Mind Map Feedback--Topic: Graphic Design

Nov 16, 2011

Hello everyone,

I'm new to the Articulate Community, so let me know if there's another forum that would be better for this question.

A little background on the project: It's a little self-indulgent, in that I'm creating a module because I want to practice using Articulate. I don't have a client, per say, but this module will hopefully be used by my team of instructional designers.

I'm working to create a short tutorial around the basics of image formats, such as the difference between .png and .jpg, raster vs. vector, etc. I started out trying to create a job aid/reference document, but like I said, I'm trying to use the opportunity to practice my Articulate skills. Plus, I want to make the content more interesting, interactive, and visual, given the topic. The content is not fully ironed out yet, but I created my mind map around the topic of Graphic Design.

Thank you in advance!

Rebekah

mindmap_graphicdesign_rebekahmassmann.pdf

9 Replies

David Anderson
Staff

over 12 years ago11/21/11 at 9:17 am (UTC)

Hi Rebeka and welcome to E-learning Heroes!

Great job on the design map. Graphic design is a broad topic, but it looks like you have a lot of great ideas going. You know, one thing you could consider doing is creating a design map for each of the specific topics you're including in your course. Graphic design is a broad topic, so breaking things down by topic would also give you some different styles to play with around your topic.

Rebekah Massmann
Author

over 12 years ago11/21/11 at 1:29 pm (UTC)

Thanks!

I really like the idea to separate out the topics into individual maps--I'll post them when I get them done!

James Brown

over 12 years ago11/22/11 at 7:49 am (UTC)

Yep.. if you are going to talk about the differences between image formats you need to focus on the attributes and the intended use of the image I.e. If you are working on an e-learning course or doing some web design and you want to keep the project size small yet have the images load fast. In that case you want JPG, GIF, or PNG. If you are publishing a book you may want to use PNG, BMP, etc. If you have a company logo you may use TIFF or EPS. If you are writing a flash project where you screen size is dynamic and you want your images to be resizable but yet keep the quality you want to know what vector graphics are.

You may also wish to hit on overall size attributes. I.e. an BMP image of 24M may trim down to 384K with a JPEG or PNG32 format. Don't forget that you may want to explain the transparency attributes. I.e You want images with a transparent backgrounds and PNG and GIF support this but JPEG does not.

If I were to sum up what I said it really comes down to file attributes and uses. Hope that helps. I'm not a graphics artist but I do know a lot about image uses and attributes.

Rebekah Massmann
Author

over 12 years ago11/22/11 at 9:40 am (UTC)

James-- Thanks for the reply! Those topics are actually exactly what I'm planning on covering in the course. Our graphic designer presented an interactive webinar about 6 months ago, and she covered elements and principles of graphic design. I'm going to present this as a "Graphic Design II" e-learning module. I'm hopeful that I can use it to feed into an instructor-led "Graphic Design III" where we would cover some Photoshop basics, as well as some of the tricks for designing using PowerPoint. That way, they will already be familiar with file types, resolution, etc., when going into the 3rd course.

David Anderson
Staff

over 12 years ago11/22/11 at 9:54 am (UTC)

To follow on James' comments, I would also include something around the way various applications handle transparency. 8-bit and 24-bit aren't always treated the same across programs.

Bandwidth and user access also plays a role. In most cases, designers aren't as limited with bandwidth so optimization isn't as critical as it was three or four years ago.

A cool interaction would be to create a series of image examples, each with different compression settings and output settings, and let the learner choose and view the variations to understand quality/size tradeoffs.

James Brown

over 12 years ago11/22/11 at 10:06 am (UTC)

Great points David.. With e-learning bandwidth could pose an issue.

Carmen Toro

over 11 years ago10/03/12 at 8:15 am (UTC)

Hi Dave,

Can you take a look at my mind map. I have created lots of courses but I am trying this new approach for a topic I am stuck on-Safeguarding IRS Information for county welfare caseworkers who determine eligiblity for beneftis. I had a hard time coming up with analogies for this one.