Document Design Project:
Deliverable (Redesigned Document)

Based on the speaker (business/organization), the audience, and purpose, as well as your analysis of the original document’s design and your understanding of effective professional design, create a revised/redesigned document for your client.

Depending on the complexity of the original document and your facility with digital technologies of design, you may choose to think of this as a “design concept” or a “mock up” of a redesigned document. These concepts will be explained in class.

Your document redesign should:

• present a rhetorically strategized, well-planned, purposeful, aesthetically pleasing, usable design
• avoid the errors of the original document
• be a “good faith” revision of the original which includes very similar content (if not the exact same
  content). For example, if the original document has an “about us” section, then you should also include an “about us” section (though it may be in a different place, or done differently, or have a different section title). If the original document includes a coupon with cut lines, you should also include a coupon with cut lines.

To design the document, you may:

• use digital technologies
  • including Word, Photoshop, PowerPoint, Illustrator, Paint, Affinity, Inkster, Seahorse, Gimp, (possibly) Canva, etc.
• design by hand (with paper and colored pencils, or other materials and implements)
• employ a combination of digital and hand drawn design. For example, you may print out portions of text and/or images, cut them out, and then tape/glue them onto paper
  • Unless you actually want hand-lettered text, then you need to print out/cut out, and place/fix words, lines, or blocks of text onto your design. I need to see typographical choices (fonts, sizes, line breaks, colors, spacing, etc.). It’s absolutely okay if you have white printer-paper backgrounds on your cut-out text — I can envision what your design will look like on your background color (but I can’t envision the specifics of typographical choices).
• use a genre template that includes fold or cut lines only
• get inspiration from online or paper resources
• use* images you find online
  • You may use* images online for the purposes of this assignment, which is designed to help you practice making and implementing rhetorical choices about effective document design. However, know that all images have various permissions and copyrights – regardless of whether or not those permissions, restrictions, and copyrights are obvious or evident to you. There are a range of copyright and Creative Commons licenses from “you may not use for any purpose” to “you may use unaltered for non-profit purposes with attribution” to “image has been released into the public domain for any purpose and may be used without attribution.” Because this is a class project designed to give you some practice in criticism, design, and communication, allowing you to use online images doesn’t interfere with the project objectives – just understand that doing so could be a violation of copyright.

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* “use” = steal (you are responsible for understanding the academic, professional, and legal consequences of copyright violations)

You may not:

• use a template that includes pre-designed layouts (if you are unsure, ask!)
• use “easy” or “plug in” layouts that allow you to place your content into predetermined sections
• use apps, programs, or services that design elements or documents for you
• copy the design of another document or base your design off the work of others or work you find online
• get friends, parents, classmates, or anyone else to create design elements for you