The Basic Elements of Visual Communication

Magazine Layout Design

Shape

The shape is built on the dot and the line, which are also shown here. We see the circle as a shape in this layout for Carbon Sequestration it is locating the title, an important part of the main image, and a side thought up in the right corner. Then the type is shaped around the circle so gracefully. Using a circle which symbolically represents endless, and cycles is a perfect marriage for the topic being discussed. Carbon monoxide is an endless cycle in our society, and destroys our ice structures. 

Color & Tone

Color here plays a substantial part in guiding the eye. It also works along with tone, which makes sense because these two work closely together. The bright true yellow contrasts on the black and white background. But the tone of the black and white photo balances the yellow on the other side on black. There is mostly highlights on "Pierces" face that balance the guitar's stark whiteness. This layout was put amazingly well with color and tone. 

Direction

The direction of the graphics are a little threatening. The color does not help this feeling coming from them, but the angles and sharp edges give off a "provoking" feel to them. This is mainly on the right side, on the left side there is more of a curve to these beams. I think that the movement is achieved by the scale and the perspective the 3D figures have. Some are big and some are small, some are closer and some are far away. Thent here is the tiny lines behind the text that are in a wave like form, this connects the two pages. 

Visual Thinking Research

I decided to let my roommate in on this fun excerise. We ended up doing more puzzles than what were assigned because we had so much fun, but these are the first two puzzles we finished separately. 

PUZZLE 1

In this puzzle I had no idea where to begin. I started by trying to find a pattern in which way the lines were traveling, which the reading said is "related to the act of thinking." But the forth didn't make sense to me and put me at a standstill. I thought back to the lecture and thought to try and see the bigger picture and that Gestalt was at play again. One of the exercises in class was a subtraction process to find the right answer. I subtracted the outside and found the middle figure are part of the objects making the number system and came up with the answer E. My roommate had a little bit different  experience and  after not coming up with a process in finding the answer she gave up and guessed B because it looked like it could be apart of a pattern. I might have found the correct solution because of the lecture, I had an edge over her. 

PUZZLE 2

This puzzle was quite different and we both came up with the right answer immediately. I would like to give it to the Visual Memory and Folding Pattern Laws of Gestalt but really it was process of elimination for us. What month has 4 letters out of our 12 month calender? July or June. Then I guess it was the Folding Pattern we saw to be sure it was July.

Visual Hierarchy

http://www.posters.jokesarena.com/poster,1623924,A-Black-Sheep-Among-a-Multitude-of-White-Sheep.html

The Black Sheep

When I first saw the first slide of comparing colors in a specific feature channel I thought of Democrats versus republicans and then too the infamous Black Sheep. This is a poster singling this poor black sheep out. The color feature channel makes the eye go directly to the sheep, but also the shape and spatial layout of the poster where the sheep is located and around identical white sheep. Viewers locate the black sheep pre-attentively due to those channels. The black in the white communicates quickly with the Primary Cortex. Not only does it communicate quickly but it hits an emotional chord. The black sheep is sometimes related to minorities in the majorities and being suppressed. Possibly what the designer was aiming to reach with the viewer. 

Top Down Exercise

MLB.com

Top Down Exercise:

I am visual communications, so when I see the front page of major websites it has always interested me why the have designed it a certain way. The scan path I have shown on this web lay out from the front page of MLB.com is the first eye movements my eyes made. There are goal directed eye movements through out this page, starting at the top center box where the top news stories are shown with a picture to entice the viewer. I had a short fixation on this picture then read the headline and made it over to the top scores of the day, continued with short fixations around the screen towards the worded top stories, to finally the brighter colored ads on the lower right, and back to the picture with a story to fixate my vision and thoroughly read what it had to say. Which is why I first went to this site to read the top news stories in the world of baseball. The web page has moved my eyes around to the more important information quickly and effortlessly. 

Success and Failure

I decided to go with logo design this week, since I went with advertising last week. Being a visual communication major, I am very interested in the way certain logos communicate ideas and feelings in the viewer or potential client. I chose (in what I feel) a good example of logo design and a bad example.

Good Logo Design

This is a logo for an olive company. It helps the viewer relate names to images that correlate well with one another. In the logo it is in a circular shape as an olive. There is a nice red star that refers to the "Lone Star" name and olive leaves framing the olive. That composition gives the viewers eyes a break with the complementary shape. Already with a little Olive in the middle the logo gives the perception of food off the bat, the viewer shouldn't be confused what this is directed at. The stress is directly at the vibrant green olive but is balanced with the natural green stamp like background. It is level through and through, especially with the ribbon saying "Olive Oil Ranch" gives it a nice base with the lower corners of the ribbon in line with the lowest point of the circle. Which also gives the "Ranch" feel  in the stamped background and ribbon over the logo. 

Bad Logo Design

This logo design has a lot going wrong with it. To the perception it gives off, to the visual balance. The name "Technology Driven Transactions" is for a company based in domestic and global negotiations. The man at the top of the logo give the viewer the feeling that they should be running out the door from this company?  When you are dealing with money negotiations you want your customer to come too you. This brings us to the balance of the logo, but it look like the top part is sliding off to the side of the green rectangle on the bottom. I am not sure if the balance is coming from the bottom up, or if it is sliding off the side.This causes the stress on the word DRIVEN because of the great white negative space and angles pointed towards it. I think it might be time to go back to the drawing board on this one. 

Visual Language Syntax

Visual Language Syntax

One Word:                                      

Loss                                                 

Sorrow                                             

Down                                               

Hard Times                                     

Rock Bottom                                           

Don't know what to do                   

Suffer

Compositional Structures

Angled Stair Structure

Sitting at the bottom of the stairs

Burnout on the sides of the picture

Depressing colors

Sad expression and slumped body              

Person in front is focused on

Symbols:

Sad face

Limp body

Slumped shoulders

Work clothes

Briefcase

Big stairs

This photo is the epitome of the look of someone coping with unemployment. Visually all of the symbols and construction of this photo points to one thing: this mans despair. He is sitting on the lower steps of a large cement stairway with his head in his hand looking down. He is in a suit, as if he is a blue collar worker with a briefcase behind him. The stairs stretch up behind him signifying the climb he is facing and the lack of progress that has been made. The photo editing is also directed towards him, there is a burnout on the edge, putting a depressing connotation over the photo. 

Meaning 2

This Nike ad illustrates all three levels of design. The shoe itself is the representational aspect. It is a shoe, what Nike is displaying to the consumer. Then the aspects of a meteor, the fire, and astrodust particles burning off as it plum-its towards the earth are the abstract. Yet the viewer automatically relates these characteristics to a comet with out the giant mass being there. The fire and speed the shoe is perceived to be moving has the consumer relate to the speed he/ or she can go in a Nike shoe. The advertisement relates to a personal time or desire the viewer was running or the need to run again.  Then symbolically the Nike "swoosh" is a symbolic "check mark" as if checking something off your to do list, which is why their catch phrase is "Nike. Just Do It." It is interesting to see the flame up towards the burning off particles makes a Nike swoosh that mirrors the swoosh on the shoe itself.