AES694 Some 40 Minutes of Graphic Design Principles

It is quite unavoidable that during the learning processes in Semi Palar, the students will have to come face to face with the tasks of creating something like posters, infographics, magazines, or even books. Regardless of what the contents are, there are one elements that they have to deal with which is putting all those contents into a blank piece of paper, texts and images on top of those empty sheets of paper. Arranging them so they are visually appealing and attractive to look at. 

Just today kak Leo asked me to share some graphic design principles to KPB students. And, that I just did. I went to Bengkel Smipa where the meeting take place and when I came in everybody was ready. So I jumped right in. I brought along two books, and a magazine. I asked them to observe and compare how those three books are from the graphic design point of view.

It took me some 40 minutes to explain some of the most important principles in Graphic Design - at least from my point of view. Doesn't look like much doesn't it, but I hope that those are the fundamentals that would make any design more visually appealing. We were talking about white space. compositions, margins, typography and so on. Keeping it really short and to the point also we are trying to really see them in how they apply to the designs that we can see around us. Specifically about white space, I asked them to read my essay which is entitled 'Kekosongan' 

One may probably ask of how I came up with these things. Well I did studied architecture, years ago. Even though I didn't pursue architectural design as a profession, the design principles in other fields are basically the same. You can apply the same principles in graphic design as they apply in architecture. Today we did a quick exercise of how the KPB students can find the same examples of the principles in the interior design of bengkel Smipa, and yes they did find them. I also had some experience working on some books layouts and many other things during the time I have been managing Semi Palar. Not saying that I am an expert, but over the years I do have quite some experience. 

At the end of the session, I asked the wonderful people of KPB to write an essay based on what they gathered in the session. Well they did came up with interesting essays - which is not only about graphic design. Some of them are even phylosophical in nature so yeah I found them really interesting. Thank you guys and hopefully you get something out of our discussion. Cheers!