A guy called Robin Williams (not thé Robin Williams) wrote The Non-Designer’s Design Book. The book helps non-designer’s understand what is important in design.

There are four guiding principles of design:

• Proximity, meaning: put stuff together that belongs together.
• Alignment: elements should be (visually) connected to something else, consistently. Use lines to draw connections (or to identify lack of connections). Centered alignment should be avoided, and only applied very consciously.
• Repetition: tells us to repeat elements to unify and strengthen a piece. Take a repetitive element for example and repeat it to emphasize it’s importance. But don’t overdo it.
• Contrast: draw attention by making things (more) different. If things are not the same, do not make them look the same.

The Fifth Principle: Don’t Be A Wimp. Meaning: do not be afraid to be different.

Colors

The color wheel: primary colors + others. Complementary colors. Triads: at a third of the wheel.
Shades and Taints: add black resp white to the color.
Warm/cool colors have red resp blue in them.

CYMK vs RGB: color schemes for printer resp monitor.

Typography

The second half of the book is a treatment on Typography. When to use quotes, which quotes, spaces, apostrophes, dashes, underlining (never!).

Typographic types & relationships.
Concordant: one type family without much variety. Can be strong.
Conflicting: similar types but not the same. Avoid.
Contrasting: clearly distinct. Complementing. Can be strong when done well.

Types of types: Old style, Modern, Slab serif, Sans serif, Script, Decorative.
Type contrasts: size, weight, structure, form, direction, color.

Basic approach to improve design:
– start with a focal point, with contrast
– group the information, create proximity, strong alignment
– create repetition
– have strong contrasts

Don’t be a wimp!

The famous book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.  Great, apart from it’s occasional religious dwellings. I do not mean the fact that Covey himself is religious, but the instances where he loses factuality and swerves into wishy washy paragraphs

1. Be pro-active.
2. Begin with the end in mind. How you want to be remembered. Personal mission statement. What roles you have and how to fulfill those.
3. First things first. Quadrant Import / Not important versus Urgent / Not Urgent.We tend to focus on the Urgent side (whether important or not) but we forget the not so urgent but important part (the Quadrant II as Covey calls it). Become a Quadrant II oriented person.
4. Think Win-Win. Quadrant Consideration slow / high versus Courage low/high. Make Emotional Bank account deposits. You can not just withdraw from the Emotional Bank account.
5. Seek first to understand, then to be understood. Diagnose before prescribing.
6. Synergize. Trust / Cooperation diagram. Diffuse (win/lose or lose/win), Respectful (compromise), Synergize (Win/Win).
7. Sharpen the Saw. Physical – Mental (Reading, visualizing, planning, writing) – Spiritual (Value clarification and commitment, study, meditate) – Social (Service, Initiative, Empathy, …)

Ik lees Blinde Wilg, Slapende Vrouw uit. Gisteren dan. Een eenzame student tijdens het einde van zijn middelbare school en zijn studententijd. Verwondert zich om de wereld, maar legt zich daarbij neer. Op een manier die alleen bij Murakami mogelijk is. Verhalen die teruggrijpen naar romans, de tijd van de student op de universiteitscampus, een vriendin die wordt opgenomen in een kliniek, een vakantie in Hawaï. Het is een zachte wervelwind en laat zich alleen maar lezen. En goed ook.