week 13 Visual Techniques

Visual techniques evident: Fragmentation, irregularity, instability, intricacy, activeness, variation, randomness, complexity, spontaneity

Visual techniques evident: unity, intricacy, sequentiality, opacity, diffusion, stasis

I found that some of the techniques used in one are opposite in the other. for example the first poster uses fragmentation while the second has unity. Fragmentation is achieved in the first by breaking the text with a graphic image or blending into the background. Unity is achieved in the second one by having all the text appear only within the tree graphic, which unites the text in a way. Also, in the first poster, the letters are placed in a random order and are all tilted in different angles. The second has words that are broken up but are placed in order (sequence) so that is readable. The different angles and placements of the first poster make it feel as if the design is active and in movement, while the straight orientation and order of the text in the second poster give a sense of stability/stasis, as if it isnt moving. Also the tree helps with stasis, since we al know that trees are stuck in one spot.

Week 10 Motion

This poster uses direction to imply movement. The arrows help indicate where the direction is facing. The stress of the angle also make the the direction feel as if it is going upwards into the sky.
Gestalt law causes the eye to connect the text and the arrows as one unit. As a whole it increases the impact of direction because a larger arrow is formed as the eye groups them together. Looking at the text alone, gestalt law groups them together and forms the shape of an arrow. So gestalt is being used to determine the direction.
The various scale of the text also implies change. The smaller text on the outer edges of that grouped text make it feel like it is fading into the background compared to the larger text. This is an illusion of depth motion.
If you look closely, you will also see that the angled/warped text implies motion. It looks as if inertia is occurring and as the text moves to the right, as if the smaller text is getting left behind and is following short after. This angle also indicates which direction the text is moving.

This poster implies movement also with direction. The diagonal lines create movement because it directs the eye left and right as we read down, starting from the top right. It almost seems as if this design wanted to lead the reader in a composition, or order of information. Don't know if that was the intention of the design.
These diagonal lines aren't connected, but with the laws of Gestalt, our eyes tend to connect them and link them with the text, allowing those lines to continue.
The various scales of text also implies movement or change - the small text feel as if it is farther away from the large text, which feels closer to the viewer

WEEK 9: Depth Perception

http://imagecache5.art.com/p/LRG/21/2148/8UGCD00Z/m-escher-depth-c-1955.jpg

This is a graphic image that uses depth perception. This artist creates the illusion of space in this piece with the following depth cues; overlap, relative size, atmospheric, linear perspective, and texture gradient. The overlap occurs with the repeating missile characters appearing over each other, where one object is hiding/covering the other object, letting us know that objects hidden are farther than the objects that are hiding/covering. Relative size can be identified with the various sizes of objects, objects in front appear to be larger than the objects behind, giving the cue that larger objects are closer. Atmospheric perspective is noticeable by the difference in contrast between smaller objects/objects covered and larger objects/objects that are covering. The lighter objects create the illusion that they are farther and are more difficult to see compared to the darker objects are close and can bee seen clearly. Linear perspective is present in this piece, yet is a little hard to identify. The best way for me to explain linear perspective here is that it determines the direction of the objects. The line is coming from the top right and off the piece, and you can see this by how a row of flying missiles are slanted slightly different. This difference in the slant is where linear perspective is effective. Texture gradient is identified by the hatch lines of each object. The closer the hatches, the farther away the object or surface is compared to srufaces/objects with hatches lines farther apart.

Color

Here is a design of a printed poster. The tone works in a way that it contains a focal point, which is in the center of the red circle. The color changes from a red orange to yellow in a circular form, which directs the eye into that area, where the text is placed, which is the main focus of the design as a whole. The color is darker or lighter, which contrasts between the text, which makes it eassier to read, though the word music sort of blends into the color.
Just a my previous post, the elemts that work with color are the dot, the line, shape, and texture. The dot, again being the most important because dots are what makes this poster possible- a series of dots make up what the colors are. Cyan, magenta, yellow, and black are blended together, which helps create a color. Lines and shape both help to distinct objects within the design, such as the text, the circle, and the graphic of the dj.
The way color is operating in this poster is through the colors chosen, which are a red to a yellow hue, which promotes and suggests warmth and comfort, which helps with the message of "music is love..." Love is a sense of warmth. The various colos of the poster interacts with texture in the way tha spots of yellow exist within the colors of red to orange. This gives the design a sense of depth and dimension, which makes it feel "spotty" as if this design was meant to be spray painted or painted

Magazine Design

Here are a designed example of a magazine. The Dondis Basic Elements active in this spreads are the dot, line, color, shape, and texture. Magazine design can contain all of the basic elements, but these are most evident in this design alone. These elements mention all work together to create a design as a whole.

Dot:
The dot works in the most important way, especially for printed design. This element goes hand in hand with color. Anything that is printed has to be printed with ink. When we look at a printed image, we are looking at a series of dots. The more the dots, the higher the resolution, hence the name DPI (dots per inch). When printing, only a certain number of inks with different colors are used, for example, in a four colored process, 4 colors are used: cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. These colors worked together to produce another color, depending on how many dots are printed for each color. So in the magazine spread above, if you look through a magnifying glass, you will notice that there are tiny little dots. When you look at it normally, you will see this spread - This whole design is all those dots working together.

Line:
Another important element to design. Without lines, you will have no objects, and without objects, you have no design. Lines work in various ways - to create noticeable shapes and most of all, communicate with the reader. Just as dots work together to produce a line, lines work together to create symbols that help us communicate with each other. Without dots, there are no line, and without lines, there is no communication. Lines are positioned in a way that we can understand the language we speak.

Color:
I have already talked about color; the way it is produced with dots. Color is also another important element in design because it can help set a mood, cultural meanings of color can help match a theme, and for many other reasons. Color helps us distinct the various shapes working in that magazine spread, especially when objects are overlapping other objects. In the spread, letters are overlapping images and other letters. Light blue and yellow colors are chosen for the overlapping text, not only because those colors compliment each other, but also to contrast them from the background, making them visible and easy to read. The right choice of colors contributes to good design.

Shape:
This element is similar to the element, lines. Lines create shapes, and these shapes are the designed objects themselves, including text. Letters are symbols in various shapes. Shape helps us communicate visually through language. Shape is what helps us identify the letters and words of the languages we speak or understand. Shape also helps us identify objects that we may see in reality. Shapes also produce design that contributes to a theme. In the spread, rectangular cut outs of images in the second page are working together to create that background.

Texture:
Texture helps give the design a more dynamic look. It gives it sense of dimension. The left page of the spread contains a bunch of letters/words/sentences overlapping each other in black. Not only does it give it a background to contrast the colored text, but also gives it texture. It enables us to feel with our eyes. The page appears rough and bumpy, almost looking like a meshed material, because of all those letters put together.

Syntactical Guidlines

Here are two posters, one advertising a concert, and another promoting a candidate for an election. The concert poster is a really great design. It uses balance in the way the designer uses grouping and attraction with the text. Altogether, the text is creating a tip at the bottom. It is tilted to create an even balance as if it were an object standing on one foot. Great example of balance. Grouping and attraction is used with the use of colors. The larger fonts are yellow, and it gets darker, to orange, the smaller it gets, the darker it is. Leveling and sharpening are put to good use, since the large text are given enough attention with its size, that it doesn't need to be dark, and is able to blend slightly with the background, so the smaller text is easier to find and balances with the large text. The message is viewed easily with the use of just text. Different info is distinct with either color or tilt/orientation, which prevents the info from getting too confusing and getting the viewer lost.
The second poster has no sense of balance. My eyes go directly to the photo of the candidate. In terms of leveling and sharpening, the info text is overpowering his name/title, even though its smaller text. The message is to persuade you to vote him for president, yet that title doesn't pop out the most. The poster should attract the eye to that information the most. The text that gets the most attention is at the bottom, "FEDS election-vote online, etc..." because it is the darkest compared to just about everything else. Also, the text looks like its cramming the person into the corner, making him feel trapped. There is a lot of stress and tension around that area. Overall that electoral poster came out of kevin ma's ass. It looks like sh*t.

Feature Hierarchies

Here is a poster I found in the internet. This is an example of how a graphic artist can use channel hierarchies to their advantage. The man mixed with the graphics pops out the most. That or the graphic on the left may be the first to be seen. The green background helps with the contrast and makes it pop more. The birds and arrows direct the eye upwards, and the bubbles lead them down towards the text. The text on the bottom have different font sizes, with the larger text being the more important. The larger the text, the more it wants to be seen. Colors are also used in that context, and used to organize and separate the type of info displayed. Example: pink for the date, yellow/green for the price, etc.

Visual Language

Here are a few posters and images from one of my favorite shows, Breaking Bad. The show is about a chemistry teacher who finds out that he has lung cancer. Walter has a teenage son and his wife is pregnant and wants to make some money for his family before he dies, so he decides to team up with a former failure student and cook drugs. This show is intense and shows that right and wrong isn't black and white. There is always means behind any action, good or bad.
First of all, the title sends out a very direct message. "Breaking bad", meaning that the character is discards morality for the sake of his family's financial stability. The way the words are also put together with the element chart, showing that this show is about a science/chemist teacher. This how is very intense, so most images and posters found have a seriousness to it. For example all the faces in the second image have serious faces: no one is smiling. The last image is the first season's cover. He is wearing just underwear and a dress shirt. A gas mask is on the floor and he is holding a gun. A van is the background with smoke coming out of it and it looks like he is in the middle of nowhere. This image seems strange because you may wonder why he isn't wearing any pants? To me, this shows that he doesn't care what he is wearing- he has more important things to worry about, and him holding the gun makes it look like he has nothing to lose. The combination of the gas mask and the van are hints of producing drugs. The first image contains him and his partner sitting on beach chairs in the middle of the desert, wearing plastic suits and gas masks. There are bags of drugs on the floor and they are looking behind them, again with serious faces. In this image, they are looking behind them and have their faces as if something is going on. In this show, things are always going bad, so their faces portrait that aspect of the show. Their suits of course show that they have produced drugs and the evidence is right under the character on the right (the main character, Walter). It's also interesting that the drugs and money are under him only, showing that this mere chemistry teacher is in charge.
These images are viewed depending on how the viewer perceives them. This also depends if the viewer has seen the show or not. Integration of some symbols of science/chemistry in the text is used.

Visual Thinking Research

The first puzzle I did was Block Twins. You have to find the six pairs of blocked patterns. My strategy involved visually rotating the blocks in my mind. I used illustrator to help me mark any notes. But first I had to pick one part of the pattern and use that as a basis when looking for its twin. For example, bock A had an "L" shape. I just looked at every other block and attempted to find the same attribute. The next step was to find another attribute that matched. If it didn't match I moved one to the next block and started all over again. Marking them down helped with not getting lost and keeping track of what pairs were already found.
My friend looked at a certain shaped and changed her perspective/angle to find the similar shape. Her process was pretty much the same as mine. She didn't use illustrator or a printed document of the puzzle. She just eyeballed it in the computer screen and wrote down her answers on a pot it note.


The second puzzle was Colored Umbrellas. Finding the two matching umbrellas. I used the process of elimination as my strategy and again, using illustrator. First I looked at the first umbrella, examined one triangle with two colors, took note of those two colors, then checked each umbrella and searched for the same colored triangle. Once I found a match, I looked back at the first umbrella, and examined the triangle next to it, then checked if the other umbrella matched. If they didn;t match I would move on to the next. I did this repeatedly, eliminating any umbrellas that didn't have a match, until I found it. Later I just started to looked for grouped colors. For example a color that was next to each other in an umbrella, and used that as a basis. I found that method to be a little faster.
As for my friend, she basically used the same strategy, finding a similar attribute with the two same two colors, etc. But instead of using one triangle or grouped colors, she used the colors the were across or opposite side of the umbrella, backtracking back and forth when comparing two umbrellas until she found a match. She also eyballed the puzzle on the computer screen, same with the first puzzle, so no example of her process here either.

Top down processing example

This is a poster I have designed for a a final project in the semester of Spring 2009. This is a poster advertising the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco. This poster also acts as a fold-able brochure, though there isn't an example of a folded version.
This is an example of top down visual processing due to the goal of the design - persuade the reader to visit the Japanese Tea Garden. Images and various information of the Japanese Tea Garden are integrated together. A reader may scope the poster as a whole to see what is going on. They notice pictures, images, and colors. The title is in a big bold font, easy to see, placed on the left, since we tend to read from left to right. They see "Japanese Tea Garden." The reader may wonder "what is the Japanese Tea Garden?" and pay attention to the images to find out what they are reading about. Top down visual processing may even start them at the images since it may be the most interesting area in the poster, then the reader may wonder, "what are those images about?" and look at the title. If still interested the reader will direct their eye towards the text to learn more about the Japanese Tea Garden. Headings are placed above the informational text to help the eye look for what they want to learn about. Does the reader want to learn the "History" or the "Features" of the Japanee Tea Garden? If they decide they do want to visit one day they will look for the the hours and prices. Images are placed to show an example, information is placed so readers can learn more about it, hours and prices are placed if the reader is interested in visiting. In Top down visual perception, the eye will search for and link all these together in order to understand and learn what they are looking or reading. Images to title, to information, to hours and prices. All these are placed strategically so that the reader can see all of these.