WEEK 6 | Project Posting

Don't forget this week's posting is simply a project post. Upload a jpeg of your poster and also your rationale before Friday, 11:59 p.m. Let me know if you have any troubles.

Cheers,
paul

Alexia Photojournalism Seminar- McFarland

On Friday, February 19th, I saw Tom Kennedy speak about photojournalism during the Alexia Photojournalism Seminar. I learned a variety of things during his speech; lessons that can benefit not only a journalism career, but also any career in communications.

Kennedy spoke about the 21 top rules that he has learned as a photojournalist, including:

1) Passion 2) Observation 3) Heart, not Size 4) Timing 5) Sniffing the Wind 6) Courage

7) Empathy 8) Build Trust 9) Beauty is Power 10) Value of Branding 11) Risk Taking

12) Focus 13) Realities Power 14) Existing 15) Inspiration 16) Pressure 17) Planning

18) Diplomacy 19) Listening 20) Tenacity 21) Collaboration.

Kennedy shared many of his experiences and his work in photojournalism from his time at National Geographic and various other publications. The images that he showed during the presentation were vivid, artistic, and some even graphic. I learned the importance of building trust with subjects in visual communications. Many of the photographs were able to be captured because Kennedy and his coworkers had established a relationship with their subjects. Kennedy showed an excerpt of a documentary done after a devastating earthquake in China, showing how visuals can evoke strong emotions in their audience. He spoke about the transition from print to digital, and how that altered the process of capturing at making public these images of world events. He emphasized the power of visuals, placement of images within a photograph, and the ability of the journalist to capture the reader by visual.

Kennedy stated numerous times the importance of passion about the subjects that one is photographing and how this caring will transfer into an image. His experiences and knowledge were vast and he shared much of his career during the seminar, giving insight into the importance of trust and relationship building, having a sharp eye, and having passion for the stories that one covers as a journalist. His speech was very inspiring and invigorating and prompted me to practice the 21 lessons that he had demonstrated throughout his career.

~Claire McFarland

Week 5 Gestalt

After reading the article on visual Gestalt Converse popped into my head. There usual ad's play off of the Rule of simplicity. Often using there name "converse" and a star in white on top of a black background. However, as I google an image to use as a visual I found this atypical ad for converse. It uses visual gestalt in this girls t-shirt which is cleverly made from a converse sneaker. It in some ways also uses the rule of repetition in use of the color pink through out this ad.

Zombies with Design Skills

I recently bought the original Left 4 Dead video game. There I stood in Best Buy, trying to figure out if I wanted to buy BioShock or Left 4 Dead, and I think I may have chosen Left 4 Dead because of its cover design. I'm standing there, with all these games in my hands and then I thought to myself, "Self, that's really kind of cool how they used four fingers on that zombie hand for 'Left 4 Dead', and then they used only 2 zombie fingers on Left 4 Dead 2.'

The use of the number four in place of the word "for" and the zombie hand with its fingers outstretched in a cry of pain and desire to grab you and tear you apart is all making use of the rule of figure/ground. You know that the 4 isn't a number but a word. That hand not only lends itself to both the '4' or '2,' but also that nasty, mean, exhilarating zombie that awaits you. You don't see the zombie, but you know its there.

Yup, the use of gestalt on this cover actually made me want to slay these zombies over the zombies of BioShock. Because if you're going to save a world, it better be world with good design.

Week 5: Rules of Gestalt | Llewellyn

Whenever I think of effective design, iPod advertisements are always the first thing that come to my mind. Apple uses the Rule of Simplicity so perfectly that sometimes I feel as though they created the term. The advertisements consistently follow the same template, varying only color and movement within the ads. The dancing silhouette with white earbuds is the consistent part of the ad which allows us to easily recognize the product. Simplicity allows the ads to have a wide range of variations. The silhouettes are such a simple thing to create, and the use of only one bright color really makes the movements of the silhouettes pop. This ad is very straightforward and recognized everywhere because of it's use of design elements that are both simple and fun.

Week Five | The Rule of Figure/Ground |Marte

Ok so I was looking for some posters and I came across this one. I have never even heard of this movie, however, it reminded me of the rule of Figure/Ground. The title is Labor Pains and the picture says it all.

You can actually see the illusion of a pregnant Lindsay and her skinny-self, which basically demonstrate and example of the rule. You can see two different things in one, or put things together based on different pieces of information, figures, etc.

Even though this poster is considered one of the worst ones made, i think it's creative because of the rule.

Week Five: Simplicity | Wettje

I chose the amazon.com and FedEx logos as an example of simplicity. For starters, nothing is simpler than just using your company name for your logo in black. And while it may seem bland sounding, the rest of the logo is where the beauty in it's simplicity is hidden. Amazon is known for having everything, so they used their logo to capitalize on that idea. The yellow arrow points from the a to the z, indicating that they have everything from A-Z. There was no need to spell that out, a simple arrow did the job perfectly.

In the FedEx logo, primary colors are used and once again it seems very plain. However, knowing that this is a shipping company, there are hidden elements that make it a very simple but powerful image. The gap between the E and the x create a white arrow that displays perfectly what the company does, it sends packages from here to there. These are just two examples of companies relying on simple connections and observations to make powerful statements about what they do.