Kristin Becker's DTC Classes at WSU

My strongest Poster Remix by Francisco Guerrero.

During class when we displayed our poster on the walls, several people felt that this poster design was “different” and “eye catching.” I liked my other designs as well but my goal for this poster was to attract the reader’s attention. This poster does have a different design to how the information is presented. It is very symmetrical, up and down, and uses positive and negative space to make a design with the text but also with the background. It has some qualities that make it attractive.

I do agree that it is “different” and “eye catching” but I don’t think that the information isn’t displayed as clear. A poster is supposed to provide the reader with quick and simple information. With this poster design, the design of the text is creative but it is organized in a way that the reader actually has to take much time just read it. I would try changing maybe the arrangement a little bit so I can emphasize some information. I would make the title font bigger as well as the time, date, and location. I would organize the information so the authors and their descriptions to cut off when there is a new line of text. I would experiment with it some more to try including more of the different signs we have talked about in class.

The poster has potential to work as a eye catching text but also include an effective way of presenting all the necessary information. Maybe the intention of this poster should be that it is to attract the reader to play close attention and read the information instead of just glancing at it.

Composition and Design by: Sydney Elliott.

Between my colleague and myself, I chose to critique this poster from the Poster Remix Project. I chose this poster because though my others were creative, this poster flows the viewers eye about the page in a compositionally sound way. I wanted parts of the poster to draw the viewer in by using bold but also layered text; i.e. Museum of Art and Experimental Poetry, two very important pieces of information for the event. I made this artistic decision because I hoped it would draw in more than one audience, those interested in what is going on in the museum of art, and for those who enjoy poetry. The viewer is drawn in by these two areas of the poster, but naturally through english language, we are drawn to the interesting text of “MUSEUM OF ART”. Then directed to: Washington State University, Visiting Writers Series, the artists names and biographies, the date and time, and the official name of the event. This natural flow is created my a very traditional way of organizing a poster while making design choices that make the viewer want to come up closer to the poster and what the event might be; created by balance between the top and bottom portion of the poster in an asymmetrical way. I find the design to be effective in delivering the necessary information while created a visually appealing and magnetic design. Some things I would like to improve upon is the sizing of the elements within the page (making it draw a viewer in better from across the room), rearranging the artists’ biographies to become more easily read, and creating a more asymmetrical balance, something that I think draws my eye as well as a viewers’ eye in more so than a perfectly symmetrical composition. Being able to add one more extra letterform should really add some more contrast to my poster, so that will be fun to play around with.

This is called “JAWS,” by  iwannabegackt. ©2008-2015

I chose has many elements. The first thing is the word “JAWS,” which is the first thing that your eyes get caught on, reason being that it is bolded and it is at a much bigger font compared to the rest of the text. The word “JAWS,” can also be considered both a point and a line. It would be considered a point because the letters are very close together (although it can be much closer) and they are alienated by the rest of the text. It can also be considered a line because the letters/text is darker than the rest and blocked out and horizontally put on the plane straight in the middle.

The text in the upper top can also be considered a line to an extent because some of the text looks like a plane line from a distant but at the same time the text is made out to be a person swimming. The text is placed very close to the point that the text look to be touching and covering up the white background. The words being so close together also give the “swimmer,” a contrast (not as powerful as the word “JAWS.)

The second thing, my eyes gravitate too after the word “JAWS,” is the big shape of the shark which is at the bottom center. WOW, like how can your eyes not gravitate to a freaking cool shark?! Although the text made out in the shape of a shark is the second thing my eyes gravitate too, it is the biggest text piece in the Typography and I think it is again because it is not as bolded as the word “JAWS.”

Balance, is another element that this Typography has, I feel like although the words are not equally as bolded, they are balanced off by the placements of the shapes. It almost like they are using the white background as an element to balance out the placement of the shapes (text.) In this typography the only colored played with was black and white, versus, color but it still got the point across that the typography is a JAWS poster. The black serves as the positive space and the white as the negative space/background.

The framing of these JAWS Poster was done really good, we see exactly enough to know that this is meant to be a shark at the bottom, the word JAWS, in the middle and last but not least a swimmer in the center top. The shark at the bottom lets us know that there is more to the shark but we just can’t see it, but we can picture the rest of the frame continuing.

This piece is called “The Sky Tells Me” by New/Beijing reading designer Duncan Sham.

For this blog post, I chose to go with a piece that really took the typographic elements of positive and negative space as well as framing and cropping and stretched them in ways outside of the ordinary designer. When looking at this work designer, Duncan Sham used these components to strengthen the viewers’ perception of the story that the text is trying to tell. The dark lines were used to create clouds against the white background using the negative space to produce a frame for the bottom portion of the piece. The black filled circle also creates a frame by the amount of positive space that it brings forth, contrasting the texts within and around the circle. All of the images in this piece (spaceship, air balloon, clouds) have either been designed in a way to draw the viewer’s eyes up towards the top of the piece or give off the feeling of being in the sky. The overall framing/cropping of this artwork is designed in a way to take the positive space (being the white space) and using it in a way that the overall composition of the piece can be seen with or without the background. I believe the typography was created and cropped in a way to only include what was designed within it. “The Sky Tells Me” by Duncan Sham is a piece that is primarily monochromatic with some highlights of gold. This work truly speaks for itself through its illustration of the story that the text is saying from the typography that is being presented. The risk taking within the various elements of typography that Duncan Sham created causes this photo to have a very crisp and engaging finish that is impossible to not be inspired by.

Choose a visual example that again primarily consists of typographic elements. Analyze all identifiable elements in the composition in terms of positive and negative space and the other terms from your reading that refer to these concepts. Also note how framing and cropping affect your perception of the composition.

Regional Annual 2014 winners, We Are The Rhoads, make an aesthetic handbook to appeal to clients by way of remixing “industry standard photo mailers.” Print Mag Far West Regional Winners.

I perceive this piece as having 3 layers of ground with multiple frames:

• the separated panels create and interesting frame for whole piece
• a picture connecting the panels in midground make a lateral frame for the eye to travel across,
• left align text in the foreground on the right panel almost connecting with the photo to create a central frame
• and mirrored right align text in the background but on the left panel.

The photographic image contrasts with the dark negative space in the back due to it’s overall white (or whiter) color. This lightness choice combined with the photo being right aligned on the right panel, it draws the eye rightward and therefore through the layers of ground from front to back, right to left.

The white foreground text, We Are the Rhoads, starts to interweave into a bit of ambiguous relationship with the white of the photograph, but the darker areas of the photo suggests it’s negative space for the text in addition to the dark background of the whole piece (enter the “3 layers of ground” bit I previously mentioned). The black text being in the background alludes to a shadowing and mirroring of the white text, adding more depth to the piece.