Before&After: Design a Small Chart
Visual simplicity transforms a kitchen gimmick—a promotional measurement conversion chart in business-card size—into a useful tool.

You’re up to your elbows in eggs and flour, the recipe’s calling for a quarter cup of corn starch, and all you can reach is a tablespoon. Such usefulness is the idea behind these flat, lightly magnetic vinyl kitchen measurement charts. Here’s how to transform a hard-to-read, clip-arty gimmick into a product that is attractive, easy to use, and stays in kitchens forever. This 19-page article from issue 41 of Before&After Magazine lets you watch as we redesign a gimmicky cooking measurement chart into a useful kitchen tool.

The magnet looks like it’s about cooking, but actually it’s about numbers. To make numbers reader-friendly, put them in columns, and spread them out.

© John McWade/Before&After Magazine, courtesy of Gaye Anne McWade.
Commenting is easier and faster when you're logged in!
Recommended for you

Before&After: Callout Ideas
Pull your reader into a story by using these eye-catching techniques for callout...

Creating PDF Presentations in InDesign
Mike Rankin shows how to create a great presentation file with InDesign and deli...

Before&After: How to Set a Text-Only Logotype
The key to a great logotype is to find a typeface that makes the name look good...