One Rect For All specificaiton

[Brahmanathaswami]

I want to kick off a discussion on target rects for design work.

We may have a small team of animators and illustrators start work on 
some projects that would eventually find their way into a mobile app. 
For these "modules" I would lock it to landscape.

For "Agile animation development" (= shorten time from script to end 
product, go live, time cycle) I don't want, at least initially to have 
this team be burdened with having to create multiple versions of anything.

So I need to give them a spec for, what we typically call in the 
printing word "trim size " and "Live Matter safety margins"

These would equate to the area that is left after a physical book is 
"chopped out" and then another limit which is "by design" for elements 
inside that area... 1/4" being a typical minimum for any type object...

with devices, "trim size" equates with "screen size" So here is what 
I've dreamed up so far. but we also have a third property of the spec in 
this world: full background rect, trim size when same data is display on 
16 X 9  and then the live matter margins.

1) they design in 4 X 3  (if doing comics on paper, then they work on 
pad/canvas that is e.g. 12" wide 9" tall (4x3)...
-- i.e. the background art has to fill that entire space.

2) Safety zone/matter (as we way in printing biz...) must fit in the 16 
X 9 rect *inside* that background
-- key characters and important visual elements must all fit inside 16 X 
9... so that there is "dead space" above and below (but filled with 
imagery like trees or landscape, textures etc.)

3) Live matter zone/margins then ( how far away things should be from 
the edge of the screen) then is  I believe in Googles' material design 
spec 40 pixels..for actual objects, text field "voice balloons" in 
comics, buttons, info boxes etc... away from the edge the 16 X 9 rect...

if I Open InDesign and ask for a digital publishing document the default 
is for iPad.. with 36 margins

building on that we ge

a) full canvas:  1024p x 768p
b) safety zone size:  1024 x 576  (letterboxed top and bottom)
c) LIve matter zone: 952p x 504p

flip for portrait

see:

http://wiki.hindu.org/screenshots/SafetySizeGuide.pdf
http://wiki.hindu.org/screenshots/SafetySizeGuide.jpg


Comments on this thinking  Has anyone already worked this out?