Critiqued Design at its Finest

A+ in Design Hierarchy

This anonymous poster is very pleasing to the eye. Some people are not aware of who or what anonymous is and this poster would intrigue an individual to want to know more. The poster is visually designed well based on the design hierarchy. The poster makes you look from left to right being that anonymous is blown up on the page but off the left going off the poster even. The words on the right make you look from the bottom right up to the top right which makes the eye wander the poster, making it exciting. The font is also a good choice, giving off a serious vibe. The colors black and red help the poster stand out and also contribute to the serious vibe. The use of only two colors is nicely done, and was not overdone. Black and red create enough emotion in this poster and no further colors are needed. The facial expression of anonymous is genius. The smirk and raised brow give off the impression that something is quirky about the idea behind this poster. It helps the reader to want to know more about this “freedom forever” poster. I would like to know what vendetta this guy has out for society.

This movie poster that is advertising “The Dark Knight Rises” is very well designed. The way all the tiny bats are a part of batman’s cape and disperse at the bottom is clever. The two colors that are used yellow and a light red were good choices. They help the black batman stand out. The placement of batman being in front of the yellow moon draws the eye straight to the center which is a good focal point. His placement and the way the bats are flying away in the night in front of the moon is an intelligent way to represent the movie title. Batman is “rising” into the dark night. The small print at the bottom listing the actors involved in the movie should be at the bottom where they are. The main focus is batman, who is centered where he should be. The hierarchy of design is perfect here in this poster. The font used is bold and stands out. It gives off a dark and mysterious vibe. This poster is very well constructed. The image is large and centered where all the focus goes. Batman is large enough to bring attention to the poster but not overly big to where there is plenty of room in the margins.

This poster is a combination of well-designed graphics and a strong statement. “People ignore design that ignores people.” This poster pretty much says, “Hey look at this poster because now that you are reading it, I caught your attention, making this poster graphically intriguing.” If you didn't notice the poster and simply walked by it that would mean it was ignored/overlooked.  The use of the eyeball being in the poster really represents the statement perfectly. Your eyes are being drawn to the eyeball. The use of two colors, blue and gray, is not too much but just right. The blue on top of the white, black, and gray (all neutral colors) really helps it to stand out. The middle finger is also eye-drawing. From afar, if people did not know what the statement read, the eyeball and middle finger would attract enough attention to be looked at. A good design attracts the eye, which is exactly what was done here. When searching for posters, this one really stood out to me. Ironically, the statement fit perfect for what the assignment was. The font is pretty basic and small, but most likely done on purpose. The poster is about the graphics. The statement at the bottom is meant to be smaller than the graphics.

This poster caught my eye immediately, especially after a discussion that our class had on the first day of class. This perfectly designed symbol was stolen and turned into the most well-known symbols for the worst reasons. The poster displays that the direction of this geometrically perfected design, makes a huge difference. The poster portrays a very important topic about a miserable time in history when Jews were slaughtered. The message is strong and visually portrayed well by making a very distinguished difference in the way the symbol was changed. By making the two different versions a different color and on opposite sides of the arrow perfectly spaced apart, it visually displays what is said on the poster. “Direction is important,” stands out underneath the symbols because it is written in white over a brown background. The poster uses minimal color and very simple, but works in its favor. The poster utilizes its space well with a perfect balance of “white space” and graphics. There is room for more, but less it better in this poster. It is not cluttered which helps the eyes to draw attention to the center which then directs the eye left and right, then down putting two and two together.

This poster advertising a play is assumed to attract the ladies more so the men (not saying the men won’t be dragged along by the women to attend). The huge bomb with the lipstick kiss is the focal point of the poster. It takes up most of the space. The text on the right side of the poster is a little bit too crammed to the edge of the margin, but it works. The way the text is in different directions makes the poster dynamic. “Venomous” is a big, bold font and spaced out to match the size of the bomb, which is pleasing to the eye and displays in writing what the play is going to be about. The information about the play is displayed in a normal sized font that reads normal from left to the right so the reader can easily access the information. That font is different sizes which makes it fun to read. The use of only two colors, pink and yellow, helps the poster to stand out and not lose the main focus which is the bomb. The play is assumed to be a fun, mysterious, drama by looking at the poster. A bomb is about to go off and it is kissed by a woman, which makes me wonder who wouldn't want to go see this play?

Award for Worst Designed Poster goes to....

This poster advertising the play “Annie” is poorly designed in my eyes. The font in the center which provides information about the play is very small, plain, boring, and just plopped in the center. There is no creative way to display the information and it is not visually pleasing. The information is most likely not even read by many who read it. There are also no graphics that describe what the play is about. There are music notes at the top but they just let the reader know the play is a musical. The date of the play is just thrown at the bottom is very small font. That information is kind of important and there is so much white empty space in-between the body of text and the date of the play. The font should be made bigger to eliminate some of that empty white space. The body of text could be made bigger as well. It is straining to the eye to try and read what it said. The use of different fonts at the top is a nice touch, but the rest of the poster does not make good use of all the fonts there re to choose from.

This poster is hard to make out what it is even advertising. The white font is so hard to read and can barely make out what it being said. The background of the poster was a bad choice. The name of the play “Bad Brains,” could have been represented with a picture of a brain and not a blown up design of what looks like could be a brain. The words are easily lost with this design. The colors chosen do not helps the words to stand out. The logo that is at the bottom left hand corner of the poster is lost and barely visible. The poster screams “too busy.” The font used for “bad brains” is a fun font, but could have been made a bit bigger. The poster makes the reader lost and confused. The space could have been utilized better by making words bigger so they are easier to read. The background consists of dark colors, so the least that could be done is making the words bigger so that they are somewhat visible. There are too many colors used. I cannot tell whether it is the design used that makes everything unreadable, or the dark colors in the design. The brainy looking background could have been a light brown or some other light color so that the words are visible.

This poster is a little bit too busy. There are too many fonts and sizes that make the reader lost. There is no design hierarchy of design here at all. The information and statistics could have been presented better by using some sort of graphic to give the poster some dynamic. The logo at the bottom right of the poster is so small, it is almost invisible. The number of fonts should have been limited to two, not four or five. The statistic is scattered but was attempted to keep some order of direction with the use of arrows. The arrows help somewhere, but at first glance your eyes do not really know what direction to go in next. The statistic is supposed to help motivate men to make sure to see their urologist to prevent prostate cancer. If the poster doesn't even get read because people can’t easily read it but have to figure out the direction of the sentence first, the purpose is diminished. If the statistic was made smaller and condense the use of fonts used, maybe two eye opening statistics could be on the poster. The poster is supposed to make a strong impact on men who read it, but it does not look like it will get read by many.