This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Design a product showcase
You can draw all eyes to your product if you properly organize your photos.
Photographs are natural storytellers—they are the windows into your company’s world. This makes them different from headlines, drawings and other graphic elements that are ordinary and interchangeable. By grouping photos on a page, you can intensify this natural and unique characteristic to great advantage.
Check out the Before and After versions opposite. On the After version, note where your eyes go first. They go directly to the pictures.
And what do you read first? You read the captions.
The designer is in the driver’s seat: The reader is right where we want him.
It is a designer’s job not simply to arrange elements aesthetically—as one would arrange flowers—but to organize information for the reader. We’ve done this here by sorting the data into kinds and dividing the After page into two zones. The light top half carries the story; the dark bottom half presents the products. In this way, we’ve narrowed the reader’s choices, and he is not left to wander about, growing bored.
It is vital, however, to take advantage of the interest we’ve awakened and speak to the reader on the spot, in the captions. How? By turning the captions into complete stories, with heads and even graphics.
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1 Design for attention, information
Our After illustrates several techniques. Each may be used alone or in combination with others. Some pointers:
Frame your showcase
Here, the gray background is the frame; note it aligns with the text columns above it. A background is usually preferable to a border—it’s not as “busy,” and it offers more contrast. With no editorial, however, no frame is needed.
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Speak on several levels
Different typestyles, sizes, and colors say different things. Such variety is visually engaging and should be used to presort the information. To do this, apply styles consistently. For example, captions should all be the same style, color and size (and likewise their headlines), and different from the text.
Think group
Cluster your photos in the center of your “showcase” with captions toward the outside—or place your photos on the perimeter as shown here, with captions in the middle.
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The Art of the Caption
No matter what your subject is, when you group your photos, you create an environment that draws, at least for a moment, a reader’s undivided attention. If you consider the antics of advertisers and the fortunes spent (and lost) trying to catch your eye, this achievement is astounding. And it’s free.
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What next?
You must sell the reader on the spot. To do this, your caption is the most important text on the page. Let’s repeat that: The caption is the most important text on the page. It’s where the reader is looking, and it’s about a product that has already caught his eye.
Strike now.
Write a complete story. Engage the reader with a headline. Ask questions. Solve problems. Challenge. Seduce. Point out benefits. Sell—concisely, vividly, with flair. If you are not a writer, hire one.
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Equilibrium Affects Visual Judgment
Our need for balance influences everything we create. Consciously or not, our sense of balance profoundly influences our visual judgments. The Gestalt principle of equilibrium addresses the stability we seek in everything we see.
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In nature, a object tends toward a stable, resting state, as seen in a water droplet. Splashed water beads up—draws inward—and comes to rest in a circle. This is a stable state. |
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Mimicking nature, we create equilibrium when we draw a plain dot. Like the droplet, a dot is a shape at rest—under no tension. This shape displays equilibrium. |
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