Caught on the Web #2

In my first post in this series, Meet the Curator, I explained a bit about my social media philosophy, and basically how with all that goes on online it's so easy to miss good content. So from time to time I'll post a list of some things I found pretty cool.

First up is the sketchnotes challenge that Eva-Lotta Lamm is running over on her blog. She has gathered a panel of experts that will give challenge participants feedback on their submissions, imagine the guy who wrote the book on sketchnotes giving you his 2 cents, no really Mike Rhode DID write the book on sketchnotes and it is among the prizes that participants will be competing for. I've taken a peek at the other contestants and there are some really good entries (If you ask me I think the person who needs the MOST work should get Mike's book, at least then I'd be in the running.) Other prizes include Eva-Lotta's own books which are collections of sketchnotes from talks she's attended in a given year, and Brandy Agerbeck's The Graphic Facilitators Guide which I have and highly recommend.  I've posted a pic of my own submission below, make sure to trot on over to Eva-Lotta's blog for all the details the contest ends this Sunday, March 17th.

Next, in light of the really great discussion that has cropped up regarding my C.R.A.P. posts. I thought I'd share a slideshare about designing for presentation. This stood out because of the great use of storytelling which weaves through the whole piece and ties it together nicely. It is a good example of how stories can be used in concert with visuals to make presentations POP!

Design for Presentation: The great eye learns to see from Francis Glebas

Last on the list for this week is a playlist that I put together of videos from The Art of Hosting. As a Visual Thinking partner my aim is to work closely with facilitators to make the most out of group processess. To that end, I enjoy learning about various group facilitation techniques. The videos in the playlist each give a brief overview of various techniques and are helpful if you want to get the gist of a given practice. 

C.R.A.P on the fly might make you the shiznit pt.2

In the first installment of C.R.A.P on the fly... I introduced the four major design principles,fondly known by the acronym C.R.A.P, which Robin Williams wrote about in her book,  The Design Book for Non-Designers.

Contrast

Repetition

Alignment

Proximity 

I've been using Anthony Weeks' work for a mini-case study exploring how graphic recorders might apply these design principles in the moment (on the fly). In post 1I covered contrast and repetition, so this time we'll jump into two new charts to see how alignment and proximity might come into play.

Alignment

Alignment is perhaps the toughest design principle to incorporate on the fly. In fact, it's honestly not that easy to do when doing studio work, if you don't draw guidelines in pencil. There are several different types of alignment, this post from printwand provides a more in depth explanation. For illustrative purposes I'll demonstrate here:


These lines of text
are left aligned

These lines of text are 

    right aligned 

These lines of text are 

center aligned  

There is also a type of alignment called justified, where the text is lined up on both the left and right, but it wasn't showing up right in blogger. 

The most popular alignment in printed materials designed for reading is left (think of the default setting in your fave wordprocessing program), whereas centered alignment is generally reserved for things like titles or other things that should stand out and aren't large blocks of text. When text is aligned it gives the eye a straight edge to move down when starting to read each line (our eyes like that), rather than a jagged edge where each line in a paragraph or other related block of information starts at a different place. And let's admit it we're lazy and having all the text lined up makes it easier to scan as well. Though alignment is a good thing, you don't have to go overboard and try to justify blocks of text, it's ok to have left aligned text with a jagged right edge, apparently that creates white space (and we like white space).  Another quick note on left-aligned vs justified is that left-aligned is generally seen as more approachable and friendly, which fits well with graphic recording, justified text is more stodgy (think strict newspaper columns).

Obviously, in graphic recording there is not one left margin that acts as a magical line for text. So if one is trying to align text they have to use several imaginary lines. While every single block of text above isn't aligned the majority of it is, and generally the text that isn't aligned is either indented or wrapped around an image. 

I've pulled out two portions of text to illustrate this point and made the invisible lines visible, though I didn't make a line for the bullets in the list on the left, notice that they too are aligned.

I also learned from Christina Merkley that lining up text makes it easier to go back and put boxes around it latter, and boy do we love boxes containers :)

Proximity

Last, but certainly not least is this graphic recording done of Patrick van der Pijl as he spoke about Business Model Generation. There is a lot going on in this chart, I don't know how long the original talk was but I'm familiar with the book and it looks as if he was giving a broad overview both on how the book came about and what it actually says. Proximity in a nutshell means that if things are close together, people assume they are related.  You can see that like things are indeed grouped together so that the answers to a given question are in close proximity to the box container holding the question itself. This is also where other elements such as contrast and repetition come into play which further help us differentiate between information. This design element requires balance because while you want white space in order to let things breathe a bit, placing them too far apart makes them seem unrelated. There are areas where a particular word might seem to drift off (see the "Why was Business Model Generation so Impactful" question in the bottom right and notice that "technologies" is further away than the other answers), however the use of dotted lines connects the text to it's anchor and reels it back in so it doesn't get lost in the sauce.  

Proximity also relates to how close an icon is to the text it is supposed to illuminate or drive home. Again look at the "so impactful" question notice how the computer is right next to "online revolution," had it been somewhere else on the page it wouldn't have worked. The same can be said for the coffee placed right next to the word Nespresso, one could have easily moved the cup down so that it sat right next to the list, rather than the title (after all the whole list relates to Nespresso), but it would take more mental gymnastics to figure out why a coffee cup was next to "What are the channels?."


So now that I've finished picking apart Anthony's work, I'll return to my original premise. I supposed that if one was able, in the moment, to apply all four basic design principles they would indeed be the shiznit. In this case, at least, I believe that my hypothesis was indeed correct.

C.R.A.P on the Fly Might Make You the Shiznit- Pt.1

 

  A Case Study w. Anthony Weeks

 

C.R.A.P

C.R.A.P. is pretty ubiquitous in the graphic design world, and by that I don't mean poor quality work (though there is plenty of that), instead C.R.A.P. is actually a litmus test to help define excellent design. It is an acronym that refers to four basic design principles, as described in The Non Designers Design Book, by Robin Williams.

Contrast

Repetition

Alignment

Proximity

If your aren't familiar with these principles,  I'd suggest viewing the following SlideShare presentation by Diane Tchakirides based on the work by Robin Williams. She does a good job of presenting each principle and giving examples.

Principles of Visual Design from Diane Tchakirides Design

On The Fly 

I was interested in exploring how C.R.A.P might be applied to the field of graphic recording/facilitation. Unlike, graphic artists or web designers who can employ grid lines, play with design elements, move things around, or use software to align text; graphic recorders would need to apply C.R.A.P on the fly (meaning live in real time). C.R.A.P defines good design because it relates to how our brains work, and how information can be optimally organized to facilitate comprehension and improve readability.

I figured if anyone was applying C.R.A.P on the fly their work would be the shiznit, and I set out to find someone to use for my impromptu case study. I think Anthony Weeks' work is pretty awesome, so I'm thankful that he is allowing me to use his work to illustrate how C.R.A.P On The Fly might play out. Though pretty much all of the work that I've seen from him applies all of these principles, for the sake of this post, I'll just highlight one principle per piece. Your challenge if you choose to accept it, is to identify the other ones, you can point them out in the comments section if you like. So here goes... The images below are all original work done by Anthony Weeks, and are subject to the original copyrights.


Contrast

The chart above, is a great example of how contrast can be used effectively in graphic recording. There is plenty of contrast going on, which allows viewers to easily distinguish information, and to quickly find the most important points. The title font is used to show the two main areas of the chart, and is easily differentiated from the body text based on color, size, and style. The use of green capital lettering in the body text makes the important points "pop" and is in contrast to the black lower case writing which provides more detail.

In addition to helping page elements stand out from each other, contrast also functions to help elements stand out from the white background. Shading/shadow is used throughout the chart to provide depth and break up the white space. The white boxes around the numbers and exclamation pints are a good example of how a little shadowing set them apart from the background. The use of pastels also provides contrast that helps the graphic elements stand out from the background.

Repetition

 

There are several visual elements that are repeated above, which helps unify the whole piece. Graphic recording is traditionally done on large sheets of paper (4x8 or so), and the gist/tone of the conversation/speech, etc. may change. The above example shows how repetitive elements like color, or shape can help tie the chart together even if the information being presented is different. 

The repetition in this chart is most obvious where you see lists of things. The first list on the left hand side of the paper for instance, employs  pink checkmarks for each point, and each point is written in blue. There are several different groups of information presented in this chart and the use of bullets, and shapes helps the viewer differentiate which points go with each section. For instance in the middle of the chart there are three different sets of info being presented, the information that falls under the statement "there was a need for change" is set apart with thought clouds ( notice too that the cloud shape is repeated at the top of the chart, and even in the bushes at the bottom); The info related to "economic crisis" uses only pink marbles as bullet points with no container; and the information related to "How do we operate as a system?" are set within rectangles with rectangular but still pink bullets). 

Repetition however, doesn't necessarily mean using the exact same element over and over. This chart also uses arrows as a repetitive element that helps guide the eye around the document, but arrows vary in size and style. The little sparkly stars around the title are also repeated across the top of the page this time in a different size and color, yet it still feels unified. 

Lastly, color is also an element that can be used repeatedly to add a sense of consistency. Though it is hard for me to actually restrain myself when I have a set of markers on hand, some graphic recorders are really good at using a limited color palette with great results. I personally love the effect of just using the black, pink, yellow and blue. The colors are used very intelligently and consistently, the pink is repeatedly used for bullet points, and the dark blue is used within the text to help key words stand out. 

Overall the repetitive elements not only make the piece visually appealing, but help to aid understanding by highlighting key words and showing connections between pieces of information. 

So that does it for this installment of C.R.A.P, in the next post I'll take a look at two more charts from Anthony Weeks and see how he uses alignment and proximity.