Applying Visual Design

What is Visual Design?

Visual design ensures that the interpreter of some visual content receives the intended message and can interact with it appropriately. Designs should respect modern visual design principles to ensure readability, focus, and clarity and minimize distraction and clutter (Course Staff MIT, 2018).

Applying Visual Design

For this assignment, I chose to create a brochure to reflect good visual design and use of openly licensed images for a fictitious client with a development coaching business. This client, Beacon Coaching, required printed materials to hand out at conferences and to keep in the offices of community partners willing to help her advertise her services, as well as to potentially post online. It needed to have enough meat to entice potential coaching clients to check out her social media presence as well as understand, in brief and inspiring terms, what coaching could help them achieve. Due to how much information would be helpful to include, a brochure seemed better than a flyer or other simpler handout.

I opted to use Canva, one of my favorite tools. I selected a predetermined layout and changed the images to be more relevant to Beacon Coaching's business. I designed a simple logo, and altered the image of the hands fitting together puzzle pieces so that the contrast between the various image components increased.

Since this material is intended for print, I opted for accessibility measures like contrast in colors and font size (headers), proximity (spacing), alignment (of text and images), repetition (colors) and simplicity to ensure readability (Course Staff MIT, 2018). I decided not to include alternative text with the images since its primary usage is as a paper, in-hand medium, and the images included are more decorative than functional.

Find the 2-page tri-fold brochure below, as well as the digital media checklist, which is still helpful despite the fact that brochures are best as print materials. (Note that the left one-third of the first page would be the first thing you see upon opening the folded brochure, and the right one-third of the first page would be the cover of the folded brochure.)

See below the brochure and checklist for a discussion of learning strategy, objectives, and content development notes.

Learning Gap/Objective

Potential clients for this fictitious business will understand the coaching approach for Beacon Coaching after reviewing the brochure.

Potential clients for this fictitious business have avenues to examine Beacon Coaching more (online) using information in this brochure.

Instructional Strategy & Audience

This brochure is intended to serve as an entry point for Beacon Coaching clientele (adults in the metro area near Beacon Coaching). It has enough information to reassure and introduce, but not so much as to overwhelm.

Content Development

I used freely licensed images and icons from Pixabay and Canva.com (where I also developed the flyer). See the note under the document (and embedded in the document) for Creative Commons licensing.

Applying the Digital Content Evaluation Checklist

This is not the most editable format for others who might like to repurpose the work, which is its primary disadvantage as OER. However, it has high quality and relevance, and implies gender diversity and obscures potential "whiteness" in images by employing grayscale and shadow. If adapted more purposefully for online use, additional accessibility would be achieved via alternative text for images.

References

Course Staff, User Interface Design & Implementation at MIT. (2018). Reading 13: graphic design. Retrieved from http://web.mit.edu/6.813/www/sp18/classes/13-graphic-design/#reading_13_graphic_design_