OUGD401 - Context of practice: Aesthetics

Our task to complete for today's session was to collect images for type, image and both together. For each category we had to collect one we liked and one we disliked. During the session we looks at everyone's images and had to explain to the rest of the group why we had chosen them, in terms of aesthetic quality.

We were told...

• It is important that we don't let content become lost in aesthetic
• Aesthetics looks at the philosophy of beauty and taste
• Don't design for designers design for people

We were then asked to write a list of discriptive words in two columns: like and dislike. We had to look at the images we had found and use adjectives to describe them...

LIKE

• Informative
• Engaging
• Powerful
• Detailed
• Decorative
• Formal
• Thought-provoking
• Simplistic
• Minimalistic
• Professional
• Purposeful
• Intriguing
• Quality

DISLIKE

• Crowded
• Poor quality
• Cluttered
• Unprofessional
• Uninformative
• Busy
• Pixelated
• Drab
• Overworked
• Underworked

As a class we then made a second list of what everyone had found...

LIKE

• Clean
• Simple
• Thoughtful
• Legible
• Clever
• Memorable
• Structured
• Distinctive
• Geometric
• Powerful
• Modernist
• Sophisticated
• Balanced
• Impressive
• Professional
• Striking
• Intricate
• Crisp
• Intriguing

DISLIKE

• Cheap
• Tacky
• Generic
• Garish
• Cluttered
• Overpowering
• Busy
• Messy
• Unclear
• Illegible
• Misplaced
• Common
• Static
• Mediocre
• Overworked
• Chaotic
• Underworked
• Pointless

We then spoke about whether all of them were correct and Fred crossed out the ones which were incorrect and put a question mark by the ones we were unsure about.

RED - Incorrect
BLUE - Unsure

Then we were asked to choose one image we liked, one we disliked and one other image from the images we had brought to the session. We had to write 5 descriptive words for each image...

We then swapped images with someone else in the class, I swapped with Danielle. We took the images back to our table and we were asked to keep them faced down on the table.

We then started the next exercise...

For each image we were asked to turn them over in a particular sequence...

• 5 seconds - Write one descriptive word
• 10 seconds - Write two descriptive words
• 20 seconds - Write three descriptive words

We were then asked to keep the images still facing down on the table and to write on our post it notes which one we thought were the other person's like, dislike and other image (without looking). This was quite hard as we were only able to use the descriptive words we had chosen which are very subjective.

We then got back into our pairs and shared what we had found.

In these same pairs we had to then write 10 aesthetic rules...

1. All design must be professional
2. You should never use more than 3 fonts
3. All design should be legible
4. Use appropriate colours which correspond with content
5. Maintain simplicity
6. Ensure design has a clear message
7. Always consider your target audience whilst designing
8. Use imagery which compliments the text and vice versa
9. Use appropriate stock depending on your method of distribution
10. Align your design to create the highest visual impact

We then wrote three rules out each on separate post it notes and put it on the white board for everyone to see. This then led on to our next task.