Jordan "Freeman" Hickin: February 2012

Friday, February 17, 2012

My essay for graphic design:

In my design I chose the word “Emphasis “ to be my focal point in bold, black letters with the first and last letters being the largest and the others, though of the same font, graduating from both ends to the smallest letter in the middle. Then I distorted them all and turned the whole design at about a 45 degree angle, crossing the lower horizontal third and intersecting the vertical left third. The right side of the word crosses the bottom third horizontal into the middle third section, from the midpoint to the far right.

My eye is then drawn to the secondary point to the word “Contrast”, which intersects the upper third horizontal line at the syllable “Con” and the first third left vertical intersects “Con” from “Trast” in a jack knife design. This invisible dividing line draws attention to the opposites of black and white and though I used the same font, I skewed the syllable “trast” to make it stand out more against the background of the gray words “repetition”.

My tertiary point is the word “Balance”. I used the same font for these letters except for the “A” which was done with the line tool so that it would become the fulcrum of the lever. Originally, I had placed the “heavier side” up, to create an enigma to bring attention to the fact that something appeared odd but would be hard to figure out. I decided to change it to have the “B”, or lighter side being up on a teeter tauter design. It also appears to be supporting the “E” in emphasis. I found that when I did this, it created more of a balance in my design. I also increased the size of the word “Balance” so it would appear to be strong enough to hold the whole design.

The next word, “Alignment” was placed in the lower right third at an angle against all the other words. The fact that the letters are in much need of alignment also brings attention to it and lends irony to the design.

The word “repetition” was put in a repeating circular design taking up most of the left horizontal two thirds and over the left and center third vertical lines even going off the page at the top and left side. I made sure it didn’t cross under the word “Emphasis” because it would have been a distraction. I chose a more subtle background in gray scale with a circular design because I wanted it to take up a lot of negative space. Then I could make it really big. It shows I like circles a lot. Circles and spirals are my favorite designs in nature.

The word “Flow” was printed in a flowing font and weaves around and under other more dominant features. I wanted this word to be subtle in gray, yet, have it take up the imbalanced negative space below the other features.