Guest Feature: Design is Life

By Matt Moore

I love conversation. By nature, I’m an outgoing person, and I love to talk to people. But I have to admit, I often cringe when someone asks me, “So, what do you do for a living?”

It’s not that I don’t love being a graphic designer. It’s just that at this point in the conversation, I often find myself trying to fudge my way out of designing a sign, brochure, or flyer for the individual I’m speaking with in order to keep free-time for my family.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m flattered by the fact that my title gives you the instant confidence that whatever I would produce for you would be a stunning visual advertisement for your various endeavor. And generally speaking, I like to help those around me as much as possible. I’m from the school of thought, however, that says “Give a man a fish and he eats for a day; show him HOW to fish and he’ll eat for a lifetime!”

At some point, you may be asked to produce a print piece to advertise your business, church or activity. If you utilize a few simple tricks, you can make any design a winner.

I like to think of design as being like life. For starters, life is better — and so is design — if you keep it simple. Use lots of pictures (especially on the cover if designing a brochure) rather than lots of text.

Ever read the owners manual for your blu-ray or smart phone? Me either. No pictures! You bought it in the first place because it LOOKED cool, right? It’s the same thing with a brochure or poster. Good photos will produce better results over long, boring descriptions. If you want to talk about your vacation, isn’t it easier with good pictures? And you can get photos anywhere. Use your own or pull some from a Flickr gallery of a friend — with their permission, of course. Just don’t sell ‘em, OK!?

Another key in design is limiting fonts (rule of thumb: no more than three fonts per piece). There are some good free font sites like 1001freefonts.com and fontfreak.com that are “no strings attached’ sites with fonts that can really punch up a layout. Use a “fun” font to draw attention to the title of your project; use a plain font like Arial, Franklin or Times for body copy.

When it comes to the amount of copy, put yourself in the audience. Ask yourself, “Do I really want to read all of this text?” Again, design mimicks life, and it’s always better to LISTEN than to ramble. Besides, the project is ultimately for the audience and not you.

If you want your piece to be readable, limit the amount of text you put over your pictures. Nothing makes a brochure look more amateurish than hard to read text over a photo. Compare it to having a phone conversation with a loud TV in the background.

And be sure to maintain consistent borders throughout. My kids need consistent boundaries to make it look like I’m a decent parent. Your artwork needs consident boundaries to make it look like it knows what it's talking about.

Lastly, get help. (I’m always happy to share my opinion!) Just like we have a Heavenly Father we can go to for help, there are unlimited resources all around us for ideas. Of course, I’m in NO way comparing the Trinity to billboards, print ads and the Internet, but a simple Google search will reap great rewards in aiding any design project. Just like a simple prayer before a meal or a five-minute devotional before bed can reap great rewards in life.

We tend to make things a little more difficult than they have to be. Design can be pretty easy. Life is a little harder. There are always ways to make both simpler. Look for them and it might surprise you what you can do with each.

Matt Moore is an ONU graduate, a graphic designer within Olivet’s Office of Marketing Communications and an all-around nice guy.