In this lesson, we'll see how simplification
helps us to organize the elements in space
and also to favor their experience.
I want to explain how to use proximity and alignment
to organize the elements in less complex ways
and thus, take advantage of your design.
Let's see what it's about.
As we saw before,
our brain tends to filter the information it receives in order to process it.
A simple composition captures the attention and is transparent.
I'm not saying that complexity can't be aesthetic,
but you shouldn't go beyond what's right for your purpose.
Also, be careful because an excessive simplification can reduce the content to something very elementary,
a design that's too obvious or boring.
In graphic design, we can't show everything.
You have to reduce the amount of elements in the piece,
leaving only the main components.
Simplifying involves reducing the shapes or attributes of the elements.
How many types of frames do your photos have?
How many different bodies do the titles have?
Ask yourself if you can't make one out of two or more objects.
We can also hide parts and dosage.
This is evident in interface design,
with advanced functions under the navigation menu.
Reduce your chromatic palette when possible and apply the 60-30-10 rule that we saw in the color selection.
A chromatic color grading system is fine for five or six colors,
but if you have more,
it's hard to remember and recognize.
Submit your photos to a color filter that matches their nuances and decides on some plans and camera inclinations.
Diversity is good when it's a key concept to communicate.
As I said,
two typographic families can do almost any job very well.
If you're interested in stylistic amplitude,
reduce some other factor to unify the piece.
Modifying objects using a few reference lines consolidates the composition and makes it solid.
Do you remember the proximity principle?
Approaching and moving generates groups that simplify the piece.
In addition, combine the created sets to have as few as possible.
Of course, without losing coherence.
By grouping the spaces to make simpler areas,
you avoid too capricious whites.
With these considerations and the ones you can share in the forum,
it will be easier to go back to the simple.
In the InDesign project,
I want to show you how I started simplifying from sketches.
I use a sketch technique,
which is to make very small miniatures so
that I can't concentrate on details.
Sometimes I make them extremely small.
When I say small,
they are 3 by 1.5 centimeters.
But these elements being very small,
like miniatures, it is easier to simplify the shapes,
the structures and concentrate on them.
I started making, as you can see,
a way too complex,
with very strong angles,
trying to make a very solid group, perhaps too strange,
not so simple.
I kept trying out there,
and the groups that were generated were too many.
It was really complicated to try to generate a simple and simple structure.
I was adding more elements each time,
instead of simplifying and reducing the shapes.
So I went back to zero and started making the counterforms much more concrete.
I also wanted the texts to be much better marked,
that is, differentiated from the figures,
from the other elements of the page.
That there are photographic shapes on one side and another group that is of the text.
That the text always has a location so in that way the design is much simpler.
And from there I realized that some elements can be grouped to make them a little more present on the page.
And since this is the article that deals with the new rural habits of people who move to the outskirts,
there are many elements and I don't know if you remember that there are many little plants and many little miniatures,
and that was a dilemma for the next double page.
Until I found a composition that seemed quite simple and clear to me.
I think that also making very simple structures in a small size helps you to quickly find,
as in a not-so- if you remember that concept that we saw in the counterform,
you already see the clear structure and in that way you already start to
add different nuances and extra things.
So once I did that I'm going to show you how I went through,
for example, here I have the sketch so you can get an idea.
There is the sketch here next to it.
And what I did was recompose the structure a little bit here.
And so,
all with simulated text,
to see how the double page looks.
And here are some details that I would like to adjust too.
Since I have the elements in the space,
I realize that this photo needs to be adjusted a little bit.
Maybe we have to make it a little bigger,
or rather what I think is not clear is the position it has in the space.
I think it is in that ambiguous situation of whether it is on one side or if it is on one end.
That is why we are going to clarify it and take it a little further out of the page.
It also seems to me that the subtitle is perhaps unnecessary for the purposes of this design,
so I'm going to delete it.
It is possible that now it needs that third floor to be done
the title itself.
So I'm going to arrange it like this at least,
and it already begins to have a certain verticality similar to the rest of the structure.
Another thing about this spread that I think needs to be adjusted is the location of these elements.
Perhaps by taking it more to the extreme it will be much clearer,
because here the cons are very similar and do not finish hierarchizing the structure.
There again it invites me to take this a little more here and it already begins to have another type of character.
Let's see what happens with this other double page.
Here this idea that I took from the original has a pretty significant problem.
Because of these spaces,
the group is not generated here.
A much clearer structure is not generated here.
I think what needs to be done is to put it together,
to group it better,
and look at how this air breathes much more calmly the page,
and now it becomes a group here,
another here in the middle,
and a third.
Three groups following this principle of simplifying images by groups or by odd numbers.
On the last double page,
here what seems to me that it must be adjusted above all is this photo that was very horizontal.
I think I'm going to need to get into this space and run this element more to the edge,
aligning all this.
Notice that here it already makes a very interesting cross,
it is already a little more synthetic everything.
And I also need an element that binds me more.
It's like too external everything,
right?
In addition, those couple things, as I told you,
can bring some kind of problems in the link.
I'm going to take this image here,
or rather I'm going to make a small copy to have maybe here an element,
maybe another photo, surely,
and I already align a third element there,
and I think it is linked to a little better.
If I can take this as in the first double page a little more to the extreme,
the design of these compositions is much better perceived from simplicity imposing on each of the double pages.
I hope that now you can take advantage of the simplification in your design.
In the next lesson we will see balance and movement.