So what is it about design that makes us sit up and pay attention? Well, I believe it's the thought process behind the design process. When you really take the time to think about who will be using the sign or document or beer can (or whatever) then you are asking questions like "what would the consumer want?" Medical charts really are a great example. They show you everything, but they tell you nothing. They're full of information, just nothing that anyone without a medical degree can interpret. The designer asks questions like "what can I do to motivate someone to change their behavior?" Obviously, numbers and doctor babble doesn't do much for the average American.
It's funny, most of our lives we take for granted that designers have created the world around us: architects, engineers, advertisers, the idiot that designed this crappy office chair I'm sitting in... For good or ill, we live in a world that is mostly guided by someone else's hand. Yet we rarely think about it. Even the computer screens we are staring at have been been touched by probably dozens of designers.
So what about the design of text? Bernhardt gives a good example of what he calls "visual syntax" (72) with the wetlands document. He says that the organization of such text "conveys information to the reader about textual organization through visible means" (73). I think what that means is that the design itself is rhetorical. By bolding or highlighting or making a word a different color, textual designers are saying "hey, this is important," or "we're deviating from block paragraphs here because this is a separate thought from this." I suppose that paragraphs themselves were some of the first textual design elements. So it's not the text itself that is manipulating the reader, but the design of the text - how white space (or whatever color background) interacts with the text to create additional meaning.
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| sensingarchitecture.com |
I was fascinated by this gestalt theory - some of the laws which guide design. According to Bernhardt, they are:
- how the total document impacts a reader visually
- continuation - the idea that text is lines on a background and that our eye moves across the page in a certain way
- closure - the fact that we as humans like to fill in the gaps and so how text is contrasted against its environment is important
- similarity - objects that are similar in shape, size, etc. are considered part of a cohesive group
I also found it interesting that the design goes way beyond typeface and textual styling. How text is presented is also part of the design process. Sometimes traditional paragraphs are the best way to convey an idea. Sometimes it's a question and answer format. Sometimes sentence fragments are the best way to convey your message. Especially in today's social media dominated world, even the smallest fragment can have a huge impact. The way we play with text these days might have been blasphemy 100 years ago. But today it's all part of how we communicate.
One sentence stood out in the Stutz piece that gave me a modified view of writing : "Composition is defined as a whole composed of parts." A definition of composition, while obvious, I had never applied. Composition was just a synonym for writing. If it were a rattlesnake, I'd be dead.
ReplyDeleteCall me a snake handler, Dave! Sheesh. The more I learn about writing the more I learn I have no idea what writing is. Or maybe I don't know what writing isn't. Hmmm...
ReplyDeleteI find it interesting that we read things all the time (like you mentioned) and don't notice them until there is mistake. Often time even these mistakes aren't noticed at first, because we see them as being correct. Kind of like driving home the same way every day, we get into a 'zone' and just have tunnel vision. We stop when we are supposed to but, are we really aware of things? It's only until we see a wreck or the stop light is out, that we take notice of things. As writers, font style and abrupt change is crucial to tell the reader to pay attention. But even then, I see design constantly changing, because the 'new' design becomes old, and we fall back into that tunnel vision mode once again.
ReplyDeleteI know what you mean Kevin, both in the driving and the reading. Just like when I'm behind the wheel, I sometimes find myself drifting off while reading a book. I honestly think that is why I had such a hard time reading when I was a kid. I would constantly be veering off into thoughts about the day, what I had to do next, etc. Thank goodness for pharmaceuticals!
ReplyDeleteBut it may also have something to do with the monotony of the font. I still find myself very much looking forward to the "break" in between chapters. I don't know what it is exactly. I just need it. It's not that I want to stop reading. Indeed, it's as if I can't stop, especially when there is some sort of suspense. But there seems to be something in my brain that rewards me for reaching the end or something like that. Weird. I wonder how much people have studied that type of thing - the psychology of writing. I know there's lots of stuff on marketing out there. But what about chapter length, dialogue vs. narrative, etc.
Uh oh, another thing to ponder about writing. Sheesh! Thanks a lot Kevin! ;)
"Just like when I'm behind the wheel, I sometimes find myself drifting off while reading a book." For me, I often get too distracted by driving to continue texting, so, in that sense, I'm right there with ya, bro. With the grouping, I think there is a "gist" function. Like how do you learn stop sign? The letters or shape-color? That is how Rayven has identified them. It is almost like the letters that spell "stop" are a waste of money on a red octagon. For gisting or grouping or assumptive cognative reasoning, check out Engrish Funny on the web. The humor is in the failing of felicity by we can still get the "gist" of the communication.
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