Essential Reading Materials For Design -- My Design Notes

Not art

The first thing we should realize is that design is not art.

I didn't get the idea at the beginning, but I was very bitter in designing lessons for the first time.

Design is communication, communication, and art is expression, creation.

This is not to say that there are no ingredients in the design, not to mention that art does not care about communication.

But there is a big difference between the two points.

Design is not based on feeling. It should consider all kinds of factors, find the best way of expression, and plate the feeling into an effective visual language that the public can understand.

Attention to details

Determining the quality of a design is often its details, such as font selection, graphic structure, color difference, and so on.

These subtle differences (nuance) play a significant role in the whole work.

No matter how good a design idea is, if it is rough, it will lose its charm.

In addition, if we ask ourselves to pay attention to these details and their effects, we may find some new ones.

And direction.

Change and replacement

From the beginning of learning design, the teacher constantly emphasized the importance of variation.

When we do a homework, we never seek to find the right answer. Instead, we try to sort out our own ideas, try to express them in different ways, explore them from time to time, and constantly let one idea take us to another idea.

This can expand our imagination and see different possibilities.

Although the final results are important, the process is more important.

This process of exploration can not be replaced by anything.

Today, the teacher mentioned the difference between variation and alternative. I think it's very important.

Change is a way of looking for the same way of expression, while substitution is looking for another way of expression.

Sometimes if an idea is not always good enough, it may be necessary to find a replacement idea. If you find the right idea, you should see how it can behave in order to get the best design.

The boundaries of change and substitution are often not very clear, but if there is a big concept, it will help.

Multidisciplinary cultivation

I feel like learning.

The biggest advantage of design is that it will come into contact with many different areas.

Our homework topics include pollution, urban change, jazz propaganda, future architectural trends, water problems and so on.

Usually, let us choose an angle in the title, and then make convincing visual works.

If you want to express your views, you must first collect a lot of relevant information and have a certain degree of understanding of the topic.

Finished products can be abstract expressions, but ideas must be tangible and well founded.

Many people think that design is making beautiful things on computers, but in fact, it is not the same.

Most of the time we learn to design is looking for information, researching and digesting them, and then trying to find out where we are from what we want to express.

It is impossible to effectively express a problem without fully understanding it.

If you don't even know what you want to say, no matter how good the finished product is, it's also white paper, because it has no clear content.

Through the last few semesters, my research ability has been improved and the meaning of design has been rediscovered.

Computers are not your only tools.

Do you know who is the best friend of a designer?

It's a camera and a photocopier.

They are essential tools and toys for design.

The image of the gallery is finite.

The biggest fear is that there is no suitable image in the gallery, so we have to compromise with a general one, so that the original good idea can not be applied to the best.

If you have the chance, you'd better use your own image.

It's also a great entertainment to go out to take pictures frequently.

What about the photocopier?

Too many people underestimate its value.

Photocopying files is only the most basic function of photocopiers.

We can copy flat objects, three-dimensional objects, and pieced together things.

It can zoom in and out.

It can be printed on the same sheet repeatedly and repeatedly.

You can copy and move objects inside, and you will get many unique and unexpected results.

The things that come out of the duplicator usually have a special quality. If they are used, they will add luster to the design.

The computer is also our friend.

But if you don't pay attention, it may turn into a bad friend.

We rely too much on computers.

Sometimes, even if you don't want to, you can make an effect with buttons, because it's really convenient.

But these automated functions often make us miss some opportunities to explore, and often come up with works that are driven by technology and lack characteristics.

Computers should not be the answer. It is just like a camera or a photocopier.

It can help us save a lot of trouble and make other tools do not work out, but what the computer does is not always good.

Before opening the menu of Photoshop tools, we must think about it. Is this my only choice?

Less flowery things

That day, on TV, an idol singer sang on the stage, then beckoned underneath, and then ran around. The place where the lyrics were free was still busy greeting everyone, and did not sing at all.

Suddenly he felt that he was different from a powerful singer than a self styled designer and professional designer.

The former only pays attention to expressing itself, while the latter is concentrating on expressing certain things.

Sometimes, it is too beautiful, too prominent and too different to design an ordinary thing, such as the subway timetable or magazine article pagination, which will lose its basic function.

Those extra fancy things affect people to read real content, just like I never remember idol songs.

Works must give priority to thought.

On one occasion, a teacher told me what I said at once.

A lot of white.

He pointed out that what I was doing at that time was driven by image driven instead of idea driven.

At that time, I liked to put together some images in Sui Dynasty in Photoshop. I thought it looked cool. I thought it would be a work with a title.

But the teacher said that these are just some patchwork images, and you don't give them any meaning, so they don't make sense to others.

To pcend this level, works must give priority to thinking, and images should obey and support your ideas, not just independent decorations.

Good ideas and good production

That day, when I first learned the draft of the original design, I felt that I didn't understand anything at that time.

Now, in retrospect, the most important points in this year are two points.

One.

Every design idea has its own language.

Style should not be merely a rigid and beautiful appearance, but should be used to express thoughts.

Some people prefer the "digital" style, so everything is made that way. This habitual thing makes the original characteristics numb, losing its representativeness and meaning, and becomes a purely decorative thing.

I used to think that good design has a specific so-called "look", such as cool, very thin lines, blurred text, and so on. If these things are not used for any practical purposes, abusing them will only reduce your work.

Two.

Everyone has different specialties, which makes the design works colorful.

When facing a design problem, we should consider finding the best way to solve it.

And to do it, we must do our best and not be careless.

Sometimes, some ideas are best suited for image synthesis. But if you don't have the confidence and ability to do well and do something convincing, you might as well look for ideas that you can express yourself.

As a student, we often think that we can tell our teachers what we want to do. The students who begin to design often say with a scribbled manuscript, "though you can't see it very well, I think there is a runner here, a whirlwind behind, and a cool color effect."

"The teacher had to say," you said it very well. Why not?

"Then he realized that he had no ability to do what he imagined.

Design is not only a matter of thought, but also a problem of production.

Effective combination of both can lead to good works.

The process is quite important.

When designing, others can only see finished products, but works are usually not completed in one day. There are many different processes, most of which are not seen in finished products.

These processes are quite important, because even ideas are maturing.

Learn how to "learn"

I'm really busy lately.

I have taken three classes this semester, one is network design, the other is image design, and the other is a special design activity communicating with Tsinghua University's design department. The theme is "water consciousness".

The course of image design is an unprecedented attempt and challenge for us.

In the past, the content of this lesson is to study various kinds of corporate image, and then simulate a visual system.

But this year, there is an interesting situation. Our university's comprehensive college needs a new image, and the teachers think that the best candidates to design are our undergraduate students in the design department.

The students are very excited because this is not only equivalent to a real design work, but if successful, the results of our efforts will appear on the school's stationery. On the website, on the publicity list, souvenirs... Before the real design of "image", we have to do a lot of research and research, collect all kinds of relevant information, and analyze them carefully.

Not only do we need to accurately understand the needs of this new image, we also need to identify the characteristics that it represents and can represent.

The first thing we did was to invite the dean of the comprehensive college to visit his expectations and requirements for this new image.

The main questions we asked at that time included: what is this comprehensive college?

What is the difference between a comprehensive college and other colleges or other schools?

If it is a person, what kind of person is it?

Who are its audience?

Wait.

Here, let's take a moment off the design and talk about the dean's description of our college's educational policy, because I find it very interesting and valuable.

He said our institute is a "learning" college, not a "teaching" college.

The so-called teaching institute is a teacher who is mainly responsible for imparting knowledge. In the Institute of learning, students learn how to learn, which is a positive exploration environment.

In such a Learning Institute, many courses are based on research and experiment, and there is no fixed curriculum content, because new theories and knowledge are constantly being discovered.

According to him, there are two kinds of knowledge, one is basic knowledge, and the other is applied learning.

Most of the schools in our school are schools of applied learning, which are relatively more targeted studies, such as medical schools to cure diseases, and the architecture school is to improve the structure of the architecture, etc.

The comprehensive college includes many sub schools with basic knowledge, such as astronomy college.

College of music.

Knowing how the earth moves around the universe will not have any direct impact on us. Making all kinds of unique works of art will not change the world and people's habits.

But this longing for basic knowledge comes from the curiosity of our human beings, and our comprehensive College encourages this natural curiosity and love for learning and expression.

The dean's last words impressed me very much. He said, if you find yourself less educated and eager for knowledge when you graduate, then our efforts will not be wasted.