Better Graphic Design

Graphic designers are asked to perform the difficult task of being creative every single day. Often, our main priority is to feed our client's fascination for originality. We experiment with colors, composition, typography, and photography in order to deliver an original visual solution. This sort of free-ranging experimentation is often the expectation of graphic designers. However, this approach is becoming less and less effective.

Acosta, Maria. Thread Information Design (2003). Design>Graphic Design

What Does Your Audience Want?

Successful visual designers well know the audiences they are designing for, and realize that their audiences exist at multiple levels.

Knemeyer, Dirk. Thread Information Design (2003). Design>Graphic Design>Audience Analysis>Rhetoric

Writing Skills and Better Visual Design

Strong visual design is about balance. It requires an appropriate relationship between written content, information hierarchy and the use of visual elements such as graphics and photography. While most visual designers will tacitly acknowledge this, the preponderance of visual design artifacts shows a bias toward either the words or the visual elements, and too often does not reflect strong information hierarchy. These all-too-frequent examples of spotty visual design belie personal comfort levels and experience.

Knemeyer, Dirk. Thread Information Design (2003). Articles>Writing>Visual Rhetoric

Communication: Critical to Good Design

The most complicated challenge we face during the design process has nothing to do with design techniques, understanding media or incorporating industry-best practices. It is a question of communication. Indeed, a successful solution is often undermined by the poor communication of good ideas that allow individual opinions and subjective biases to misdirect strong work. While we need to be open to other people making strong contributions that improve our work, we must also proactively account for subjective or misguided suggestions. Here are a few simple guidelines to help your communication validate your work.

Knemeyer, Dirk. Thread Information Design (2003). Articles>Communication>Design