May the 4th be with you!

“May the 4th be with you.” What started as pun warmly shared by
fans has become a full-fledged Star Wars holiday: Star Wars Day,
a special once-a-year celebration of the galaxy far, far away.

http://www.starwars.com/may-the-4th

So many designers are huge geeks!

But why? Lets have a look at a few design principles used by Star Wars that help make it so epic!

First things first. Depth.

Creating a sense of spacing between the foreground, middle ground and background achieves depth.

Star Wars uses depth to ensure you don’t lose focus on what is currently taking place by placing the important focal elements in the foreground, overlapping elements on different planes to create layers and changing the colour intensity of elements to appear either closer or further in the distance.

What next, Contrast.

Star Wars utilises contrast by placing opposing elements side by side, this creates a more dramatic mood. By placing larger elements next to smaller elements star wars is able to enforce a sense of dominance over the smaller element, this also makes the smaller element less significant but may actually work to draw more attention toward it.

All designers love our Negative Space!

Negative space creates drama and tension, Star Wars uses it to provide not only that but a visual pause between elements. Allowing breathing room around the main element brings your attention back to the focal objects, it creates visual drama by having more negative space.

SYMMETRY!

Star Wars creates balance with their symmetry and uses it to highlight their focal object. They use major elements on each side of the composition so that no balance is lost and place the focal point in the middle, this creates perfect symmetry.

Directional Cues.

Star Wars uses direction cues to assist the eyes navigation through visual elements and toward the focal point. This is used by placing the objects in the direction you want the viewers eyes to go, kind of like drawing an arrow toward it.

Finally we have repetition, repetition, repetition.

Repetition puts emphasis on an idea by using repeated visual elements creating unity betweens objects and providing a sense of strength. You can repeat elements by using patterns, lines or colours but if we use the Storm Troopers as an example we can see how placing elements in close proximity to one another it makes it appear as through they are strong within their group.

I am sure there are many more incredible design features of Star Wars but thats all I have for now!

May the 4th be with you.

Offline Dynamic Forms

Recently we had the pleasure of taking a step back from the wondrous digital world and put together an Offline Dynamic Form.

An Interactive and Intuitive form that show & hides fields, pages and even sections of the form depending on what is relevant to your clients needs. This can help so much when you have a broad client spectrum who may only want one or two of the hundreds of services you may provide.

This one form Plain created for our client combined several forms they would have had to fill out at once, this helps the client cut down on time sorting through all the paper work and helps the client not have to fill in their personal details countless times!

The Dynamic form not only displays relevant pages and fields but it also autofills in details that the client may have already filled in!

Javascript was used in the creation if these forms to aid in the decision to show what is relevant only; this may not work for some computer with outdated software, BUT we went to the extra effort of going through each and every field and also adding in Show/Hide options what will work on any computer, even if they are still running windows 98!

There are some websites out there that say they build these kinds of forms for you but on inspection the formatting was terribly unappealing! Nothing beats the designers touch!

If you or anyone you know needs an easy and alluring form for their company, send them this way! We would love to do this again.

3 REASONS WHY THE WORLD NEEDS MORE EXPERIENCED DESIGNERS

Contrary to the common portrayal of designers, designers do more than make things pretty.

If we had more experienced designers in the world, life would be better for everyone. Here’s why:

1. Experienced designers understand the path of least resistance

The path of least resistance is the easiest way to get anything done.

Ever meet someone that you and everyone else considered to be a slacker? Yet every time something was due they’d have it done and, more often than not, done better than most? If they’re not already, this person is probably meant to be a designer.

As designers, we create experiences that are incredibly easy to grasp because our lives are based around making things easy for ourselves. The best designers are typically those slacker kids you grew up with who figured out life’s algorithm at an early age.

2. Designers see the big picture

When it comes to just about anything in life, it’s important to have the big picture in mind—but it’s easy to get lost in the details. Designers aim to understand opportunity costs, and because of this we’re perpetually running cost/benefit analyses.

This analytical understanding of life leads to better budgeting of our time, better prioritising of tasks, and generally better life experiences. In a world of instant gratification, it’s great to be surrounded by people who make decisions after thinking them through.

3. Designers put people first

The best designers have a strong grasp of human behaviour. But they also know that they’re not always right. And when a good designer gets stumped, they ask questions.

Instead of assuming they know the answer, a great designer will ask people what they think of the idea and what could make it better.