Contrast in Graphic Design

Here is some graphic designs which show good contrast elements.

Source: http://www.mojo.com.ro/blog/category/design/page/2/

The first one is associated with interior design, a black and white large scale image. Its character might represent fingers. Like this, to recognize what it is, a contact of black and white works well in here. Each color pops up another different color, which makes its figure and flow easy to be figured out. Also, a contrast of scale works here. If it is the picture of only wall, it can be recognized as a small image. But there is a bad, a human sized object, to show how large it is.

Source: http://www.goodisdead.com/index.php?/the_cheese_monkeys/

Next example is a simple graphic design, a image of cheese.
The cheese makes a good contrast of black background, which cause strong expression of cheese itself. Also, with using different tone/value of yellow, we can notice it is a cheese. If it is just only one value of yellow, we might not recognize it. Lighter and darker yellow shows different surfaces. The gradation of color from white to yellow, shows a hole. There might be a contrast of shape. The small circle on larger cheese let us think it is a mark a mouse bit into a cheese. If the circle was larger size like a half size of a cheese, we do not think so.
 

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/downtownblue/2485758454/

Subsequently, here is a bad example of contrast, I think.
It represents lines of airplanes. The contrast of lines and empty spaces does not have a good balance, too much lines to see. But, Good thing in this design is the contrast of color. Since its background is blue and green, those red lines pop up well, besides the black dots which indicates stops of airplanes pop up on the red background.

Movement/Motion #1

Part 1

I am interested in techniques of  photograph, associated to magazine or any kinds of graphic design.  And, here is an example of implied motion in design. 

Source: http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=3993172

This photograph is at the very moment the train has come (or might have left). This motion is related to depth and dimension, which makes us recognize the train is moving. Besides, directions people's head is heading show the movement, also. This picture points just one of changing moments at a subway station. 

Part 2

Next example is exhibition/environmental design, which I also desire to learn. 

Source: http://www.haleysharpe.com/projects/91/4

This example might be people in a museum (Physical space). I think this designer was confronted with people's direction of passing, how and which ways they are walking through.  Because, the order of pieces is really affected by people's path in a museum. So, I think the designer put a sentence on the ground with implied direction and flow. With people in freeze motion,  the picture let us see the actual flow of how we look around in this museum. Those elements navigate motion in 3-D picture. 

Dimension/Depth #2 Magazine

One of the most important elements of magazine is a picture, both an actual photo and drawing. In order to make them look a 3-D image, several kinds of perceptual cues work together.

First one is an actual photograph.  Overlap, Relative Size, and Liner Perspective (One-Point Perspective in this case) expresses dimensional space on this 2-D Photo. And, when you look at the right-corner picture with people, they are much bigger than a window and sofa behind them. This represents depth of this space here, also. 

The next one is drawing. 

Here, Overlap, Shadow(Tone), Relative Size, and Liner Perspectives (Two-Point Perspective) work together. I think mostly in this image Tone makes it looks 3-D objects since it will be just line construction without shadow. It is the different case from photos. Besides, Tone express the depth in details of this image.

source:http://jolma.net/print/magazine_architec.html

http://eobrownblog.blogspot.com/2007/10/this-is-2-page-layout-ive-chosen-as.html

Dimension/Depth #1 Culinary Art

They are photographs of Culinary Art.

  

The first picture is a dish of sushi.

In this image, there are some perceptual cues working together, Liner Perspective, Overlap, and Relative Size.  The construction of 6 pieces of sushi is composed of  a "Two-Point Perspective" with a invisible horizontal line and two vanishing points, which makes it a 3 dimensional image on a 2-D picture in the space. Then, the second line of sushi is overlapped by the first line, an additional meal (like Japanese pickle?) is overlapped by sushi, and chopsticks are a kind of overlapped by both of them. Besides, those elements are in turns getting smaller as Relative Size. Those two indicated their depth over all. 

The next picture is an afternoon tea.

There are also some perceptual elements, Overlap, Shadow, and Relative Size. Even though those cupcakes are different sizes, they have depth and look a 3-D  object by overlapping each other and shading the back sides. Then, since each dish overlaps lower ones, it becomes a 3 Dimensional object which is looked down form above. Also, there seems to be a space between an afternoon tea table and a flower vase by Overlap, Shadow, and Relative Size (the flower is the same size as one of cupcakes).

Source: http://wiw.org/%7Ejess/archives/2004/09/09/twinkie-sushi/

http://emilytormey.wordpress.com/tag/floral/

Color #3 Business Cards

There are several kinds of a business card interacting with some features of color.

Since a business card represent their company itself, the role of color feature here is to express company's personalities. Many of them are using color for types and background, colorful lines with white background or white lines with colorful background. The choice of color changes a clients' view toward the companies. Additionally, they affect its background by dots as a basic element, which makes it more interesting.

On the viewpoint of functionality, with only colors and lines, we could see a map such as the picture at the center.

Thus, those business cards really associate with not only color but also the other basic elements, dots, lines, direction, scales, tones and etc. I think the direction element also tells us an important company's message; they are taking large steps toward future, and so on. Basic elements behave significant roles to address their messages.

source: http://www.argyle-street.com/portfolio/2007/shop-card-business-card-logo-design/

Color #2 Informative Graph

This is a very interesting graph of passengers on the Titanic, their class of ticket, gender and whether they survived. Personally, I like its composition. 

Its color represents their crass of ticket. By using clear different colors, it is easy to find out how many crew and first, second and third class passengers are there. And, on looking  a rate of female/Male and survived/not-survived, we can recognize their proportion easily. 

It has an attractive interaction with line, direction, and scale. Connecting lines between class and sex, and sex and survived with determined color helps combining three different data into one informative graph. Direction as one of basic elements encourages our eyes and attention to flow from the top to the bottom smoothly. Finally, an element of scale helps us with comparing each proportion. Even though some of the basic elements work here, color has the strongest influence to inform those data. 

Source:http://www.agrandillusion.com/2009/03/of-graphs-and-men/

Color #1 Magazine

This is an example composed by features of color.

At first, this page is constructed by the most important elements of magazine: both writings and pictures. And those elements have an interesting relationship with color.

The case of writing: In order to make it visible and readable on a picture-based background, they choose white and lighter color for main writing. Additionally, its heading and sub-heading are used by different color from the main writing: strong white and yellow, which pops up well on a blue background. And, lighter blue lines under the sub-heading catches our eyes to let us find new paragraphs easily. 

The case of picture: To distinguish small pictures and the large background picture, small ones are surrounded by the white lines. This contrast between sky blue and blight white create a line.

Besides, with darken blue just next to the white line, we can see a space. 

Basically, there are only 3 to 4 main pops up colors, blue, brown, and white. We do not feel any confusions.  

So, basic elements, line and tone, also works with interacting a feature of color.

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wunnspeed/540387476/