's Learning Cycle, http://www.businessballs.com/kolblearningstyles.htm

 A designer gathers research initially (feeling), they then reflect on that information (watching), consideration of that information (thinking), and then development/doing the work (doing). Then research is continued by implementing the piece in real life situations such as a trial dive, if it doesn’t work the cycle continues.

By researching what the content of a piece needs to be it allows visual communicators to create works that are appropriate to the application of it.

Legibility…

“Legibility indicates how clear text is visually.”
- www.d.umn.edu/itss/support/Training/Online/webdesign/glossary/l.html

“Being clear enough to be read, readable, particularly for handwriting”
- www.en.wiktionary.org/wiki/legible

Legibility refers to how something is read. Something can be illegible, which means it is hard to read, and something can be legible, which means it is easy to read.

Don't Mistake Legibility for Communication by David Carson

David Carson is a graphic designer/artist who explores legibility a lot throughout his works. He said, “there’s many ways you communicate. With colour, texture, sound… ” (From An Interview With David Carson by Adam Banks, http://www.adambanks.com/wordpress/david-carson-riverside-quark-macuser-interview/1175/).

“It’s trying to communicate an idea, and in doing that, sometimes something became a little harder to read”
- David Carson, from An Interview with David Carson by Adam Banks

This piece by Carson is illegible - you can’t tell what’s going on and what it’s trying to say. It could be because there wasn’t any real meaning to the words, or because the text was about communicating confusion/mayhem.

Screen Captures from the Catch Me If You Can title sequence

This title sequence by Kuntzel and Deygas features a lot of text that has been manipulated to create a visual piece however, we can still read it and know what it says. This piece is legible. As a commercial piece for a big film, they needed to communicate the crew and cast names, but they needed to do it in a way that was visually stimulating as a way to keep the audience’s attention. Different mediums mean legibility needs to be considered in different ways.