(Designers) The loyal and tactful servant of the written word. – Jan Tschichold

Visual design enters the course production process usually after Phase 3 of the seven-phase course development process. Working with course teams composed of the course coordinator/author, editor, and instructional media analyst, the visual designer researches and creates cover designs for printed course materials. The designer also creates typographic treatments, graphics, and/or illustrations needed to publish an AU course offered either in print or online.

The role of the visual designer

The visual designer

• ensures all course materials meet Athabasca University's visual design standards.
• designs covers for the printed course materials.
• creates diagrams, illustrations and online learning objects.
• contributes imagery and colour schemes based on course covers for the course website.
• advises or produces visual design for online learning objects.

Course developers

By providing timely feedback to proposed cover designs, graphics, and illustrations developed for your course, CLDD's visual designers are able to provide you with quick turn-around service. Please remember to

• Contact your designer early in the course development process (generally during the Phase 3) particularly if a large number of graphics or illustrations are required.
• When you have researched and found the imagery required to illustrate your course, please submit it to your visual designer.
• Send the requisite course information to the Copyright Office so you may obtain permissions to reproduce materials early in the coures production stage.
• Ensure that you provide a clean copy of proposed graphics and illustrations.

Links

• Visual Design in Educational Media Development (48k PDF) by Margaret Anderson. The document format follows one of the typographic templates used for our courses.
• Athabasca University best practises for developing Moodle themes (draft).

Samples

For samples of our visual design work, visit the EMD showcase.