Exercise: Car

So my story was how my mom and I got a flat tire and caused even more traffic as we waited for AAA to get there. My scribbles were far more fascinating than my story. It was just a bunch of lines with loops in them. When I drew it, I wasn't really thinking about how it relates to the story. But now, Squiggly lines like that are pretty representative of getting a flat tire. There are parts where it's flat and then there are parts that are curvy.

This is what I came up with:

Closure

Closure is a method the brain uses to complete an incomplete shape. You see it a lot in logos but it can be used to enhance a design.

Examples:

World Wildlife Foundation

Even though, the Panda isn't complete, the eye knows it's a panda.

USA Network

Framing

Like hierarchy, framing is a way to highlight what really matters. I always confuse framing with cropping. But after looking this up, framing is how a photo is shown and cropping is cutting certain aspects of the photo. So, if you take a picture of a cow, for example, you'd possibly frame it by putting the cow, that is eating grass, in the middle of the picture. Cropping would be to cut out the cow's legs (metaphorically) and only use the top half for whatever reason.

Examples:

Sources

http://www.gdbasics.com/html/framing/framing.html

https://videohive.net/item/hands-join-together-to-make-finger-framing/8517335

http://photographyblogger.net/framing/

Exercise: Ten Duel Commandments

What stood out to me when I read the lyrics to the Ten Duel Commandments was how official the rules are to something that is so archaic. It was also interesting that there was so much double-checking, even triple-checking, to make sure they all want to do it. This song is pretty self-aware about how pointless the duels actually are. I love that Lin-Miranda chose to do it this way.

When asked to create something, I thought of listing the rules like a document. But that had already been done. This is Hamilton we are talking about. I went back to the drawing board. I looked at how the Ten Commandments were written on a stone tablet and thought this could be on something duel related. I found a picture of a guy with a gun upwards (which is fitting considering the ending) and I made a silhouette.

The tricky part then became how am I going to fit all the rules onto the silhouette. Should I have the words over the gun? What lyrics should I include? Then I remembered what we learned in class on what really matters. I didn't use the exact phrasing for a lot of the rules but basically the bigger text is the main rule and the text under adds to it in some way.

Here is the final product:

Gap

Gap is a well-established brand with a highly limited style palette. Working within these confines was challenging but ultimately fun. Gap is already well-known, so the style shouldn't be "too out there", but that was my thought process throughout.

I started to understand the challenges that Gap has. Most of Gap's advertising is simple, centered, and white text. That is boring from a design perspective. I had to use four different marketing materials but still remaining consistent, which made it difficult. I took on this challenge by adding typography into the figure/ground compositions to create both a consistent series and visual diversity to avoid boredom. Ultimately, I isolated the point size and color of the word “Sale”—much like Gap does in their actual advertising. 

SPRING: "Iris, Monochrome, inspired by windy weather 

SUMMER: “Nile”, analogous, inspired by a river surrounded by grass.

FALL: “Navy”, complementary, inspired by Halloween and the orange leaves

WINTER: “Fortress of Solitude”, neutral, inspired by Superman’s home

Scale

Scale refers to the size of one object to another object. It's also has to do with the relationship of the objects, such as how close objects are to each other. Objects can be the same size to each other, one can be smaller than another. It's important to get the scale right because it makes for realistic proportions.

It's kind of like hierarchy in a way. It all has to do with how the different components interact with each other.  The main difference though, is hierarchy is about what gets the most attention. Whereas, scale is more general about what component is bigger.

Examples:

Hierarchy

Hierarchy is more common in typography than in images. But images (especially posters) can have hierarchy too. Generally, when something is bigger or different than the rest of what's on the page, that gets paid more attention to. For instance:

This is a movie poster for "Moon". There are three aspects of this piece that your eye is drawn to. You're first drawn to the image because it's big and unique. I've never seen the movie but I can gather that it's about a guy who gets stuck on the moon somehow. The fact that I can get all that is because of how strong the image is. It should be what your eye is first drawn to. Then you're led to the title because MOON is in big letters in the biggest font size and it's the whitest text of the poster. Then it's either Sam Rockwell at the top or the tagline. Rockwell because it's all by itself and the tagline because it's right above MOON. Lastly, if you're still interested, you read whatever is at the bottom. 

I mostly googled visual hierarchy for these examples. These are just funny things I found in my search: