Stop .jpg

  

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While I don't like Norton I can appreciate this ad, without even using a picture we know what we're looking at. A dear memory, that you could protect with this new program. While I hate the messy affect given to the .jpg text I understand it, but then I just hate .jpg files in general so it's to be expected. I really enjoy the font choices at the bottom, they're formal but not intimidating. The graphic elements all work along with the bar that represents the stored data, it all works nicely and I can't think of anything I'd like to change, although ideally have it for another company.

Type Face

  

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This is probably one of my favorite typography book covers, this is one of the few that I would probably buy just for the brilliant cover. However, there are some problems. While I adore Darth Vader's face I have a few issues with the actual title. I wish it were more simplistic instead of using all of those elements since they already efficiently showed that it was a typography book. I like everything going on below that line though, and overall I can appreciate the work done with this cover.

Vintage Feeling

  

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The fun fact sort of feel is really brilliant, as is the sort of faulty tape. I really wish I liked this, the color scheme's fine and I really like the general idea. But overall it just looks really forced and jumbled to me, and I'm sure the designer would argue that it was about stuttering and that was the intention but honestly I don't think it really gives that affect. It just looks jumbled and unorganized. The sketchy tape at the top doesn't help either, it's completely different from the rest of the piece and the line "Elvis Presley used to stammer as a kid" doesn't really follow anything, it would have been much stronger just left a straight line on the bottom.

Faulty Wiring

  

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I adore this piece, it's a very simple work and the graphic is a typographic element. I love the way the umb in succumb is broken, faulty almost and just shows that if you go down this path it won't be nearly as glorified as the road to get there was. The overall font choice is neat but still very strong, and the light bulbs really give it the affect it needs to have. It is a more graphic element, but the font use in it really is what makes it strong.

Halloween Themed Ice cream?

  

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Ah Ben and Jerry's, always using such innovative ways to give a message. Here my favorite part is the typography Even the fonts that aren't dripping, like the Peace Love and Ice Cream at the left has the same feel as the ones that are. The way the fonts are all in different colors and coming off of the colored block like they were melting themselves leave a very Halloween feel to it. Overall I really like the work, the only problem I have is there are a few places where the legibility gets a bit questionable. 

Erasing Chance

  

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I love the relate-able look this gives off to me, I'm sure most if not all kids used to make pictures out of their eraser shavings. I enjoy the bold font choice that change has matched with the more sophisticated yet still in your face font with the message. The image overall has a nice hierarchy and to be honest I can't think of a single thing I'd want to change, except maybe just using a normal pink eraser since the blue seems a bit odd to me but even that isn't any kind of a big deal. The only other problem I really see is that the word looks like change at a glance, because when I think of erasing I think of changing something. But none of these are really big deals, I think it's fine just as it is.

Interrupting Logo

  

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This is probably one of my favorite ads of all time actually, I've seen lots of clever video advertisements for turning off your phone when you're in the movie theater but I have yet to see a poster that I like. I can understand this being that those advertisements are intended to play in the movie theater before a presentation, so there aren't as much of a need for posters and that's also probably why this poster isn't even for a movie theater. But it takes that familiar concept, the annoying phone call that we all loathe when we're in the middle of our favorite films. Especially if they're on cable, what if your grandmother's calling? The movie has about twenty minutes left and she'll probably have twenty five minutes worth of information to speak with you about. Well, Tivibu apparently has a solution for that. Moving away from the concept that I adore so much, it's actually a good layout. It brings a familiar logo and interrupts it, much like that phone call will be doing to your movie. It has a clever slogan in a strong enough text without getting confusing an get's it's message across. Brilliant really. The only problem I have with it is, well, sort of a bit deal. While I do adore this poster the first time I looked at it I had no idea why they repeated the ring ring, at least not until reading further. It just sort of looked like bad planning, though upon further investigation was brilliant. The thing is, if you just took 'The Lord of the Ring Ring Rings' by itself I'd be surprised if anyone got the idea. I wish the ring ring looked a bit more phone like, maybe had some movement behind it. But overall I adore this piece.

White Font, Chocolate Milk

  

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As I've said in the past, I really do enjoy pieces that take font and make them into the image they're portraying, in this case a jug of chocolate milk. I really like the combination of the fun font choice with the more refined graphics to create the final image as well. The message inside of the image is clever and funny, and it just over all works. I really do like the refined and yet playful affect the font choices and color scheme give to this piece. The only thing I'd say could have been done a bit better is the way the white letters cut off and overlap into other words. There are points where it gets a little bit fuzzy to read, not impossible but I take a little bit longer reading them, and if this were in a subway or anything like that it's long enough I might not have time to finish the entire message. Overall I think this is a brilliant piece though.

Graphics and Type

 

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I adore things like this, yes the thing that gets to you is the image but the way the type seems to be completely incorporated in the image is just as strong to me. The text is seamlessly

Under the Sea

  

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I really like the way this particular piece was gone about, from the beautiful ocean floor background to the suiting neon light typography element. It looks like the entrance to a fairly exclusive seahorse club, which is the look I'm assuming they were going for. The font is thin enough to still look professional while at the same simple enough to make up the neon sign. The only problem I really have with this piece is that the Night Life text is a bit western looking to me. Overall though I do really appreciate the piece, I can even enjoy it's color scheme being fun and yet very under water looking.

Neon Lines

  

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I do like the general idea behind this one, the neon lit up city, the grid, and the color scheme. I actually enjoy the layout as well, it has nice hierarchy as well as variety. The one thing I'm a little bit worried about is that it's almost a bit too busy. From the circles in the O's in the top word, to the lines at the bottom above the grid there's a lot that takes my eye away from some of the more important information. 

Beautiful White Space

  

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White space is something that I can have a real appreciation for, mostly because it's something I've never really been able to get a strong hold on myself. I think the idea behind this is brilliant, hands on because everything you're going to be eating really is finger food clever enough. I even like the typography used in the information, I think those diagonals are beautifully done and everythings well aligned. The two things that sincerely bother me about this piece are the bad photoshop job and the color scheme. While I adore the white space idea in this piece I don't enjoy the way it's achieved, the hands are incredibly choppy and awkward, you bhaven have one on the left that is unnessisarily cut off at an angle. If I could redo this piece I'd find a way to photograph hands making each letter and find a way to put them together like that rather than taking three or four pictures and trying to use them at different angles and force it to work. The color scheme bothers me because it's the polar opposite from what would make me think of sushi or anything asian at all. Looking at this I get the image of a sort of ocean breeze thing, maybe some finger seafood? I would have much prefered a brighter stronger warm color theme.

Angles and Letters

  

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Starting again with the positive I really enjoy the color scheme of this particular piece, the light greens with the white work nicely as a background with the black font in the front to stand out. Their font choice is a bit bland and boring to me, but works nontheless and they have a good hiearchy going for their piece. Though despite all these things I can't say I actually like the piece. It's very hard to follow, with all the varying angles especially. You have the background falling in one direction, the body text going in another, and even spring season at the top and the website at the bottom don't seem to follow any real guidance. If the piece had kept the body text and website straight on, and left the background and the title on that angle I believe the piece would have been a lot stronger.

Doodle Fest

  

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I'm going to start on this one by saying I absolutely adore this poster and the feel it has, there's plenty going on and sure it is as bit busy, but I'm not bothered by the fact that it is. There's a lot going on but my eye can still go from one point to another without getting too confusing. Well, for the most part. I do appreciate the hand drawn feel of this it feels like something I would have sketched in one of my high school classes only obviously much more professional, I enjoy the white space and I adore every font they've chosen to use. On the topic of font choice however, they've definitely broken the rule of three. I can count seven without really even trying to strain my eyes. It could be argued they did this to keep the hand drawn sketch affect, but I really don't agree with how they went about it if that's the case. There are much more productive ways they could have kept this look without using that many fonts. Another problem I do have with this is how the parts that I'm assuming are band names are all so drastically different, and sure they could just be logos but something tells me they aren't, and if they aren't then it really bothers me that you have some with illustration and others in weird fonts with outlines. They look more like decorations than important information and again this pulls in the over kill of the font, they could have arranged them differently and just used different colors to distinguish between information and decoration and gotten just as strong an affect.

Bright Colors and Legibiliy

Bright Colors and Legibility

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I like the general idea of the poster above, the hierarchy is beautiful, a all of the accent graphics are well done. I actually enjoy their font choice as well, it gives off a sort of circus appeal that I can appreciate. The one thing that truly bothers me about this particular piece is the way the red and the blue overlap, it makes it difficult for me to read the words that found between the two. I see where they're going with it and while I can appreciate the general idea I just don't think it works as well as they might think. The overlapping arrow and star also bother me since they are two predominant elements. I do like the way the word Festival was done in a way that it still connects as one word, unlike the way some of the others get separated such as 'eye' becoming E and Ye to me. All in all I do like this poster, there are just some readability problems and it's not something I could look at for long periods of time.. 

Clipping Masks and Band Posters

Music Festivals and Clipping Masks

Music festivals are something most people are very familiar with; an opportunity to see a large amount of one's favorite bands in the same place usually for a fairly lower price than one might pay to see them specifically. This does present a challenge from a design point however, from trying to figure out how to put all the information on one 11 by 17 sheet of paper while trying to keep an idea of how to still make it look good. There are a lot of very interesting ways to go about this, one of my personal favorites has to be the use of clipping masks. Taking text and putting it into a relevant object, it keeps the attention of the audience while still being visually appealing and including all of the necessary 

information.

  

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The above poster is a wonderful example of this process, though it's not exactly a music festival poster it has the same basic idea for it's performance. All of the text falls beautifully within the dancer's foot, except for the word 'with' which personally just seems very out of place. This poster is entirely composed of text, there isn't a standalone graphic and yet it's still a very strong poster. It makes you look twice at it, even with a fairly dull color scheme. It gets the point across more effectively than many other methods could have. I do wish that they hadn't cut off parts of the words in some places, I can't actually effectively read the bottom three lines to the extent I believe you should be able to. Over all however I think it's done wonderfully.