Document Design?

Design has a lot of meaning in many terms. The terms of design that I want to exposed in here is about a Document Design.

What is DOCUMENT?

The meaning of a document is the product of the text of the document in any kind of language and the meaning of the language. However, not only language that is matter, the symbols of the pictures are also count inside any of documents. According to Mark Bernstein (1999), a writer of a document uses the language to convey his intent to the reader and it is essential that the intent of the writer can be well defined for both parties and in general for a third party.

Now that the meaning of document has been explained but...

What is a GOOD DOCUMENT?

What kind of document that can pull out the reader's attention? Does the picture below (figure 1) can be consider as a good document?

(Figure 1) lostmuseum.cuny.edu

OR

the second picture (figure 2) below is better?

(Figure 2) www.zootorah.com

In my opinion, picture of (figure 1) is much better because it consist a picture even though both of the document is in a different language. On the other hand, (figure 2) is too much of written text which makes me feel bored and not interesting at all. However, (figure 1) is still can't be considered as a really good document. why?

As Anderson (1987) has mentioned that a really good document helps readers to read and understood the message inside the document and the document must be ensure that there is a smooth flow of information. The reason (figure 1) is still not a good enough document because it does not have a balance of the negative(white) space with the positive (text, title and visuals) space. It is clearly that the (figure 1) is not balancing the spaces and also the space of graphics and text within the page is not balance. The written text is too close and they should put a border line between the space of title and the context.

In my studies of "Issues in Publication and Design" (IPD), my lecturer assigned to made a group for a presentation and my group presentation's topic is based on readings of Kress, G & Van Leeuwen, T, 2006, "Reading Images Chapter 6: The meaning of Composition". This is one of our slides :

(Figure 3)

The slide (figure 3) above, is only consist of written text which makes it NOT a good document. Based on Putnis & Petelin (1996), a useful strategy of document is to construct a mind map (like a tree) or some visual (picture). As it has been said that editing will sharpening our document. Therefore, another slides (figure 4) and (figure 5) is the slides that I've edited to improve it and make it as a good document.

In (figure 4) below, I have edited by adding a picture in it as it directly explain with more detail in the document. This will make an audience will get more attracted to it.

(Figure 4)

Same goes with the figure 5, I added a big picture but the difference is that I did not mixture it with a written text.

(Figure 5)

In addition, Diana Reep (2006) believe that physical appearance of a document is very important because the written text and its presentation work together and provide readers with the information they need, think about the design of your documents during the planning stage even if we pick out the right information and the slides that I have edited is also because I've learnt from Diana Reep which it stated that readers do not read only the printed words on a page; they also "read" the visual presentation of the text.

In any document, images could or will affect the readers by colours, shapes and facial expression and this is because we can break the images coded as each of everyone interpret in a different way and the images can affects on our imaginative levels (Walsh, 2006). For example from my slide (figure 5), the shape of the shoes, the colour could or have affected some of my classmates. Maybe they feel the shoes are cool and nice and the feeling of desire has existed. Thus, this shows that from the reading of Walsh are true.

Overall, a good document must have a balancing alignment of text and images, spaces between text and title, borders, a great nice and clear pictures, the colours and shapes of the font,the pictures itself and not too much of written text. As all of these are combined it into one document, it means, you just produced a really great document!

Reference

1. Mark. B, 1999 "Everything is intertwingled", Opening Keynote, Hypertext '99, Darmstadt, Germany.
2. Putnis. P. Petlin. R, 1996, "Proffessional Communication: principles and applications, Writing to communicate", Prentice Hall, Sydney.
3. Reep. D, 2006, "Technical writing", 6th edition, Pearson Edu, Inc., New York.
4. Kress. G & Van Leeuwen, T, 2006, "Reading Images Chapter 6: The meaning of Composition".
5. Kress, G. & van Leeuwen, T. 2006. "Reading images. Chapter 1: The semiotic landscape: language and visual communication".
6. Walsh. M, 2006, "Textual shift: Examining the reading process with print, visual and multimodal text", Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, vol. 29, no. 1, p.24-37.

Purpose

Greetings everyone!

In life, we have been taught and educate to write, draw, speak, and walk. Writing is really crucial but writing is not the only or the most important as the environment has change. Now, the meaning/ message in pictures can stand by its own without a written text.

In my blog, my main goal is to discuss in what I have learnt in 'Issues in Publication and Design' studies as it tells everything about designing in any document in a right way and some of the publication's area. My target audience is for those who are interested and mostly teenagers or middle age of students in college, universities or working people who are in the same field.