Graphic Design and Animation
What the domain tests
Questions cover design principles, colour modes, typography, file formats and the animation pipeline. The exam favours applied judgement: which layout, format or timing choice solves a stated problem.
Core rules and concepts
- Principles: hierarchy, contrast, balance, alignment, proximity and repetition. Hierarchy decides what the eye reads first.
- Colour: RGB for screens, CMYK for print; complementary and analogous schemes; contrast ratio matters for legibility.
- Typography: serif versus sans serif; kerning is spacing between a pair of letters, tracking is spacing across a range, leading is line spacing.
- Files: raster images lose quality when enlarged; vector art scales. Print work needs about 300 DPI at final size, bleed and crop marks; screen work uses pixel dimensions and sRGB. Formats include PSD, AI, PNG, JPG, SVG and PDF.
- Animation: the 12 principles include squash and stretch, anticipation, staging and timing. Pipeline: script → storyboard → animatic → keyframes → in-betweens/tweening → render.
Worked example
A concert poster must show artist, date, venue and logo. Reasoning: set the artist name largest, the date second, venue third, logo small in a fixed corner. That order creates a clear hierarchy; equal sizing would force the viewer to hunt for the key information. Choose CMYK at 300 DPI because the poster will be printed.
Traps that cost marks
- Designing print artwork in RGB, which shifts colours on press.
- Stretching type instead of choosing a condensed face.
- Confusing kerning with tracking.
- Animating without an animatic, causing timing and story problems late.