Week 3 - Visual hierarchy & Legibility

“Visual hierarchy” refers to the order in which we see things or what text/images we see first. Many factors in design influence this such as typography, image, colour, size, composition and structure.

This newspaper cover has a visual hierarchy. Immediately you look at either the photograph (the stripes on the flag in the background are eye-catching), or the “Obama Wins” headline, and then the other. Followed by “The Birmingham News” and then all the other smaller text.

I feel that this Look magazine cover lacks a visual hierarchy. There is a lot of information on this cover. Everything seems to be too big and you aren’t sure where to look first. The text for “Look” and “the hottest celebrity news!” is probably the largest as it overlaps the image on the cover; this is what I would see first.

The text of the newspaper is legible, especially the headline as it is large and bold. The text on the magazine cover is also legible. It’s quite important for both of them to use legible font so that their readers are able to read through the magazine/newspaper. If the font style was illegible no one would buy or read either of them.
For example the font in this image looks nice but is quite difficult to read:

However text does not always have to be legible, especially when it is used creatively. For example:

Here the words and letters used aren’t as important as the overall image they create.

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Image sources: 
Newspaper: http://www.doobybrain.com/tag/front-page/
Magazine: http://www.magforum.com/look.htm
Magazine font: http://magculture.com/blog/?p=1307
Typographic art: http://www.canvasgrafix.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/Typographic_Portrait_by_PopeyeFrancom.jpg
http://www.jhuskisson.com/tag/inspiring

Week 2 - Practice - Jill Calder

As mentioned previously, inspiration can come from other artists and designers work. Ideas can also come through “visual practice”, which can be broken down into; “visual” i.e. observation, studying, exploring and “practice”, putting what we have seen/studied onto paper. Jill Calder’s illustrations are a good example of this. As an illustrator, she observes her surroundings, the environment as well as the people around her, she is able to produce detailed illustrations such as these in her sketchbook:

This shows that observing, exploring and studying your subject can help you to focus on details.

The illustrations also show experimentation. Calder has used different materials to produce each of the illustrations above which shows experimentation is key to the development of a ‘personal’ visual vocabulary. Using different materials can add a different look to the illustrations. For example the sketch of the dog has a different feel to it compared to this:

The following illustration also shows the difference materials can make.

The box on the left and on the right could be of the same scene or completely different ones, it’s hard to tell because of the materials used. The illustrator has used a bolder, darker material for the box on the right, where as the drawing in the left box is finer and Calder has used more detail in this box such as facial expressions.

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Sources:
http://www.jillcalder.com/jillcalder_sketchbook.php 

Week 1 - Notions of originality & recontextualised ideas - Piet Mondrian

Piet Mondrian's (1872-1944) early work was inspired by Cubism. Eventually he began painting complete abstracts consisting of white spaces, black lines which form rectangles and have been coloured in the primary colours red, yellow and blue. He called this style of non-representational art Neo-Plasticism.

[Piet Mondrian. Composition with Blue, Red and Yellow. 1930]

He directly influenced another artist, Theo van Doesburg (1883-1931), who also adopted this style of painting with the exception that Doesburg also included diagonal lines which formed diamond-shapes. Together they created the De Stijl (“The Style”) movement.

[Theo van Doesburg. Contra Composition XVI. 1925]

The fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent (YSL) was also inspired by the pattern and colours of Mondrian's painting in the design of this dress in their 1965 Autumn collection.

One could argue that the pattern on the dress is not original as we have seen it before as a painting. However, the pattern and colours have been taken out of a fine art context and applied in the medium of fashion to create another original design. This allows people to see the painting in a different way and makes it accessible to a different group of people. For example, the painting would have interested artists, designers and art enthusiasts, where as the dress would be viewed by fashion designers, women, fashion enthusiasts, etc.

The style was recently revisited in 2008 by other designers such as Nike (trainers) and Kara Ross (handbag):

The Nike trainers do not use the straight lines and rectangles but have chosen the same colours as Mondrian’s paintings. This would attract yet another group of people. They are shoes designed for a new generation; a younger, youthful group who may or may not be interested in modern art but are being exposed to the designs of Mondrian.

The designs by Mondrian have been used and reused by people applying the pattern and colors to objects in a similar way to YSL's dress. His designs are still popular in many ways and will probably continue to influence artists and designers.

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Sources:
http://arts.jrank.org/pages/13299/Piet-Mondrian.html
http://arts.jrank.org/pages/12385/Theo-van-Doesburg.html


Images:
Piet Mondrian:
http://www.abcgallery.com/M/mondrian/mondrian75.html
Theo van Doesburg:
http://slamxhype.com/art-design/van-doesburg-and-the-international-avant-garde-exhibition
YSL dress:
http://artbubble.tumblr.com/

Nike Trainers:
http://www.freshnessmag.com/2008/06/04/nike-sb-dunk-low-preimum-mondrian-edition/
Kara Ross handbag:
http://www.retrotogo.com/2008/05/kara-ross-mondr.html
House:
http://www.lizardkingdom.org/archives/2005/11/mondrian_buildi.html