The Non-Designer's Design Book, Chapters 1-6

Before discussing the individual concepts in this book, I must say that I really like the way that the book is written, organized and presented.  Ms. Williams' writing style and sense of humor made it much easier to follow along and not get bogged down while reading.

Chapter 1 - The Joshua Tree Epiphany

I have noticed this same phenomenon in my own life.  My wife and I have been a home owner for just over a year now and the things that we notice while driving down the street never ceases to amaze me.  In years past I may have only noticed pretty girls or nice cars.  Now, however, I have become aware of other things: furniture on the porch while we shopped for ours, shades of mulch while I put down ours, arrangement of flower beds while I updated ours and presence of different flowers, shrubs and trees while we added our own.  Once you can name the problem, you can find the solution!  I then delved into the following chapters about, well, CRAP.

Chapter 2 - Proximity

I saw many design elements that I needed to be sure to apply when designing things for my students--worksheets, reference materials, tests, presentations, etc.  I also began to feel what Ms. Williams mentioned on Pg. 10, ". . . [I] will never again look at a page in the same way." as I noticed from the menus on Pg. 26-27 that my favorite restaurant--Crave in downtown Akron--needs to seriously revise their menu!  It looks just like the one on Pg. 26.  I still recall the first time I took my parents there . . . "What's this? ... I don't know what the names of these things are ... How much does it cost?"  The Proximity (and contrast) added on Pg. 27 really helped!

Chapter 3 - Alignment

Ah!  I center align too much!

It even looks bad now in that one sentence that I put there in a joke.  I never realized how much stronger a left or right alignment can be.  Right alignments don't get enough respect.  I also really like the way that she points out that aligning things on page relative to one another, rather than the page, can really unify and organize a page.

Chapter 4 - Repetition

My school system puts out a monthly staff newsletter.  I always found it difficult to follow and concentrate on reading.  Although it could have been because I was tired of reading about so-and-so becoming a grandma and how to write budgetary checks, I now think that the Design of it played a role.  The designer made every section look different, as if to show off the ability to do so.  More repetition, like the text in the articles about the "Darn Honor Farm" or "Evanescent wan think, itching udder" on Pgs. 54 and 55 may have made it easier to follow.  I also enjoyed the use of repetition in the "packages" like the Mom & Pop Grocery store stationary and the Red Hen promo materials.

Chapter 5 - Contrast

I felt guilty while reading this chapter.  A year or so ago, to instill a sense of consistency in my materials in my math class I decided to utilize the same font in everything--tests, quizzes, worksheets, presentations--and picked something that I thought was amusing.  I selected "American Typewriter" Font because I thought it was a fun, retro, math-nerd kind of font.  The students definitely new when materials were designed by me.  However, now I notice that it may have been wise to expand this consistency with some contrast.  Maybe headings should be a new text, not just bold?  Maybe directions should be a different text as well?  Maybe that would assure that the students read the directions which, trust me, they often do not.  As you can see, I took these principles of contrast to heart in this blog in two ways: different texts for writing & headings; and the spacing between segments (one extra space before headings, none after headings).  The resume on Pg. 69 really drives home the importance of this.

Chapter 6 - Review

Don't be a wimp!  The principles really do work well together, and this can be seen very visibly in the title page on Pg. 85.