[light_hue_1]

Not a garphic designer, but someone who is anal about graphics in papers.

I don't want to detract from how great this is!

But, if you want to be anal about graphics... There are a lot of little mistakes that could be improved on.

The text isn't justified and sort of meanders left and right.

Nothing is quite correctly centered.

Little bugs like stray lines (in the middle top one, TLC).

Capitalization is really inconsistent.

Sometimes there are paragraphs, sometimes there are separate sentences. Sometimes there are sentence fragments.

Some of the graphics don't follow standards for contrast, like the 2nd from the top middle, black on blue is very hard to read for someone with a low vision. Then there's light blue on white.

The spacing is really inconsistent horizontally. There's pretty uniform space on the left (usually) but on the right it's clear things just end when they do sort of squeezed in. Sometimes it's the other way around and the left is squeezed in.

Some of the fonts are basically impossible for me to read, never mind someone with dyslexia. Look at this one, 2nd page, https://static1.squarespace.com/static/62185f3b81809a6fd03dd...

Sometimes arrows are thick and black, sometimes they're hollow, sometimes they're much thicker and red.

That's just a few. Still awesome though!

[Domenic_S]

In the first handout, any idea what this sentence means?:

> For organic chemistry is NEON or 8 valence electrons is key.

I can't tell if I just don't know ochem or what.

[light_hue_1]

Not a chemist, but yeah, that's just a typo.

> All atoms are reactive except the noble gases (group 18). These are stable due to a full outer shell. For organic chemistry is NEON or 8 valence electrons is key.

It should probably say something like. "For organic chemistry, what you see in NEON, attaining those 8 valence electrons, is key." Atoms want to participate in bonds to reach what Neon already has going on, 8 valence electrons. A full valence shell.

[jamesash]

On one hand I love this level of nitpicking.

On the other hand, by the standards of what an undergraduate organic chemistry student is looking for from a free online resource, and given that it is just one guy doing this, in his spare time, I think this is absolutely fine.

(I have a competing website on organic chemistry and I think this guy does a much better job on graphics than I do.)

[light_hue_1]

Oh I agree entirely. I totally don't want to detract from the work!

[sdfsdfsfds]

I don't think we need to bend over backwards to avoid any kind of criticism of this project. It's clearly a personal passion project and nobody is saying it is less than "fine". I guess it's an American norm to be very circumspect about any kind of negative appraisal.

It takes time and training to pull off design like this, and while it might work as a fun infographic, it is not as polished or beautiful as it could be. There is room for improvement.

As far as the "graphic design POV" goes, that involves intuitive assessments of things like negative space, colour, and density of graphic elements and text. It involves things like the five Gestalt principles, or the CARP principles, although these are not prescriptions that anyone can follow. They're more like rationalisations of what has been found to work.

[quickthrower2]

I am not a graphic designer nor really care about it too much but I can spot a few things that look less than ideal. Of course I might make the same mistakes (that is why we have code reviews etc.)