Because
of the great variety of ways in which the design elements can be combined, the task of making a good-looking
graphic can be a little daunting. To make things a little easier, we have included a
gallery
containing many of the designs we have produced for other publications, plus a few experiments of our own.
The gallery is divided into three sections. The reason is that we use three different generation systems
because the requirements of each is quite different.
The
TideGraph targets newspapers and other publications which publish weekly or more often. A TideGraph
typically has a graph covering the period until the next issue, perhaps with a small overlap, and for each day
also tabulates tides for nearby places and other data of interest such as sun, moon, and fishing times.
The
TideTable is in a tabular form, generally showing a month with days down the page and the information
for each day listed across the page, although other schemes are possible. TideTables are useful for fortnightly
or monthly magazines. We use this format in-house to produce our ever-popular tide pocketbook products.
Finally there is the
calendar format, in which the data is arranged into daily cells with weeks across
the page and days of the week vertically in the traditional calendar format. Again, we use this format in-house to
produce our New Zealand Tide Times calendar. There is scope for you to further customize a calendar graphic after
it is delivered to you, since calendars always have empty day cells which can be used for additional artwork, or
used for advertising or other useful information.
In all design decisions, the size is a crucial factor. The designs will scale to a degree, however scaling by
more than (say) 15% starts to have a detrimental effect on the relative proportions of parts of the graphic, and
a redesign is required. Changing the aspect ratio by scaling the horizontal differently from the vertical is also
unwise, as elements lose their proportionality, and the sun and moon go oval. The fish also changes, but fortunately
he looks just fine as a long thin barracuda, or as a short fat guppy.