Integrated Theory and Practice - Good Graphic Communication; Disciplines and Theory
Chosen principles are Visual Hierarchy & Legibility.
During this weeks ITAP lecture, it was all about the disciplines and theories behind making a good piece of graphic communication. The first principle I am going to talk about is Visual Hierarchy in a piece of work. This just means what you are going to look at first in a piece of work and what you will look at last, all pre-determined by the designer. Many things can help determine what you look at first, the top three would be the colours, typography and the images. Other things that also help are lines, weight of text, scale, composition, structure, the use of grids in the design process and grouping. A company that I believe always uses visual hierarchy to it’s best is Coke. In the advertising campaign below, Coke know where they want you to look, what your thought process is. In the first advert, the majority of people will primarily look at the colourful shaped heart, they may study the shapes and images that make up the heart for a second or two and then naturally their eyes and focus will pan down. They will recognise and familiarise themselves with the Coke bottle shape, the block red background and the type that they use and know that this is a Coke advert. Once all that is taken in they can then look at the advert as a whole and understand that Coke is trying to say that their ‘side of life’ is the better side, that essentially inside the coke bottle is happiness and a warm fuzzy feeling, like what you probably got when looking at the heart shaped image. The audience with these pieces, as is with alot of Coke adverts is early to late teens. With a brand as big as Coke, once you're a Coke drinker, you rarely switch to other brands such as Pepsi, so Coke need to get you hooked as early as they can. The bright, modern, stylish yet quirky and intricate design will catch the eye of the young to late teens and intrigue and persuade them to buy this product. This can also be applied to the next two adverts.
Chosen principles are Visual Hierarchy & Legibility.
During this weeks ITAP lecture, it was all about the disciplines and theories behind making a good piece of graphic communication. The first principle I am going to talk about is Visual Hierarchy in a piece of work. This just means what you are going to look at first in a piece of work and what you will look at last, all pre-determined by the designer. Many things can help determine what you look at first, the top three would be the colours, typography and the images. Other things that also help are lines, weight of text, scale, composition, structure, the use of grids in the design process and grouping. A company that I believe always uses visual hierarchy to it’s best is Coke. In the advertising campaign below, Coke know where they want you to look, what your thought process is. In the first advert, the majority of people will primarily look at the colourful shaped heart, they may study the shapes and images that make up the heart for a second or two and then naturally their eyes and focus will pan down. They will recognise and familiarise themselves with the Coke bottle shape, the block red background and the type that they use and know that this is a Coke advert. Once all that is taken in they can then look at the advert as a whole and understand that Coke is trying to say that their ‘side of life’ is the better side, that essentially inside the coke bottle is happiness and a warm fuzzy feeling, like what you probably got when looking at the heart shaped image. The audience with these pieces, as is with alot of Coke adverts is early to late teens. With a brand as big as Coke, once you're a Coke drinker, you rarely switch to other brands such as Pepsi, so Coke need to get you hooked as early as they can. The bright, modern, stylish yet quirky and intricate design will catch the eye of the young to late teens and intrigue and persuade them to buy this product. This can also be applied to the next two adverts.
Another company that uses visual hierarchy in a different way is Marmite. The advertising campaign below was used in magazines and Marmite doesn’t seem to have a distinctive thing you would look at first. It could be the large image, or you may focus and the small text. The idea of these adverts, remembering they are in a magazine, is that you sit the and study them, turn them sideways and upside down to find the double meaning, something more interactive like this needs the reader the think outside the box and not have their hand held on which part to read first. This reflects the type of audience the adverts are aimed at, something that can't just be taken in on one glimpse requires more concentration levels and a quicker brain. Given that these would be magazine adverts I'd give the audience range from early to late twenties. Marmite, still an iconic brand but not as much of a universal product as Coke wants to hook customers when they've flown the coop and no parents ranting 'eugh it's disgusting!.' Marmite need the audience to discover the product for themselves. A fun, friendly ad campaign connatates a good, nice, trusting product.
The second principle I am going to talk about is that of Legibilty. Many things can make an advert legible or illegible, a lot of the things that determine the visual hierarchy can also determine the legibility. High contrasts and block colour spaces also equip an advert for legibility. For example, the two adverts below are very different. The first, an advert for the morning after pill is very legible, the most important type is big and send the message across well and there is also the medium sized picture to give you a clue of what to look for. There is also smaller type included, but as with the visual hierarchy, maybe it is not as important. A good, legible advert gets the message across quickly and sufficiently if for example it’s a billboard or poster and the information needs to be taken in over a period of a few seconds. This is especially relevant to a subject such as the morning after pill which can be quite sensitive, the audience, late teens to late thirties may not want to get caught reading it. The pink font utilises sex stereotypes well and females know that this advert is for them. The second advert, for a shoe company, at first look doesn’t seem very legible. There is the picture but no type? However, the company is obviously telling you that their shoe collection includes ‘killer heels’. The audience, females as a given would include the age range of early twenties to late thirties, the shoes look sophisticated and simple, something the readers can relate to their work outfit or a smart night out. Also the play on words in the advert requires some level of understanding and humour that this age range of professionals wouldn't have a problem understanding.
Bibliography (photos left-right)
Image 1: http://www.neoco.com/blog/2008/06/coke%E2%80%99s-trans-media-storytelling/
Image 2: http://www.designflavr.com/Coca-Cola-Karl-Kwasny-i535/
Image 3: http://www.designflavr.com/Coke-side-of-life-Karoly-Kiralyfalvi-i302/
Image 4-6: http://pu3sarah.blogspot.com/
Image 7: http://www.adpunch.org/entry/nsa-killer-heels-by-nma/
Image 8: http://adsoftheworld.com/forum/exhibition/ipill
Image 1: http://www.neoco.com/blog/2008/06/coke%E2%80%99s-trans-media-storytelling/
Image 2: http://www.designflavr.com/Coca-Cola-Karl-Kwasny-i535/
Image 3: http://www.designflavr.com/Coke-side-of-life-Karoly-Kiralyfalvi-i302/
Image 4-6: http://pu3sarah.blogspot.com/
Image 7: http://www.adpunch.org/entry/nsa-killer-heels-by-nma/
Image 8: http://adsoftheworld.com/forum/exhibition/ipill
No comments:
Post a Comment