Design: systems, hierarchy, and audience
Design: systems, hierarchy, and audience
In the Design domain, the portfolio is read as sustained visual inquiry into communication. Assessors look for a clear proposition-what is communicated, to whom, through what visual rules-carried across a body of work, not a set of unrelated posters. Design can include typography, identity, editorial, packaging, poster series, or screen outcomes; coherence matters more than medium.
Core rules and concepts
- Proposition and audience: state the communication problem in visual terms; every formal choice should answer to it.
- Grid and hierarchy: use columns, margins, and a baseline grid; set a type scale and contrast through weight, size, colour, or case. Hierarchy tells the viewer what to read first.
- Typography: limit type families; control kerning, tracking, leading, and ragged or justified settings. Default software settings are rarely resolved.
- Image–text relation: crop, scale, align, and layer images so they argue with the type, not merely sit beside it.
- System thinking: show rules that adapt across formats-poster, spread, screen, or object-without repeating one layout.
- Production awareness: bleed, margins, colour mode, and resolution affect the visual result; resolve them visibly.
Worked example
A candidate begins a festival identity with a dense risograph poster using three typefaces and five colours. The assessor sees energy but no hierarchy. The candidate cuts to two typefaces, a six-column grid, and a palette of black, fluorescent pink, and paper. A diagonal crop of a performer becomes the repeatable rule across poster, programme spread, and wristband. Reasoning: the body of work now shows a system-one crop logic and one type system-adapted across formats with a clear reading order, so decisions are traceable.
Traps that cost marks
Collecting typefaces instead of building hierarchy; applying one layout to every format; separating image and text; ignoring margins and bleed; resolving style but not communication.