Communication Design: Principles, Methods, and Practice.

Communication Design: Principles, Methods, and Practice

Jorge Frascara. 2004. New York, NY: Allworth Press. [ISBN 1-58115-365-1. 207 pages, including index. $24.95 USD (softcover).]

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I wanted to like Communication design: Principles, methods,

Jorge Frascara's book is a very good primer for the junior or community college student who has little or no knowledge of design issues or even the questions that might face a designer who is beginning to wrestle with the meta-text of communication that is object (document/Web page/branding) design. Unfortunately, this book has little to offer anyone who has had to think about such issues as font choice, white space, and visual layout more than a couple of times.

The aspect that I find most frustrating as an experienced reader is something that as a teacher I thing would be exceedingly useful: throughout the book Frascara makes references and statements that beg for a footnote (usually a citation, but often a gloss). These are ready-made assignments or learning opportunities for students. In addition, many of the bullet lists (and there are a lot!) had me writing "where are the examples of this point?!!" in the margins (which, by the way, are very wide and good for writing such comments in.)

A less-useful flaw is the book's tendency to refer to illustrations that have not yet occurred; and while the author is probably not to blame for this problem, it does render portions of the book more confusing than a reader might prefer. Even though the citations are not page-referenced, the images and illustrations are clearly numbered, which at least allows for an easier (albeit unnecessary) search. Another peculiar design choice is to force the page headers and page numbers to the inner margins rather than the outer, a decision that detracts from usability. Again, this is probably not an area that the author had significant control over.

On the positive side of the balance sheet, I found several of the bullet lists to be worth copying down for use as memory prompts in writing evaluation scripts. One example of this is his prototype "Language and signification" list (62-63), which includes "Fitness to content," "Fitness to context," "Quality of concept," "Quality of form," "Legibility/visibility," "Craft" (presentation), "Quality of medium," "Quality of the research," and "Power of the persuasive arguments." Each of these bullet points is parenthetically expanded by questions intended to clarify the purpose of the point. For example: "Quality of concept" includes the question "Is there an idea or only a layout?" and "Fitness to content" is followed by the question "Is there a good relationship between the topic and the visual presentation?"

Overall, the book is generally good--it's just not as good as it could have been. As I mentioned, the margins are generous, and the visual presentation is clear and uncluttered, as is the writing (if one discounts the open questions I noted above). There is much of value here if you have not yet had to consider design issues and the implications of the choices made to resolve them.

GRANT HOGARTH has been writing, editing, and designing books and other technical materials for over 15 years, producing both digital and paper documentation for numerous companies. An STC senior member and former chapter president, he has taught college-level writing, authored a SIG newsletter column, and made conference presentations on many topics.