Week 5 Blog Exercise - Design Success and Failure in Relation to Syntactical Guidelines

In this great design, there are many examples of the use of the syntactical guidelines. The table of contents seen above was designed in a way so that the viewer could easily identify which chapters would be located on which page. It was designed to be quickly read and easily understandable. One of the most striking things about this design is the strong use of positive-negative colors, which easily groups the page numbers with their chapters. The text box in the upper left corner has a sharpening effect on the whole image, since the text and page numbers are imbalanced on the rest of the two pages. The image succeeds because the design is simple and straight to the point. When someone is turning the book to the table of contents, they want to find the page they're looking for as soon as possible, and I think this design is suited well for that task.

This design, on the other hand, is not as effective with its use of the guidelines. There is an overabundance of stress on the page. While balance is present, it is not easily readable. There are larger icons spread around the page which are not labeled and are not recognizable as to their function. The buttons are not grouped in a way that is easy to use and intuitive. The colors are not interesting, and while they give a sense of friendliness for children, their contrast is either not enough, or too much.

Blog Exercise 4: Visual vs. Symbolic Language

--reports a very dark message
--ominous figure looming in the background
--very old looking
--hiding something
--behind closed doors
--silhouette unidentifiable figure, could be anyone
--looking through a door into a place you don't want to to
--framed compositionaly
--labeling of door suggests simplistic design
--English words present

The image is a square, framed in on the clouded and foggy-looking window of an unemployment office. As seen through the window, there is a figure of what looks to be a young male, facing the door and waiting for you to enter. Across the center of the window, the words "Unemployment Office" have been placed in order to confirm your location. The letters are suggestive of an older era, and seem to be a clear brown plastic in a sans-serif typeface.

Week 2!

Representational
--The representational part of this image is the leaf-like texture located inside the running legs. It is an instantly recognizable representation of a leaf and its vascular structure.
--Since the image is representing a cardiovascular association, the vascular veins in the leaf are representing respiration and blood flow within the pair of legs it has been placed.
--It relates to the other two levels because it is simply a representation of leaf structure, but its placement has been purposefully chosen to make the viewer make the connection between the green plant structure and the human body in reference to the cardiovascular system.

Abstraction
--The legs in this image represent the abstraction. They have been dwindled down to the most basic structure that could be identified as legs. Their role is to make the connection so that the viewer knows it is a human body part.
--Without this abstraction of legs, the viewer would not be able to see that the image is concerning the human body and its parts.
--The abstraction is not only of a pair of legs, but a pair of running legs. This further reinforces the idea of cardiovascular health.

Symbolism
--The words on the page are considered symbols. Without these particular letters which represent meaning in our culture, it would be much more difficult to understand what is going on.
--In this image, the viewer will most likely look to the pair of legs, think about them for a second without fully understanding it, and then look to the words for explanation.
--Without these words on the page, the reader would most likely be confused as to the purpose of this advertisement. They clarify the image and also provide the reader with more information as to what the image is trying to propose.