Once we accept that there is a meaning to be told, it’s useful to more fully engage with the metaphor of communication. That is, in both writing and design there is not only a message but one who sends the message—as well as one that receives it. There’s thought to be a common code that both of them understand; and if they don’t, then the communication fails. That’s why both designer and writer must keep in mind who their “readers” are, and what “language” they speak.
“A difficulty in imagining what it is like for someone else not to know something that you know,” writes Steven Pinker, cognitive psychologist and linguist in The Sense of Style, 2014. “The key is to assume that your readers are as intelligent and sophisticated as you are, but that they happen not to know something you know.”
“One of the most important characteristics of good design is understanding,” writes design thinker, company advisor, professor Don Norman in his book The Design of Everyday Things. “Engineers (designers) are trained to think logically. As a result, they come to believe that all people must think this way, and they design their machines accordingly.
...The problem with the designs of most engineers is that they are too logical. We have to accept human behavior the way it is, not the way we would wish it to be.
...Consider the door. There is not much you can do to a door: you can open it or shut it. Suppose you are in an office building, walking down a corridor. You come to a door. In which direction does it open? Should you pull or push, on the left or the right? Maybe the door slides. If so, in which direction? I have seen doors that slide up into the ceiling. A door poses only two essential questions: In which direction does it move? On which side should one work it? The answers should be given by the design, without any need for words or symbols, certainly without any need for trial and error.”
The language metaphor opens a lot of pathways to follow. I’ll focus on clarity techniques. That is, both writer and designer need to be clear and lessen any potential confusion for their reader (or viewer). That’s where the analogy between writing and design becomes operational: there are explicit rules in writing to heighten clarity, which are applicable in design, too.
(1) Given-then-new
“English syntax demands subject before object. Human memory demands light before heavy. Human comprehension demands topic before comment and given before new,” writes Steven Pinker. “English language has a clear sentence structure: known fact comes in the beginning of the sentence, the new information comes in the end.”
“Build your idea, piece by piece, out of concepts that your audience already understands,” advices the head of TED Chris Anderson in his TED's secret to great public speaking.
“Every paragraph should amplify the one that preceded it,” writes William Zinsser in On Writing Well. “But take special care with the last sentence of each paragraph—it’s the crucial springboard to the next paragraph.”
“Hence, the special emphasis on the end of a sentence and a paragraph. Place the emphatic words of a sentence at the end,” recommends William Strunk.
Consider how most posters are laid out: with information arranged left-to-right and top-to-bottom so the viewer can digest it piece by piece (a final dot—a company logo—is often placed in the bottom right corner). Or think of a video ad, where events are developed in given-then-new order, resulting in a cumulative meaning.
There is also an ethical subtext to these rules, acknowledged by certain practitioners in the fields of writing and design. The gist of it is: that which doesn’t heighten clarity, fosters the potential for malice.
This is how George Orwell stated it in his 1946 essay Politics and the English Language: “A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions: What am I trying to say? Which words will express it? What image or idiom will make it clearer? Is this image fresh enough to have an effect? And he will probably ask himself two more: Could I put it more shortly? Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly? But you are not obliged to go to all this trouble. You can shirk it by simply throwing your mind open and letting the ready-made phrases come crowding in. They will construct your sentences for you—even think your thoughts for you, to a certain extent, and they will perform the important service of partially concealing your meaning even from yourself. It is at this point that the special connection between politics and the debasement of language becomes clear.”
Apply Orwell's words to design.
Book cover of George Orwell's 1984. Penguin, designed by, David Pearson, 2016
Designer and writer
Stas Aki
Editor
Vitaly Volk
Set in
Neue Haas Unica,
designed by Toshi Omagari
(c) Adobe Fonts
Made with
a graphics editor for creating interactive web projects
without coding
Draft, then polish. When you draft, it is still crucial to get right the key details. The utmost is to stay faithful to the meaning. At the end of the day, both design and writing are ways to communicate.
For communication clarity is important, and there are rules to guarantee it. Unclear design, as well as unclear speech, can become dangerous.