Design Principles Research

1. What are points, pixels and picas?

A Pica is a typographic unit of space, 6 of which approximately equate to an inch.

There are 12 points in a pica and 6 picas in an inch, so there are 72 points to an inch. 72 point type is 1 inch high, 36 point is half an inch etc.

A pixel is a point and smallest element of an image on a screen and the image is composed of lots of pixels, and are normally represented in dots or squares. Each Pixel is considered a sample of the original image, with more of them providing a more accurate representation of the original. The colours in each pixel are usually represented in either RGB or CMYK.

The context of a pixel can highly alter the definition of the image, and being printed on a page, carried electronically, represented digitally, or on a display device or digital camera will make the image appear slightly different. The term 'pixel' refers usually to the unit of measurement when defining resolution.

The more pixels used to represent an image, the more accurate a representation of the original it will be and less pixels will blur the image slightly, sometimes referred to as the resolution.

This image shows how pixels can vary in terms of shape and is not always represented as a square. It shows how an image can be reconstructed differently, using dots, lines, or filtering.

What are grids, columns and gutters?

Grids are crucial when designing the layout of a design. They are made up of straight horizontal and vertical lines that can be easily altered, and when used on the page of a digital design, they are not printed with the design. Grids can be narrowed down into different types; rule of thirds, Golden Ratio, baseline grid or columns.
Columns run vertically down the page to break it up and to form the layout of the page in association with the grid, and are ordinarily filled with text of image.
A gutter is the inside margin of the page and is kept blank in between two facing pages and allows a designer to appropriately space their layout


What are rulers, boxes, folio numbers and drop caps?

The term 'folio number' refers to the page number. Drop caps is the name of a style to layout text in which the first letter of a paragraph is enlarged and the other text wraps around it.

What is DPS and what does it do?

DPS is an abbreviation of 'double page spread' and it is used mostly for function, guiding the reader around the spread, but for aesthetics. It is a format used for books/booklets/magazines etc.

What is the Golden Ratio?

The golden ratio refers to the quantities in which something is divided into two sections. It requires the longer length divided by the shorter length to equal the whole length divided by the larger length. This equates to the ratio being approximately 1:1.61803...



In this session we received some feedback on our own layout designs, and I showed the Indesign brief we were given as part of Design Practice. This is the feedback I got:

'Really clever use of image interacting with title. Good use of half tones that compliment but don't interfere with image. Maybe try setting body copy justified to fill the text box. Maybe make title a little bigger?'

'Good idea to overlay the image with text. Text could benefit from some subheadings or part of it highlighted - consider drop caps.'

'Very well though out layout. Good use of grids. Good use of opacity in text box. Maybe there needs to be more space at the bottom of text.'

'Maybe look into altering the size of the type.'

'I like the full image background. The overlaying text on a washed out screen works really well in contrast with the zebra stripes - interesting composition'

'The use of image as background really stands out and makes the page appealing. Nice use of half tones to make text stand out. Consistent colour scheme. Consider page numbers and text size.'

'Good use of point size, hierarchy guides viewer to important text. Consider aligning text on both pages.'

'Good striking image to use to create interesting spread. Complimented by simple and strong grid structure.'