assignment two: capturing the cuteness

(All kitten photos found through Google images w/ keywords: 'kitten photos') 

What's the best way to brighten your day? Well cute pictures of kittens and puppies, of course! Seriously, try it...you can't help but be consumed by the overpowering cuteness of little bitty animals! 

Each of these photos were JPEG files and the quality of the middle one could have been preserved if in fact it wasn't so compressed by the file type. I think the first and last photo might have been raw files and in that case, they were able to edit the photos more and might have saved them as JPGs for usability. Clearly the quality of the first and last two photos are great and the colors are rich and focused. 

The first photos is a great example of the rule of thirds because the the kitten serves as the point of interest. While the kitten is one side of the image, it achieves a balanced image that allows viewers attention to focus on the subject (the kitten) and it adds a dramatic feel to the photo. 

The second photos was an example of framing because the cat naturally draws the attention because the box serves as a border, essentially making the cat the main point of interest. I think framing is a great technique because it emphasizes the focal point of your image and also makes it a little more interesting to look at.

The last photo is a really cute and interesting way to display leading lines in photography. It's not the expected leading line shot of a road or pathway. The lines of the leaves serve as a dominant direction to lead your eye directly to the puppy. With the rich green color of the leaves, you would think it would distract from the puppy but with the use of leading lines it succeeds in luring your view straight to the subject.

assignment one: the good, the bad, and the ugly

{via Oh Yeah Studio}

{via Nazario Graziano}

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{via Supastition}

After learning about the various design principles used, I found myself looking at images and illustrations completely different. I now find myself asking--Why does this work? Why doesn't this work? I stumbled upon several different designs, some that I absolutely loved and some that were definitely an eyesore. 

The first two designs were among my favorites for different reasons. The first one with the tyrannosaurus was such a great design because it was clean and was effective in telling a story. It was a great example of proportion--there is this huge dinosaur that takes up almost have of the layout and its about to swallow this tiny circle. In my opinion, I found this effective in creating visual weight of the image. It was also a great example of dominance. Although you would expect the dinosaur to have the most visual weight because of the size proportions, the blue circle achieves an almost 3D effect that makes it more dominant in comparison to the dinosaur. I think the colors and the space adds to this effect, because your eyes seem to be drawn to the calming blue (even with the huge chompers of the dinosaur)--which I think is so great. 

The second image is a good example of rhythm and interestingly enough, it has to do with music. The different lines and shapes achieve a flowing type of rhythm that gives the image a sense of movement, which almost serves as a way to show the sound waves traveling from the guitar. I also feel like this could be an example of unity and closure. Unity, in that the whole composition of the design shows that all the various shapes, images, and colors play off of each other to complete the wholeness of the design. And closure can be seen as an example because when you look at this design, our minds fill in the missing face and we recognize the subject as a man playing the guitar. 

Last of the designs that I found, was definitely one that was a really bad example. I don't even know where to start! It is an album cover, and you would think that the main focus that the graphic designer would try to achieve is the focus on the artist. Instead, the proportions are horrible--which also made the balance of the design very confusing. The bears and the colors seem so dominant that they completely weigh down the image and the focus is obviously not drawn to the artist.