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Dynamics in Document Design 1997 560 pages Complementary Texts Charles Kostelnick and David D.
Roberts Keywords
Copyright © 2000-2007 Isabel Pedersen |
Dynamics in Document Design incorporates seven chapters and three appendices. It steps the reader through an entire design process from audience analysis to usability test. The text focuses on print-based documents including brochures, pamphlets, user’s guides, quick reference cards, print advertising, magazine articles and reports, although it takes a short hiatus into a web page example. The strongest theme that runs throughout the work is seeing the text; Schriver promotes strategies for space, typography and graphics rather than teach the reader how to write or design specific images. This focus means that one can apply her principles to online contexts as well as print. Schriver’s application of gestalt principles when combining text and graphics is particularly thorough and innovative. Her analysis of grid design, grounded in print media, draws on reading strategies that the designer can apply to a multitude of modes. Schriver makes extensive use of everyday examples and
case studies. There is a good balance between theory and practice in this
work making it highly valuable for designers who actually wish to work from
theorized models. It is also a very usable book. Schriver provides an author
and subject index to help orient the reader as well as a very detailed table
of contents. The marginalia points to corroborating research and gives the
reader a great deal of confidence in Schriver’s claims. She constantly looks
beyond her own examples to the outer context of the point she makes. |