Poster created by Candy Chang for the African Medical and Research Foundation.
http://candychang.com/main/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/Water-Poster.jpg

Created to bring awareness to the lack of access to clean water in Africa, this poster uses only type and a solid background to communicate its message. While both the positive and negative space are quite well-established, the primary driving factor behind the design is the way the text draws your eye across the negative space, causing the shapes that the text makes to become apparent.

The first part of this effect is created by the horizontally-cut title; it throws the viewer a bit off, making them process the title for some form of completion by instinct. The viewer will actually find a form of completion in the second part of this effect – the text rotated and placed in line with the letter ‘r’, where the rest of the letter should be. The effect is completed by the line that the text makes, pointing to the curved text at the bottom. It’s at this point that the shapes that the text creates take form – the ‘r’ looks a bit like a faucet, the text coming off of the ‘r’ appears to represent a falling drop of water, and the curved text at the bottom creates a water splash.

The way the design is framed – with the title directly in the center at the top, and the “water splash” shape in the bottom right – creates a design that is powerful through its main, centered element, but also emphasizes negative space through its other main element being in the bottom right-hand corner.

The cropping also factors into the effectiveness of the design; had the image not been cropped as tightly, it may have lost a bit of its impact.