Week Three: Style

Following the idea of the Animal farm post, where it shows numerous styles can be used to show one concept, where they can change the context or perspective of the concept, I thought that it would be beneficial to research some types of graphic design styles and how they are useful in design to communicate a certain point or address a certain target audience. This process advanced me in my project by enabling me to see what different styles represent and what effect they have when communicating a point or concept, so therefore I can ensure that I am choosing the correct style for the point/argument/concept that I want to portray in my poster design.

The following list is compiled from the major design movements that make up what most designers know today to be the various styles of design or approaches to design.

Victorian – characterized by symmetrical layouts, heavy ornamentation and decoration. This approach has seen a revival as of late with its heavily ornamented type, and detailed illustrations.

Art Nouveau – best known for its flat, outlined illustrations and hand-drawn typefaces. Often, this style is confused with Art Deco, but there is a clear distinction between the two. Art Nouveau looks hand drawn and lacks the highly geometric shapes that define the Art Deco style.








Early Modern – geometrically based, with a minimalistic approach, this style is dominated by clean type and photos rather than illustrations.

Art Deco – employed aero-dynamic shapes, Egyptian zigzags, motion lines and an airbrushed or grainy look. Think original comic books and old car show posters. This style has, once again, become increasingly popular over the last year or so and will most likely continue to do so. Unlike the Early Modern style, Art Deco highly exercises its use of illustrations and graphic representations of everything from everyday objects to cars and cruise ships.

Late Modern – mostly known for, distorted geometric shapes, and informal layouts. The only aspect of this style that isn’t informal is the type, which was devoid of decoration.

Swiss/International – best recognized for its complete lack of embellishment, this style employs the use of negative space, or areas lacking content, in layouts and could appropriately be labeled as very “clean.”

Contemporary – exemplifies simplicity and structure. Often, with the Contemporary style, visual metaphors and conceptual imagery are used.

Post-Modern – this miss-mash style is best characterized by a tilted axis, collage-like illustrations, overlying figures, and impulsive decoration. This style has been used in varying degrees since its first uses and, if used correctly, can give projects a unique expression.

Digital/Grunge – the most recent step in the design evolutionary process, this style emerged only within the last decade and is easily recognized by its extensive use of distressed textures, unrefined edges, and a seemingly nonsensical approach to layout.

Psychedelic – promoted the use of abstracted curvilinear shapes, clashing colors, and hard-to-read fonts. Rarely used in today’s designs, the trippy posters of the 60s are the most easily recognisable contribution of the Psychedelic style.

Sachplakat –  The term Sachplakat, or Object Poster, was coined in Germany to describe a new type of poster which featured a realistic depiction of the product and little else.

After looking into the major styles above I have come to the decision that the best design styles/ the one's I believe are most effective are Early Modern, Late Modern, Swiss International, Contemporary and Sachplaket.

From here I will then apply some of the styles to my concepts to see what effect they have.

Week Three: Typography

Below I have looked at some existing posters that have used typography effectively. This process allowed me to draw some inspiration from them, as I am not sure as to how I will display my text on my poster. 

Notes: The typography used in these two examples shows the type creating the object that it is expressing, where from far away it looks like an object, its not until you are close that you realise it is words, it is at this point that the viewer is intrigued to make out what it says. This is an effective way of incorporating subject matter and type, where the subject matter almost plays a secondary role in this, where normally its the other way around.

Notes: The typography used in this poster can be seen as a use of subversion, where the 'a' has had additional parts added to it to make it look like a teapot, which relates it to the subject matter and content of the poster. This is effective in making the text least boring and static, instead it gives movement and visual interest to it.

Notes: The typography used in this poster is very rhythmic, where it shows movement in link with the subject matter, looking as though it is rippling in the water. This type is effective as it gives emphasis/reference to the subject matter, making it seem strategised rather than just plonked on the page. 

Notes: This typography is placed to look at though it is part of the shadow, where through this, we can say that it is secondary information to the subject matter, which in this case is the iceblock. From this, we look at the iceblock first, and then we read the writing. The perspective and angle add further interest to this too, where the type is angles downward on a angle like a shadow. 

Notes: These two posters create their typography out of the subject matter, where nutella have made it look as though they have spread on the words with nutella, and the other poster had stuck on tape. These are effective ways in using the text as the subject matter, making the typography much more than just words, but rather makes it the subject matter itself. Its through type like this that you can get away with having it larger than the subject matter or even as the complete subject of the poster. I could look into using this type of type in my poster, using tea stain as the letters or something like that.  

Notes: Here is another example of subversion, where the artist has placed a picture in the position and shape of where the letter would normally form, to create more drama and make the viewer look twice to make it out. This is an effective way of showing a metaphor or just getting the viewer to look beyond the letter and rather what the artist is trying to convey by putting this letter and this image together.  Effective use of 'read between the lines' sort of thing, where again the type becomes the focal point of the poster. 

                                                 

Notes:  The use of typography in this poster again becomes the shape of its subject, but also relies on the fact that we can figure out the letters easily enough for them to be half chopped off. This can be seen as effectively utilising the fact that the viewer can easily distinguish the letters of the alphabet, so if you were to chop half of the letter off for the sake of interesting design, it would not hinder the way the word is read. Sometimes we forget that humans have this ability to recognise things that have been altered, so this poster is an effective example of adapting letters/words to create more interest to them without making them too unreadable. 

Notes: This poster is a good example of mixing it up with type, where we normally are inclined to read right to left, we would expect the type to be on the right side of the cup and be aligned left. However this designer has done it the opposite way, as if to say expect the unexpected. This makes the viewer question the choices much more as look for reasons why they have gone against the norm. It could also just be so that the viewer reads the text first before they see the subject matter. Because from first glance, when you read 'I will drink you under the table' automatically you think of alcohol, so it becomes more humorous when you then see the cup of tea.

Notes: This image shows how once again typography can be incorporated into the subject matter, where instead of placing boring univers text next to the cup, the designer has instead placed it within the foam of the coffee, which is much more visually interesting. 

From here I then looked at one of the idioms I used in my chosen poster concept 'not our cup of tea' where I looked at the exact meaning around it and how it could be said and presented in various ways. 

Not one's cup of tea

1. Not one's choice or preference. (Used to describe an activity you do not enjoy. Can sound somewhat affected.

2. If something is not your cup of tea, you don't like it very much.

In order to change the context, but keep the same idea I have looked at other ways to say the idiom too.

-This is our cup of tea

-Your cup of tea

-My cup of tea

-You're like the regretted sip of milk, that went sour weeks ago

Furthermore, I have researched types of Fonts, where I looked  into what effect they have, what they represent to see what ones would be suitable for my poster design. 

First off is Serif vs Sans Serif 

Where the choice between the two could easily go both ways for the concept that I am conveying because serif conveys quite a British, european, traditional look and the sans-serif conveys a modern take, which can represent a change, new. So in some respect they both work, so it will come down to what is most aesthetically pleasing I believe. 

It may be a matter of what weight I choose to communicate the 'voice' or emotion in my poster.

Below are the groups of fonts that are basic and clear to read, best for a persuasive poster where I want to have the message clearly read, rather than going for a distractive decorative font:

Geometric Sans-Serifs are those faces that are based on strict geometric forms. The individual letter forms of a Geometric Sans often have strokes that are all the same width and frequently evidence a kind of “less is more” minimalism in their design.

Examples of Geometric/Realist/Grotesk Sans: Helvetica, Univers, Futura, Avant Garde, Akzidenz Grotesk, Franklin Gothic, Gotham.

These are Sans faces that are derived from handwriting — as clean and modern as some of them may look, they still retain something inescapably human at their root. Humanist Sans manage to have it both ways: modern yet human, clear yet empathetic.

Examples of Humanist Sans: Gill Sans, Frutiger, Myriad, Optima, Verdana.

Also referred to as ‘Venetian’, these are our oldest typefaces, the result of centuries of incremental development of our calligraphic forms. Old Style faces at their best are classic, traditional and readable.

Examples of Old Style: Jenson, Bembo, Palatino, and — especially — Garamond.

An outgrowth of Enlightenment thinking, Transitional (mid 18th Century) and Modern (late 18th century, not to be confused with mid 20th century modernism) typefaces emerged as type designers experimented with making their letterforms more geometric, sharp and virtuosic than the unassuming faces of the Old Style period. In carving Modernist punches, type designers indulged in a kind of virtuosic demonstration of contrasting thick and thin strokes. At their best, transitional and modern faces seem strong, stylish, dynamic. 

Examples of transitional typefaces: Times New Roman, Baskerville.

Examples of Modern serifs: Bodoni, Didot.

lab Serifs are an outlier in the sense that they convey very specific — and yet often quite contradictory — associations: sometimes the thinker, sometimes the tough guy; sometimes the bully, sometimes the nerd; sometimes the urban sophisticate, sometimes the cowboy. Slab Serifs are hard to generalize about as a group, but their distinctive blocky serifs function something like a pair of horn-rimmed glasses: they add a distinctive wrinkle to anything, but can easily become overly conspicuous in the wrong surroundings. They can convey a sense of authority, in the case of heavy versions like Rockwell, but they can also be quite friendly, as in the recent favourite Archer. 

Examples of Slab Serifs: Clarendon, Rockwell, Courier, Lubalin Graph, Archer.

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/12/what-font-should-i-use-five-principles-for-choosing-and-using-typefaces/

I also played around with my own typographic concepts:

From theses concepts that I liked, I then moved into Adobe Illustrator to see if I could create a font that would portray the look of tea.

Week Three: Inspiration Analysis

Below I have looked at existing poster designs, where I have analysed the Fundamental design principles, Rhetoric devices used and the aspects of the poster that I believe I could utilise in my poster design.  

First I looked at poster designs that I were visually successful:

Notes: This poster can be seen as using the rhetoric device of metonymy or a metaphor, where the bottom of the bottle is used to imply whats in the bottle through the way that the tomato stalk is placed on top. In this, the bottle has been substituted to look like a tomato. The fundamental design principles used are Balance, where the main image in centre aligned and the poster itself is very symmetrical in its set out. You could say that there is a bit of scale use in this, where the 'tomato' is much bigger and focalised compared to the body copy, along with this we have perspective too, where from the way that this is set out, we come from a bird's eye view perspective. I like the way that this poster is conveyed, its cleverly done, with its use of imagery, gives a real authenticity to the product by implying that its the real thing in the bottle. 

Notes: This poster can be seen as using the rhetoric device of a metaphor, where the grate in the road is acting as though its a dish rack for dishes. You get a real feel the conditions and the dirty ground, where this is emphasised by the very white dishes. This metaphor then being justified by the tagline underneath 'too many people eat on the streets'. The poster demonstrates fundamental design principles such as contrast, perspective and depth and rhythm. Contrast is used between the white of the plates and the dirty, rusty dark tones of the grate and street, giving emphasis to the metaphor. Perspective and depth is used to create this angle that reiterates a real life situation, where people are generally walking the street and have to look down, or look back at the people on the ground who can't afford to live like those looking down, by using this perspective it makes it more real to the viewer, like they have seen it before, it draws on the emotion, guilt. Lastly, rhythm is used, where there are spaces in the grate left for more plates, so you get a sense that they are just going to keep filling up with plates and the issue will just keep continuing. 
   

Notes: This poster can be seen as using the rhetoric devices of satire and a metaphor, where satire draws attention to both particular and wider issues in society, as in this poster its saying oooh society loves to go on sushi dates and not worry about the world, so the audience who loves sushi looks at it, and then its not until they're closer that they realise that it isn't sushi its rubbish, almost like a shame on you. The metaphor comes into play with this, where the rubbish is making up the sushi to give emphasis on the idea and the tagline 'what goes in the ocean goes in you'. Fundamental design principles used are  scale and proportion and perspective and depth, where the sushi is a focal point, quite large on the poster and the perspective we get is as if we were sitting at a table and about to eat it. These techniques makes it a little more in the gut, because it feels as though that could be you sitting there about to eat that, rather than if we were looking up or looking down at it.  

  

Notes: This poster can be seen as using the rhetoric device of a metaphor, where the teacup is made out of a lime, which automatically tells the user that the they are selling some lime flavoured drink, and then further visual cues, like the mug and the tea string, tell us that it is most likely tea. The fundamental design principles used are balance and colour, where the image is in the center acting as the complete focal point, the colour also emphasises this by giving almost a glow around the cup as if it was holy or angelic, also the background colour is just a shade of the colour used in the lime, which gives even further emphasis to the point that its all about the flavour/product and nothing else. I like the way the artist has used an existing recognisable thing to create the mug, I could use this in my 'not our cup of tea' concept. 

I then looked into series posters, as we are designing two posters for the same concept/argument, I wanted to see how other designers achieve this without putting the same exact concept forward.

                                           
Notes: This series has the same look and feel to it, however the way in which they have set these two posters apart is through colour, subject matter and flavour. The colours used relate to what subject matter is presented, which is effective because straight of the bat the viewer will associate the colour with the flavour. Next the subject matter changes, just slightly, where they aren't completely different subjects, they come from the same family, still have associations. Finally, the flavours that are being promoted are different. Overall, you get the same feeling and you can see that these two posters are the same, but they are still communicating one concept in two ways. If I were to apply this to my brief, I would look at colours used, subject matter and maybe instead of flavour I would instead be communicating two different taglines. 

Notes:  Again this is very much the same, where the background colours are the same, the logo or text is the same and positioned the same, the only thing different in these posters is the subject matter, where we have a pig made out of bacon and a fish made out of salmon. So again, we see easily that these two go together as a series, but they are communicating two different flavours.  

Notes: These two posters use different colours, there taglines are positioned in different areas and the subject matter is different, however you still see that they match, and come from a series.  This is because they have a common denominator, the pleat texture. This is a effective way of showing how your posters connect without having them look identical. 

This advanced me in my project by enabling me to see numerous different ways to utilise FDAP's and Rhetoric devices to create a visually appealing and persuasive poster. 

Week Three: Colour Pallete

The psychology of colour, as it relates to persuasion is one of the most interesting- and most controversial aspects of marketing.  The reason being, most of today’s conversations on colors and persuasion consist of hunches, anecdotal evidence and advertisers blowing smoke about “colors and the mind.” In an appropriately titled study called Impact of Color in Marketing, researchers found that up to 90% of snap judgments made about products can be based on color alone (depending on the product).
 This can be applied to advertising done within posters.

Colours in Advertising

Red: This is a notoriously difficult colour to own in any sector, especially in its primary form. It's the colour of anger and danger, but also warmth and passion. And since it's also scientifically proven to increase your heart rate and raise your blood pressure, it's a bold choice to use it extensively.

Orange: Bright, fun and friendly, orange has a playful, childlike appeal and three very different brands claim ownership of it in their respective sectors.

Yellow: Positive, sunny and optimistic, yellow is energetic and eye-catching – and particularly effective for point-of-sale messaging, as it's proven to catch the eye quicker than any other colour.

Green: Green is an emotionally positive colour, signifying growth and rebirth and, of course, nature. It represents stability and endurance, but it also prosperity and abundance, and taken to the extreme it can be a colour of wealth and luxury; a real mix of meanings.

Blue: Blue is a cool, clear colour which has a trustworthy, dependable feel

Purple: Pale lavender has a nostalgic, sentimental feel, whereas richer, darker purple has a sophisticated tone often linked with royalty.

Black: Okay, so most brands use black in their branding some capacity – but used as the primary brand colour, it has a bold, powerful, classic effect that feels confident and sophisticated for more expensive products.

White: Simplicity and purity are the overwhelming associations with white in branding, and its brightness immediately catches the eye when used in signage.

From here I looked at colours that represent New Zealand and colours that represent Britain. 

Britain:                                                     New Zealand:

And also Patterns

Britain:

New Zealand:

This process enabled me to look at possible colours and patterns to use within my poster and what meaning they will present to the viewer, where I will attempt to draw on the pathos side of things through colour generating emotion.

Week Two: Visual Metaphors and Rhetoric Illustrations

During class, the concept of Visual Metaphors was brought to my attention, where Tulia spoke about semiotics, and how the manipulation of imagery creates meaning, thus creating a visual metaphor. Within this visual metaphor is where all the rhetoric devices and persuasion techniques that I have researched come into play. 

An example shown within the slideshow during class portrays how the meaning of an image on its own can mean one thing, and then once paired with another image, can mean a whole other thing.

Notes taken in class: 

This encouraged me to look at examples of visual metaphors to  get further inspiration for my poster design, where I found the following.

 A visual metaphor can be seen as one image or set of images used in place of another to suggest an analogy between the two images or sets of images, where verbal metaphors are represented visually.  This is an effective way to present information in a witty and visually intriguing way that isn't obvious or almost patronising with it obviousness and literal-ness.   

From this straight away I get a sense of 'trying to be something your not'

From this you get a sense of 'cutting loose' and freedom, where you are no longer a puppet to your master. 

Paint the town red. This one is very evident and easy to get, however still done in a fun and intriguing way, where the image says paint the town red without any body copy.

Through the use of the dove, which is universally known as peace and freedom, we automatically resonate with this image, adding the chains we get the further idea that their is no peace or freedom, that its chained up. Furthermore the shape of the dove and place names give the final clue as to who is chained up with no freedom. 

When looking for these visual metaphors, I came across an image that used rhetoric in a journal, which got me thinking about the cartoons that you see in the back of newspapers that depict the latest political issues in a rhetoric manner, and I thought that they would be prime examples for this project brief. So, I looked further into examples of them.

I looked into the humour and rhetoric of editorial cartoons within journalism, where the cartoons constructed these political arguments/issues using previously understood rhetorical elements, as well as humour theories of incongruity and superiority.

Examples found are as follows

I even managed to find some recents one's that look at the topic I am covering, The Flag Change. 

This advanced me in my project by seeing how previous artists/designers take political issues or general topics and present them in a non-literal way, where the issue or topic isn't 'told' to the viewer but rather 'exposed' or 'shown' to the viewer in a way where its almost 'deer in the headlights' and 'raw' and the viewer has to interpret it. This gave me insight to existing solutions, which I can draw inspiration from.