1. The seven deadly ICT sins

2. Thou shall not use word art • Word art tends to be used for titles by most students. • The problem is that most students do not think about how it fits in with their design. Word art titles!

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4. What is wrong with word art? • Word art tends to used to make work look “pretty” • However they also make the work look cluttered, basic and childish. • If used you should NEVER use more than one style. • It is suitable for child audiences but even then you should never use more than one style.

5. Thou shall not poor quality images • Images can make or break your work. • Using small, low quality images will make your work look low quality • Images should always fit in with the chosen audience and should share a theme with each other.

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7. Pixels and images • Images are stored in pixels. They have a width and a height. • The bigger these numbers are tends to reflect a higher quality image. 1400 x 2000 (cropped and resized) 30 x 30

8. Why not use poor quality images? • Images are normally a major focus when people look at your work. • If these images are of a low quality then the person looking at your work will automatically start to form a negative opinion of your work. • It also shows a lack of care in the work which means people are less likely to take it seriously.

9. Thou shall not use clashing backgrounds • Backgrounds should never clash with the writing or images which are on top of them. • Clashing or busy backgrounds make the rest of the work hard to access. • The background should never distract the reader from the rest of the work. Hi How are you?

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11. What makes a good background? • Single colours and subtle patterns make the best backgrounds. • Notice that the background of this presentation is just white. Simple but it works! • Consider the next background

12. The background uses gradient fills and simple patterns. • The colours used are ALL very similar. No high contrast colours makes the pattern and gradient blend in. • The simple swirl patterns make the background interesting without getting in the way of the text.

13. Thou shall not be too busy • KISS! • Keep it simple stupid! • When there is too much on a page at once the eye has trouble picking out what is important. • Busy designs tend not to be good designs!

14. Thou shall not change styles • Changing styles over pieces of related work will prevent the reader from linking them together. • All professional products have a brand which has been carefully considered • To be simple but effective • To appeal to the target audience • Follow all of the previous design rules

15. What does a brand contain? • A colour scheme • All text, headings, backgrounds and logos all will use the same colours • A font scheme • All text and headings will use the same fonts • A logo • All work will have a logo on it. The logo should be small and simple • A clear sense of audience and purpose • Who is the brand aimed at? What is it trying to do?

16. Thou shall not be dull • Work which is functional but not exciting tends to be skipped over by people. • It is important that you should not break the previous rules when trying to make your work exciting.

17. Thou shall not fire and forget • If you produce work without checking it over then you are very unlikely to produce a high quality product. • When work is not evaluated (critically) and improvements made then some major problems may enter into the final product. • ICT work is never really finished. There is always something which can be improved.

18. How to evaluate? • Always consider – • Who? Who is the work for? • What? What have they asked you to make? • Why? Why do they need it? • When looking over your work you must see if it matches the who, what and why. • Put yourself in the target audiences shoes. How would they view your work? • Remember the only way to produce a high quality product is to evaluate it regularly.

19. The seven deadly sins • Thou shall not use word art • Thou shall not use poor quality images • Thou shall not use clashing backgrounds • Thou shall not be too busy • Thou shall not change styles • Thou shall not be dull • Thou shall not fire and forget

20. Top tips!