- Law 3, Avoid Chartjunk and Pagejunk.
These may be new terms for you,
so let's start with a definition.
Chartjunk is the excessive and unnecessary use
of graphical elements in charts and graphs.
So, let's look at an example
to better understand this concept.
Here's a chart that is loaded with chartjunk,
and this chartjunk is showing up as thick dark rules,
darkly shaded background, all these pattern fills,
and the large heavy text that's been used.
Now, here's the same chart with the same information
but without all the chartjunk,
and you can see in this example
that everything in this chart
is adding or clarifying meaning,
and that's what you want
when you're creating charts and graphs.
If you have elements that are not
adding or clarifying meaning, get rid of them.
Now, for the elements that are adding meaning,
reduce them down to their simplest form.
So, that means if you have borders that can be thinner,
make them thinner.
If you have shading that can be lighter, make it lighter.
Keep reducing the graphic elements down
until they're as simple as they can be
but they're still visible and still meaningful.
You also want to watch out for pagejunk,
and pagejunk is the excessive and unnecessary use
of graphical elements on pages.
Pagejunk often shows up as boxes, shadows, and rules.
So, here's an example of a flyer
that's suffering pretty badly from pagejunk,
and you can see there's so many
unnecessary graphical elements on this page.
The result is pretty unprofessional looking.
This page is very crowded.
It's a very distracting design.
There's so much going on that it's hard to know
where to look first.
So, here's the same flyer, and it's been redesigned
with no pagejunk.
You can see that overall the effect is more professional.
The page looks lighter.
It's more organized.
It's more pleasing to look at.
And so, all of these things added together
equal that this page is more effective
at communicating its message.
Now, it's not that you shouldn't ever use
boxes and rules and shadows.
Boxes and rules can be a great way to add visual interest.
You can use them to highlight elements.
They can group elements, but it can be easy to go overboard
when you're using these things,
and so, you want to minimize the number of
different elements on a page,
and you want to keep the design
of your boxes and rules pretty simple.
You want to watch out for things like double rules,
fancy rules, overly thick rules.
All of these things look clunky.
They look very heavy,
and they will junk up your page very quickly,
and this is what's going to create pagejunk
in your documents.
Remember that when you're using boxes and rules,
text needs room to breathe.
Here's an example of text that's been crowded inside a box,
and it looks like this text is just stuffed in there.
There's not enough margin.
Overall, this looks unprofessional.
It looks very very crowded and tight.
So, here's the same text, still inside a box,
but now there's plenty of space for this text to breathe.
The margins are better.
It's lighter, and the effect is
much more professional overall.
If you're using rules, the same guidelines would apply.
Here's some ruled text, and there's really not enough space
between this text and the rule below it.
You can see that that rule is pushed up pretty tight
against the bottom of that text.
And here's the same text, still with the rule,
but now there's plenty of space for that text to breathe.
Keep in mind that the borders of your document
also form a box and that your content
has to live inside this box, and so,
just like with the boxes and rules,
you want to pad your content
with an appropriate amount of white space.
You don't want to jam your content into this box.
So, here's an example where that's exactly what's happened.
This content has been crowded onto this page.
The margins are too small.
The content doesn't have room to breathe.
There's so much content and so little white space
that it's creating a pretty uninviting page,
and this page looks like a big heavy gray block.
Now, here's the same page, and it's been redesigned
with an appropriate amount of white space,
and you can see here that the white space
is really being used as a design element.
White space, when it's used properly,
is so much more than leftover space on the page.
White space adds professionalism to your documents.
It adds sophistication, and it gives your readers
a visual break.
White space keeps your pages
from being text-heavy gray blocks,
and it makes your documents a lot more
approachable and inviting.
Let's summarize.
Every element on your page or in your chart or graph
should add or clarify meaning.
If an element's not adding or clarifying meaning,
then it's junking up your document.
It's creating pagejunk or chartjunk,
and this is distracting readers from your message.
That's Law 3, Avoid Chartjunk and Pagejunk.