A recurring theme across my involvement in mental health research has been dissemination: how findings reach the people they are meant to help, and whether the formats used are actually accessible to those audiences. Infographics, visual summaries, and designed outputs appear again and again as the formats young people and communities say they want, and as the formats that researchers consistently find hardest to produce well. The McPin Foundation offered this introductory graphic design course through Media Training Ltd to give YPAG members practical skills in visual communication.
The Course
The course covered the design principles that underpin effective visual communication: form, space, and visual hierarchy; Gestalt psychology and how the eye reads a layout; typography, font families, pairing, and point size for different contexts; colour theory, palette restriction, and screen-versus-print differences; and the fundamentals of branding and working within brand guidelines. The day ran from professional brief to finished execution, giving participants a practical sense of how designers approach a problem rather than just the technical mechanics of any one tool.
What I Gained
The course gave me a more principled framework for thinking about visual outputs, the kind that comes up repeatedly in research dissemination work, whether producing infographics summarising study findings, creating materials for young people's consultations, or reviewing outputs for accessibility and clarity. Understanding typographic hierarchy, colour contrast, and layout principles makes it easier to critique a design, communicate feedback to someone producing one, or produce something serviceable myself when a professional designer is not available.