When working on the anatomy of good visual design, A few observations came up —
1) Different types of publications/businesses have different target audience, who might have distinctive definition of “good design”.
2) Placing types in certain forms creates more emphasis and strengthen the message.
Success appeals: covers of business/tech publication are doing a great job in terms of attracting attention. They choose bulky fonts with concise wording. Their ideas are so easy to understand to the extent that some of them almost gives you the “in your face” kind of feelings. In these types of design, they use lines of sharp traces to define a strong concept of success. The color them is bright and saturated, resembling the character/personality of the cover story, as the focus(selling point) is the content of the story, yet, there isn’t too much personal appealing involved.
(Credit: Bloomberg.com, Forbes.com)
Old School Style: history can work for you, not against you. Given the 150 years of history, London Transport Museum has been doing an amazing job in seeking to conserve and explain the transport heritage of Britain’s capital city. Last september in London, the museum showcased a collection of vintage posters. The retro design style is an excellent method to make people remember stories about the Londoner and the underground. As years go by, when people look at these posters, they will remember their hearts and souls and something from long time ago and say” those were the days!
And the logo design they use for Google+ page is fresh, young, appealing, and oh so cute(obviously for younger generation.)
(Credit: theorange.com, ltmuseum.com.uk)
Good visual design should include, but not limited to the composition of color, hierarchy, and grid. The message has to deliver, the lingo has to be right. (In finance, for instance, if you are persuading a homemaker to buy some bluechip stock, you don’t brag about the RoR, you tell him/her that stock is gong to earn six months of grocery budgets. ) On top of grabbing attention, facilitating action, in order to grabbing attention and facilitating actions, good visual design has to go beyond grid and hierarchy, it also somehow has to be intimate, and brings out the unspoken quality in humanity. And, it stays with you.
My favorite visual design of the week is:
Right away, you will notice a combination of eye-catching typography with actor’s face. The word RED catches the eyes because of the bold fonts. The color scheme appears in red and black, along with the sharp angles of each collage , implying the tone of violence and danger. The viewer are immediately able to read the word and connected it with major actors in the movie.This in not the only poster/design I came across that is in collage. This is a great techniques it allows presenting a huge numbers of actors and illustrating the most interesting scenes in the movie. This poster also includes a great sense of hierarchy- names of the actor are on top section, the tag line of the movie is in the middle section, the time/date info is on the bottom section. This poster emphasizes contrast but at the same time, these contrast creates a new unity.
It is a strong visual after all, it pops and jumps into your eyeball. It speaks to audience. Viewers definitely would be interested to know what the movie is about.