Kristin Becker's DTC Classes at WSU

Paramore album art. “50 years of typography in album covers” – click here for source.

This is an old Paramore album cover. The white space, or negative space, registers as the background. The figure is the black text scattered around, but the main figure is the orange “Riot!” because that’s the first place the viewers eye reaches. If it weren’t for the one piece of orange type, this piece would seem far too chaotic, but the orange brings that type to the foreground pushing the chaotic back and therefore minimizing it. This creates a stable figure/ground relationship. However, this piece does have a lot of tension between the black and white space.

  This piece has no margin. Arguably, the orange “Riot!” is framed by the rest of the piece, but the over all composition does not have a frame. 

This piece is asymmetrically balanced being slightly top-heavy due to the orange “Riot!” The multiple bold “Riot!’s” work as points because they don’t guide the viewer’s eye in any which way. A few of the strings of words may work as lines, but there aren’t many that actually direct the viewer’s eye.

If I were to change one thing about this composition, it would be to make the “Paramore” in orange as well. This would create a more symmetrically balanced composition while currently the “Paramore” gets lost in the chaos.

The Hundred Dollar Bill

If I was to choose a printed bill that I find inspiring it would have to be the American Hundred with Benjamin franklin. There are currently around 7.4 billion newer versions of the hundred dollar bills out there and it has been in circulation since 1996. In an article I read it says that most hundred dollar bills are held outside the United States. I’m curious as to why that might be. In the start of the article it talks about the design of the bill to make it easier to authenticate and harder to counterfeit. I know this may seem lame because I didn’t choose a cool looking printed currency. The reason I chose Benjamin is because no matter what type of money it is ill cherish. The design of the bills actually make me want to save them. Almost all the American hundreds are crisp and clean, not a lot of color or show to them. This loses my attention and helps me save them, if I liked seeing my bills I would spend them more. Secondly seeing Benjamin Franklin an all-around smart guy reminds me to be smart with my money every time I were to look at him. What I really dislike about the bill is the orange “100” on the bottom right of the dollar, it’s flashy and I don’t want people to see it’s a Hundred.

This poster is a great representation of what typography is, as this poster does a great work with the STABLE FIGURE/GROUND relationship. When taking a first glimpse of this poster there is lots going on, its overwhelming, and the bleed is about 50% this is a great example of reversible figure ground.  When the viewer is looking at the poster the eyes

Poster design in Typography Design in Theory and Practice section of DeeryDesign website.

are immediately drawn to the center because most of the composition is done with text. The compositions text comes in a variety of font sizes allowing the content to be designed into a picture of a girl. The main focus on the poster is drawn to the center because the representation of the girl’s hair is done with a smaller font for the text which allows the NEGATIVE SPACE to represent the hair. The white words read as positive space, (which is what this poster is manly built of). The positive space (white words) on the left balance well with the Negative space on the right. The information (words) was designed to frame a girl with the content as well as give her some emotion. These words also play around with the HIERARCHY and SCALE. As most of the composition for this poster is made up of words it is kind of difficult to actually read some of the text as the words are only half shown. For example the top right corner some of better read words are “TREND”, “INIMITABLE” “FORMATIG”, and “PEINVENTIVE” these words play with SCALE as they are presented in a bigger format allowing the viewers eyes to catch the words. The cropping or framing of the composition is also very close and tight with the way the words are scaled. Having very little negative space in this typographic poster.

Washington State University logo, grabbed from Washington State University website. Original concept artist of the WSU logo: Randall Johnson, 1959

While going through the reading and thinking about the idea of a text using the Figure/Ground concept, the first thing that came to mind happened to the Washington State University logo, that we see constantly along campus. Why though? Well specifically I would say this is ambiguous figure/ground, since there is a focal point within the space that grabs the viewer’s eye in and around the text of “WSU” that shape into the school’s mascot of a Cougar. That essentially is also happening because of the contrast of the crimson and white so that that the logo can pop out easier. This particular image though does not fully incorporate the idea of framing/bleeding since it is a pretty simple piece. Though other examples that do use this logo for a specific event or for any personal use may add the framing of like a collage piece within the logo itself that cropped specifically to get the image to show the best part or happiness within the picture itself. Without all the margins, bleeds, or cropping – the logo itself seems to be effective to the viewer since today most people can associate it with Washington State University. The framing of the logo, if you would consider this framing is that the logo tends to the focal point of the piece since people can understand that, “Oh that’s Washington State!” seems to work in a marketing standpoint anyways.

When it comes to using physical money or card I will always use the physical cash first to give my card a break of always being used, but if I were to ever come across a bill like this I don’t think I would be able to spend it just because of how it looks. I would rather want to keep it in some bill collection album that this one bill would make me want start and collect at least one of each artisanal cash bill. The reason why I wouldn’t want to spend these bills is because of the artistic and color images they have. Sure the image I chose has about four to five colors and seems like a simple design, but in my opinion what makes me want to keep this bill instead of spending it is the color combination and the simple black images placed over a white background used to fill the center of the bill. Also with this bill I believe it has to do with the environment because of the recycle, repeat, re-use, the green leafs, and the wild life silhouettes. So this bill can be promoting taking care of planet Earth with its silhouettes and the green colors used throughout the bill. Overall I think this artisanal bill looks great with its color scheme, the silhouettes and the curve detail found behind the center images and whatever message this art piece is trying to show is completely visible and gets its point across.

“OUBEY MINDKISS” is a book that contains the work of a German artist named, OUBEY. It was created to print and display his work.

In this image is a cover of a book that has a great example of the use of reversible figure ground. The different levels of text creates an active visual for the eye to follow; immediately when I look at book cover, my eye sees many different levels making the cover 3 dimensional and ambiguous (drawing in the viewer and encouraging them to search for text). Because the cover lacks color, the levels are distinguished through the use of shadows and different levels of prominence. The text that pops out the most reads “OUBEY”, the authors name. This text is dominate because it creates contrast to the level of the other letters and shapes giving it the feel of positive area. The next level is the text “MINDKISS.” Regardless of the larger more prominent “Oubey”text, “Mindkiss” is able to be considered the second level that stands out due to its relationship in size to the title and the background shapes. Cropping does not play a large part in this visual, because the words are restricted by the margins of the book. With that said, framing is occurring around the legible text “Oubey” and “Mindkiss” with the less prominent 3-D background. The text is flat and the surrounding background is different levels, which also draws the eye in to a different plane of design. In this case, the main tool the designer used to create a sense of  figure and ground through the tools of shadows and levels. This was strong for the designer to do because it not only is an engaging piece to the cover of the book, but it also has the power to draw the viewer to open the pages of the book.

The Cheese Monkeys is the first book written by graphic designer Chip Kidd. (Chip Kidd, The Cheese Monkeys, Scribner, 2001)

Chip Kidd is a graphic designer most known for designing book jackets and covers. He has worked at Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group since graduating from Penn State in 1986. In 2001 he wrote his first novel The Cheese Monkeys. After designing nearly 1200 book covers for other authors he was able to design a cover for his own book which is loosely based on his experiences while attending college as a design student. I consider this an alternative self portrait because not only did Kidd write this book, he was able to design every aspect of it. I think this is a good example because he had complete creative control and was able to create a cover he thought was most appropriate because he knew the content of the book very well.

The first things I notice about the cover is the hierarchy and lack of text. The word “the” is in top left, which is the usual starting point when reading the english language. The illustrations of the cheese and the monkeys are placed in a order (cheese above the monkeys) that’s easy to understand and know that the book is called The Cheese Monkeys. Both the illustrations of cheese and monkeys have consistent styling. They are both framed with a black background showing that they accompany each other. The use of illustration instead of type for the cover is fitting considering the topics of design and illustration present in the book. The fore edge is printed with two messages. One reads “GOOD IS DEAD” and the other “DO YOU SEE?” These messages can only be seen singly depending on the books orientation and when the pages are bent at the right direction. These messages are layered and the effect combines and contrasts the messages at the same time.

The fore edge of The Cheese Monkey reads GOOD IS DEAD and DO YOU SEE?
Images taken from lindypratch.blogspot.com