Date of Award
5-2019
Document Type
Thesis
Primary Advisor
Kenneth Pybus
Secondary Advisor
Doug Mendenhall
Committee Reader
Nil Santana
Abstract
This honors thesis studies the impact of design on readership, and questions whether or not certain design elements have an effect on audience trust and desire to read print or digital publications. Considering large national publications such as the New York Times, Washington Post and USA Today, as well as student publications at well-known universities such as the University of Texas and Texas A&M, I was able to reorganize and develop a design guide for the Optimist.
The guide uses previous Optimist style guides to maintain a cohesive, timeless look while maintaining professionality. In addition to old guides, a readthrough of the current Optimist design helped recognize changes in structure that needed to be made for clarity.
The last official design guide for the Optimist was published in 1983, thus a new, updated version needed to be created for current and future staffs to understand a more modern design. The guide will increase diligence for designers, and help the team work together on the same page.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Franco, Lauren, "Optimist Design Guide" (2019). Honors College. 52.
https://digitalcommons.acu.edu/honors/52