Graphic Design Know-How for Social Researchers - In-Person

Description:

Introduction/overview
To communicate their findings social researchers rely on outputs like reports, presentations, posters and social media posts. Some graphic design know-how applied to your outputs will increase your audience’s engagement with and understanding of your findings. Clear and engaging communication is something clients increasingly expect and demand.

Effective graphic design rests on principles concerning text, colour, imagery and layout. They can be applied to stand-alone elements like tables, diagrams or text boxes, to individual pages or slides, as well as across outputs as a whole. Done well, this work helps an audience to access and understand key points, navigate through an output, and do this all with ease. For these reasons, social researchers will also find graphic design know-how useful when designing other formats including proposals, consent forms, questionnaires or elicitation tools.

Please note: if you want to focus on designing data visualisation or infographics, two specific elements that can be incorporated into many different outputs, please consider booking onto the course ‘data visualisation and infographic design’, also offered by the SRA.

This course involves learning about and then practically applying the principles of graphic design across a whole output, as well as to individual elements within it. On the day participants can choose, from a range of options, which output to apply their learning to. The trainer will provide undesigned content for you to work with suitable for that output. (n.b. We will share the work everyone does on the day within the group so, for reasons of commercial or ethical sensitivities of work in progress, it is not possible for you to work with your own content that you bring with you).

Participants must bring a laptop that runs the software they usually use to produce their outputs, eg. Word and PowerPoint, though those familiar with other software are welcome to use that.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of the workshop, participants will:

Understand how some graphic design know-how can support better communication
Know what needs to be in place before you start designing
Acquire practical graphic design skills
Feel more confident to take design decisions

Topics
The course will cover:

What (good) graphic design is and why it is important
Establishing context and story before starting to design
Design features in the tools you use
Images
Design style guides
Accessibility
Common pitfalls
Resources for ongoing support

Who will benefit?
This course is for anyone responsible for communicating research findings.

Course Tutor
Lulu Pinney is a freelance trainer, collaborator and designer. Her work primarily focuses on getting practical know-how that relates to working with design, data and visuals into the hands of those working to improve our public and social worlds.

Lulu’s current practice is the result of a career that has seen her gain experience as a business analyst, graphic designer, visual journalist, data visualisation and infographic trainer, as well as a social researcher focusing on the role of data and its visualisation in society.

Cost:

£202.50 for SRA members, £270 for non-members

Website and registration:

Region:

Greater London

Keywords:

Frameworks for Research and Research Designs, Research Skills, Communication and Dissemination

Related publications and presentations from our eprints archive:

Frameworks for Research and Research Designs
Research Skills, Communication and Dissemination

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