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by Adonis Durado, Design Director, Times of Oman // SND STL Conference, 2011
Visual Conceit
W H AT C O N S T I T U T E S A G O O D PA G E ?
Every designer knows that the classic recipe is good headline and good art. But we all know that the newsroom is not a perfect world. Most often we get a good story with a crappy art. And this has become our existential wound, yet this does not mean that as creative we'll cease to engage our readers. Were told that putting the readers rst would be the key to our survival. But designers must learn to develop visualization techniques to captivate and engage its readers. This is not anymore a question of designing a good page but designers must produce pages that constantly grab readers by the balls, tickle their imagination, and perhaps propel them to utter the magic word: Wow! So how do we create a page that passes the wow-o-meter? And what is the secret to a wow page? Well, the key ingredient is simply to learn the concept of visual conceit.
DEFINITION
Visual conceit is a device, a method of dressing up, enriching, adding layer or dimension to a story. Its a visual treatment other than employing metaphor within the context of the story and the parameter of printed form.
CONCEPTUAL CONCEIT
STYLISTIC CONCEIT
VISUAL CONCEIT / 1 of 7 /
C O N C E I T E D A P P R O A C H E S : T H E M A N Y W AY S T O S K I N T H E C AT
Be funny or die.
Use humor and wit.
Dont be at.
Go beyond two dimensions... Try tactile.
VISUAL CONCEIT / 2 of 7 /
Art attack
Explore various visual styles Be ecclectic.
Textual attack.
Headline treatment in shock and awe.
VISUAL CONCEIT / 3 of 7 /
Create narrative.
Be it pictorial or textual.
INTERACTIVE
CONCEIT
VISUAL CONCEIT / 4 of 7 /
Contextualize or texturize.
Be literal or be ambiguous. Create an architectonic quality.
VISUAL CONCEIT / 5 of 7 /
HEADLINE
10
VISUAL CONCEIT / 6 of 7 /
Design is problem solving. Design with panache and with great respect to content
Exercise restraint. The beauty of simplicity. The image at the right is more simplier and cleaner.
Dont be afraid to experiment. I created two design studies below and opted for the rst concept because it's the one I haven't tried before. Look for inspiration from other works. Build a "agging wall" where you can post concepts and visual styles.
VISUAL CONCEIT / 7 of 7 /