'6 Words Design' Essay

Into to Graphic Design- Essay

Professor Groat

For this project we were to take six words having great importance to the world of design and put them into a design where the words look like what they describe.

     I tried my best in this design to conform to the rule of thirds and what that implies. The main points of interest in my design (Emphasis, contrast, etc.) are all located in areas broken up by the rule of thirds, to keep your eye moving around the piece, and not get caught in any particular area.

     Emphasis was the first word that I designed in photo shop, because of its visual importance. I made it huge and bold and put it in the top left third of the design, so the eye would have no place to go but there first.

     I carefully chose fonts for each word that I thought would suggest each individual word’s meaning. For ‘emphasis’ I chose all caps with a bold in your face font. For ‘flow’ I chose lowercase letters and a smooth, curvy font, and made a wave style with it so it could lead the eye around the entire page without attracting too much attention. For ‘balance’ I sketched up my own design, and with through much trouble and effort, I was able to create my idea in photo shop. For ‘contrast’ I made the font the same for all letters, but changed the size, shade, and space between letters to illustrate the contrast within. ‘Alignment’ was the easiest word to work on, after I found a very geometric font. I placed it sideways on the right-hand third of the page to almost border the design. ‘Repetition’ was another relatively easy word to manage, but became a nuisance in photo shop when it came to repeating the word throughout the whole middle third of the design.

     I think the viewer’s eye can move throughout the design quite easily, and goes from the primary focal point (emphasis) and moves to the second and tertiary points (contrast and the balance) quite easily, with the help of ‘flow’.

     I tried to vary the shapes and sizes of the words to add variation to the design, and it also helps the eye move freely throughout the piece. The sizes vary greatly, with ‘emphasis’ being quite large in relation to, say, ‘repetition’ which is quite minute and almost faded in the background.

     I feel my piece and a balanced sense of visual weight, and certain words overlap in the hope to get rid of any unwanted negative space.

     I placed certain words at different angles to not only make the piece more visually stimulating, but to help illustrate what the words describe. For example, I put ’alignment’ on the right side of the page running downwards to make vertical negative space that implies alignment. I also placed ‘flow’ in a swirly, repetitive line going through the whole page so the viewers’ eye never stays in the same place long.

     On a whole, I think my design applies to the rule of thirds, is visually appealing, and accurately portrays the definitions of the words within.