Spanish Food Groups

Background

I redesigned the first two pages of chapter 7 in my beginner’s Spanish book, Sabías que..? The primary reason I wanted to redesign these pages was because the original layout was really confusing me as well as a few other student in my Spanish class. Since Spanish isn’t my first language, I felt like these pages needed to be redesign to help beginner students like better understand and learn Spanish with less confusion.  I choose not to include all the food items in my redesign because a list of food, which was not on the original design as well, is at the end of chapter 7.

Characteristics of PROXIMITY:

I used the categories of the food pyramid to group food item pictures together. I also tried to have the words match the row that the food was placed inside the pyramid.

Characteristics of ALIGNMENT:

The original design tried to fit as many pictures of food items within five different categories and within those categories are three unlabeled subcategories.  I didn’t know this until my Spanish professor pointed this out during class. So I decided to create a food pyramid because most people can easily recognize the six food groups within the food pyramid (Fats/Oils, Meat, Fruit, Dairy, Vegetables, Bread)  

Since the food pyramid shape isn’t consistent from the top the bottom, so I knew the alignment of the food items would be a little tricky. I decided to use the 1-2 alignment format, for example, in “Las Proteínas” the chicken was placed at the top (1) while the rest of the food in the “Las Proteínas” group are put in pairs (2).

Characteristics of REPETITION:

The format used in the food item alignment was used to repeat the structure of the food pyramid.

Characteristics of CONTRAST:

In the originally design the fonts color for the food item labels and the sub-categories labels were the same; while the sub-categories size was smaller than the food item labels, which led to so much confusion for me and other students in the class. For example, Pescados y mariscos was a sub-category and el atún was food item label.  The main categories for each food group font size were smaller than the food item labels well and it had light green font color, which makes it harder for a reader to read.

The contrast I used for the redesign was making the title of the food group bigger than the list of food so the reader would become confused.

Characteristics of COLOR:

Unlike most food pyramids, I choose not color my food pyramid because I thought it would be more a distraction to the reader then it would be helpful.  I wanted the reader to concentrate more on the correlation between the food item picture and the bulleted words.

Characteristics of PERCEPTION:

The original design seemed like the author wanted to get as much information on the page with really thinking about how the reader will see and interpret the information.  Like most people I’m a very visual learner and to see something so unorganized and badly label, makes it harder for me to learn the material.

Original Design

Redesign