| Section 1, Class 1: Building Blocks | |
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Description: 17 x 22 inch full color brochure for a local dining and entertainment center
Chosen for: Mass. Folded piece opens to a double-sided 17 x 22 inches. The number of folds gives the piece weight and substance even when folded down to 8.5 x 3.75 size. Piece contains numerous small photos, a large (approximately 1/2 of interior page size) floorplan map, and a patterned background which gives it additional visual mass.
The size of this piece reinforces the theme of the brochure -- size (40,000 square foot establishment filled with multiple bars, a Grand Dining Room, and multiple entertainment areas for billiards, darts, and electronic games)and also allows for the large floorplan map, as well as map to the location.
Other Elements:
- Uses thin lines under subheadings throughout.
- Incorporates many square and rectangular shapes (boxed text, square and rectangular photos, square map). Also has text set in a couple of oval shapes and the business logo is a circle.
- Printed on paper with a smooth, slick texture. The background is a paisley-like pattern that conveys movement, a fluid surface.
- It is a very colorful piece because of the patterned background but primarily uses two colors from the logo for text and graphic elements.
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Student ID S011203
Description: A direct-mail brochure, cut in the shape of a pale gray triangle from textured card-weight stock, printed mainly with black ink and some red accents. It was promoting a computer-related service.
Chosen for: Shape, Texture. The piece appears to have been cut from an 11 x 17" piece of a pebble-textured cardstock, with the base of the triangle 11" across and coming to a point at the center of the top edge. The piece was folded for mailing, with the base folded up, and two more folds, and the point was affixed to the back with a sticker. The piece caught my attention and I have saved it for two years since receiving it in the mail.
Most of the text is in black, using a clean sans serif font, which I think emphasized a modern feel. Text blocks followed the shape of the piece. It includes thin red accent lines to separate sections and provide some visual focus.
I felt the unusual shape, along with the texture, provided a lot of interest. The triangle shape did not seem to have any direct connection to the message that was being delivered (but I can think of cases where a triangular shape might be used to emphasize some point being made). Overall it has a very spare, clean, modern feel to it, because it leaves a lot of empty space and uses a clean font and minimal color. The gray color also evokes a high-tech, sterile mood, although I might expect a glossier surface to go along with that, rather than the sensual feel of the textured stock.
Other elements: Color (spare and effective use of red lines). This piece did catch my attention and I have hung onto it for two years. I especially liked how the piece folded and became its own envelope, in a sense.
Instructor Notes: I agree on the unexpected use of texture. From the description I might have expected a colder, simulated metallic surface from a piece promoting technology but the softer texture may indeed have been meant to soften and humanize the high-tech image (and the sharp edges of that triangle shape).
It sounds like you found an excellent piece that clearly (and cleverly) incorporates all five elements. Although you didn't specifically address mass, it can be inferred from your description that it had a relatively large physical size (folded or unfolded) counterbalanced by a conservative use of type and graphic accents. Well done.
Student ID C011409
Description: 23 1/4 x 16 1/2 inch full color two-sided brochure (folded twice to 8 3/4 x 11 3/4 inch) for a software package.
Chosen for: Mass. This brochures opens twice and is visually packed and appears massive due to the following elements:
• It has a large physical size when opened
• It is folded down numerous times, and although the paper is thin, glossy card stock, it appears massive due to the number of layers created by the folds.
• It is densely packed (in my opinion, overwhelmingly over-packed) with bold, multicolored backgrounds and graphic elements, multicolored and shadowed text, and photographs - making it visually massive and heavy.
The brochure is packed with information about the software and its applications. It is also packed with screen captures to illustrate the capabilities of the software. However, it is also littered with added graphic elements (described in detail below) including lines, arrows, call-outs, pie charts, buttons, watermarks, borders, etc., that don’t seem to be necessary. The mass of this piece is far too heavy. I received this piece in the mail at work and I didn’t bother to look at it in any detail because the mass of it made it seem like too much work to get through.
I can only think that the designer of this piece must have been pushed by the client to provide all of the detailed information in the smallest space possible (perhaps a cost-cutting measure). Even so, the information could have been presented in a more clean, visually lighter way if some of the color and extraneous elements were removed.
Other elements:
Lines: Uses curved lines, horizontal lines and vertical lines to separate sections. Some of the lines are connected to form borders. The inside page is surrounded completely by a border that changes color. Thin diagonal lines and arrows are used to connect call0outs to illustrations below. Thin vertical lines are also used to show connection between various horizontal layers in the mapping program’s many layers of mapping data. Thin horizontal and verticle lines and arrows are used to show the relationship of sections of the page to others, to unite these elements
Shapes: Uses all shapes repeatedly throughout the document. Perhaps in an effort to show that the mapping program can analyze data, there are small circular multicolored pie charts with ‘swooshes’ of color trailing them (indicating movement) scattered throughout the brochure. These pie charts have within them multicolored triangles. Photos and graphics are square, rectangular, oval, and freeform. Numerous rectangular (although not square) text call-out boxes are also scattered throughout. Section headings and highlighted text are within rectangular boxes, both filled and without fill.
Texture: Both the physical and virtual texture of the brochure is glossy, slick, and smooth.
COLOR!! This brochure is loaded with bold color everywhere. The designer can not have been thinking of using color to elicit any particular emotion, because virtually every color is used in backgrounds, borders, shapes, lines, photos and text. This overuse of color with no conceivable purpose or structure is the largest contributor to the perceived mass of the brochure.
Instructor Notes: Excellent identification of all the elements used in this brochure. Except for texture it sounds like this pieces goes way overboard to use every element of design in every way possible! Rather than dazzling you, the reader, with the capabilities of the software it just overwhelms you with glitz instead.
This could be a good piece to use in future classes as a makeover candidate. As a mental exercise, think about how changing just one element (such as more consistent and toned down use of color) might improve the overall design.
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