Desinging To Learn

https://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/2187718-181/some-fishermen-complain-that-carp CARP, not referring to a fish, but rather it’s an acronym for Contrast, Alignment, Repetition, Proximity. Sometimes referred as CRAP! Or so I have found by doing a brief search for CARP on Google. There are already so many great resources out there describing CARP, however I first learned about it in Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery by Garr Reynolds  (2008). Check out the .pdf describing CARP from pages in “Presentation Zen.” Somehow I managed 5 years of design school in the early 2000’s without hearing about this acronym. It’s likely the acronym did not reach the height of popularity until after I graduated. Nevertheless, I entered design school for ILT grad studies in the twenty-teens and picked up where I left off in Joni Dunlap’s “ Creative Designs” course . These CARP principles were already burned into my brain but one has always stuck out for m...

This week in INTE 6710 "Creative Designs," our class dove into understanding CARP, or contrast, alignment, repetition, and proximity. There are many other deeply embedded meanings in simple graphics that evoke responses in the viewer, even if subconscious or subliminal. There's color, gestalt, symmetry, asymmetry, texture, scale, etc. All these things we pretty much take for granted in the modern era where we are bombarded with imagery, mostly well done thanks to capitalism. Embedded in the psyche of each person living in the modern world is the "taste" or ability to discern what looks good or what looks bad. Just like listening to music, there are rules to be followed and we all know it when we hear a good tune versus a bad one. We may not be able to describe why the music, or the image or design is out tune, but we know a bad design when we see one. 17 Ways To Make Graphic Designers Cringe   In order to describe visual design to make what works and wh...