Design How-To: Impossible Deadline and Budget? Time to Go Back to the Basics.
Your client is a college art department that’s asked you to design a 1-month activity schedule that meets the following requirements: It must convey the nobility of the school and the artistic spirit of the month’s events. It must be handy to use, printable in-house, and inexpensive. Oh, and it must be done by tonight.
How do you turn in quality work on such a tight schedule? In the same way you do any job — methodically. The difference is that you limit type and colors to the basics and your layout to a simple configuration.
Work with what you have. The page is a strong vertical line; the brush image is an even stronger line. Placed parallel, they work together; crossing, they have friction and energy, and in this case the brush becomes a header, too. The centerline is the point of highest contrast in the image.This article has expired. However, you can still read the article by buying it from the Before & After site. Look for the article called “0616 – Design on a Centerline.” Since we’re big fans of the magazine, we recommend you subscribe for a full 32 articles (that’s four print issues for $42 or 32 downloadable PDFs for $24).
This article was last modified on January 6, 2023
This article was first published on April 7, 2006

