Elements of visual design
Visual design is not magic, or the result of some God-given talent. Anyone can achieve it by applying rules, techniques and practice. Mark’s workshop will cover the basics of visual design. From collaborative idea generation and visualising ideas, to the fundamentals of typography, grid design, composition and colour theory. Good visual design is like good jazz; it’s about having the chops to improvise around the constraints. That’s what this workshop will do: it will give you the chops. All you will need to do afterwards, is practice.
During the workshop
This is a workshop. Meaning: you do work – Mark will not be standing and talking all day. Mark starts the day by introducing a project you’ll be working on throughout the day. Following presentations on typography, colour theory, layout and composition, you’ll be working – hands on – on designing a project. After a couple of hours, we move onto critique. In small groups, you’ll present your work and together together talk about how to progress them. Following lunch, you continue working punctuated by more applicable theory.
This workshop will cover
- Creating moodboards and Styletiles
- Everything you need to know about Typographic, Colour and Layout theory as applied to the web.
- How to effectively critique design work
- How to communicate design work to your team
Why would you do this workshop?
There are three reasons you’d do this workshop:
- You work on the web – maybe as a developer, or an editorial assistant – and sometimes you design. You’d benefit from some simple, applicable theory.
- You’re a web designer who’d like to brush up on their skills.
- You work with designers and you want to communicate better with them.
Required equipment and knowledge
This is a practical workshop. You will need a laptop and very basic skills in a graphics package (Photoshop, Fireworks, Illustrator etc).
