Blog #3 - Effective Design and Layout

The readings this week focused on a variety of facets of graphic design having to do with the components of a piece. One specifically was the typography of a design, which I think plays a huge role in the subliminal messages that go out to the reader. So I chose to complete the really interesting Word Portraits activity on page 241 of the Design Basics Index. The activity calls for us, as graphic design beginners, to think about the implications of meaning carried with each type of font. I chose two words that made cognitive sense with the implied meaning of the font, and one that is seemingly the opposite of that meaning. See what you think the overall implications are!

As you can see above, so much of what we expect from an advertisement or presentation rests, not on what the piece actually says, but on the font with which it is stated!  It is perfectly described in the first sentences of this chapter, which states that "Typefaces give voice to your words" (Krause, 2004, p. 231).  And they really do. As the chapter explains, this is indeed an art form that is seen everywhere, yet hardly ever gets credit for moving audiences. Imagine giving students a test in which all the questions were written in the Jokester font shown above. Students would understandably have trouble taking the questions seriously or focusing on the task at hand. Or imagine sending a quick email to your girlfriend written in the Chiller font shown above. Terrifying consequences!

For my second exercise, I chose the Corporate Compositions activity on page 143 of the Design Basics Index. The activity asks the reader to create a logo for one of several companies using shapes to create abstract mini compositions to convey meaning. Similar to the above exercise, this one has to do with implicit associations that the mind of the viewer has with color, line, style, and shapes. I chose to compose for the Holistic Medicine Center. These are my favorite ideas that I brainstormed. We were suppose to choose three, but I liked all of these for one reason or another.

I really enjoyed choosing soothing, natural looking colors and shapes that I think people associate strongly with Holistic medicine and healing centers. Choosing blues and greens I believe leads the viewer to think about nature, while choosing reds and blacks causes the viewer to make an association with Eastern Medicine of some kind. In the end I chose the design below because I think it also creates an unspoken feeling of light and growth, which people associate with getting better.

I refrained from adding text, as I do not think that is what this exercise was about. I liked what the author stated at the beginning of the shape workshop: "Cultures worldwide have long used basic shapes to formulate intricate and highly individualized visual dialects" (Krause, 2004, p. 125). This is, in the end, all about communication and we want to use all the tools at our disposal, not just text, to have the most meaningful and successful communication with our audience that is possible. Using font and shape design as seen above helps to reach out to those audiences and draw them into our meaning.

In working on this, I discovered that some graphic designers post their portfolios on Youtube to get attention from potential employers. I thought this was a really interesting combination of ideas that we've been talking about. Take a look at this sample below. The designer really illustrates some of the unique ideas we've read about in our texts having to do with use of space and size with shapes.

This really helps to highlight the idea that using font and shape design as seen above helps to reach out to those audiences and draw them into our meaning, whatever our purpose may be.