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