The Art Of Designing Pictures And Text

When it comes to graphic design for picture and text, it depends on whether your design is for the print medium or the online world. No matter which media you handle, it is important to have your basics right when it comes to designing. After all, it is an art in itself to balance pictures and text and design them to create something that is appealing and will encourage the reader look for more.

Let’s start with pictures. In most cases, you will use your judgement to decide on what will look best; often, this comes with experience. When you are designing pictures, going simple is sometimes the best thing that you can do. Use one of the images that you have, which is central to the content and place one or two more around it with the text to complete the story. Let there be a progression in the images and not some randomness.

If you have the space to use two full bleed photos, you could think of stacking them with a band of text separating the two. This kind of placement can tell a story well and can have contrasting themes of day or night for example. In designing, you do not have to stick to the standard square and rectangular shapes for pictures. Think outside of the boxe, and look at your pictures differently. Look at triangles, conical and other such shapes supported by text or bands of it.

If you have to work with multiple pictures and have no choice but to use most of them, you could consider having a multi-layered grid. This will give you the flexibility of choosing and using a set of images that will not be disruptive to the rest of your content. The grid is a flexible device and you can rearrange the lines to bring out the best in the photos that you have.

You could even use the texture from your image to create a similar look for the text you use giving you a unique set of image and text. This can bring about a cohesiveness in your designing. These are just some of the basics that you can keep in mind when it comes to designing graphics with pictures.

Your next task is dealing with text. There are several tips you can keep in mind for this as well. In graphic designing, your target audience has to be considered. The kind of readability you need for a magazine is very different from what you need for online audience. Keep this in mind when you are working with text. When you are dealing with print, serif fonts are the best. They actual work as visual clues, and people can easily scan through with them. When you are dealing with the online media, sans serif fonts, like Arial, work best; no matter what the resolution of your screen.

Your choice of fonts should not be on the basis of what you like, but rather how they are going to be perceived. Should the font you use be not easily available to others, browsers often give the option of choosing a replacement font. This, in a way, is a good thing, as readers will tend to choose something with which they are comfortable.

The size of the font too makes a lot of difference, and this is again dependent on the medium that you are going to use. You have to remember that the attention spans of readers in any medium are very limited. If they find that they are unable to read something or the size of a font is too large for comfort, they will immediately find another source of information.

The placing of the text is also important. In most cases, your text will have to be designed with an alignment to the left. This is primarily because of the way people read the English language. If you are designing something for the online world, then remember that justifying text can lead to it looking lopsided. This happens mainly because a design will have to match the configurations of a site, if not, the site automatically adjusts it to fit. This can render your entire design illegible.

When you are into graphic design, how you lay out your text and images matters a lot. There has to be a central colour palette, which you have chosen to work with, or else you will end up with a technicolor-style display. If the photographs tell the story better, go with a lot of white space and well worded captions for your images. Blow them up and arrange them in an eye-pleasing manner.

These are just some of the ways in which you can go about graphic design. How pleasant and reader-friendly you make it is left to your expertise.