Summary of chapter 4 Organizing Graphic Space

  Graphic space is the two-dimensional area where designers could organize and manipulate images and text to create a visual design (page 46), sounds like a drawing canvas or original white background.

  Many people think they don’t need spend much time on organizing graphic space as content design because it’s just a container for images and texts. But actually, the unfit graphic space organizing will destroy a fabulous content design completely, no one wants to see a beautiful girl in a chaotic room. So how to organize the graphic space appropriately to make design an organic whole is the first topic for designers.

  At first, designers should be clear about properties of graphic space which includes a frame, a border, margin and orientation. The frame is the real boundary of whole working area which encloses the space. The border is a visual boundary placed around objects inside, it’s automatically generated without any extra efforts. The orientation is the direction of graphic space which can be horizontal or vertical depends on the purpose of designers. And the margin is the area between frame and border.

   When we perceive a graphic, we always separate the whole graphic into two pieces: a foreground and a background. The foreground are objects which can be obviously perceived, and everything else is background, sometimes we call it white space. You know, many people always change lens focus from background to foreground to make it more prominent when they take half or full portrait photos. Well, it’s alright to blur white space in taking object-focus photos, but white space is necessary for a visual design that you can’t see any design full of objects or texts without white space left even for those abstract paintings.

  White space can provide space for viewers to divert attention between objects and give eyes a place to rest, it also can provide mental space for conveying deeper thinking and impact viewer’s emotion imperceptibly. For instance, a picture with less white space will make viewers feel a little nervous and crowded, but plentiful space will create a light and open feeling. Designers need to seek the balance between foreground and white space to make the whole visual design looks harmony and convey a positive feeling to viewers, it’s important.

  In addition, designers also need arrange images and texts appropriately to create a conducive layout for design purpose. A good layout can’t only help designers to draw peoples’ attention and help them understand the meaning of design, it’s also benefit for remembering and later applying. To design a perfect layout, designers should have a clear awareness about human’s visual hierarchy first.

  When we perceive a poster or a presentation slide, we are usually dominantly attracted by images which have big sizes or plentiful colors, then we will pay attention to the big size title and other words information. So designers could make images larger and post conspicuous characters for title to attract viewers’ attention, if possible, implementing different colors into design flexibly is also a good choice. But remember, don’t make images extremely large and arrange white space randomly, otherwise the harmony of design will be broken. Absolutely, we don’t have to do changes grudgingly on our project to suit this visual hierarchy, following original purpose is necessary for visual design.

  If you have used some software like Photoshop for visual design already, you’ll know how useful the grid is for assistance to construct a layout. The grid can provide a structure for positioning images and text accurately by separating the whole working area into little regular rectangle or square pieces, it helps a lot for designers to formulate an organic whole by aligning contents to right positions in purpose.

  One of the most prevalent and useful styles of grid is 3*3 modular grid. “A 3*3 grid divides the framed space into three sections vertically and horizontally, resulting in four intersection points and nine cells or modules.” (page 58) Positioning the most element at one or more of the four intersection points can help attracts viewers for a long time comparing to central focal structure. Of course, designers can hide grids after they finished design project.

  For organizing an inner layout for objects, designers can choose different alignment styles for diverse purpose to avoid random placement. For instance, many people always arranging pictures to each other’s edges in presentation to make it easier for viewers to perceive each one’s detailed information. But sometimes overlapping alignment will be better on presenting historical pictures.

  As well, designers can arrange objects symmetrically or asymmetrically based on diverse objects’ visual weight which refers to the degree that an object attracts or pulls the viewer’s attention and sustains it. (page 59) Symmetrical arrangement can aesthetically please viewer and make images look more harmonious but a little inert. Asymmetrical arrangement can make images more dynamic and easily attract views on emphasized things by classifying different objects’ visual weight into opposite sides but it’s difficult to control balance.