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A comment on Clean Up Your Mess – A Guide to Visual Design for Everyone (2011). Parent comment

Re:Clean Up Your Mess – A Guide to Visual Design for Everyon... by rrock on Saturday March 28, 2015 @03:05PM (#9282389)
The one on the left really is a train wreck. All the points that are brought up with alignment, grouping, and sizing of related elements are clearly illustrated in these two examples. Not saying the right is perfect, but it's far better than the left. Worth it to reread the article and carefully consider the points if you feel otherwise.
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Re:Clean Up Your Mess – A Guide to Visual Design for Everyon... by DanBC on Saturday March 28, 2015 @03:14PM (#9282415)
A joke isn't funny if it needs to be explained.

A design isn't good if a designer needs to tell me to look again, but look better this time.

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Re:Clean Up Your Mess – A Guide to Visual Design for Everyon... by rrock on Saturday March 28, 2015 @04:57PM (#9282733)
Are you saying that design is innate, and can't be learned? I disagree.
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Re:Clean Up Your Mess – A Guide to Visual Design for Everyon... by DanBC on Saturday March 28, 2015 @06:20PM (#9282961)
I'm saying that if you need to explain why one flyer is better than another then the design might not be as strong as you think.
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Re:Clean Up Your Mess – A Guide to Visual Design for Everyon... by rrock on Saturday March 28, 2015 @08:23PM (#9283361)
Right, so innate it is. Folks who have studied design will be upset to learn this.

Again, I'm not saying that this is a perfect example, but the points he makes are valid. I've had to deal with similar issues creating figures and illustrations for scientific manuscripts. Scientists are not great illustrators by and large, although some are. It's worth studying the successful examples, and to adopt their practices.

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Re:Clean Up Your Mess – A Guide to Visual Design for Everyon... by sukilot on Saturday March 28, 2015 @09:53PM (#9283579)
The point of design is to study and think a lot so that you can create a message that viewers can receive without thinking. Most of the public have not studied design, and they are the ones your design needs to impact. Recognizing good design is innate, but creating and understandin it is not.
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