Visual Techniques

http://www.smashingapps.com 

-Exaggeration

-Active

-Transparent

-Distortion

-Depth

-Balance

http://abduzeedo.com/inspiration-andrew-greig

-Balance

-Symmetry

-Irregular

-Distortion

-Intricate

-Exaggeration

-Spontaneous

-Active

-Flat

-Singularity

-Diffusion

-Opacity

The two images above are involved in the visual design industry. One is a advertisement for 7Up and the other is a poster design. Both of them were applied with similar and different techniques by their designers to make them unique looking. The 7Up advertisement uses three dimension look to make it pop out to view's eyes. It's transparent liquid and the animated person on top sends the message of it being "refreshing." It uses very subtle colors compared to the hot air balloon poster. Although there were many techniques used on both images, they have very different effect on viewers. The hot air balloon poster used a lot of colors and sends the message of the colorful world we live in, the message of "possibility." The hot air balloon and what it brings along is very saturated on top of the background that is desaturated in light colors makes it pop out despite of how flat it is. Though it displays movement, the 7Up advertisement does a better job with it because it has depth applied to it. The hot air balloon does a better job in capturing attention because of the multiple color usage. The creators had very different intension when making these images, therefore I cannot compare the two too much. It seems to me that the hot air balloon poster will be like more because of how many noticeable techniques the designer has applied to it.

Contrast

http://xleemac93x.wordpress.com/2011/04/27/composition-photography/

In this example of good contrast. The editor of this picture turned the contrast up in an amazing picture of the sky. The saturation of the sunlight has been brighten to put focus on it. It also makes the sunlight pop-out at the viewer when looking at it. The darken horizon and clouds help viewers from being distracted form the blue sky and the orange sunlight shinning through the clouds. Putting contrast in images makes them much more appealing. The contrast in this image doesn't necessarily give meaning to the image. In my opinion, it shows the beauty of natural things like the sun and clouds. It creates a different focus to remind people to stop and notice everyday views that they may miss.

http://newmethods.orgblog/usability-examples-of-good-and-bad-color-contrast

This is an example of bad contrast. This image is shown for people to know what colors to use for their website's background and foreground. The colors are mostly light on light or dark on dark. Bright colors are especially hard for people to see, for example, the neon green on top of the darken white background. The dark on dark has a cool style to it but it is hard to read as well. Most of what they have on here makes people squint their eyes to see the text, regardless of it being a blurry jpg picture. It doesn't make the text pop-out of the background, with the exception of the red and yellow. If the designer of the match up had used more contrast and used bright colors against dark colors instead, it would be easier to read the color palette number.