11

words

H O W T O T E L L A S T O R Y

mario garcia

12

Engines to good designDesigners who respect words gain the respect of the editors they

work with.

Respect for words shows in every page. Words hold the key to our

senses, in ways that perhaps visuals, and even the power of color,

can’t. We may be impacted by the presence of a bright hue on a

page, but words mesmerize, and are remembered long after our

eyes went on to seek other sensations on another page. Not long ago,

Tom Brokaw was presenting a lead-in to a documentary on the

Baby Boom generation. He was seated at his desk in a dark suit,

with nothing around him but the weight of words. The words

themselves were far more powerful than any of the footage shown.

For the designer, words have practical applications:

Certain “key words” give us visual clues. Cling to adjectives

(“this was an over-the-top school principal”), to descriptive phrases

(“it had not rained for days, all was dry and brown”), or point of

view (“there was nothing humorous about this meeting”) and seek

ways to reflect them on the page. The tone of the words leads to

the tone of the design.

While reading a manuscript, a good designer underlines any

passages that describe potential visuals.

pure design

13

Even when words are used to point directly to an aspect of a story

such as “ what the strike means”, the designer can then utilize

visual tools to make the material more comprehensible.

It is an interesting exercise, and one I recommend to start by

writing a short paragraph descriptive of what a design project is all

about. I find myself making notes that read:

“This is a text-driven newspaper where what one reads is

more important than what one sees. . . .”

“Here we must explode with energy on every page: the

bold, the large, the bright hues, all are protagonists in this

circus-like environment. . . .”

“A website for those who wish to meditate and contemplate:

go easy on the bright images; find dropped capitals to intercept

here and there.”

When a reader sees a page, it is the words he begins with. No matter

what one is designing, he begins with words. It all starts with words,

so we begin our study of pure design with words.