Visual Techniques

Visual Techniques Present: Intricacy, Unity, Symmetry, Balance, Complexity, Stasis, and Flatness.



This vintage Charlie Chaplin movie poster can be flipped either way, it is almost symmetrical but not quite. What makes this poster asymmetric is the Charlie's hair. The poster view that is shown, represents the full-body view of Charlie. The other way is just Charlie's head with his top hat. Flatness is a visual technique also present in this movie poster, as there are only two tones without depth. This poster also uses subtlety, stasis, understatement, economy, and simplicity. Stasis as the poster is without movement. Subtlety as the focus of the poster is a very simple cutout with minimal detail. Again, the simplicity of the poster ties in with the understatement visual technique.

Contrast

Good Contrast: I believe this is some type of marketing campaign, though I'm not sure for what. Though the marketing message is unclear, the designer has used contrast well. By gray scaling the other goldfish, the central goldfish vibrantly stands out with it's glittering orange scales. Even if the goldfish in color had been placed off to the right or left side, it's stark contrast would have drawn the viewers eyes immediately towards it. This is also similar to Ware's Pop-Out Effect. Additionally, there is a slight contrast of size. The gray scaled goldfish seem to be smaller than the central goldfish. This is partially due to the fact that they are turning away from the camera, while the viewer can see the entire profile view of the central, vibrant goldfish.



Bad Contrast: Here the graphic designer has used the contrast of color, size, and typeface. The functionality of this design is poor, as the viewer must strain to read the words. The word "design" seems to stand out the most, as it has the darkest and boldest font of the four words. The script-like attributes of the words "of" and "contrast" contrast significantly with the bold, capitalized words "principles" and "design". This is an example of were contrast has been used to the extreme and in a way that hinders the design and functionality. The viewer can be confused by too many variations of contrast, and the underlying message can be lost.

Implied Motion in Design

This first image is of a woman jogging on the beach. This image represents a high level system of perceived motion. The woman's form is recognized first as opposed to her jogging motion. Another motion is cue is that the woman is moving to the right of the image frame. The camera follows the woman's path as she jogs along the beach, this is due to relative movement. The camera anticipates her movement and allows enough room for her to catch up.



I'm guessing that the second image is a sports poster. This is an example of low level motion perception. This is due to the fact that the motion of the balls is seen first as opposed to the object itself. The motion of the balls are seen by the blurred trail that is left behind them. The athletes in the image are also blurred which implies movement. Further, the color of the balls differs from the luminance of background. This is due to the First-Order of perceived motion.