Design Tutorial

Good Design= functional and aesthetically pleasing

Introduction: We use design every time we create and construct. From cars to chairs to Word documents to paintings to Web pages, we come up with some sort of plan to take the ideas in our minds and make them into products. We want our products to function (do what we designed them to do) and to be aesthetically pleasing (look nice!). 

In our school your construction tools are video cameras, digicams, and many different types of software. To help guide you as a designer the following tips are offered as you plan and develop your multimedia projects.

Tips for Good Design

Colors:

  • Be REAL! Use your own images whether taken with a digicam, drawn with a digital tool or scanned from art class. Don't use clipart.

  • Use colors true to the image you are drawing. In other words, trees are brown and green- not pink and green. Be realistic so your viewers are not distracted trying to figure out what your images are about.

  • Background colors for your slide and canvas need to be soft and friendly! Harsh colors like red or pink definitely distract and make it difficult to focus upon the objects on your slides. White backgrounds are most readable.

  • Don't use an image for the background of your work. Text needs need to be read on a sold background with limited distraction. PowerPoint offers design themes that offer a pattern background. Be very selective if you use one of these.

  • Comfortable colors are needed for fonts as well. Dark backgrounds should have light text- usually white is the way to go. Certain colors go well together (ex. grey and blue) while others don't (ex. purple and pink).

 

Text:

  • Use font types that are readable. There is nothing COOL about fonts when your audience cannot read your words. Here are some font types that are especially readable on a computer or projector screen:  Arial   Comic  Georgia   Tahoma  Times New Roman  Verdana    

  • Use a size that is large enough but not overwhelming. PowerPoint slides should have a minimum of 28 on size in the main content area (the title at the top of the slide should be larger). Other programs like Story Maker and Inspiration must have the correct sizes as well. It is always a good idea to ask a friend to take a look for readability of your font type and size choice.

 

Contrast:

  • Contrast means making certain items like text or images stand out to show differences. You work to attract the eyes of your readers to the most important information. To do this you can use formatting tools to bold, change size, highlight and/or outline or shadow images to make the image stand out. You don't want to underline words in multimedia presentations because they may be mistaken for hyperlinks.

image placement

  • Use white space to "chunk" your information together in common groups while leaving space open around them. Notice the groups on this page? See the blank space separating the chunks? White space also can be used to show contrast. Notice the image of the boy at the computer? The border and shadow help make it stand out. But if you really want it to stand out, just give it some space.


 

Multimedia: 

Software tools often give you the opportunity to have movement in your slide or canvas. This is where presentations can be improved to really demonstrate your ideas. But this is also where presentations can go bad. The custom animation, slide transitions and/or special effects might be COOL when created but they can become distractions for your audience. Remember that your presentations are about you but they are definitely created for someone else- your audience!


Online Resources for Good Design:

Microsoft- Choosing the right colors for your PowerPoint presentation.

Write Design- The authors of this resource share ideas on specific rules of thumb for good design.

Web Design- This cutting edge site has lots of information for the design of Web sites that can also be used in other digital creations. 

PowerPointers- learn more about using PowerPoint as well as in choosing good colors, fonts, etc. to really connect to your audience.

 

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