Design Presentation

For the good design I chose the movie poster done for the film "Jaws." Directed by Steven Spielberg, and was released in June of 1975.

Elements of Good:

When you read/view something you're most likely to do it from top to bottom. When you throw a huge shark into the mix things tend to go out of order. From what I've noticed, our eyes tend to shift straight to the largest or the most contrasting color. This poster does an excellent job at both of those things. With the shark being the center of attention, and the largest part of the poster, your eye automatically veers to it. Which gives you an indication that the movie is most likely a horror/suspense. Then you eye notices something red and contrasting above the shark. So, you move your eyes to the red shapes. You then learn the title of the film, "Jaws." Now the shark is starting to make sense. You have taken in the two more noticeable elements of the poster so you think, "It's time to look around the rest of it to see what's going on." You look down from the font, and notice there is a young women swimming. From what you can tell she hasn't a clue that her life may soon be over. The poster plays one of suspense film's greatest tricks- a sneak peek into the victim's future. Another element I found effective was the use of what I believe to be continuity. Where the water is cut off on the edges and berson who has been to the ocean or a large body of water would assume that the water continues on both sides of the poster, if the poster was real life. As the viewer of the poster I automatically feel terrified this woman will not make it out alive.

An important part of this design is the fact that it says that much with only four letters. That is the main reason I qualify it as a good design. I also enjoy the use of negative space surrounding the shark and woman.

For the bad design I chose the movie poster for the film  "The Devil's Mistress." Directed by Orville Wranzer, and was released in March of 1966.

Elements of Bad:

If there is one thing I hate about design is an abundance of clutter. And when it comes to visual design you should try to portray what you want/need without so much type. I can see why they need all of the type on this movie poster because, while it looks interesting, It isn't telling the story. It looks like your typical B-movie horror. Of course, that is what this is, but couldn't they aspire to be something more. While I am against women being oversexualized in any business, especially design, the look of the woman does fit with the lengthy verbiage used on the poster, I don't find it fair to pin that down. This hasn't been horribly done. the images flow from a loving couple to her about to murder him. I am still not a huge fan of the amount of type and the little amount of negative space is used.

Contrast, Balance, Harmony

This is a self portrait by photographer Edward Honaker. Some of you may have seen his self portrait series online. He created these to showcase how depression feels for him along with anxiety.

The Highlights and shadows of this portrait are very prominent through the middle section the way they are contrasting each other. With him slanding in the lake in a black suit and the bright reflection of the water it creates a bright contrast. 

The shadows and highlights in the grass section create what's known as a texture. The way the light bounces off the grass gives our hands a feeling of a prickly sharpness. and the way the light reflects off of the surface of the water it makes it look glossy. The way the prickly grass and the glossy water interact it gives the portrait a sense of disease. like the grass is encroaching on Edward and is going to take over. 

The way I interpret this size of the objects in the portrait are: that Edward is looking out to the body of water and it seems the way things are angled (the camera is positioned above him) he is much smaller and less in control compared to the body of water. And the size of the grass around him is overwhelmingly taller than him which makes me think that the world is closing in on him and he cant deal with what he is feeling. 

I like how the circular shapes are mirrored in the picture. with the larger body of water mirrored by the smaller one. and the white balloon mirrored to the black one. It makes me feel that whats behing him is dark and while he is trying to deal with what's going on in front of him, the world behind him is dimming and approaching.

All in all, I think this portrait does showcase a lot of contrast and balance. It could be showing harmony in a way. In the fact that this is an all around depressing portrait.