CHAPTER 7

7.1 IMAGES

Images are undeniably powerful part of the page designer’s palette. Images add impact on your pages by making them more visually appealing by evoking reader curiosity or communicating important information.

Inappropriately chosen images confuse and distract from the message. For example, using images of bluebirds and ladybugs on a computer equipment flyer distracts a reader to think more about spring than of computer equipment.

The images you choose influence the mood and visual style of your page. Images may be purely decorative or communicate information. They can be there for fun as long as they related to your message or they can be there to communicate information that the text may not adequately explain.

The types of images you pick for your pages depend on your concept and what kind of visuals you have available. Depending on your concepts and resources you might use illustrations, photographs, charts or diagrams or clip art.

In general, photographs, illustrations and clip art set a visual style, whereas graphs, charts and diagrams are better for communicating complex statistical or numerical information.

7.2 Photographs

Photographs can inform, convince, evoke an emotion, sell a product or attest to facts. Photos are powerful visual images that can evoke strong emotional responses in people.

Photographs seem more credible than illustrations or clip art because most people assume the camera does not lie. You can get photos from a number of sources. Stock photography houses such as Image Bank and Comstock Photos archive vast amounts of quality photos in numerous different categories. Another resource for photographs is clip art CDs that include ready-to use photographs.

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7.2.1 Criteria for choosing photographs

Choose photographs for your page design based on the following criteria;

1. Quality of the photograph 2. Does the photograph communicate the message you

need? 3. For one or two colour designs, choose photos with wide

range of tones. Some photographs however may be improved with the selective

removal of some of their height and width through cropping. The term cropping refers to the removal of some of the horizontal or vertical edges of a picture.

Cropping out unnecessary portions of a photo focuses attention on the remaining portion. Cropping is also used too better fit a photograph into available layout space on a page. With skilful cropping, you might be able to harvest more than one usable picture from photographs.

Beware of cropping a picture too tightly because it can totally disrupt the mood of the photo or even change its meaning entirely.Other visual techniques for photographs are flopping, silhouetting and if you have photo-editing program, you can manipulate the photo.

Flopping simply changes the direction of the image in a photo from side to side to make it mirror image of the original. The advantage of the flopping a photo is that you can use the image to point towards other text or graphics on the page.

For dynamic and informal effect, silhouetting might be the answer. Silhouetting photos have portions selectively removed (not strictly horizontal or vertical portions as in cropped image). Images may be partially or fully silhouetted.

Photo imaging programs such as Adobe Photoshop or Corel Photo Paint are strong tools for customizing photographs. Some of the special effects you can apply to photos in these programs are;

1. Distorting all or part of the image 2. Colorizing parts of the image 3. Adding customs type to the image 4. Outlining the edges 5. Posterizing an image 6. Placing a drop shadow 7. Lightening all or part or the image 8. Applying a special filter to the image 9. Inverting a positive picture to a negative

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10.Adding the border

When a photograph is extensively altered in a photo-imaging program, it is more properly considered a photo-illustration.

7.3 Illustration

Most pages benefit from the inclusion of illustration in a page because good illustrations open up another channel of information and communication. This channel reinforces, explain and emphasis the text.

Illustrations perfectly complement the text and readers can look at the text or the illustration or both to get the whole story. Combining the visual with the text, help people pick out the message quicker than if thee page use only text or only images.

Illustration can be diagrams, maps, charts cartoons or drawing. They are useful for telling a story or showing complex and detailed information that is otherwise difficult to show in any other way.

Illustration can bee humorous, decorative, factual, or serious. Match the tone of the illustration to the tone of your text; humorous illustration with humorous text, factual illustration with factual text and so on.

7.4 Clip Art

Clip art is pre-drawn artwork that is sold on book, disk or CD-ROM. It includes clip art CDs that are for use only in Web pages, clip art CDs for use only in flyers, newsletters and clip art CDs that have no limitations on use.

Many software packages are sold bundled with clip art software such as Corel Draw that offers literally thousands and thousands of images.

7.5 Type as Image

There are many decorative, special fonts available that fit a wide range of styles and motifs. If you can’t find a suitable

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font, consider modifying an existing font to enhance your message. Ways to modify a type are;

1. Use size contrast between woods or letters 2. Use a drop shadow 3. Flip the text 4. Vary the grays or colors in words 5. Duplicate and rotate the text 6. Emboss the text 7. Outline the text

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