OEM Cheap Binding Notepad layout editing principles and artistic aesthetics

OEM Cheap Binding Notepad layout editing principles and artistic aesthetics

 

We have entered an era of free flow of information and sharing of news resources. For the media industry, when news events appear, it is difficult for any media to control or monopolize news resources, which results in the phenomenon that media news content tends to be homogenized. In the news consumption market, due to the influence of the homogenization of news content, consumers' choice of newspapers tends to be more transferred to the advantages and disadvantages of news communication means and operation skills of newspapers. In short, newspapers are paying more attention to the "art" of journalism than ever before.

 

News is a "comprehensive art", a text, a picture, a headline, a format...... In the dissemination of news facts at the same time, can evoke a very similar to the aesthetic experience of art. Of course, the word "art" here is not literary and artistic creation, but generally refers to any kind of industry skills can use "beautiful forms and methods" to achieve a certain height. In the late 1990s, Wen Hui Bao founded Wenhui Pictorial Magazine, which was later changed into Vision and Lens Documentary. The author has been working as a layout editor for the photographic Art magazine. This paper mainly takes the editing practice of Wenhui Art Magazine as an example to discuss some thoughts on the editing principle of layout and artistic aesthetics.

 

First, the text, more subtle

Words are an important means for newspapers to communicate with readers. Photography art magazine is mainly pictures, but also involves some text work, such as preface, introduction, editor's note, picture description and so on.

 

As for the literal expression, here is an account of the past.

 

When Wenhui Pictorial Magazine was founded, it published a number of modern urban sculptures taken from various European countries. The artistic expression techniques of these works are very fresh and creative. Moreover, they have never been published in China, which has certain news value. There is no lack of reference for the rising urban sculpture construction in Shanghai, so we decided to publish them in a full page. Because the creative ideas of this batch of works are more "maverick", if not explained, it is difficult for general readers to accept. Therefore, according to the relevant theories of modern sculpture art, combined with the editor's personal feelings, to make comments on each work. In the literal expression, strive to be easy to understand, accurate expression, avoid "professional terms" too much.

 

One of the works, a chair with a missing leg but magnified tens of times, sits in front of the European headquarters of the United Nations in Switzerland. The text reads: "The extraordinary meaning of an extremely ordinary chair (crippled on one leg) becomes apparent when it is enlarged enough to make a strong visual impact." Standing in front of the European Headquarters of the United Nations, this "concept sculpture" is silent and shocking, like a huge question mark lingering in the mind of the world. The title of the work: Finding Balance.

 

The magazine was published with the title of "New · Strange · Ingenious: A Glimpse of Modern Urban Sculpture Art in Europe", and received many letters from readers and the art community. The office of the Shanghai City Sculpture Commission bought 500 copies of the newspaper that day.

This shows the importance of verbal expression to communicate with readers. Art pictures often involve some technical knowledge. If an article is filled with difficult technical terms, it will make people indeciphered and confused, which is tantamount to shutting readers out. Newspaper often can see a lot of test readers "reading patience" of the text, these words or off-guard, or mystifying, or like blunt knife cutting meat, or like a fog to see flowers... Many facts show that the reader's "reading patience" is not able to withstand the test, you test him, he will give up you. Some people put the advantages and disadvantages of the language is divided into four grades: deep simple for the first; Deep out for second class; Shallow in shallow out for third class; Shallow in deep out is fourth. The analysis is insightful and the editor should do the first job.

 

Two, the picture, more wonderful

An American photojournalist shot the classic work "Save the Refugees in Africa", the news background is the severe drought in Uganda. The picture is simple. A large, strong hand holds the small, dark hand of an African child. Through the two hands can be seen the background of the earth, dry and cracked from lack of water. It won the Pulitzer Prize for journalism that year.

 

In fact, the original composition of this photo is not like this, but two complete people standing and sitting in the middle distance. Later, after several times of cropping, it becomes a large close-up composition. The cropped photos are obviously more visually striking. The author is well versed in the "choice of vision" and has properly grasped the "visual center" and succeeded. What's interesting is that when we look at this cropped image, we don't feel that it's incomplete, but that it's the way it should be. Moreover, the two hands in the picture have been cropped so that they no longer represent two specific people, but have been sublimated into something strongly symbolic. The picture effectively conveys and releases the thoughts and feelings that the author really wants to express through visual language. American scholar Ben Clements said, "The choice of photographic composition can only have one center of interest (visual)... When we discover a subject matter and get excited about it, we tend to overlook the distractions that can disrupt and destroy the appeal of the subject matter." ① Ben Clements' theory of "interest (visual) center" has certain practical guiding significance in our news photo report.

 

Newspapers have entered the era of reading pictures. News pictures are paid more and more attention because of their visual intuitiveness and instant documentary function. In order to better show the theme of photography magazine, picture cutting processing is an important link that can not be ignored. Sometimes a news photograph can be a perfect piece of work without any cropping. However, sometimes, due to the restriction and influence of subjective and objective conditions during shooting, the picture effect is not very ideal, so it is necessary to cut. In particular, special photo reports often require seven, eight or even a dozen photos. If the photos are not properly cropped, the feeling of visual chaos will be generated, which will affect the "interest (visual) center" and the clear expression of the theme idea. Feature photo reporting is about the overall effect, not whether individual photos are good or not. The cutting, sometimes drastic, takes a "look," a "gesture," or a "prop" associated with the subject.

 

Of course, this does not mean that photojournalists' photos can be cropped at will, especially the layout of a single picture photography report should be treated with caution. In fact, due to the implementation of modular layout, some editing pictures save trouble. They take the method of "cutting the feet to fit the shoes" to arbitrarily cut or transform the photos, so as to incorporate them into the existing modules, and sometimes even make the photos unrecognizable. This should arouse the attention and improvement of the layout editors. [next]

 

Three, the layout, more refined

Studies have shown that when a newspaper is in hand, people's eyes first come into contact with the overall visual style of the page, that is, the theme format that expresses the characteristics of news, rather than the details of news content. Although the format itself has no specific content, it is like an invisible hand, subtly guiding and dominating the sight of readers, so as to convey the layout thoughts and reflect the newspaper's character and style. Format is the face of the newspaper, is the newspaper as a "product" after editing, before printing the last process, has always been valued by the newspaper.

 

As far as the structure of newspapers is concerned, there are no more than two kinds: one is the traditional linear structure, and the other is the modern plate structure (also known as the modular structure). The traditional linear structure pays attention to the beginning, bearing, turning and closing of reading, as well as the arrangement, interpenetration and detour of layout design elements such as point, line and surface. The traditional layout is linear flow, it is easy to remind people of Chinese landscape painting or "Jiangnan Garden", suitable for slowly fine taste, aftertaste. The plate structure of modern newspaper is wide open and close, concise and lively, focusing on rhythm and visual impact. Since the plate structure is more suitable for the modern fast pace of life and reading, it is adopted by most newspapers today. Plate structure is composed of fixed modules, so the layout operation is faster and more convenient.

 

Nowadays, the news information content of newspapers tends to be homogenized, the function of format language is particularly apparent, and the format creativity comes out one after another. Line, color, plane segmentation and other layout language, including modern design concept is incisively and vividly play; In the past, the common version (connecting two pages together), which was rarely used once, is now widely used, and some even introduce different formats. Last year, when the Olympic torch passed through Wuhan, Changjiang Daily produced a "torch newspaper", which used an unconventional layout to make a rolled-up newspaper in the shape of a torch and boosted sales that day.

 

Format innovation has become a hot topic that newspaper editors constantly explore in news practice. In the author's opinion, format innovation should become the "normal thinking" of layout editors, which can be manifested as some unconventional "breakthrough", but more as a kind of daily and gradual accumulation. Only this kind of continuous accumulation is the reliable basis for innovation, which is called "thick accumulation but thin development". It can be said that layout innovation is a complicated and detailed process of scientific analysis, judgment, decision and practice. It concerns newspaper positioning, market consideration, cultural inheritance and aesthetic psychology and many other topics, rather than simple catharsis and random introduction of emotions, which requires practitioners to face with a rational attitude. Once upon a time, I saw some newspapers, except that they did not put the "square" into pinyin alphabet, at first glance, almost looks like a copy of a Western newspaper. That's not innovative. It's crazy.

 

Layout, after all, is a form. It is the concept and principle that newspapers should follow in layout design to find out the most beautiful and effective communication means and layout visual style from specific news content and achieve the unity of form and content.

 

Four, the title, more refined

Read a book to see the skin, read a newspaper to see the topic. To the editor of the layout, the title is the finishing touch of the layout, its importance is self-evident. No matter how well the other aspects of the layout are done, the title is not done well, the layout is not proud. A good headline can often reveal the essence of news facts, thus attracting readers' attention and arousing a strong desire to read.

 

The birth of a good title, sometimes perhaps a flash of inspiration, come all effortless; Sometimes it is "people look for him, but when you look back, that person is in the dim lights." It can be said that the process of editing the title is also a process of deepening the understanding of news facts. On October 7, 2001, China defeated Oman 1-0 to qualify for the 2002 World Cup finals, and the whole country rejoiced. That evening, Wenhui Pictorial published a set of photos, starting with the title "For Victory," which was obviously very general. Later changed to "Race to Victory", still feel not ideal. Finally, after much deliberation, the title was "Toward Victory". Compare the modification process of this title, although it is only a word difference, but it does cover different ideological content and emotional color, the last one is obviously better.

 

The title can reflect the depth of thought and writing skills of the editor. Big news headlines can be done very "eye-catching", ordinary things, sometimes can also be done very "brilliant". Recently, Wen Hui Po's Lens Documentary published a group of photos under the title "Youth Shining in Entrepreneurship", describing the story of three college students starting their own businesses. The whole article is common in terms of news facts. However, take a look at the three sub-headings made by an editor: "Make a film and television, shoot a sky", "Open a restaurant, do a cultural flavor", "Sell mobile phones, understand the business". Here we use "do, shoot; Open, do; "Sell," "Wu," three groups of six verbs, read in full rhythm, like a young man's strong heart beat, vividly delineate this is not easy to "brilliant" theme.

 

Wen Hui Po has a tradition of taking the title seriously. The word "Fezhen" is not pleasant to hear, but it reflects profound learning, profound thinking and a high sense of responsibility. In my early years, when I worked as an art editor in the Department of Essential Literature and literature, I was soaked by it. In the dead of night, some old journalists were still hesitating for a title or a word in the title. They paced back and forth excitedly, thinking and communicating with each other. This is a state of "the joys and sorrows, the things I forget". Good headlines are made out of this state.

However, sometimes there will be some problems in the title production, such as disconnection, improper summary, larger than the text or smaller than the text...... This is what the layout editor needs to pay attention to. As for some newspapers to "grab market share" sensationalism, one-sided pursuit of headline excitement, even go against the news facts, mislead readers, this is more against the professional ethics of journalists, is not advisable.

 

Five, the color, more exquisite

The emotional and "cosmetic" effect of color is obvious. Color is a vivid component of visual perception and an important element of layout visual language. Newspapers can use color to convey the emotional meaning of information and shape the layout style.

 

Now most newspapers implement color printing, but some of the page color effect is not ideal, often appear "soy sauce color" or "big face" and other unsatisfactory phenomenon. The color problems in newspapers are usually related to the excessive and excessive use of color in the pages and the lack of understanding of the basic principles of color by the editors. Some layout content is actually good, but do not pay attention to color, the layout color made too fancy, like "runaway horse" like on the page "rampage", dazzling. Some pages blindly and randomly put several headings in different colors, the reader can not tell what message these colors convey and what emotional meaning, resulting in confusion on visual understanding.

 

Color has a "temperament", the ideal color effect comes from the reasonable "control" of color, rather than the more color the better. Practice shows that the layout color "less, not more", "the use of color is not as effective as black and white, which itself is a kind of aesthetic color". In particular, the mainstream media should be careful in the use of color, and strive to find a simple, atmospheric, stable and quite individual color processing way.

 

Rudolf Arnheim, an American scholar, believes that in visual perception, shape is rational and color is perceptual. "Shape must maintain its absolute superiority over color, otherwise, the picture will disintegrate due to too much color, just as men will be destroyed due to too much indulgence in women." ② This illustrates that in the relationship between "form" and "color" of the picture, "form" occupies a dominant position. The reason is simple: a color photograph will not disintegrate because of the removal of color, we can fully understand the basic meaning of the photograph from the black and white image; But if you take away the shape, the picture falls apart, and it's hard to make sense of the color fragments.

 

This principle also applies to the layout of the newspaper color processing. The ideal picture (layout) is the coordination and unity of "shape" and "color".