WEEK 4: IMAGING & DESIGN

Status Done

Assign

Basic Principles of Graphics & Layout

Layout

is the process of planning and arranging in detail something such as a page or book to be
reproduced.

Graphics

are visual images or designs on some surface, such as a wall, canvas, screen, paper, or
stone to inform, illustrate, or entertain.

But in engineering, graphics may refer to any computer device or program that makes a
computer capable of displaying and manipulating pictures.

The term also refers to the images themselves.

For example, laser printers and plotters are graphics devices because they permit the
computer to output pictures. A graphics monitor is a display monitor that can display
pictures. A graphics board (or graphics card) is a printed circuit board that, when
installed in a computer, permits the computer to display pictures.

Principles of Design
govern the relationships between the elements used in the design and organize the
composition as a whole.

Successful design incorporates the use of the principles to communicate the intended
message effectively.

help designers organize the images and type on the page, so that it feels more
comfortable to viewers and makes a greater impact.

1. Balance
is an equal distribution of weight. In terms of graphics, this applies to visual weight.
Each element on a layout has visual weight that is determined by its size, darkness or
lightness, and thickness of lines. Balance is vital to the success of a design.

There are two main types of balance

a. Symmetrical Balance

an arrangement of elements so that they are evenly distributed to the left and to
the right, or top and bottom of center.

b. Asymmetrical Balance

an arrangement of unlike objects of equal weight on each side of the page.

Color, value, size, shape, and texture can be used as balancing elements.

Tips on creating balance:

a. Colors have weight (Red = Heavy, Baby Blue = Light)

b. Text/type must be legible. Use simple font. Also consider the size (Larger = Heavier)

c. Lines: Thin vs. thick

d. Alignment of elements is important, whether it be text or images.

e. Use proper justification (left, center or right)

f. Images should be big enough and must be in high resolution

g. Caption all photos possible, and DO NOT forget to add credits!

2. Proximity

WEEK 4: IMAGING & DESIGN 1

 demands that related items be grouped together, be move physically close to each other so
that they appear as one cohesive group rather than a bunch of unrelated bits. The basic
purpose of proximity is to organize.

Simply grouping related elements together into closer proximity automatically creates
organization.

If the information is organized, it is more likely to be read and remembered.

3. Alignment
New designers tend to put text and graphics on the page whenever there is space, often
without regard to any other items on the page. The Principle of Alignment
states, "Nothing should be placed on the page arbitrarily. Every item should have a
visual connection with something else on the page." When items are aligned, the result is
a stronger cohesive unit. The basic purpose of alignment is to unify and organize the
page.

Be conscious of where you place the elements (line, image, type).

Always find something else on the page to align with, even if the two objects are
physically far away from each other.

Avoid using more than one text alignment on the page (that is, don't center some text and
right-align other text).

4. Repetition
"Repeat some aspect of the design throughout the entire piece."

The repetitive element may be a bold font, a thick line, a certain bullet, a color, a
design element, a particular format, a spatial relationship, etc.

It can be anything that a reader will visually recognize as being a “theme.”

can be thought of as consistency.

It is a conscious effort to unify all parts of a design.

helps organize the information. It guides the reader and helps to unify parts of the
design. Repetitive elements establish a sophisticated continuity and can "tie the whole
thing together."

Business identity, also known as “branding” requires a strong use of repetition so the
customer can easily identify the business

unifies and strengthens a piece by tying together otherwise separate parts.

Repetition creates unity and adds visual interest.

Think of repetition as consistency. Then push the existing consistencies a little

further.

Avoid repeating the element so much that it becomes annoying or overwhelming.

5. Contrast
is the most effective way to add visual interest to your page.  

crucial to the organization of information - a reader should always be able to glance at

a document and instantly understand what's going on.

Add contrast through your type face choices, line thicknesses, colors, shapes, sizes,
space, etc.

"If two items are not exactly the same, then make them different. Really different."

Contrast has two purposes:

To create an interest on the page. If a page is interesting to look at, it is more

likely to be read.

To aid in the organization of the information. The message should be clear and easily
recognizable.

Tips on adding contrast

Add contrast through typeface choices, line thicknesses, colors, shapes, sizes, space,
images, etc.

Don't be a wimp. If you're going to contrast, do it with strength.

WEEK 4: IMAGING & DESIGN 2

 Avoid contrasting a sort-of-heavy line with a sort-of-heavier line.

Avoid using two or more typefaces or colors that are similar.

If the items are not exactly the same, make them different!

6. White Space
“White space is the art of nothing. White space is the absence of text and graphics.” 

breaks up the elements on the page. It provides visual breathing room for the eye.

Add white space to make a page less cramped, confusing, or overwhelming.  

It gets its name from the early days of graphic design where most printing was done on
white paper.

White space can be black, blue, red, etc. whatever color the background is.

White space is also referred to as “negative space”.

always occurs in a design from the moment you open up a blank document, when the design
begins with white space.

There are two types of white space:

the undefined white space: which is what you get when you open a new document

active white space: which occurs when an object is placed in an undefined white space.

made of nothing, but shouldn’t be treated that way.

Simply by increasing the space between elements in a layout, a design can take on a more
elegant appearance, and by injecting more white space into a design’s typography, content
becomes more legible.

New designers always tend to forget the principle of white space.  They often try to fill
the entire page, but it is important to remember that in design, sometimes LESS is MORE!

Visual Message Designs

involves the appropriate considerations of visual perceptions when designing an
instructional program.

The interpretation of pictures is based on prior experiences, culture, etc.

When designing an instructional program, it is important to consider the culture,

educational ability, and language of the audience.

The purpose of visual message design is to gain attention, create meaning, and facilitate
retention.

Ex: representational, analogical, charts & graphs

Infographics
one of the most challenging types of visual communication, primarily because their
creation cannot be left to chance or luck and the difficulty of accumulating multiple
objects to form one uniform visual representation. Depending on the complexity of data
presented, an infographic can be quite an extensive and laborious process. Data
collection alone is time consuming, because you have to carefully filter the information
from the most credible resource you can find.

are used for signs, maps and data presentations. Scientists, technical writers,
mathematicians, educators and statisticians ease the process of developing, organizing,
recording and communicating conceptual information by using infographics.

The term “Infographics” is applied to information, data or knowledge that is presented in

graphic visual form and that presents a clear message quickly and clearly.

An effective infographic grabs your attention and keeps it just long enough to deliver an
important message or teach you important information.

Infographics are used for the following reasons:

To communicate a message,

To present a lot of data or information in a way that is compact and easy to comprehend,

WEEK 4: IMAGING & DESIGN 3

 To analyze data in order to discover cause-and-effect relationships,

To periodically monitor the route of certain parameters.

Principles of Visual Message Design using Infographics

1. BE UNIQUE

One of the most important aspects of designing an effective infographic is to make it

engaging and memorable with a unique twist on something that everyone can relate to.

Don’t just generate a basic bar graph or chart inside a software application, throw in
your data, and expect anyone to be super excited about it.

Design something unique that will capture the attention of the audience you are seeking
to draw in.

Using something unexpected in an ordinary bar graph, for instance, will draw interest and
get your point across.

2. KEEP IT SIMPLE

Even though you want to shoot for interesting and unique, don’t throw in so much detail
and extraneous information in a way that the audience is overwhelmed by everything going
on in your infographic.

Using too many different images and designs or filling backgrounds with too much color or
full photographs may actually make your data harder to understand.

The audience can be distracted trying to comprehend all the visual information being
thrown at them, hindering their ability to focus on the main point.

Everyone must remember that in this generation, so much information is available that
when people see too much to digest and comprehend quickly, they are probably going to
turn away or click somewhere else because it looks too complicated to be worth their
time!!

3. BE CREATIVE AND BOLD

For a truly impactful design that gets your message across, it’s important to make sure
that your main message is bold and obvious.

Creative enough to just give it that special little twist.

For instance, a statement written in a neutral font such as Arial can highlight the most
important points by presenting a few of the words in a creative font that artfully
describes the meaning of each important word.

You can perhaps use shapes or images in place of some of the letters or words to
emphasize meaning.

Simple, bold creativity is your key to grabbing attention quickly and getting your
message across with effective infographics

4. LESS IS MORE

Keeping your text minimal will most likely produce more impact than a page full of words.

People are bombarded with information all day long, including blaring images, bright
colors and blinking lights. Your goal is to entice them to stop scrolling and look at
your infographic.

An effective image will grab the attention of the audience with something as simple as an
effectively displayed word that makes them stop and read the important information below
it. Remember that you want to capture the attention of your audience, make your
statement, and entice them to click “share”.

Make sure your message gives them some piece of interesting information that will not be
easily forgotten.

4. SHARING

The final and most important thing you want from an effective infographic is a simple
way for people to share it with their friends.

WEEK 4: IMAGING & DESIGN 4

 Include links reminding people that they want their friends to enjoy the information
they have just found.

A simple row of “share me” buttons will do. Readers can quickly forward the
information to their Facebook friends, Pinterest followers, Email contact list, Google
plus circles, and more.

Make sure that forwarding can be done in only a couple of clicks. If it gets too
complicated, most people will close the box and move on to something else. Only a
handful of people will have the patience to copy and paste the URL manually.

Never forget that your biggest harvest of unique visitors and audiences will come as
everyone passes your infographic around with the magic of internet forwarding.

Online File Formats for Images & Text

JPEG

JPEG images (short for Joint Photographic Experts

Group) are “full-color images that dedicate at least
24 bits of memory to each pixel, resulting in images
that can incorporate 16.8 million colors,” and are
frequently referenced by their file extension, JPG.

JPEGs are also “lossy,” meaning they retain all color

information, but compress file size by selectively
discarding data—and that compression can result in a
loss of quality.

In most design programs, you can choose the degree of

compression you wish to apply to individual images—
just be aware that by doing so, you also will alter
the image’s quality. As a result, if you choose the
maximum quality option, your image will most likely
be indistinguishable from your original photograph,
albeit with a correspondingly larger file size.

GIF

GIF stands for Graphics Interchange Format.

GIF is one of the file formats used to display indexed-

color graphics and images in HTML documents on the web.

This means that a GIF will only display a maximum of 256

colors; as a result, GIFs are great for images with
simple illustrations and blocks of colors, like logos
and icons, but probably not the best option for
photographs.

GIFs preserve transparency.

You can use image-editing software to select colors in a

GIF image’s color palette to become transparent. This
allows you to put a GIF over a colored background, or
even a photograph, and you won’t see a border around the
image.

However, GIF transparency is not selective. This means

that if you make a color transparent, that color will
become transparent in the entire image

• GIFs support animation, which is an increasingly

popular technique in email design!

PNG

PNGs, or Portable Network Graphics, offer a wide range of

attractive features.

Full range of color depths, support for sophisticated image

transparency, better interlacing, and automatic corrections
for display monitor gamma.

WEEK 4: IMAGING & DESIGN 5

 PNG images can also hold a short text description of the
image’s content, which allows Internet search engines to
search for images based on these embedded text
descriptions.

There are two types of PNG formats: PNG-8 and PNG-24.

The PNG-8 format is similar to GIFs in the fact that

they are saved with 256 colors maximum.

The PNG-24 format is able to display millions of colors,

but also comes with a larger file size.

The rule of thumb here is to choose whichever format is

an appropriate balance of color and file size for your
particular needs.

PNGs are also capable of producing background images

without jagged edges.

They can be used for photographs, PNGs typically have

larger file sizes than JPEGs since they use lossless
compression.

A negative of the PNG format is that they are not supported

by all web browsers or early versions of Lotus Notes.

BMP TIF EPS

BMP is short for "Bitmap." TIF is lossless EPS stands for

It can be pronounced as
"bump," "B-M-P," or simply
a "bitmap image."
The BMP format is a
commonly used raster
graphic format for saving
image files.
It was introduced on the
Windows platform, but is
now recognized by many
programs on both Macs and
PCs.
The BMP format stores
color data for each pixel
in the image without any
compression.
For example, a 10x10
pixel BMP image will
include color data for
100 pixels. This method
of storing image
information allows for
crisp, high-quality
graphics, but also
produces large file
sizes.
The JPEG and GIF formats
are also bitmaps, but use
image compression
algorithms that can
significantly decrease
their file size. For this
reason, JPEG and GIF
images are used on the
Web, while BMP images are
often used for printable
images.
(including LZW "Encapsulated PostScript."
compression option),
EPS is a PostScript image
which is considered the
file format that is
highest quality format
compatible with PostScript
for commercial work.
printers and is often used
The TIF format is not for transferring files
necessarily any "higher between various graphics
quality" per se (the applications.
same RGB image pixels,
EPS files will print
they are what they are),
identically on all
and most formats other
PostScript-compatible
than JPG are lossless
printers and will appear
too.
the same in all
TIF simply has no JPG applications that can read
artifacts, no additional the PostScript format.
losses or JPG artifacts
As the name implies, EPS
to degrade and detract
files contain PostScript
from the original.
code, which is used for
TIF is the most storing font and vector
versatile, except that image information.
web pages don't show TIF
EPS files may also include
files.
a rasterized version of
For other purposes the image used for
however, TIF does most previewing the contents of
of anything you might the file.
want, from 1-bit to 48-
bit color, RGB, CMYK,
LAB, or Indexed color.
Most any of the
"special" file types
(for example, camera RAW
files, fax files, or
multipage documents) are
based on TIF format, but
with unique proprietary
data tags - making these
incompatible unless
expected by their
special software.

WEEK 4: IMAGING & DESIGN 6

 WHICH FORMAT IS BEST?
Unfortunately, there is no right
answer. You need to determine which
file format is most appropriate for
the content of that image. If you’re
looking to include animation, the GIF
format is the obvious choice. Need
your photographs to retain their
detail and color? Go with a JPEG.

Image Manipulation
is an art that involves transforming or altering an image using different methods and
techniques to achieve desired results.

Photo manipulation techniques are used by many designers to create extremely creative
works of art. Once you understand the key focus points in photo manipulation, you can
create anything you can imagine.

Principles & Basic Techniques of IM

A.  Proportion

Proportion is probably one of the most important things a designer must possess if he
wants to do image manipulations.

This will make the image more realistic if the original design is extremely far-fetched.

For example, you cannot have your dog bigger than your house, or your horse bigger than
your car.

Remember that images that are supposed to be far away have to be smaller than the ones
that are closer. Below is an example of great proportioning.

B.  Texture

Texture is the surface quality of the image.

It adds to the depth of the image and blends all the images together evenly.

Blending is a huge part of image manipulation, so textures are something a designer has
to carefully select.

For example, a designer is trying to go for an image manipulation that is dark and dirty
looking, use a rough ground surface as a background texture; or if looking for something
smoother, use paper or a wall texture.

Remember if you do not have a background for your photo manipulation, you should use a
texture that will match the mood you are trying to set in your art.

C.  Color Blending

Not every image you use is going to match your background, your texture, or even other
images.

That is where color blending comes in. Colors like pink, white, yellow, and orange blend
together easily. That is what a designer should look for at first; colors readily blend.

D.  Emphasis on Detail

When creating a piece of art, set one area as the main focus. You want to draw the
viewer’s eyes instantly to that spot.

One way is to work on focusing attention on the most vibrant, colorful, or sharp area in
the design.

E.  Combining Multiple Images

Images are like missing puzzle pieces; without them, you can never fully complete the
puzzle. So choose them carefully.

WEEK 4: IMAGING & DESIGN 7

 You may need to look at multiple stock images before choosing the right ones for your
composition.

F.  Shadows

Image manipulations are made so that you can bring out things that would never happen in
the real world. 

Shadows also make the image more realistic, because they emphasize the object
effectively. It is realistic in a way that every item has a shadow if it needs one and
every item is proportional to everything else.

Basic image manipulation using offline or open-source software

SketchUp is a 3D modeling computer program for a wide range of drawing applications such as
architectural, interior design, civil and mechanical engineering, film, and video game
design. This application is an open-source software that can be used offline, of course when
its installed in a personal computer.

1. Choosing Your Default Image Editor for SketchUp

2. Editing Your Material

3. Editing in Photoshop

4. The Image is Updated in SketchUp

Combining Text, Graphics, & Images

Graphics Text

Graphics may refer to any computer device
or program that makes a computer capable
of displaying and manipulating pictures.
The term also refers to the images
themselves.
These can be words, sentences, or
paragraphs. Text processing refers to the
ability to manipulate words, lines, and
pages. Typically, the term text refers to
text stored as ASCII codes in computer
language.

SketchUp

Screen text - The most basic text in SketchUp, screen text (Callout 1) is fixed to the
screen regardless of how you manipulate or orbit a model. Screen text is not attached to
any entity.

Leader text - A leader is the line or arrow pointing to a model entity. Predictably,
leader text (Callout 2) has a leader line that points to a specific entity in your model.

3D text - 3D text (Callout 3) is made of actual edges and faces that become part of your
model.

Dimensions - When you want to indicate a length, radius, or diameter, use the Dimension
tool to create a dimension entity (Callout 4). A dimension entity, which is linked to the
line, circle, or arc entity you choose, displays a measurement automatically and updates
that measurement dynamically as you work on your model.

WEEK 4: IMAGING & DESIGN 8