5375 Portfolio Arthur Pare
Principles Theories Applications Building Experience in Document Design
5375 Portfolio Arthur Pare
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Table of Contents: Page Description
Portfolio Description
Submitted December 15, 2009 ENGL 5375 Document Design Texas Tech University Dr. Sean Zdenek
The final assignment for ENGL 5375 was for each student to showcase their best work as a portfolio. Each design example in the portfolio should integrate and be contextualized in writing with the reading extensions and assignment memospresented through the semester. This portfolio also includes a sampling of the eight workshop prompts as requested. The portfolio has been built in Scribus version 1.3.5.1 Copyright 2001足2008 by Franz Schmid and the members of the Scribus Team and is used under a GNU General Public License.
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Readings, Extensions & Memos
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Typography Assignment
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Workshop Prompt #1- Bob Knight
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Redesign #1 - Department Newsletter
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Workshop Prompt #2- Lawn & Tree
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Redesign #2 - Ransom Cafe Menu
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Workshop Prompt #3- Typefaces
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Community Redsign - Tabletop Tent
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Workshop Prompt #4- Grid Design
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Workshop Prompt #5- Photo Cropping
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Workshop Prompt #6- Graph Exercise
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Workshop Prompt #8- Calendar
5375 Portfolio Arthur Pare Readings Extensions and Memos
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Williams' points regarding alignment and class comments regarding typeface selection were two of the most valauable lessons studied in this course.
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Original Statistics: Format: 8.5 by 11 inches U.S. Letter, Microsoft Word 972004 format, last modified April 28, 2008, 108 paragraphs on 29 pages, 88.3 KB, intended for print on 20 lb. uncoated white paper. Margins: 1 inch top margin, 1 inch bottom margin with footer baseline .5 inch. Side margins set at 1.25 inches flushleft, loose raggedright alignment. Columns: Single 6 inch main text column with no space allocated for additional text or sidebar information. Defined styles and headings drop down list: Not utilized. Title page, table of contents, abstract, and other front matter: Not present. Headings: 12 point Times New Roman Bold typeface © The Monotype Corporation pic/ Type Solutions Inc. 19901992 version 2.60. Double spaced with additional 4.8 pt before and 6 pt after paragraph hard returns. Text: 12 point Times New Roman Regular typeface © The Monotype Corporation pic/ Type Solutions Inc. 19901992 version 2.60. Double spaced with additional 4.8 pt before and 6 pt after paragraph hard returns. Text Bullets: Indented .25 inch, Wingdings typeface © Microsoft Corporation 1992 © Type Solutions, Inc., character 110 (Unicode character F06E)
Typographical analysis of previously submitted assignment.
5375 Portfolio Arthur Pare Typographical Analysis: Recommendations • Font Change from Times New Roman to Garamond or Palatino. • Measure The optimal line length is 40 characters and 70 characters is the maximum. • Leading Font Measure and leading balance needs to be maintained. • Cascading Styles Should have been used. • Right Rag Autohyphenate was disabled which resulted in an abnormally wild edge. The default hyphenation zone is .25” • Paragraph Length In general, paragraph length should be shortened . • Old Style Numerals Should have been used. • Ellipsis Points … should have been used instead of . . . . • Bullet Points A more traditional rounded or diamond point would appear less harsh to the reader. • Widows Very short last lines of paragraphs appear with regularity. • Orphan The heading Slide 11 appears at the bottom of page 19 but the text does not begin until the next page. • Bold and Italic Attributes Typeface should have been selected instead of character attribute. • Color Variation would have added warmth and readability to the running text. • Indentation Initial paragraph indention Should have been used. • Em Dash Proper Em Dash should have been used instead of hyphen.
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(Page 2) In retrospect, especially given the length of this document, effort should have been given towards making the paper visually appealing and readable. This is not a textbook, journal or magazine submission or a poster that needs to visually stimulate the recipient and entice them to read the text; but it should be appealing, encourage reading, and be easy on the eyes for those who do undertake the task.
(Page 3) .• Paragraph Length The first page of the paper featured a paragraph that printed at 6.5 inches in length. This presents a bleak unbroken expanse of undulating text that is very uninviting to read. In general, paragraph length should be shortened and new paragraphs within that slide heading should be indented slightly.
(Page 3) • Ellipsis Points Throughout this document quotes were edited for length and emphasis and three periods with spaces were used instead of using ellipsis points. The typography would be improved by activating the contextual character switching attribute of … instead of interspersed spaces . . . ..
(Page 2) • Measure The optimal line length is 40 characters and 70 characters is the maximum according to James Felici in The Complete Manual of Typography (page 120). Based upon the figures presented above, this document averages 69.25 characters per line, very near the maximum recommended.
(Page 4) • Color No prismatic color was utilized … only black text … and huge spacing creates a light typographic color with an excess of interlinear whiteness. The addition of a contrasting color, especially through the cascading heading formats would add emphasis to the document, make it easier to scan for information, and add warmth and readability to the running text.
(Page 3) • Old Style Numerals Many dates and dollar amounts are used within this document and none are formatted in tabular form. Using old style numerals instead of lining numerals would enhance the appearance of the text and offer more interesting shapes.
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Bobby Knight achieved win #880 on January 1, 2007 and later retired in February 2008 with a career record of 902-371 including one 32-0 perfect season in 1975-76 and only two seasons below 50%.
Image courtesy of TTU Sports Information Department Š 2005
Knight's Win #880 Free ticket mailout Original  December 2006
These three basketball games were receiving a tremendous amount of national attention, and because of the Christmas break the student body was not anticipated to fill the stands. In an effort to both show appreciation to faculty and staff and fill the stands of the United Spirit Arena this very plain mailer was sent to Texas Tech University offices.
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Workshop Prompt #1 Revised Mailer This was my first attempt at creating a document in Scribus. While the basic concept of text boxes, image boxes, shapes, etc. was not foreign to me, the specific methods of editing text in Scribus posed a few unanticipated challenges.
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In typography, a glyph is a property of a typeface. It is a particular graphical representation, in a particular typeface, of an element of written language. Most typographic glyphs originate from the characters of a typeface. In a typeface each character typically corresponds to a single glyph, but there are exceptions, there can be several glyphs representing the same character. See the S in the header for an example of an enhanced glyph.
Redesign #1 Departmental Newsletter Original 足 August 2009 Background:
Texas Tech Health Sciences General Services has several very good graphic designers from the Printing Center at their disposal. They can produce exceptional designs, or they can follow the instructions they are given and produce something that is less than extraordinary. The latter was the case with this newsletter. The supervisor requested bright colors, lots of employee photos, humorous content and a light, easy-going flavor. The result met that criteria but was never published because it did not present the required level of professionalism that the department head required. Fortunately, it gave me an opportunity to develop a alternative design for this class.
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In an effort to improve on the design I first eliminated the gradient background. The color combinations from Red to Blue and Yellow to Orange on both the top and bottom of the page were too much for the very clinical audience this newsletter was targeting. The “Summer 2009” did not have enough contrast with the gradient and was nearly lost when viewing on screen.
This text, S glyph and the curve were completed in The most controversial change would be the removal of GIMP 2.6.7 © 1995-2008 the faces and the tagline “home of friendly faces.” The Spencer Kimbal et al. faces did not look genuinely friendly to me and appeared GIMP is an acronym for to be a contrived show of diversity. The actual mix in the GNU Image Manipulation photo below is sufficient. I considered leaving the photos, Program, and can moving the photo to the left and the red TTUHSC Printing accomplish most of the Center logo to the right to balance seven faces left five effects I am familiar with faces right instead of twelve faces on right, but none of in Adobe Photoshop. those attempts resulted in a favorable appearance. Because of the learning curve in GIMP, this simple image took many hours to MOO comments criticized the Printing Center logo but produce. With experience, when viewed full size it is actually an interesting this could be produced in compilation. The background image is a photo of the just a few minutes and for building with several variations of text superimposed. free software, the light It is widely used and I did not feel at liberty to change. effects are exceptional. The grayscale printed copy looked okay. By changing the field to white it is more distinct on screen and in print.
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Lubbock Lawn and Tree is a very reputable company in the Lubbock, Texas area and has a highly regarded reputation. This document does not accurately portray their expertise.
Arthur's first attempt at redesign.
Lubbock Lawn & Tree Instructions & Invoice Original 足 Undated
The print on this document was an odd bluish tint, with just a dollar amount and company name handwritten at the bottom. This is the primary contact the company has with the client to inform them of necessary watering, promote additional services and to collect for services rendered. It looks unprofessional and does not clearly describe necessary steps the customer must follow to prevent damage to the lawn.
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Workshop Prompt #2 Revised Instructions/Invoice Original created in Scribus 1.3.3, was corrupted when opened in version 1.3.5. The text is still the original text. Still needs changes. When all four of my designs were shown to focus group of Real Women of Lubbock County this was voted most memorable. Memorable does not mean best.
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5375 Portfolio Arthur Pare
Redesign #2 Ransom Canyon Cafe Menu Original 足 Undated
5375 Portfolio Arthur Pare ĂŠ
Redesign #2 Ransom Canyon Cafe Menu Redesign  November 2009
Clean, colorful and characteristically complementary with cafe decor!
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Many menus were looked at in the design process. One of the most readable was from Cracker Barrel. My design borrowed extensively from their general layout.
Ransom Canyon Cafe Redesign #2 足 Details
I did not copy the bounding box, not because I thought there were already too many boxes, but because I could not replicate the inverted rounded corners. Both Lipton and Felici were opposed to boxing items, but in this specific situation I believe it was a strong organizational choice. Different food groups were also color coded in heading titles and box outline.
5375 Portfolio Arthur Pare Workshop Prompt #3 Typeface Exercise
The assignment requested variations in typestyles to show separation between three distinct and unrelated conversations occurring simultaneously. While some stylistic variations were made in the typefaces, particularly on the right side of the screen, the strength of this design lies in the familiarity of the intended audience with the TTU MOO English online classroom. The reality of that setting where numerous separate conversations can take place at the same moment adds intrinsic appeal to this design.
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Community Design Project Tabletop Tent December 2009 The assignment requested a three足sided freestanding tabletop tent that could be placed in a public area frequented by university students. The purpose of the piece was to attract attention to the undergraduate Technical Communication program at Texas Tech University. By targeting the logos, ethos and pathos in three rhetorically separate but similarly designed graphically frames I hoped to maximize effectiveness. Ronnie Lipton (page 131) excoriates center alignment in display type and a reworking of this piece would undoubtedly find it left justified.
5375 Portfolio Arthur Pare
5375 Portfolio Arthur Pare
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Workshop Prompt #2 Revised Instructions/Invoice
Document could have used more dynamic color. Cassie Ross's design is stuning.
Centered text that did not burn through class notes.
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Consistency and Alignment Each page alternated left and right with page numbers always to the outside.
X-Pos: Y-Pos: Width: Height:
X-Pos: Y-Pos: Width: Height:
51.00 120.30 131.00 212.06
51.00 340.94 131.00 212.06
5375 Portfolio Arthur Pare
Workshop Prompt #4 Portfolio Grid X-Pos: Y-Pos: Width: Height:
19300 120.30 268.00 165.63
Designing the Portfolio Grid was very interesting. Learning about the Golden Ratio (Phi) and the relationship to squares and spirals and how that makes the overall layout aesthetically pleasing was wonderful! Primary grid had five sections with the golden ratio or its inverse. X-Pos: Y-Pos: Width: Height:
19300 120.30 268.00 435.15
X-Pos: Y-Pos: Width: Height:
470.00 120.30 268.00 435.15
5375 Portfolio Arthur Pare Workshop Prompt #5 Photo Cropping Exercise
The assignment required several crops be taken from a single photo, where each cropped image could be an independant thought or storyline. I chose to use a photo taken at the Oklahoma City Memorial at the end of the 2009 Memorial Marathon. It could be a study in people, textures, or reflections.
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5375 Portfolio Arthur Pare Workshop Prompt #6 Graphing Exercise
Data was very new and only available as PDF download. I had to transfer from PDF to .xls to make graphs using the 'Insert' 'Chart' function.
Using Microsoft Excel to present data in a graphical manner is quite easy. This assignment required a few variations on the basic graph. One graph had to be intentionally misleading. The data I pulled was from a recent survey of unbanked and underbanked households by state and metropolitan area. By their standards, even if Bill Gates purchased one money order at 7足11, even though he was very well connected at his bank, he would be considered underbanked. Some of these graphs are intentionally confusing to show good and bad practices.
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Glossary Household Banking Status categories: • Unbanked: Households that answered "no" to the question, "Do you or does anyone in your household currently have a checking or savings account?" • Underbanked: Households that have a checking or savings account but rely on alternative financial services. Specifically, underbanked households have used nonbank money orders, nonbank checkcashing services, payday loans, renttoown agreements, or pawn shops at least once or twice a year or refund anticipation loans at least once in the past five years. • Banked but not underbanked: Households that have a checking or a savings account but do not meet the definition of underbanked. • Banked but underbanked status unknown: Households that have a checking or a savings account but their underbanked status could not be assessed because of missing data.
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Workshop Prompt #8 Calendar Exercise The assignment was a design your own format. Since I needed to design a 2010 calendar, I requested permission to use that design as a workshop prompt. Pictured are similar samples from 2005, 2006, and 2007. 2008 and 2009 varied slightly with shading and more text. The 2010 returns to using a light opacity background behind the calendar grid but retains some of the additional marketing text on the right side. Some movement away from the traditional red color was also done by showing an opened page with more blue. 2010 also returns to bold year at top left, which was lacking in 2008 and 2009.
5375 Portfolio Arthur Pare
5375 Portfolio Arthur Pare
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2010 Calendar has six months on each side, printed on 11x17" cardstock. Lightly visible behind calendar itself are the covers of the 2009 Lubbock editions. The actual date grids were done in Microsoft Excel and exported as a transparent PDF to place in Scribus.
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5375 Portfolio Arthur Pare