graphic design

Line (Bird Flight, Gina Mikel)

Line is being used in this poster to show flight. The bird is bearly outlined, all the emphasis is on the wings and tail. The movement of the line gives just enough detail to understand the flight of the bird.











Color (Romeo and Juliet, Luba Lukova)

Color is being used in this poster to reference blood and to draw the eye of the viewer. Since the poster is primarily black and white the use of the color red really stands out and brings attention to the text and the blood being shed. The color used here is effective and makes this poster powerful.








Scale (The Abuse You Yell..., John Fisher)

Scale is being used in the poster to show that abuse is passed on in the family through generations. By repeating the "yell" in the form of the mouth and scaling it down into eachother the viewer understands that the abuse comes from abuse and that it goes back in time.

Syntactical Guidelines Examples

In this logo the artist uses a number of syntactical guidelines, but overall creates a confusing design. The artist uses negative and positive in both the shark logo and the scuba flag, but these elements are competing. Additionally, there is stress created within the shark logo, but again the scuba flag works against this stress and creates a confusing design.



Paul Rand uses a number of syntactical guidelines in this movie poster. Rand uses positive negative in the text, image and the grouping against the plain background. He uses stress and sharpening to create a direction and motion. Finally, he uses grouping of objects to create a focal point.

Fine and Applied Art Object

I feel that Leonardo da Vinci's studies of the human body are prime examples of objects that represent both fine and applied art. The purpose of these studies were to record aspects of the human body in fine detail. As Leonardo did recorded the body he expressed his findings through his own personal style. These drawings have been praised for both their beauty and for their accuracy.

In the example to the left, Leonardo recorded aspects of the skeleton. He represents bones in small groups and in larger working systems. He also recorded notes on how the skeleton functions and other observations to give even more detail.

Although Leonardo did not consider these works as art pieces, his status as a great artist makes these works a visual record of his process, aesthetics and style.

Visual Thinking Research

This was the more difficult of the two puzzles to solve. We both just went about drawing over the lines to figure out the solution. Since there were so many puzzles, it was a little tedious. We both found solutions to 6&7 pretty easy.

The cat puzzle was pretty easy to figure out. One person got 16 while the other person got 18. We then discussed the solution until we both saw 18, but looking at the solution I guess we were both wrong because there are 20 triangles.

Feature Channels and Visual Search

American Automobile Accidents

University of Washington

This spread shows the number of car accidents in a year. At the top the densly packed chart shows the overwhelming amount of accidents in a year. The red in the chart is then used to bring your eye down to the corresponding chart with the number of fatalities in a year. Within this chart the shape, color and spatial grouping help the viewer to recognize the different vehicles. Additional charts flank the right side of the page with cooler colors that show age and gender. These like the other charts are distinguished by color and spatial grouping.