Hierarchy with Typography
Hi.
1_WEIGHT
I quickly made the decision that the title of the event “The Drue Heinz Lectures, as well as the dates of the shows, were the most significant information in this set.”
I mostly played with the weigh of the type that I wanted to deemphasize; Is it more unified with high contrast in weight (light), or when the emphasis is noticeable but not jarring (regular)? Also, should the price be emphasized?
Can emphasis work in reverse? In this set, the eye has to decide whether to look at the larger type, or the minority. This tension makes this set more exciting that the latter, more straight forward set. With high contrast in weight, the effect is jarring enough that it just might work.
2_LINESPACING
I really felt the limited on this exercise. Under the constraints of type size, I wasn't capable of implementing a space system within the separate plays, and my iterations are nearly identical. Various of the fact, “Drue Heinz Lectures” is too close to the top of each page, moving the eye towards “Five Literary evenings.”
3_TWO-FLUSH-LEFT-MARGINS
Im not sure why I chose to work with such large tabs, I guess I wanted to see if I could make something fun, instead of just emphasizing the dates again. When working on the third one I intended to create a strikingly symmetrical piece. I put the second margin on the paper’s bifold, and adjust the first margin so that the dates would end adjacent to the 2nd margin, thus you get a line down the bifold. It makes me think of ribs.
4_THREE-FLUSH-LEFT-MARGINS
Being that I completed most of the first four exercises in one work session, I was feeling really jittery by this point, and I wanted to make something that was visually curious. That aspect comes through on the first iteration here. It is far from communicative, but it still makes sense. The margins in the third were more similar to the second, but (under Tamar’s crit is class), I extended the gap between the dates and the plays.
5_COLOR
I explored emphasizing the title and dates by pulling them forward, and then by receding the less significant information. Curiously enough, if the methods are combined into a pattern of red, blue and then black, the black actually pulls forwards (contrast of value trumping contrast of hue). I speculate that the red would skyrocket off the page if I made the black type blue.
Color study: blue sits atop (emphasizes but doesn't pull), yellow emphasizes but reseeds, and purple emphasizes and properly stands off of the white.
These (ones above) pull the eye to the intended place, but it ain’t looking any where else (too strong).
I like these two. As the case on every color exercise ( the type included), it was a tedious dance to work with the hierarchal structure I had already developed. The goal for these was to pull the eye towards “Drue Heinz lectures,” but also let it flow throughout. Though both do this, the first is more sensible in that “Drue Heinz lectures,” is colored, and your eye goes there first.
Haha, it looks cool to have each of these next to one another… The leftmost one was the first of these I made, and I see it as the tmost succesful. It utilizes break in form, rather than sticking to the preexisting form of the type.
6_WEIGHTS-AND-SIZE
Interesting…
These are decent. In class I saw that I never scaled anything down, and didn't show much restraint in the use of the whole page. Negative space is the most significant aspect of mental organization, for the reader… This is funny because while I moving separate texts block around on a letter size (analog), I didn't have enough space to really do anything so I scaled everything down and worked with smaller text blocks. Of course, when I found something I liked, I scaled everything back to full page on the computer… I guess thats an example of how I was sort of set in my ways; thinking about what I wanted it to look like rather than how it would communicate.
After coming in late, Prof. Crowley showed a few process pdfs of past students. What I noticed, and currently has me inspired, is that many of them didn't change their copy too much from what they had developed…
7_MAKING-SOMETHING
I researched each of the lecturers and saw that they are all successful, well renowned authors. Two have published pulitzer prize wining books, and each centralize their literature around a central theme. I went through a stack of 1980s national geographic I have on my desk, and scanned images I believe embody some of these themes. I had planned to collage them, but being that hierarchy requiers simplicity, I will probably pursue that direction.
I sized down most of the type and am trying to utilize the negative space. I took from the diagonal color stripe (now parallel to the slope of a univers 7), which I thought worked well, and then played with the text so that it follows. It looks nice, at least on the pink, but when I put it on these photos (which I chose because of similar slopes).
In lab on Wednesday (sept 20th) I made the leftmost iteration. I recognize the lacking communicative values, but I liked it. To answer the preceding problem (text on busy photo), I played in photoshop with the inver tool. I spent way too much time iterating in this style, as it is too busy for a project about communicating hierarchy through simplicity.
This started as an exercise of scale, but ended up leading to an iteration. I started with a zoom in of a coal miner , so that he occupies around half of the page. Every time I zoomed out, the frames felt more and more natural. Eventually, I changed the type point from 14 to 12 point, and really play with the negative space.
I developed a hierarchy system of color that matched the worker’s helmate and jacket… had some fun placing the type so that it rotates around the big mining machine. I eventually went back and worked on the original zoom with the 12 point type, it felt much more breathable. I printed the right two to bring into class on Tuesday (26th).
One big problem is that the miner now carries the association of being “Drue Hines,” and the lectures now carry the association of being all about mining. This subject matter may be too specific, although it certainly relates to Richard Rosco’s focus on vulnerability in working class males.
Crit
At the beginning of class Vickie said that we had to choose one iteration to pin up. I put these three up on a wall and stepped ten meters away. I had to choose one, but I couldn't see the difference. In some sort of metaphysics, I knew the rightmost poster was the worst of this selection, and that the leftmost poster of the miner was the best, but I didn't know why. So, I pinned up the leftmost one.
In crit, my poster was deemed ineffective, so I suppose my intuition was right. I got heavy criticism, which was good. Vickie saw it as problematic to use a literal representation of the plays, because it only applies to one. Some else said that the image is too low quality, hazy and uncommunicative. Sharon didn't have a problem with the image, but rather with how I treated the typography. It was too busy and lacked hierarchy, I agree with that. I brought up the poster of the miner, and that didn't fair much better.
After crit, I talked to my Lab T.A., Sara, and she mentioned how my posters lacked a single emphasis, and I understood what that meant. I took time and restraint to even out the emphasis on these posters, but I suppose I was really just making this flat. Here is a poster I enjoy for an old Western Film, the hierarchy is obvious.
One distinction between the poster for Stagecoach and the above posters is that “Stagecoach” meshes with it’s illustration, because the illustration is most important feature of this poster. I talked to Vickie in Lab after crit, she emphasized that the way I handled the type around the image- compromising hierarchy for it, emphasizes image too much. The text is more important.
Talk with Andrew; macro hierarchy is working, but is not effective because of the way I handle it. Also, what are the connotations of the image? The color pallet is a little obvious. Conclusion; this image is not going to be in the final, but I am going to continue to work with it until I resolve it as best it can be.
Reworking_hierarchy_COLOR
After setting each of the lecture blocks an equal vertical distance apart, I attempted to develop a more innovative color scheme, but found myself limited by the saturated yellow jacket and red helmet on the miner. If the type did not utilize either red or yellow, and especially if neither, then the miner in the image carried way too much visual weight. I found this color scheme (bottom left), that utilized a light and low blue to recede amongst the original saturated yellow and red.
Text blocking
Wow, this is nice. I put the blocks into a simple column, and used color, indentations, and type weight to emphasize the dates. When I met with Vickie, she really liked this, the leftmost one specifically. She said I she didn't mind the image here, and suggested I adjusted the leading in the lecture section, as well as explore more micro differentiation.
Translating to 11x17
I made a few shifts…. Juliana asked me for crit on her poster, and once I saw her method of hierarchy, I couldn’t not copy her. I had looked up the lecturers, so having known how their reputation, it would be incorrect , to highlight the dates over their names, as I had for most of the project. I also made the decision to get rid of the indentation, because it was a surplus method of distinction. The color and weight were well effective. This improved the simplicity and unity if my poster.
FINAL
I haven’t looked at this poster in a week and it still looks solid, so thats a good thing.
I’m satisfied with most of final the decisions I made on this poster. First off, the choice to use one column worked well, and it is well placed for composition purposes. The second is choice is pushing “The Drue Heinz Lectures” beyond the gridline of that column. Instead I centered it, with the goal of unifying text, page and image by creating an implicit margin around the whole spread.
In review, I’m not satisfied with the color decisions I made in the typography. The red and yellow are too unified with the image. Raising the saturation would pull the eye towards the information more definitively, and towards the poster as a whole.
Alternate Attempt
At the end of this project I was frustrated. I had thought a lot about how I , and I had definitely been pushed in a certain direction, and that had me feeling mad. Yet after the first crit, I was surprised to find my professors quite receptive to criticism. They seemed to be concerned that the finals all looked similar- especially with concern to the hierarchy systems. Andrew was concerned enough to fill most of our lab period with a discussion on the project. I voiced that after the Tuesday crit, rather than struggling between designing for myself of the client, I felt like I was designing for the class, fitting into a mold that could get me by. I was sitting next to my friend Christin, who’s project had been the most successful of the whole, even though she didn't like it, pointed out that it wasn’t “really fair” to “be mad” at “the way the project went.” In reflecting on that, she has a point.
To be honest, I didn't push myself as much as I could have on this project. I treated the first four stages of this project as exercises, rather than stages of making a poster. That was not exactly an error, I was still learning, but I took the same approach to steps 5 and 6, and that is where the foundation of poster really should have began development.
So, I tried to actually make something I enjoyed, that met the goals of the project. That was more arduous and frustrating than I had expected.
