CONCEPT DESIGN & STYLE GUIDES:

Referenced, sketched, painted or photographed, this support material is developed in discussion with clients, producers, writers and programmers.

CONCEPT DESIGNS consist of rough preliminary sketches of ideas, with many variations - to be selected and developed into exact illustrations, technical drawings, models/marquettes of all the characters, environments, architecture, props and costumes involved in the presentation.

STYLE GUIDES are the concept designs and other examples chosen to produce a consistent development environment, making all of the presentation's elements inter-relate. Ultimately, style guides are what remain once the designs have been finally culled and selected. Commonly called the BIBLE, these preliminary examples are most likely the result of weeks, if not months, of experimentation and research, with hundreds of development drawings and examples being collected and rejected.

Style guides should be established for everything that the audience sees, so that the storyboards can be made to accurately represent the look of the presentation.

STYLE GUIDES FOR MULTIMEDIA NAVIGATION are used to control the way the different interactive elements will look and behave. For web-pages, the style guide usually includes screen layouts, borders, tools, colour and texture selections. The best way to ensure a smooth visual flow is to be consistent with the interface design; e.g. the image size and framing formats (landscape or portrait), uniform typography, palettes, graphics, characters and navigation metaphors.

Controlled graphics are very important; multimedia works better when the designer doesn’t use too many 'alternatives'. In market research, once audiences become familiar with a process of navigation they have no trouble following it, but a sudden change in navigational methods often confuses them. This points to the need for a consistent metaphor in any application. Use methods that appeal to an audience, taking care they convey a mood that suits the content.

Sometimes, developing innovative storylines or navigation methods can be aided by the early input of the programmers and writers working with an insightful visualizer.

BEWARE: An unconventional element may detract from the actual content and purpose of the application. The audience wants to navigate with the utmost ease, so avoid distracting them from the visual flow.

Navigation Style Guides usually display:

• Placement of logos and other graphic elements.

• The navigation indicators.

• Embedded file information.

• Standardized development tools.

• All the final concept designs for the presentation.

These design cornerstones enable your audience to expect certain types of behaviour and data formations within an interface. This expectation of predictability reduces the amount of time it takes them to navigate and feel comfortable with the interface.

Before you develop multiple pages and start stacking files, identify the components of the process in the flowcharts, including what editors, filters, and directory structures will be used. By standardizing the way files and contents are structured, the pages will most likely begin to look the same anyway.

When designing 3D GAMING ENVIRONMENTS, foundation material is used in a similar way to the STYLE SHEETS used in traditional animation productions. This area of development extends to defining the proportions of architectural shapes for CGI, scripting gaming elements or a video shoot, establishing certain 'signature' filters and effects, theme music and sound designs.

In complex 3D gaming, STYLE GUIDE material is collected and cross-referenced in catalogues that are used to maintain the parameters of the interface during production. Once established, style guides assist the writer's and designer's communication with other members of the development team.

They detail the visual parameters of all the characters, costumes, props, interior and exterior settings, drawn from different angles as basic technical XYZ elevations, while also rendered in full-colour by very talented artists, in three-quarter view, with differing positions and changed lighting effects.

They help to apply uniform conventions to the presentation, perhaps introducing new types of visual communication to the audience. Guides are indispensable to the programmers, reinforcing stylistic consistency in the creation of expensive CGI elements and navigation tools.

Before storyboarding starts the artist must know exactly what is expected from moment to moment; what’s 'going on the screen' for the audience to see and hear, manipulate and learn from.

These moments could be static tableaux, high points of action, important locations, featured information events and navigation metaphors, or anything vital to the flow of information.

Extensive creative research and development should be carried out in the CONCEPT DESIGN & STYLE GUIDES forms before any final storyboarding work begins.