Tag Archives: Principles of Design

The Principles of C.R.A.P. 2019: Proximity

Objective: 

Students will be able to demonstrate an understanding of the principles of design by designing a flyer explaining what each principle means and visually demonstrating what each principle looks like, so they can better understand and recognize what each principle looks like when it is used effectively.

Links:

Topics Discussed:

  • InDesign Page Layout
  • Horizontal Width
  • Vertical Width
  • Margins and Columns
  • Principles of Design (Proximity)

Assignment:

  1. Create a new one-page 8.5″ x 11″ (Letter Size) document in InDesign with all the default settings.
  2. Use Images, Text and the Principles of Design (C.R.A.P.) that we have been studying over the last few days to design a page that lists all four principles, explains what each principle means, and visually demonstrates what each principle looks like.
  3. Today we will focus on the principle of Proximity – grouping related items together into “Information McNuggets”. Use images and text to show and explain what this might look like.
  4. Leave room on your page for the other three principles! We’ll be doing one a day all next week!
  5. Remember the Principles of Design (C.R.A.P.): Contrast, Repetition, Alignment, and Proximity, and let them guide all your decisions as you build this page! Remember to create a strong focal point, and a strong eyeflow using the principles!
  6. Save this assignment as “Your Name – CRAP Principles”. We will continue to work with this document next week.
  7. We will hand in this assignment to the Assignment Post titled “Check for Understanding – Principles of C.R.A.P.” in your Google Classroom page on Tuesday of next week.

Assigned: September 4th, 2019
Teacher Pacing Due Date: September 5th, 2019

The Principles of C.R.A.P. 2019

Today we are going to start learning about the Principles of Design. Specifically, we will be studying four major principles that will help make everything you create more visually pleasing and easy to read. Understanding these principles will help you to identify how to improve your own design choices as well as the design of others.

These four Principles are Contrast, Repetition, Alignment and Proximity, which form a very amusing (if slightly unfortunate) acronym: C.R.A.P.

Follow along with the in-class demonstration or watch the attached PowerPoint presentation to learn how we’re going to use the Principles of C.R.A.P. to make things that don’t look like crap!

Objective:

I can name the Principles of Design and describe what they mean by creating a document that shows what each principle looks like so I can effectively identify when these principles are (or are not) being used in a published work.

Links:

Topics Discussed:

  • Principles of Design
  • Contrast
  • Repetition
  • Alignment
  • Proximity

Assignment:

  1. Read “1 – README – The Joshua Tree Epiphany” silently while I read aloud in class.
  2. Read the rest of the document that introduces the four Principles of Design.
  3. Watch the PowerPoint slideshow for further clarification on what the principles are, how they are used, and what they look like.
  4. We will go over the principles in detail throughout this week.
  5. Make sure you understand what the four principles are, what the terms mean, what they look like, and how we use them in our documents, as we will have a Check for Understanding later this week.

Assigned: September 3rd, 2019
Teacher Pacing Due Date: September 4th, 2019