Week 14: Designed Visual Information

Representational

This is a realistic painting of bison on a field. This drawing is a good example of representational level because the artist have tried to report what he look and recognize from his environment around and the experience hi had when he saw the bisons on the field. The painting is very realistic and give us a  dominating visual experience.

Abstract

In this example of Abstraction the artist tries to delivery a more powerful visual message through the abstract quality of the elements and the whole design by itself. The power of the message is based on the reduction of the realistic visual information and the effective arrangement of the elements which is more significant to the understanding and structuring if the visual message.

Symbolic

In this example we can see the symbols created for the Olympic Games in Beijing 08'. This symbols denote the different sports for the Olympic Games. These symbols are pretty simple and very recognizable; they are easily to connect with the sport that they represent and that makes them effective for the transmission of information.

Week 13: Visual Techniques

Bod Dylan - Milton Glaser

Contrast, Asymentry, Simplicity

Unity

The Typografe of David Carson

Irregularity, Instability, Complexity,

Fragmentation, Intricacy, Activeness

Distortion, Juxtaposition

These two poster use different techniques to communicate their message. In the first one we can see that the use of contrast is the predominant technique, also the unity and singularity of the poster make us focus in the silhouette of the artist. The designer also add some color to contrast to the black and white part of the poster. On the other hand, the second part is more complicated, it is more irregular and intrincated. All the distortion and juxtaposition going on in the poster make it more active. In this way the designer tries to communicate his message.

Week 12: Contrast

Good Contrast:

We can see in this poster the effective use of contrast. First we can see the contrast in the colors of the interlaced legs, one black, the other one white, separating them and defining them as different elements. Also we can see contrast in the characteristic of the legs. The black one show us a modern, elegant-suit leg that give us the idea that belongs to a modern-life person; on the other hand the white leg is dressed with traditional chinese clothes and shoe. The use of contrast is very effective, even though they are the same object (both are legs), they both are pretty different from each other, they both represent a different idea, and both work well together to communicate the message of this poster.

Bad Contrast:

We can see the poor use of contrast in design of this website. The use of  the color green for the text makes the readability difficult. It doesn't help to differentiate it from the background; the background also is a big problem, it is a picture that it's not easily recognized, and with a texture that doesn't help to clarity of the text. This website is not easy to read or navigate, the use of color is pretty bad and doesn't help the readability, and there are not clues to help us understand the navigation in this website.

Week 11 Motion

PART 1: Implied Motion in Design

Example No. 1

In this poster we can see that the arrangement of the letters gives us the idea of motion. The letters have volume and dimension, they have their own shadows which give us the perception that each letter is rotating on their own. They seem to be falling into the hand in the bottom of the poster. We can see also how the size/scale of each letter give us the idea of movement also: the small ones are closer to the hands. The letter are not only falling but also they are moving (each one independently from the rest) while falling. That gives us a strong sense of movement in this poster.

Example #2

In this 3-D advertisement we can see the use of implied motion to give more emphasize the message of the poster. We can see that in one of the poster there is an athlete running. We can imply his movements for the position of his legs and arms. Also his body is tilted forward indicting us that he is running. We can see that the advertisement in this bus stop consist in two part: the poster with the athlete running and the first one that have the silhouette of the athlete in a glass wall, placing the two on the wall of the bus stop give us the idea that the athlete just passed running through the glass wall and continue to running into the second poster.

PART 2: Navigation

Source: http://www.narrowdesign.com/

We can see in the website of this designer the use of motion in the navigation system. The different boxes that are labeled with a category (clients: adidas, budweiser, etc) change of color and becomes bigger: they pops-up and change they color to differentiate from the rest of submenus. Also, while you scan the different submenus, the whole column containing the submenus move up or down depending where you aare directing your cursor. Once you select a submenu, the whole column with the menu move to the left f the page and a display of the work/sample appear in the right. We can see that this portfolio online is very dynamic and easy to use. Through motion the designer give us an easier and attractive way to search for information in this website.

Week 10: Dimension/Depth (Extra Credit)

ADVERTISING DESIGN

In this ad, we can see that the designer has use effectively the cues to give us the impression of dimension and depth: Relative height We can see that the elements in this ad have different heights in the field of view giving us the idea that some are farther away from the other. Also we can see the relative size between the element in the ad. Some seem to be smaller that the others (even thou they are the same size). That creates depth; the smaller elements seem to be farther that the big ones on the field of view. We can see also that these elements are overlaping: That create the idea of being positioning and depth, elements being in front of others.

Week 10: Dimension/Depth

POSTER DESIGN:

In this poster we can see the effective use of cues to create depth and dimension. We can see that the poster has a liner perspective. The lines that create the perspective are not too obliques, giving us the impression that the perspective is not in a great distance. Another clue we can find it's the placement of the silhouettes. These silhouettes show a relative height that gives us the impression that they are located higher in the field of view, and that gives us the impression that they are farther away from each other; moreover, to reinforce this idea, the silhouettes have been drawn showing a relative size: some are smaller that the others giving us the idea of distance and perspective. Also some elements in this poster (silhouettes, tress, little hills) are overlaping giving us the idea of one is in front of the other.

Week 9: Color

Poster Design:

In this poster we can see that color has been used effectively. The contrast between the yellowish background, the green-blueish , and the red are pretty noticeable. The color that pop-up the most is the red; thus, red has been used to emphasize the word "play" that carries the message of the poster. Here we can see the effective use of a high saturation color (red) to emphasize an object (the word play) over a large background area with a light/low-saturation color. Color is also interacting with the visual element: orientation. The colors in the poster give directionality to the poster. They create a strong vertical orientation. Without reading the words, we can follow the colors blue and red in a vertical orientation. Moreover, the designer make color interact with the visual element scale. The word play in red is the biggest in the poster. Color and scale help to emphasis the message of this poster. The symbol "&" also is affected by scale and color, its color is not too saturated like the other green-blueish.

Week 8: Basic Elements of Visual Communication

POSTER DESIGN:

Shapes: We can see in these posters of Wayne Pate that he is just using shapes in his designs. In the poster in the left size, we can see that he is using these similar irregular shapes to represent birds. Also he is using lines (for the legs) and dots (for the eyes). besides that the arrangement of the shape creates a nice texture. Also the wavelike shapes give a sense of movement to the design. All these elements together create a pleasant piece of art. On the poster in the right side, he is using just the basic shapes (circles, squares, and triangles) to create a castle. Simple shapes create something more complex. Moreover, grouping those different shapes together give the whole figure a nice texture. We can see also that he is adding color to his design that help us to recognized the shapes and, at the same time, make them interact harmoniously.

COVER DESIGN:

Dimension: In the cover of the magazine, we can see that the basic element dimension is pretty active. There is a strong linear perspective that give the picture a sense of depth, dimension and directionality. Besides there is a sense of proportion also because of the scale: the two figure on the middle and "in front" of the rest of the picture. We can see people in the back that "seems" to be smaller. Scale gives depth to the picture. Here we can see also the use of tone. The figures in the middle have darker tones than the rest of the picture. That also help to the sense of dimension and depth.

Week 6 - Syntactical Guidelines

Good Use of the Syntactical Guidelines:

Logo Design - Use of Positive/Negative

We can see the effective use of positive/negative relationship in design of this logo for WWF. The black shapes acts like the active parts of the design. When this shapes interact with the white space around them, it gives us the perception of a panda. Besides that the black shapes on this logo are well balance, this also help us to perceive the panda. All the parts in this logo interact harmoniously.

Bad Use of the Syntactical Guidelines:

Poster Design - Use of Stress

Here we can see the over-use "stress" in the design of this poster. There is a strong diagonal directionality in everything (type and images). A diagonal direction in design is used to create stress, this in order communicate the meaning and message of the poster in a better way. In this poster everything has a diagonal direction making the effectiveness of the stress very low. Placing everything in a diagonal direction doesn't help to give stress to the design,  instead make everything look the same and boring. Besides that, the image on the middle of the poster also get lost and seems to have a diagonal direction also. The stress here is not working effectively.

Week 5 Application Exercise "Fine and Applied Art"

Corallo Armchair by Campana Brother

 This armchair designed by the Campana Brothers can be classified as "fine" and "applied" art. This is basically a sculpture of a bench made from bent steel wire. While its main function as a chair, it also carries with it a message as a piece of art, it is a sculpture design to express the artist ideas. It shows a "beautiful chaos" of wires, craft them using vibrating colors in an energetic way. The craftsmanship is important here, each chair design is unique. It also carry with it the idea of chaos and deconstruction. So we can see in this chair a functionality: it is a chair, the ergonomics on this chair has been designed to be comfortable; and also we can see its side as a fine art piece, it is a contemporary piece of furniture design that can be appreciate for what express.

Week 4: Visual Puzzles

For these first puzzles, my friend and I used different strategies to solved them. He divided the picture in zones, count the triangles in each zone and then add them to get the final total of triangles. On the other way, I marked the triangles as I was counting them.

In the next set of puzzles, my friend draw dotted lines first and them eliminate the useless and mark the ones he though were the right ones. What I did first was to draw light lines separating each of the objects, then I tried to connect those lines and create solid lines that I though were the correct ones.

Feature Hierarchy in Visual Searches - Week 3 Exercise

In this graphic named "The Carbon Atlas" we can see the effective use of feature channels like Color and Size. The different colors (red, yellow, orange, blue, brown and pink) represent an area on the earth. This graphic also has the feature channel "size" to represent the big and small areas/countries with the more or less percentage of CO2 emission. The use of these channels make the reading of this graphic easier. It is easy to identify not only the regions on earth where the CO2 emission is happening, but also which one of these areas have the biggest or smaller emission of CO2.

Besides that people can interact with this graphic. Clicking on the color region of interest it will take you to a close up of that region and a more detailed information about that specific country (see graphic below). Here the main feature channel used in "size". 

The Carbon Atlas from: www.guardian.co.uk/global/interactive/2008/dec/09/climatechange-carbonemissions