Design Success and Failure in Relation to Syntactical Guidelines

SUCCESS
    This ad for a musician is a great example of balance, symmetry, use of positive negative space, grouping, and leveling.
   The first thing you notice about this ad is that the left mimics the right in almost perfect vertical symmetry. Both arrows start from the top corners and lead your eye down to the the third arrow that leads you right back again. This piece had a simple black and white color relationship that uses white as a negative space to allow the art to pop off the page as it contrasts with the sharp black. The overall design has information grouped into three locations. The first arrow starts at the top left, where your eye is trained to begin on any page, then as you fallow the group you reach the second arrow. This arrow stars where the last left off and guides you through the artists name and onward to the last arrow group which takes you back the the bottom center. Finally the piece is completely leveled. It is centered on the page, there is a huge & symbol denoting the center of the page. and the rest fallows in vertical symmetrical balance.

   FAILURE:
     This web design fails in its ability to create balance, sharpening, use of positive negative space, abstraction, and grouping.
   First off the balance is not centered around any horizontal or vertical line. This is not saying that the design must aligned to the direct center to be level. The image of the duck is one of the main reasons that leveling fails. This image offsets the main header and leaves the design leaning left. The left links create a negative space that is repeated without order or interest. Each box sits on top of another and the yellow creates a pull into the other boxes grouped to the bottom of the design. The abstracted duck does not entice or connect with the viewer. It displaces and creates unnecessary space. It is not grouped. Each element is either left aligned or centered. This creates an confusing and nonuniform concept. Your eye starts with the centered items then moves over to the left columns then finally off the page entirely.

Visual vs Symbolic Language

REPRESENTATIONAL
men, hats, sidewalk, coats, black, white, walls, line, cars, corrosion, suit, ties, boarded walls,

COMPOSITIONAL STRUCTURE
black bar fading into right corner, white barricade on one side, grey freedom on the other, black with white spotted bar, rectangles bordering either side, lateral in nature,

SYMBOL
poverty, run down, desperation, sickness, poor, keep out, loneliness, The Great Depression, 1930's, government inefficiency, unemployment, male workforce, order, peace, waiting, hoping, without hope, confusion, decay, fear, sorrow

VERBAL REPLACEMENT
This picture is of lost, confused, and desperate men. There are over 600 of them standing in black and white business suits facing the bottom of the waiting two by two for some kind of relief from their lack of work. Large boarded white walls barricade one left side of the photo and a decaying sidewalk takes up the other as it recedes into a hazy atmospheric mist. It looks as if its morning and 15 old fords are neatly packed like sardines parallel to the starved men. Some men are standing proud, while others seem upset and distressed.

Meaning Assignment 2

Representational

   The native american man is the center of attention. His photo takes up at least a fourth of the composition and shows detail in face and ethnic style. He gazes at you with pride, strength, and honor. This element grabs the views attention and sends it strait to the center. He creates a symbol of respect while also calming the viewer. He relates to the other elements by the abstracted coloring and "red man" stereo typing, also the native people were well known for being extremely spiritual people as there is an eye placed onto his forehead. Also the is weaving pattern that can be seen as the background and even on the mans face. This could possibly be relation to a native american decorative pattern.

Abstract 
   Some of the main abstractions to this design are the color change on the native american man, the circular bike wheel that adorns the man like a halo, and the "third eye" placed in from the the mans forehead.
   The color change of the native american keeps the overall printed colors to a minimum and allows for a constant blue, black and orange color palate. This keeps the design constant, as the color scheme is a vital aspect to the overall appeal of the design. This also may symbolize the stereo typed "red man" stereo type of the native american race and culture. This is less likely sense Red Man is generally a derogatory term however, I believe this should not be over looked due to the blatant use of the color red.
   Second is the bike wheel. It is highly abstracted as the spokes of the wheel are turned into a alternating diamond pattern. This aspect is key to this design because it utilizes a circle placed in the center of a page which grabs the attention of the receiver and focuses it inward toward other design elements.
  The on of the final abstracted elements is the bike gear third eye. It presents a cue to the bike wheel abstraction but also slyly is the key element to the third eye that adorns the man's forehead. This aspect is the center of the image and therefore designed as a main focus of the image itself. As your eye catches the eyes of the man it then notices a third eye (placed on his for head) then finally realize the iris is in fact a gear. (hence the bike film festival)

Symbol
   The few symbols that are picked up in this design are the native american, the eye, the color, and the bike wheel. These elements help the receiver to better understand what the film is about, what the subject matter is, and the genre the film will be.
   The native american can be interpreted as a symbol of peace, honor, and pride. Sense he is the main focus it relates to the text and the overall plot or direction of the film.
   Next is the bike wheel. This element is not only meant to symbolize a bike but the placement also hold meaning as well. The wheel is placed directly center to the mans head. This could symbolize a type of religious orientation or perhaps the wheel is a halo to symbolize holy or divine.
   The eye is a very generic symbol for sight, but when the eye is placed onto the forehead it begins to take a more metaphysical connotation. Sense this is the case we can interpret the eye as a "third eye" or having spiritual sight. This element cues the viewer that this may be a religious or spiritual film about native americans.

SYMBOL

As I walked down to the market a I noticed a sign stating that a school was locate near by. In A Primer of Visual Literacy  author Donis A. Dondis writes that symbol requires ultimate simplicity of an abstracted image. In the image of the two people walking we can see that one is a boy and one is a girl. They are both headed in the same direction and that they seem to be caring a bag of some kind. While I'm not sure that this symbol communicates the message written (SCHOOL) effectively it does symbolize two busy people close by. As a driver I would see this and be on the lookout for people in a hurry possibly dangerously crossing the street.

ABSTRACTION

Here is an abstraction of a gull that I found on a shopping bag. Dondis states in her section on abstraction that a visually abstracted object is "a simplification of a more intense and distilled meaning."(A Primer of Visual Literacy pg. 75) Here is a an artists portrayal of a gull. While the actual gull that he saw may have been flying over the Pacific at sunset on after a long summer day at the beach, missing feathers, and wet and dirty, the message that he sends to us is that of a gull cheerfully flying, with a yellow beak, and outlined in black. While many would argue this does not match the artistic styling of Picasso I would argue that together both pictures lye in the field of abstraction.

REPRESENTATION

R

Here we have a representation of a car that I saw this morning. According to A Primer of Visual Literacy the closest thing to actually viewing a three dimensional object in direct experience is a decent photograph of one of that experience. Here is a photograph of a car. This photograph is a direct representation of the actual car that I viewed outside my house as I walked past it. While you will not be able to see this just like I did this morning this photo is one of the closest visual experiences you can have to mine.  Dondis states in here definition of representation, "The photograph is the most technically dependable means of representing visual reality."(A Primer of Visual Literacy, pg 69)