Visual Design Solutions: Principles and Creative Inspiration for Learning Professionals

Introduction

If I could be anything right at this moment, it would be a good fairy whispering encouraging thoughts in your ear. I'd be hovering over your shoulder every time you embarked on a visual design task. “You'll find a good solution,” I would whisper. “Play with your design and see what you discover.”

I would snuff out that little discouraging voice in your head. You know the one. It's the voice that replays the disparaging comment from an insensitive adult long ago, “Is that a tree or a person?” It's the voice of that relative who proclaimed that no one in the family is creative. It's the story you tell yourself as you compare your talents to those of accomplished artists.

Now is the time to reject those defeating ideas. Why let them follow you through adulthood like an anchor around your neck? When you toss away those negative thoughts, you make room for the pure creativity that pulsed through you as a child. It's still there—somewhere inside.

Don't make the mistake of confusing drawing skills for design skills. The truth is, visual design has little to do with the ability to render. To improve at design, you need to know some basic principles of visual communication. You need to make a commitment to explore and practice so you will develop competence. And you need a heightened sensitivity to seeing design in the world around you—to fine-tune your perceptions.

The fact that you are reading this book is a statement about yourself. You are hoping to gain proficiency ...