Summary of chapter 5 Selecting and Creating Images

  Comparing to text content, graphics take a higher position in human’s visual hierarchy. Use different types of graphics accustomed to diverse situations can help designers to express their design goal easily and enhance the visual representation of their design.

  Photograph is the most popular type of graphic which includes so much visual information such as colors variances, shadows and textures. This combination of various visual information may interfere readers’ focus on what is important when they are perceiving photos, but it’s benefit for identifying details of complex items. For promoting, 3-D photographs can provide more detailed spatial information.

  People usually use true-to-life colorful photographs to record their lives for sharing and reviewing, these photos just like a realistic 2-dimensional duplication from physical environment. In addition, they can use different kinds of illustrations such as hand-drawn illustration, clip art or comic style illustrations to depict a unique life story or portray things that cannot be seen and show imaginary people and objects.

  Besides these full informational photos and illustrations, there are also many precise graphics such as line art, silhouettes and icons which are usually used for quick accessing in instruction manuals and transportation guidance in people’s normal life. These precise graphics can distill down to the essence of an object with fewer information and distractions, make it more symbolized for rapid scanning and understanding. As well, diagram presenting is another effective way to convert text information into visual representation.

  For learning, teachers can use diagrams to explain unfamiliar or complex concepts and theories to make it easier for students to understand and reflect. They can also use flow chart or a sequence of photos or illustrations to demonstrate a learning process or present a timeline of particular learning arrangement. And a graphic album with necessary text specification is really a good way for students to synthesis their previous learning and reinforce long-time remembering.

  In this case, teachers and students should know how to create various graphics for purposeful using at first. Absolutely, searching online is an easy accessed way if they can find what they want because google and other photograph sharing websites like Flickr can provide a lots of graphics in different style for various usage. But they also need to create graphics themselves to meet their particular purpose appropriately.

  Camera or smart devices with a camera is a common way to get photos and users can edit and customize their photos conveniently by using dedicated editing software like Photoshop. They can also scan the sketch they drew computer to make comic style illustrations directly.

  For photo creating, break a whole picture into three vertical pieces or use a narrow but recognizable horizontal slice to crop the whole picture into several parts can help a lot to catch readers’ attention. And adding borders around photos can avoid blending photos and background together to convey misunderstanding. In addition, creating a consistent image or illustration style with similar palette is necessary for a cohesive look and further development.

  There is also some other software dedicated to particular graphic editing and it’s not difficult to learn from scratch and later personal implement.