Field Journal

Let’s begin with is single question. What’s “middle”?

Just like my other classmates, I am now studying history of design. Finally, my textbook brings me to the modern age. Within the modern design, I found an interesting thing, regarding to a mental process of human being. Design is all about what you want audiences to see. Thus, design is well related to how people see. In order to modify the skill of design, it’s always good to question how people see mentally.

We could see design in the view of psychologists. Cognitive psychologists prove that people in the entire world don’t actually see what the exact sight. Our minds always misdirect us to see something else, beyond the reality. There are so many errors that made by ourselves when we look at something. Beyond psychologists, most of the designers know it too. There is an untold secret in the world of design.

Human beings don’t see middle when they look at middle. For example…

I put the word in the exact middle of the picture, however, you would feel like the word has fallen down a little bit, instead of being in the middle. Honestly, people feel more comfortable while they are looking at something actually above middle. Remember, psychologically, this law dose not applies to the designs that are a bunch of stuff. This law is well known in the world of design certainly. The pictures below are all found in my textbook, which is Meggs History of Graphic Design.

I did a few notes at the side, so that you could see it clearly. The red line is the exact middle. The main words or images are always a bit upper than the middle. Then, why? Why did the designers choose to put the words and images above? Why not middle?

Audiences would feel seeing them in the middle if they don’t really measure them. Most likely, audience would feel more comfortable when they look at something above the middle. If they were in the exact middle, ironically, it would seem like they have fallen down.

Currently, the modern designs don’t usually make the whole graphic design rich. Instead, designers nowadays love to make design simple. It is common that there are just a few words in the “middle”, while the rest remain blank. “Simple is the best,” right? When we decide to something like that, it’s better to put the main words or images a bit above the exact middle. It makes audiences see those things more likely to be in the middle.

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1. This is just my work.

2. Herb Lubalin and Etienne Delessert, pages from Fact, 1967.

3. Paul Rand, IBM package design, late 1950s.

Works Cited

Meggs, Philip B., Purvis, Alston W., Meggs History of Graphic Design: Fifth Edition. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, 2012. Print.

Field Journal

Within the chapter 17 of textbook, there is a description of a picture, which is “ The cropping of the image draws attention to the beach clothing rather than the model herself.” While looking at the picture, I truly understood the meaning of the description. The head and legs of the model were cropped out from he entire image. The whole focus is on the clothes.

Where is the focus? It is always the main issue of design. The function of advertisement is always making audiences remember these products, or even raise the desire of audiences to buy these products. A good advertisement would be the advertisement that makes audience wish to buy the certain product just by a peek. Nevertheless, nowadays, some of the focuses of design are set wrongly. Audiences of those images always get the wrong messages.

Even though the burger up there is so huge, I almost guarantee that no one look at the burger in the first peek. Plus the little blue joke as slogan on it, the design means so many things but the burger itself. Actually, Carl’s Jr should selling food rather than selling women. As a man, I’d like to say their advertisement is so sexy and wonderful. I could keep watching them non-stop. However, I wouldn’t remember what the burgers are after watching them. As a designer, I would rather set the focus on the burger if I were their designer.

Our textbook were making a good point, designers of advertisement should really study on where to out the focus. Products or the sexy ladies?

Works Cited

Meggs, Philip B., Purvis, Alston W., Meggs History of Graphic Design: Fifth Edition. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, 2012. Print.

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Advertisements of Carl’s Jr

Field Journal

Chapter 13 talks about Dada and Surrealism. Dadaists raised up the “anti-art”, which is shock, protest, and nonsense. Surrealism is built on Dada. Surrealists overthrow the standard of real, and present the art beyond real. They are just like a group of naughty boys, parodying the masterpieces in art museum. Yes, they really did.

The upper image is drawn by Magritte. The textbook introduces René François-Ghislain Magritte as a surrealist. He showed audiences the funny world beyond reality. Within Magritte’s world, nothing is impossible. When you look at the upper image, you might not know what the funny point is. You would smile only if you have seen the lower image.

Haha, Magritte is such a naughty boy! Beyond being naughty, he actually present a deep meaning, which is “Classic art is dead.” While think about it deeply, you may find out it is exactly the meaning of “anti-art” or “Dada”. The artists in the past always wanted to draw things as real as they could. Yet, the ideas within the drawings are usually boring and meaningless, like a lying lady, or just a load of people. Those artists presented their great skills, but nothing more than skills. Nevertheless, then the artists of “anti-art” say “Hey! Let’s make things interesting!”

Marcel Duchamp daubed on the Mona Lisa of Leonardo da Vinci, and made a funny face. Same as Duchamp, Fernando Botero make Mona Lisa gain some weight too. Who says that Mona Lisa has to be a lady. Mona Lisa could be a man or a overweight lady in the world of art. How dare they are!

This was a brand new idea in art. Designers before Dada used to think classic paintings are sacred, holy and inviolable, so they never across the borders. Currently, with the root of Dada, designers break the laws again and again. As a designer, I always want to be a naughty boy, think something people never think, do something people never do. Hopefully, all of the designers could be naughty forever.

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1. René François-Ghislain Magritte, Perspective: Madame Récamier de David, 1950, The Saatchi Collection

2. Jacques-Louis David, Ritratto di Madame Récamier, 1800, Parigi, Louvre

3. Leonardo da Vinci, Monna Lisa (La Gioconda), Musée du Louvre, Paris

4. Marcel Duchamp, LHOOQ, 1919

5. Fernando Botero Angulo, Mona-Lisa, 1977