New Media Picks of the Week

This week we're focused on design issues including layout, color and typeface. How can text act as an image and influence the visual effect of any document? How does the arrangement of images on the page determine where the reader's eye lands? How does color influence a reader's experience of your content? Check out the links below as you consider these questions.

Typeface: the way the message is dressed

At The Visual Dictionary, you can explore words as pictures in the world.

This clip from the documentary Helvetica looks at the effect typeface has on us as readers and consumers.

In another clip from Helvetica. Designer Wim Crouwel takes about the purpose of typeface.

What font are you? Take this highly accurate quiz posted on the PBS website about the documentary Helvetica.


Color: more meaning than you think

Blog Solid (of interest to you hardcore bloggers) uses earth tones to connote their solidity. The tan on brown contrast is easy to read.

Sometimes less color is more visually effective. The black and white approach with hints of color that Diesel Jeans uses makes for a clean, eye- catching homepage.

This landscape company selected colors that pop and are slick, while also selecting hues that people associate with earth and water.


Layout: directing the gaze

Large type in the middle of the page can be an effective attention getter. It's quite clear who will be presenting at dConstruct, a conference on designing the social web.

Simplicity means focus as this director/cinematographer's website shows on his personal website.

This web designer uses a one page/ two column navigational approach. Not ideal for those of us who don't like to scroll, but easy for the eye to understand.

images from: Visualdictionary.net
http://plaza.ufl.edu/mmcadams/colorpages/images/color_wheel_full.gif
http://donhowardproductions.com/eye.JPG