Elements of Design Design logics

Theory of Design The design of a document also encodes part of its meaning. Gunther Kress describes three primary ways that meaning is encoded in design: Salience Salience – the way an element attracts a reader’s attention Information Value Information Value – the placement of elements in relation to each other Framing Framing – the way edges, lines and borders connect, disconnect, or focus an element

Salience Salience -- giving different weight to elements Bold, italics, underline, CAPITALS and font size Boxes and white space Superscript and subscript Foregrounding and backgrounding Font styles Alignment

Information Value – placement of items in a frame Left presents given information, right presents new information – before and after Top denotes the ideal, bottom denotes the real – bottom is the fine print, the reality of the visual, the top is what is strived for Center is the focal point, the margins are the peripheral – we focus on the center, or center- top, but the peripheral acts as a subliminal or background

Framing – edges and lines focus elements Lines, borders, and page edges are used to create focal points and to connect elements, separate elements, and split up elements. Pictorial images can be used to focus this attention as well.

Text is bordered by lines Ideal Slogan is present in different sized font Left to right, before and after Ideal focal point is centered and high on page Disclaimer and warning are in small print We expect “real” facts at the bottom