Monday, September 21, 2015

Good/Bad Design Presentation

The design element that I chose was a local one some might be familiar with.  It's the sign for the local restaurant in Hurricane, Utah located right on State Street called Barista's.  I'm not sure whether to define this particular sign as good or bad, for it has had many affects.  The sign alone has created lots of controversy within the little town, as well as brought tons of attention to the small business in route to Zions. 




We can see that this particular sign is rather busy.  It contains some proximity with the shapes sort of clustered together forming a collage-like sign. The is also a slight repetitiveness with the use of circles within the design.  It has a bit of an oldies diner feel to it for me, with the lady depicted on the right circular piece of the sign.  It's also assumable that the restaurant contains some form of steak with multiple pictures on it both directly under the name of the establishment, as well as on the bottom rectangle. The sign has a lot of noise to me, with the various colors, lack of pattern, and use of multiple fonts. The sign however makes the eye draw mostly to the copper bull on the top.  The bull is the highlight of the design, probably how the owner wanted it to be.  The Specturm contains headlines like, "People are having a cow over this bull".  This is where I have a hard time deciding whether it's a good or bad design.  While this is somewhat visually chaotic,  it serves a purpose for the owner.  All the hub-bub over the bull is centered around the fact that he has testicles, rocky mountain oysters, or in the vernacular of today's youth, BALLS! This has done nothing but rile up the community of Hurricane, while spreading the word of this little restaurant.  Some say it's unnecessary to have this bull on the sign, but I say it's a rather genius marketing and advertising campaign. 


As we can see this copper bull is "anatomically correct" as some would like to say.  This design though random, is a very bold move for the small conservative town of Hurricane.  It serves the sole purpose of getting people in the door, and it's worked.  People go to check it out because of the controversy and bold statement.  The bull itself is a sculpture, a metallic patchwork forming a bull.  I would even dare say that if the testicles were removed, the law of closure would play into the design because people will add what's missing in their minds. The bull serves as an advertisement, though some would argue as bad, I would say is genius.  Any form of advertisement good or bad, is still advertisement.  The design element works for the small business owner.  Who knew metaphorically having 'the balls' to display these bull balls would be considered design tactic?

Monday, September 14, 2015

Balance, Contrast, and Harmony


The picture above stupefied me on many levels and encompasses what I see as embracing balance, contrast, and harmony.  Initially the eye is drawn to the center of the picture with the tree being at the forefront, with mostly the sunbeams drawing the eyes to the light.  It's interesting how the eyes are naturally drawn to the changes in contrast, here being the light.  While in the top right corner of the photo there seems to be an ominous space of darkness leaving the frame.  This evokes all shorts of feel goods like, 'the sun will rise on a new day' or 'the night is always darkest before the dawn'.  The motivational visual of  'it gets better' comes to mind while viewing this.  That means this picture could also play on the psychological sense of the human mind, rendering us a visual to describe how we might be feeling emotionally.

 Contrast is what makes the picture for me.  The dark silhouettes of the trees with the warm yellows in the background draw the eye almost immediately.  Something about silhouettes gives a sense of direction while also leaving a mystery to be answered.

The harmony itself plays easily into the piece with aspect of nature.  Organically I think this picture has an instinctual factor that plays into our psychological make up as humans to grasp a 'bigger picture' element in our lives as we look at landscape pictures, or venture out into nature itself.  We develop a sense of oneness with the earth, so naturally I feel when we see pictures like this, well at least when I look at it, I get that same sense of  'oneness'  or harmony.

 The balance was seen to me by the breaking of light in the background.  What looks to be like an escaping storm cloud in the corner is being almost pushed away by the sun.  This gives a sense of balance because we can't have one without the other.  Without light, how would we know darkness?
Overall this picture just warms me on the inside. It feels as if I'm standing there in front of the tree and physically can feel the sun beams warming my skin.

Photo Credit goes to: Alex

Wednesday, September 2, 2015

Visceral Response

The visual I chose for my Visceral Response is a picture I took myself.  It is simple yet complex in it's own unique way.  I took the picture while my sister and I were up in Rockville, Utah taking family pictures for one of our co-workers.  Now my sister and I are in no way experts at photography but we have through combined efforts quite a few years of experience/practice on how to work a sophisticated camera, knowledge of lighting, and editing.  That being said, this particular picture was taken with a commonly known Apple produced smartphone.  It was edited with the basic software within the picture application on an iPhone.  While we were wrapping up the session, I was walking down this dirt road in Grafton Utah, and my eye caught the lines of this fencing.  The diagonal line of the fence flows to the vanishing point and draws the eyes to look that direction. Behind the vanishing point there is a horizon line that eludes to Zion in the background.  The vertical lines of the fence create height, leading to the center creating depth.  The vertical lines are accentuated even more with the perpendicular crossroads that is created by the horizontal barbed wire. Which almost is forgotten due to the fact the fence line draws the eyes past them. The lines are what makes the picture. They bring dimension making it visually stimulating to many.


Once I had captured the picture, I noticed the fence line draws the eyes mostly to the left side of the picture. There is sense of open space on the right side, predominantly toward the top of the frame.  This eludes the feeling that something is coming into that space. Though, we don't know definitively what the space for it allows for the observer to imagine what could be to the right of the frame. The reason I edited the picture to black and white is because the colors didn't matter to me.  Though it is rich with color, because I mean come on, it's Zions, I didn't necessarily feel that the colors mattered as much. The lines and dimension were the focal point to me, and is what drew my eye. When I made it black and white, the contrast amplified.  The change is what made the 'feel goods' come in full force. The contrast added texture to the picture. You can in a sense feel the rustic atmosphere.  It has history, character, and a story to tell.  The black and white helps add to the visual I was trying to get across when capturing this picture. The lack of color, allowed for vibrancy to be focused elsewhere, and moves for us to reflect on what once was.  This abandoned field once had a purpose. It's the ghost of the past, and a skeleton of something that used to be alive and flourishing. This picture to me is beautifully simple, and when I lined up the frame to take the picture it became even more beautiful, it became a story.