Blind and Visually Impaired Community
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Do visually impaired people understand Graphic Design or no? (self.Blind)
submitted by Varrie
Marconius 5 points 5y ago
Depends if they had visual context or not. I was a designer and motion graphics animator before losing my vision, so I know absolutely everything about graphic design. It's not impossible to gain context either, as people can feel raised print and shapes and use tactile markers to get a sense of overall layout on a page, feel the shapes of a typeface, etc.
Varrie [OP] 1 points 5y ago
I'm currently at the Glasgow School of Art studying Graphic Design and I want to make a piece which can be appreciated by both visually impaired people and sighted people. I want to emboss typography and shapes to give a sensual experience so your reply about that is very useful!
Can I ask do you do you think Graphic Design could/should be more accessible for visually impaired people?
Can I ask do you do you think Graphic Design could/should be more accessible for visually impaired people?
impablomations 1 points 5y ago
Graphic design is inherently a visual field.
I used to be a graphic designer myself years ago (obviously long before my sight loss).
If you don't mind, let me give you a piece of advice... Don't get carried away with ideas like Embossing or using fancy inks like gold/metallic.
The company owner of the place I used to work for ended up putting a ban on hiring any designer with a recent degree. It seemed like the trend at universities was to teach the various aspects of design and completely ignore the other part ofthe process - the production of that design.
New hires with fresh degrees would be full of enthusiasm, but have no idea about how their designs would affect cost or the processes used to create them and frequently go way over budget because they had only been taught about their narrow part in the process.
Dies for cutting or embossing are expensive and if it's a fairly small run (less than 1000) can add a fair chunk to the end cost for the client.
Same with metallic dies - they look good, but also add a substantial cost due to the rollers in the press needing a complete thorough cleaning before & after use. The printer at my old place had to remove the rollers from the Heidelberg to do this.
Embossing/Cutting can be useful in it's appropriate place, but doing it purely to give a tactile feel to the visually impaired doesn't really give any extra info to that person and unless there is a decent number of visually impaired in your target demographic, would only add cost.
It's a little over 10 years ago, so prices would have changed, but prices we paid for embossing dies varied from £15/sq inch to £80/sq inch depending on die size.
I used to be a graphic designer myself years ago (obviously long before my sight loss).
If you don't mind, let me give you a piece of advice... Don't get carried away with ideas like Embossing or using fancy inks like gold/metallic.
The company owner of the place I used to work for ended up putting a ban on hiring any designer with a recent degree. It seemed like the trend at universities was to teach the various aspects of design and completely ignore the other part ofthe process - the production of that design.
New hires with fresh degrees would be full of enthusiasm, but have no idea about how their designs would affect cost or the processes used to create them and frequently go way over budget because they had only been taught about their narrow part in the process.
Dies for cutting or embossing are expensive and if it's a fairly small run (less than 1000) can add a fair chunk to the end cost for the client.
Same with metallic dies - they look good, but also add a substantial cost due to the rollers in the press needing a complete thorough cleaning before & after use. The printer at my old place had to remove the rollers from the Heidelberg to do this.
Embossing/Cutting can be useful in it's appropriate place, but doing it purely to give a tactile feel to the visually impaired doesn't really give any extra info to that person and unless there is a decent number of visually impaired in your target demographic, would only add cost.
It's a little over 10 years ago, so prices would have changed, but prices we paid for embossing dies varied from £15/sq inch to £80/sq inch depending on die size.
Varrie [OP] 1 points 5y ago
Unfortunately I am in my fourth year of Graphic Design and I wouldn't pass my degree if I didn't stretch Graphic Design further than the real 'working' world. Thank you for your input though
Marconius 1 points 5y ago
I'm torn on this idea. On one hand, it would just make me miss how everything looked, but would make the aesthetic aspect of it all tactile and interesting to feel. On the other hand, if it is meant to convey information, I get annoyed by braille formatting calling out bold or italicized text since it just clutters up the conveyance of the information with extra things to pay attention to that don't matter in the long run if you can't see it. If it is just an art project to show off a tactile version of what things look like in the context of graphic design, it would be quite cool.
bigblindmax 1 points 5y ago
I understand the concept.
Arecentlys for actually doing it, I recently accompanied a friend to an informational interview with a graphic designer who's been made legally blind (hopefully temporarily) by early-onset cataracts. His work remains stunning.
Arecentlys for actually doing it, I recently accompanied a friend to an informational interview with a graphic designer who's been made legally blind (hopefully temporarily) by early-onset cataracts. His work remains stunning.
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