Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
Organizational Strategies: Structure and Intuition
Figuring out what goes where, in
what order, and how it should be arranged from a compositional standpoint demands a
lot from a designer. A client might supply some content in a particular order, but the
designer really has to understand the content and, potentially, reorder it when neces-
sary to improve its clarity or enhance its conceptual aspects. On a visual level, how
much appears at any given time and the actual arrangement are decisions a designer
alone must make. As the sequence and pacing of the content is being planned, the de-
signer must also address the specific visual relationships of text and image. How struc-
tured, neutral, or documentary does the presentation need to be? What happens if the
material is organized in a less structured way? How are the images and the text visually
related, and how do they interact within the format? Answering these questions might
involve both analytical and intuitive study of the content to see how different methods
help or hinder the presentation. A designer must often switch between these two ex-
tremes—messing around with the material to see what's possible, analyzing the visu-
al and conceptual clarity of the results, and then returning to freer exploration to test
whether the analysis is accurate or useful. Some basic organizational methods have be-
come common in graphic design practice, especially in regard to typography; some are
structurally based, and others respond more intuitively to conceptual and tactile qualit-
ies.
Visual Logic
Structuring the Page
Intuitive Arrangement
Integrating Type and Image
Layout Systems
