Let your content be your guide with design

Content drives design. Always.

By Patrick Armstrong
Austin Peay State University

When I first started working in the Nashville Design Studio in 2012, there was an art display that always caught my eye. It was an old newspaper rack door that said “Content Drives Design” and was located in our studio meeting space. You could not miss it. Still to this day, I reflect on it with any design work I do, and any advice I give to my students.

The photos were powerful and really told the story. But the story was the rain stopping for a period of time before more arriving. A few issues before this — when the flooding started — the content called for the photos to be full page and dominate coverage. The content booked for this page dictated this design because it was just a normal news day.

As a designer, I always love viewing bold, powerful art that encourages readers to pick up the newspaper. It’s my belief that interesting and dynamic art such as illustrations and photography will be the reason why someone chooses to pick up a newspaper or not.

It’s in an artist’s DNA to go big, be bold, create something unique and tell a story. But do we always have to blow an idea out on a page to where it’s the only art on the page or runs the full width of a page? The answer is “no.”

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