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MODULE 7: IMAGING AND DESIGN FOR SOCIAL

IMPACT
Overview

The graphic design concepts are almost like building blocks. Each layer is on top of each
other before you have the base to create something unbelievable — whether you're
creating a logo, a website, or a unique picture. The basic principles of graphic design
come with different fundamentals to consider. In this module, we will explore some of it
for us to be able to create a good design.

Objectives

At the end of the chapter, students must be able to:

• Understand the basic concepts like colors, typography, images;
• Understand the principles and techniques of design using applications (whether
open- source or proprietary) to develop contents for social campaigns; and
• Discuss the importance of having a good design to communicate visually.

Lesson 1: Graphic Design Fundamentals

What is Graphic Design?

Graphic Design is a process in which we use typography, images, colors, icons and other
illustrations to communicate visually. This term was first coined by William Addison
Dwiggins on 1992 as he called himself a “graphic designer”. However, graphic design is
a thousand-year-old craft which dates back to ancient cave drawings. In today’s era, we
use graphic design not just to communicate visually but also to having good user
experience (for software developers) and also to boost/improve one’s emotions (with the
use of colors). The fundamentals of graphic design varied from PowerPoint
presentations, web/mobile applications, posters, logos, and even paintings.

The basic elements of graphic design are the following:

• Lines
• Shapes
• Form
• Texture
• Balance
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Line

A line is a kind of shape which connects two or more points. It is also considered as one
of the essential elements of graphic design. Lines can be thick, thin, curved, or jagged.
Figure 7.1 shows the different styles of a line.

Fig. 7.1 Styles of lines

Lines can be used and commonly found in drawings or illustrations, textures or patterns,
as well as on text composition – whether to give emphasis, divide or organize content,
or to guide the viewer’s eye. Impacts on lines also differs based on their attributes.

These attributes include:

• Weight
• Color
• Texture
• Style

Fig. 7.2 Lines used in patterns

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Shape

A shape is a two-dimensional external boundary of an object. Any object outline that has
height and width can be considered as a shape. Together with lines, they form the
foundation of your design.

There are two (2) major categories of shapes in design:

• Geometric – these are regular and mathematical shapes.
• Organic – these are freeform shapes.

Figure 7.3 shows the different examples of geometric and organic shapes.

Fig. 7.3 Examples of geometric and freedom shapes

Shapes can be used in organizing or dividing contents, create illustrations, and in adding
interest to one’s work/design.

Fig. 7.4 Using shapes in a poster design

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Form

A form is a three-dimensional shape. Shadows, perspective, depth, and sometimes

texture creates a form. Without these attributes, a form is just a shape or series of
shapes. Plain images/objects and flat designs can be enhanced by adding shadows or
lightings to create an illusion of a form. It also gives the object a sense of place. Figure
7.5 shows that a ball, if you make it two-dimensional is just a circle.

Fig. 7.5 Difference of a form and a shape

Texture

Texture refers to the physical quality of the surface of an object in an artwork or design.
It also refers to how an object look or feels like. An object might be smooth, rough, shiny,
hard, or soft. It can be in 3D (real texture) or 2D (visual texture). Texture adds depth and
visual interest to the flat images or objects.

Texture can be used for:

• Establishing visual value or a focal point in an artwork.
• Having contrast within a design
• Making an artwork visually balanced.

Fig. 7.6 Real texture (left) and visual texture (right)

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Balance

Visual balance is the creation of visual equilibrium by relating elements such as line,
shape, color, space or form in terms of their visual weight. Basically, there are two kinds
of visual balance:

1. Symmetrical balance. From the name itself, symmetrical balance, which

includes radial symmetry is when both two sides of a piece are equal. If you fold
your artwork or piece into two or if you put an imaginary line between your artwork,
each half is identical or visually similar to the other half.

Fig. 7.7 Symmetrical design example

2. Asymmetrical balance. Both sides of your composition do not contain the same
elements but contain almost the same visual weight.

Fig. 7.8 Asymmetrical design example

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Lesson 2: Branding and Identity

Branding and identity can be found everywhere. Look around you, you may see some of
your personal items, product packaging, documents, or some sort of advertising. All of
them have one in common – identity.

Branding is simply what people thinks about you, your company, your product or your
service. For example, we think of Albert Einstein as the epitome of intelligence, and that
is how he was branded. Identity or visual identity is the visual representation of a brand.
It can be in a form of image, choice of color or typography, and many more. For example,
we quickly recognize the company and its service but just looking at its logo, typeface,
or color combinations.

Let’s cite one example. We can easily associate the school by simple looking at their
color combination. For instance, if we see colors red and maroon, we can easily connect
it with PUP, or red and green for UP.

Branding and identity are not just for products and services, we can even apply it to how
we work or what type of output we produce. For example, the use of bright and bold
colors is often associated with the famous painter, Vincent Van Gogh.

Lucidpress (2018) enumerated the seven steps to creating a brand identity

design:

1. Establish clear purpose and positioning. Recall why you or your company
exists, who your target audience are, and what makes you or your service unique
from your competitors.
2. Conduct thorough market research. Having a deep analysis on your target
audience on what their personalities are which will lead you to the next step.
3. Get a personality. Based on your research, determine your brand’s personality.
Brand personality make a huge impact on the visuals of your marketing materials.
4. Create a polished logo. In creating your logo, it should be simple, scalable, and
memorable. Observe the logos of famous companies like Amazon, Google, and
IBM. What do these logos have in common?
5. Create an attractive color palette. Your color palette should be simple and
contain one to three primary colors. Once you have established your color palette,
you may play with their color family. For example, if you choose blue as your
primary color, you may use sky blue, baby blue, and other colors under the blue
family to support your primary color.
6. Select professional typography. When selecting fonts, it is important to
consider these things:
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a. Do not make it fancy. Fancy typefaces only make your text confusing.
Example:

b. Don’t mix fonts/typefaces. Do not mix fonts or typefaces in a word or

sentence as it may give mixed interpretations to your audience.
Example:

c. Mix contrasting fonts/typefaces. This is not similar to the above item. This
means you may use serif typefaces for your product title and sans serif for
the subtitle.
Example:

7. Choose on-brand supporting graphics. Your brand identity should have a

visual library that include icons, images/photographs, design assets, and other
supporting graphics.
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Lesson 3: Layout and Composition

Layout and composition are the building blocks of design. These two focus on the
arrangement of your objects or elements on your design. Your good texts, images, or
other elements in the graphic will turn to waste if your layout is not well-composed.

We might be confused sometimes in using lay out instead of layout. Please take note
that these two are not the same. Lay out is a verb phrase which simply means to arrange
something, while layout is a noun which means how things are organized.

There are five basic principles of layout and composition:

1. Proximity
2. White Space
3. Alignment
4. Contrast
5. Repetition

Proximity

Proximity is the process of placing related elements together. Elements that are not
related to that group should be separated to show that these elements are not related to
that group. Take family reunion as an example, you are grouped by family, and anyone
who don’t have any relationship to your family should be separated. In design, block texts
or graphics that are related should be grouped together to make your design easier to
understand.

Fig. 7.9 Sample design which shows the division of related elements.
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White Space

White space is not literally the white spaces that you found on the design but rather the
negative space between lines, paragraphs, and element on the design. In his article
Importance in White Space in Design, Pratik Hedge described white space as: “White
Space in design composition is same as use of Silence in a musical composition. Without
proportionate use of Silence, music is unstructured; some may call it noise. Similarly,
without White Space, design is unstructured and difficult to consume.”

There are two types of white space:

• Micro white space. Mini spaces between paragraphs, lines, menu items, or other
elements in a design composition.
• Macro white space. Large spaces between contents and elements.

How important is white space in design?

Hedge (2017) listed some of the importance of white space in design.

1. Improved comprehension. Spaces between lines in a paragraph makes the

content legible and easily scannable to the readers/viewers.

Fig. 7.10 White spaces makes the content more readable.

2. Focus and attention. Macro white spaces help guide the viewers to the focus
area in the design.

Fig. 7.11 Screen grab from Apple website

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3. Increased interaction rate. If used wisely, white space in design helps the viewer
to get the message quickly even without looking at the instructions. Take a look
at Google’s homepage UI. White space helps the viewer to get the message,
which is to search

Fig. 7.12 Screen grab from Google homepage

4. Guide the user through local grouping. White space helps you to achieve the
proximity of your design.

5. Branding and Design Tone. Let us look back at the steps of brand identity design,
the way how is you going to apply white spaces in your design helps you create
your own brand’s personality.

6. Creates a breathing space for users. A lot of people believe that in design, one
must maximize the space by putting contents on it. However, this might make your
design stuffy. Having enough white space makes your eye rest, helps us breathe
and not to be overwhelmed with the information.

Fig. 7.13 Making design with breathable space (right) is

better than stuffy design (left)
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Alignment

Alignment helps designers to organize different elements in their composition. This is

similar to the alignment that we see in MS Word or other productivity tools. Effective use
of alignment gives your composition a definitive structure and a creative balance.
Alignment may be left, centered, right, or justified.

Contrast

Contrast means one element is opposite to the other element. This does not only apply
to colors, but to typeface and size of elements as well. Contrast helps you to catch the
viewer’s eye, create a direction, or giving emphasis to something. For example, if you
use dark color for your background, you should use light color for your foreground; or if
you use different test style to give emphasis on your content.

Figure 7.14 The use of different text styles to create contrast.

Repetition

Repetition simply means to use of the same typefaces, color palettes, or other elements
to achieve consistency in your composition. This creates unity in your composition or
make your projects connected to each other. For example, if you create a PowerPoint
presentation, you should use only the same color palette or text style in all of your slides.
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Lesson 4: Typography
Typography is the art of arranging texts that makes it readable and appealing to the
viewer. It involves font style, typeface, and text structure.

Some people often misuse the term “font” as typeface. So, let us explain first the
difference between font and typeface.

Font refers to the variation of weights of a typeface, while typeface refers to the text style.
Font also refers to the format or storage mechanism of a text like .otf and .ttf. For
example, Arial Narrow, Arial Black, and Arial Rounded are fonts under the Arial typeface.

“Typeface is to font as song is to .mp3” – Nick Sherman

Table 7.1 shows the difference between a font and a typeface.

Table 7.1 – Difference between font and typeface

Types of Fonts

Fonts can be categorized into three:

• Serif
• San Serif
• Display

Serif

Serif fonts are fonts that have little strokes called serif on each end of the letter. They are
typically used in formal or traditional projects. Examples of typefaces with serifs are
Times New Roman, Baskerville Old Face, and Californian FB.

Figure 7.15 Serif in letter T (in circles).

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Sans Serif

Sans serif are fonts with no extra strokes. Sans serif simple means “without serifs” as
sans is a French word for without. These fonts are normally found in mobile phones, and
computer screens. Examples of this type are Calibri, Arial, and Roboto.

Display

Display fonts are sometimes called as fancy or decorative fonts. It can be script,
blackletter or all caps. These types of fonts are used in special occasions like invitations,
titles, or posters. Examples of display fonts are Advertising Script, Bangers, and Forte.

Choosing a font or typeface

Whether you are new or old in graphic design, one dilemma that most graphic designers
experienced is on what fonts or typefaces are they going to use. One mistake that
beginners commit is the misuse of fonts or typefaces. In choosing a font/typeface, it
should portray the message that you want to say to your viewers. In design, fonts and
typefaces do matter.

Fig. 7.16 shows the different interpretations of these notes with the same
message but using different typefaces

There are typefaces that are overused and outdated like Comic Sans, Papyrus,
Jokerman and Curls Tt. Though, there is nothing wrong in using them, these typefaces
are being discouraged to use.
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In choosing typefaces on your design, limit yourself to one or two per project, and you
may play with their family of fonts for emphasis or contrast. You may combine serifs and
sans serifs, display and serifs, or display and sans serifs.

Lesson 5: Color
Colors are very essential to your compositions. One may use a combination or one or
more colors. It may be our instinct to choose color but there is a science behind it,
called Color Theory. Color Theory describes how different colors contribute to each
other and how they appear as they are mixed into other color schemes. Before we
proceed to different color schemes, let us go over some terminologies used in color.
• Hue. Refers to pure, vibrant colors.
• Saturation. Refers to the intensity of the color. It ranges from black and white (or
grayscale) to vibrant color.
• Value. Refers to the lightness or darkness of a color. For example, from light blue
to dark blue.

Color Schemes

Of course, we can still remember the lessons about color during art lessons. We have
primary colors, then secondary colors and tertiary colors. A circular diagram of these
colors is called a color wheel (Figure 7.17). Using this wheel, we can create our own
color scheme or combination.

Fig. 7.17 The color wheel

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Monochromatic Color Scheme

This color scheme only focuses on one color, and often using variations by incorporating
saturations or values. For example, if you chose the color blue, then you may have other
colors under the same color family like sky blue, baby blue, navy blue, or dark blue.

Fig. 7.18 Example of monochromatic color scheme

Achromatic Color Scheme

This color scheme only revolves on using desaturated colors like black, gray, and white.

Analogous Color Scheme

Analogous color scheme selects a group of three colors that are adjacent in the color
wheel.

Fig.7.19 The analogous color scheme

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Complementary Color Scheme

These are colors that are direct opposite to each other in the color wheel. Usually, a
combination of a primary and secondary colors.

Fig.7.20 The complementary color scheme

Split-Complementary Color Scheme

Split-complementary color scheme uses the colors on both sides of the opposite color.

Fig. 7.21 The split-complementary color scheme

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Triadic Color Scheme

This color scheme uses colors that form an equilateral triangle. It may be a combination
of primary, secondary, or tertiary colors.

Fig. 7.22 The triadic color scheme

Tetradic Color Scheme

Also known as double complementary. This color scheme uses two pairs of
complementary colors.

Fig. 7.23 The tetradic color scheme

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Understanding Color Profiles

Whenever we open an image editing application or buy a printer ink at the store, we may
observe labels like RGB or CMYK. So, what are they? They are color profiles that we
need to consider if we create designs.

• RGB. This color profile consists of Red, Green, and Blue. You should use this
profile for design that are intended for screen displays.
• CMYK. This color profile consists of Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Key (Black). If
you have a printer in your house, you probably see these colors as inks. This
profile is intended for designs that are to be printed.

Lesson 6: Image

Images are not just limited to photographs, it also includes graphics, and other
illustrations. Having images on your composition makes it appealing to the eyes of your
viewer. Take magazine as an example, imagine that your favorite magazine contains no
image. You do not want to read it right? That is the power of images – they are not just
decorations on your composition.

Finding and placing the right image is not a difficult thing as long as you know what kind
of image you are going to use in your composition. Do you remember using clip arts on
your project designs? If yes, then I encourage you to not use it today as we are over with
the clip art era. Stock photos are now popular in any project.

Most people are now relying on stock photos as they are free or sometimes cost less.
There are various stock image websites all over the internet. The only thing that you need
to do is to choose pictures/images for your composition.

Fig. 7.24 A screen grab of Pexels – A stock image site

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Image File Types

There are different file types of images, and they are grouped into two categories: vector
and raster.

• Vector. It is a type of image that does not lose its quality when zoomed in. Your
image will not be pixelated when enlarged.
• Raster. Opposite to vector, raster images become pixelated when enlarged.
• Vector Image File Extensions
• Encapsulated Postscript (EPS). This vector format is designed to produce high-
resolution graphics for print. Being a universal file type, EPS files can be opened
in any design editor.
• Adobe Illustrator Document (AI). Most preferable and commonly used image
file type by designers. If you want to create a vector image, AI is one of the best
tools for you.

Raster Image File Extensions

• Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPG or JPEG). This file type is the most
commonly used image file type. Since this is a raster type of image, JPEG images
are known for their “lossy” compression. Meaning, the image quality decreases
when being enlarged.
• Portable Network Graphics (PNG). This file type is known for having a
transparent background. Images in this type are commonly used in web
documents.
• Graphics Interchange Format. This file type is known in its animated form. You
can find them in social networking sites as posts or comments. GIFs are often
used in web pages as can load quickly due to its reduced file size.