Kristin Becker's DTC Classes at WSU

Album cover of Walk Off The Earth’s R.E.V.O.

In terms of artistic style, Walk Off The Earth loves to do things a bit differently in the current times. The piece itself makes good use of the negative space by inserting lyrics from the various songs included. This is done so by making them appear washed out on an old piece of paper. Doing so distinguishes the main figure in the band’s name as well as the album title from the rest of the elements. This is turn creates a frame as there is a bit of “wash” that surrounds that specific text. Doing so helps establish a stable figure/ground relationship as the text being a bit more recent in appearance than that of the old washed out text.

The piece is symmetrically balanced because of the  placement of elements and the relative neutrality of the background. However there is not much tension seeing as how the background elements blend in better with the fading of the text.

Cropping is important as well as while the image appears to be focused on the center piece rather than the random jargon located elsewhere. Immediately. the piece attempts to bring your attention to center, literally and figuratively, in order to bring notice to the “important” aspect of the album itself.

Ad campaign used to advertise Coca Cola Glaceau Vitamin Water http://www.theguardian.com/media/2009/oct/06/coca-cola-glaceau-ads-banned-asa

When thinking about a visual example that primarily uses typographic elements, I immediately thought of Vitamin Water. Their brand is immediately recognizable because of their consistent use of the same typographic elements  and use of positive and negative space. Their consistently used typographic styles include bolding the word “vitamin” in their logo, and therefore on all of their bottles, and using the same typeface for the title of each individual drink or the buzzwords in their ads. The bottles are easily picked out from afar because of the iconic use of positive and negative space used by the brand, with the positive space being the color of the liquid, usually containing the title of the drink or the focus of the ad, while the negative space contains the information needed to understand the campaign’s intentions. Vitamin Water consistently uses figure/ground elements by always having their actual bottle in their advertisements. While their campaigns would still be recognizable without the product included in the example, the product’s presence includes a focus point for the viewer, also utilizing framing and cropping. The orientation of the text in each ad mimics that of the bottle, as well as going along with the shape of the bottle, drawing more attention to it in the advertisement. Having the bottle and logo for the company in the positive space and the informational text on the negative space, as also seen on Vitamin Water products, also creates effective framing of the bottle. By having the bottle grounded in positive space and extending into negative space, it is obviously the highlight, therefore drawing your attention to the informational text above it. By utilizing all of these elements, Vitamin Water effectively keeps the focus of the viewer on their product, while sticking to their easily recognizable brand to create an effective advertising campaign.

The Canadian $20 bill. Image from Chris Davies’ 2008 blog post “Landlords don’t have to accept cash”.

The cash I find most visually appealing comes from our northern neighbor, Canada. The bill pictured on the left is the 2004 version of the $20 bill featuring a portrait of Queen Elizabeth – a more updated version was released in 2012 with additional anti-forgery methods. What I find interesting is the more anti-forgery methods used to create a bill, the more visually interesting it seems to become. The 2004 version to the left, for example, has a unique gradient, textured numbers, a subtle holographic element – the list goes on and each only add to the visual appeal. I chose the 2004 version because I do find it more visually appealing than the 2012 version.

I’d probably wind up saving this kind of cash partially because I doubt many American businesses would accept it, but also because I’m a big fan of the black and white portrait over the overlay-decorated gradient background. I love the positioning and angle of the portrait, and the cool colors blending into the warmer colors behind the portrait itself is something I find visually appealing. I also like the use of texture within the large “20” on the bill itself. It’s a visually interesting way to prevent forgery – functional graphic design.

I would say color theory would be highly important as a visual choice for creating paper currency. Not only should visually able individuals be able to tell what they’re holding or receiving at a glance, but so should color-blind individuals. Creating a color scheme that is visually appealing to at least most levels of vision should be a priority in modern bill creation. Additionally, while different sized cash can be incredibly frustrating, they’re useful to visually impaired people who cannot see what bills they’re handing over without some kind of tangible clue. So dimensions are another important choice for creating currency. Finally, typography. Every bill has some kind of visual indicator that tells us how much it is worth – the placement and font choices in this are huge because that’s what people are primarily going to be looking at on the bill. You can have the best colors in the world – if you chose a bad font, it’s going to be a bad currency.

In Zhang’s poster she designed for the 2o15Harbin Design Week, the viewer is initially captivated by the contrast of the black and white of the poster, or the positive and negative spaces, creating balance in the composition. Then, the viewer begins to question what is the foreground and what is the background due to the ambiguity of the figure/ground relationship. Is the white space the positive space (figure) and the black space the negative space (ground)? Or is the black space the positive space (figure) and the white space the negative space (ground)? Texture also alludes that some of the shapes created are 3-dimensional or more in the foreground of the poster. These elements draw the viewer in to see that text is also incorporated throughout, appearing as shapes in the background or foreground, depending on the direction of the text, the alignment of the text, or even the spacing of the text. Cropping is used along the edges of the poster, creating a literal frame of the artwork while also cutting off shapes, creating sharp lines and abstraction of the shapes. All of the white and black elements combined with the text  frame  the most important details of the Harbin Design Week. The directional positioning of the black and white shapes move the eye about the poster and eventually, after covering all of the small print within the design, leading the title of the event, and the dates. Something also interesting about the presentation of the poster is that Zhang actually framed the poster within a frame, including a person holding up the poster. This creates even another 3-dimensional aspect to the poster presentation itself, which the viewer could even argue figure/ground once again about the piece. Overall, this piece effectively presents the material covered and Figure/Ground and Framing concepts in an interesting and typographical way.

Created by Emma (You) Zhang for Harbin Design Week 2015 Branding. Her work emphasizes her skills in modular type design.

This picture was found on: http://machoarts.com/40-impressive-examples-of-typography-designs

This visual example shows an ambiguous relationship between the figure/ground. The figure is enmeshed with the ground making it difficult for the viewer to immediately find a focal point of the piece which lacks discernible dominance. There is much less positive space present and the heavy use of negative space also serves as the background causing it to dominate the relationship. This lack of tension also makes it difficult to easily read. where there are highlights on the letters it gives the figure depth from the ground and an aspect of dimension although it does not stand out completely on its own. Because the cropping and framing is tight but also has some margin around the text my eye immediately starts to follow the figure down from the top. Although the text seems to blend into the ground at times the flow and the connection of the letters makes it easy to follow.

I chose to analyze this image of a face contracted out of words. I thought the figure ground of the white words against the black space highlighted the features of the face, like the lips, nose, and eyes. The negative space is black and is clearly identified against the white, which is the positive space. The viewer is able to read the words if you concentrate on what the letters are spelling. The simple white against black contrast makes it so the image isn’t too chaotic and the viewer can clearly read the words, see the face that is created, and understand the message the artist is trying to portray. There is no clear, square framing in this image, although I consider the framing the outline of the face because the words are constricted within the lines of the face structure. I also see that the negatives space is creating the eyes. There is more space between the words, “rusty” and “nothing” which draws the eyes towards that thick black space.

This image was taken from Lawrence Ma’s blog. It was involved in a typography study that he analyzed.

Also the same effect created the outline of the lips and nose. A slightly thicker negative space is created by the separation of words and it creates a line resembling the outline of a nose and lip. I also like how the forehead was created. The artist created the forehead by making it smaller than the cheekbones. It gives the face a more distraught and serious expression, yet all that was done is add more negative space by narrowing the frame of the forehead. Another aspect of the image that stood out to me was that the letters where different sizes. This helped create the image of the face, and gave a three-dimensional scale to the image, plus adding depth as well. The other element that I liked about the  image was that it was symmetrical, even though the face was made out of all kinds of different words that were different lengths. The artist made the framing symmetrical as well as the words, so the different words didn’t throw off the symmetrical aspect of the face.