Lessons from a graphic design master
Friday’s Creative Review for Graphic Designers
Don’t know if you’ve noticed 
but I love reading about the theory of design. I find myself constantly learning from other designers and honing my design skills by reading.
As an added bonus, it sometimes explains why I design the way I design. Why I like certain colors over others. Why I place things the way I do. There appears to be logic behind my detail madness!
I feel very privileged to have had the opportunity of working with one of the greatest design teachers of our era: Roger C. Parker. He’s written a ton of books, has worked with some of the biggest companies, and he even coaches. Many call him the “great simplifier” and he is.
A couple of months ago he started a really great website on what he does best, writing: www.publishedandprofitable.com. I’m going to plug it a tiny bit here: it’s a subscription site that offers a daily blog, articles, book reviews, resources, interviews, and much much more.
So what are the greatest lessons he’s taught me over the last year?
- Writing to fit: In design school, I was always taught that we have to modify our design around the content. Roger taught me that you can actually have the writing fit your design (especially if you are the author!) You can always edit the text. Remove sentences. Many times there are extra words that just don’t need to be there!
- Tightening up your writing: Use only those words you need. Reword others. Rework sentences. Even at times — rather than writing something — use graphics! Simplify, simplify, simplify.
- Designing with an audience in mind: Before I would hardly think of who would actually be reading my piece. My concern was to create “pleasing” designs.
- Design has to be relevant: How many times have we seen design that is more dominant than the content itself? Roger taught me that design complements the copy, not compete with it. All the elements on the page needs to be there in order to support the content.
- Design as a whole and not a sum of parts: Design is much more than the piece you are currently designing. Design has to work together as part of a family. It should work together with previous published pieces — not be a complete departure from them.
- You don’t have to reinvent the wheel: You have to give the audience what they expect. Design is useless if it does not reach your intended audience. In design school, people would always try and “outdo” each other using the latest filters and effects. Sometimes, this may not work depending who you are designing for.
C O N C L U S I O N :
I’ll finish this post with one last tidbit. Roger always preaches: reuse, repurpose, recycle. This is in everything from designing to writing. We often forget that just because you’ve written or designed something in the past, it’s no longer relevant.
We forget that:
- Not everyone has read or seen it and
- Many people need constant reminding.
FURTHER INFORMATION:
I going to be interviewing Roger. I’ll be posting what will surely be a candid interview with him next week on Design and Thrive. I’ll keep you posted!
Related posts:
