Dana Vrajitoru
I310 Multimedia Arts and Technology
Document Design
Basic Principles
- Who are the readers? What are their concerns? How is that related
to your document design?
- What form or genre do the readers expect? What features would be
characteristic to that form? What visual evidence would they expect?
- What problems and constraints will your readers face? How will your document address them?
- What is the purpose of your document? How can the design help you
achieve it? How can it enhance your credibility?
Know Your Readers
What Do Your Readers Expect?
- What are the general conventions for the population of readers
your page/document is aimed for?
- For reports: word-processed, page number, title, author, class.
- MLA format / Chicago style, technical writing formats.
- Readers constraints.
Remember Your Purpose
- There is usually an argument, theme, point of view that the author
wants to convey to the readers.
- What is the message you want to get across?
- Have a clear focus.
- Be convincing.
Effective Design
- Using a prominent element. Think of you message and how to give it
prominence.
- Choosing fonts:
- Size: where will the readers be staying while reading them?
PowerPoint slides: at least 18 points.
- With serif or sans serif. Sans serif are cleaner but less
readable: use them for headlines or text that you want to stand
out. Recommended to use only one of each.
- Italics: emphasize words, like titles, foreign words, definitions.
- Bold: for emphasis purpose only. “Raisin bread” effect.
- White space: allows the eye to catch important things better.
Organization
- Bulleted lists can be effective to enumerate things when the order
isn’t significant.
- Numbered lists are good for things that follow a plan where the
order is important.
- Headings: they help structure the document. They need to have a
consistent style and alignment. Too many levels can be distracting.
- Using repetition purposefully, especially visual.
- Using color effectively: make sure that it serves a purpose, use
good contrast for the text. Too many colors can overload the readers.
Visuals
- Visuals can benefit to the document.
- Charts, maps, diagrams, tables.
- Integrating visuals and text. In technical papers all the figures
and tables need to be numbered and referenced in the text.
- Placing them in the text: close to the discussed point.
- Keep a balance between visuals and text.