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

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

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