Posts Tagged ‘ information hierarchy ’

Create a focal point

On any magazine page, think about creating a focal point. This provides the page both something interesting visually to look at and to attract the reader’s attention, and it also will establish information hierarchy.

This page, entirely typographic, does that with a simple arrangement of numbers. The small triangles provide cues as to how you should go about navigating the page.

White space on the page is important too and this design uses the negative space on the page effectively to frame the content and reinforce hierarchy.

With so many pieces of information on the page, adequate separation among those individual pieces is important.

[ Body + Soul May 2005 ]

Information hierarchy made simple

Did you easily find a place to start reading on this page?

Information hierarchy has been created by taking one element from this content page and doing something different with it.

The typesize is a little larger than the other headings which obviously helps, but the simple placement of the type is what makes it stand out from the other information. The position associates it with the photo thereby connecting both type and image.

[ Inc. February 2011 ]

Information hierarchy: Harvard Business Review

Two pages from the November issue of Harvard Business Review demonstrate excellent typographic hierarchy and organization.

Information hierarchy: mapping content

Assignment 6: Hierarchy and organization. In this assignment the objective was to create clear hierarchy and to organize information so it was easy to navigate. These are the pages that best demonstrate those characteristics. A few are not free of problems but are worth showing.

The feature story in the upper left example needs to be adjusted so it is less crowded by the very dominant elements that surround it.

The lower left example is organized effectively on a five column grid. However it does not make the best use of the second color. And a heading above the features is needed.

The lower center example shows excellent hierarchy through contrast in scale, weight and color, but does not show a feature story prominently and so is less well organized than the other pages here.

Notice how the white space on four of the six examples provides those pages with an elegant appearance.