Design

Design Proposal
Yearbook Design Proposal [2014]

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Yearbook Guidelines [2014] and Format [2012] [[file:YBC Format (2014).pdf]]
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Yearbook Ladder Diagraming Made Easy [[file:The Ladder (Ladder Diagraming Made Easy).pdf]]
- = = = Design Tips: =

A key aspect of good graphic design is knowing how to use colors to convey your message or brand. There are countless ways to mix and match colors: bright colors, shades, pastels, fluros, light colors, dark colors… the list goes on!

Color palette #1: Pastels

Pastel colors are often described as soft, soothing and neutral. As design shack writes, pastels have become a popular choice for graphic design lately. It suggests using pastels to convey softness and sophistication.

Color palette #2: Tones

Another reliable color palette is to use varying tones. The graphic above uses different tones, or shades, of blue. Creating a design that uses various shades of a color is often referred to as a ‘monochromatic’ color scheme. You can use this technique with any color. As design website ColorSchemer shows, different monochromatic color palettes convey different messages.

Color palette #3: Bright colors and white

As we’ve written previously, contrast is very important in graphic design. It’s no different with colors; using bright colors with white highlights will give your designs some extra zing! While there are many different ways to contrast colors — some great examples on Love of Graphics — combining strong colors with white is always a safe option.

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Design tip #1: Use contrast to help your designs stand out

Using contrast in your design will help it stand out. Make sure you use contrasting colors, particularly when choosing your background color and the color of any fonts or graphics you use in your design. A good rule of thumb is if you have a light colored background then you should use a dark font (and vice versa).

Design tip #2: Choose your font palette

Perhaps you already have corporate fonts that you use at work, or maybe you’re creating a personal design and need to choose your own. Either way, you’ll need to pick a font for your title or headings, your subtitle and your body text. Pick a font that stands out for your heading, but choose simpler subtitle and body fonts that are easy to read.

Design tip #3: Pick a color scheme

Just like you’ve now chosen a font palette, you’ll also want to pick a color scheme. The Canva colors are bright pastels, and these are used consistently across all our branding. You can do the same thing with your brand or design. Start with 2-3 main colors.

Design tip #4: No naked images

Using images in your design adds interest and helps your design to stand out. A good tip with images is to use a grid or frame where possible. This is a simple trick which will give your design a professional edge.

Design tip #5: Keep it simple

Lastly, it can be easy to get carried away with so many great images, graphics and fonts to choose from. A cluttered design is overwhelming. Make sure you have a reason to use every design element, and keep the number of fonts, colors, shapes and frames to a minimum.

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Infographics
= = = Five Good Online Tools for Creating Infographics =

Here are five free tools that your students can use to create infographics.

1. Infogr.am is an online tool for creating interactive charts, graphs, and interactive infographic posters. There are four basic chart types that you can create on Infogr.am; bar, pie, line, and matrix. Each chart type can be edited to use any spreadsheet information that you want to upload to your Infogr.am account. The information in that spreadsheet will be displayed in your customized chart. When you place your cursor over your completed chart the spreadsheet information will appear in small pop-up window. Infogr.am infographics can include videos and maps along with pictures and text. Your Infogr.am projects can be embedded into your blog, website, or wiki.

2. Easel.ly provides a canvas on which you can build your own infographic by dragging and dropping pre-made design elements. You can use a blank canvas or build upon one of Easel.ly's themes. If Easel.ly doesn't have enough pre-made elements for you, you can upload your own graphics to include in your infographic. Your completed infographic can be exported and saved as PNG, JPG, PDG, and SVG files. 3. Piktochart provides seven free infographic templates. Each template can be customized by changing the colors, fonts, icons, and charts on each template. If you need more space on the template, you can add more fields at the bottom of the templates. If you need less space, you can remove fields from the templates. 4. EWC Presenter is a new tool from Easy Web Content (a website creation and hosting service). EWC Presenter makes it easy to create slideshows, banner graphics, and interactive infographics. The slideshow creator and banner graphic creator don't stand-out from other tools like them. The EWC Presenter's infographic animation option is worth noting. EWC Presenter's infographic tool allows you to animate elements within your infographic. And as was featured in a post early this month, EWC Presenter infographics support audio files. 5. Canva is a service that makes it easy to create beautiful slides, flyers, posters, infographics, and photo collages. Creating these graphics on Canva is a drag-and-drop process. Start by selecting a template then dragging and dropping into place background designs, pictures, clip art, and text boxes. Canva offers a huge library of clip art and photographs to use in your designs. You can also upload your own images to use in your graphics. Your completed Canva projects can be downloaded as PDF and PNG files. You can also simply link to your online graphic.

=[|Seven Essentials of Good Infographic Design]= = = These are the elements of good design about designing infographics:

1. **Be accurate**. It seems obvious, but you will find infographics are not accurate. For example, make sure your pie charts add up to 100%. 2. **Tell one story really well**. An infographic that tries to do too much ends up not telling a story at all. 3. **The 5 second rule**. Most of the page view duration times are 5-10 seconds for infographics featured on his blog. Create infographics that tell a story quickly. 4. **Big fonts are not data visualizations**. "Displaying the number in a large font doesn't make it any easier for the audience to understand." 5. **Minimize text**. Along the lines of #4 above. This is another tip that seems obvious, yet we see text-heavy infographics all over the web. 6. **Eliminate chart legends**. If the viewer needs a legend, your infographic's story might not be as clear as it should be. 7. **Pick a good topic**. Some topics are not as suitable for infographic display as others.