Great Designs

On a daily basis we encounter numerous amounts of designs in advertisements in various mediums of media, such as print, video, sound, and more. This is an attempt by businesses and institutions to grab our attention and as a result we give them a few seconds to become aware of what is being advertised. Within these vital few seconds we are deciding whether to stop and listen, read what is being offered, and continue our daily routines. I believe within these few seconds a good design is significant.


A Good design is being able to translate a rather complex idea/message into visual, audio, or literary terms for a specific target audience.

With respect to the visual aspect, good design is having a good color scheme, attention grading, easy on the eyes visuals (controversial images, the grid system, etc.).

An example, of all these things taking into consideration in creating a great design, is the Häagen-Dazs website.


We can see these aspects of visual designs being put to use on this website. For instance, the grid system, great color scheme, and “soft” looking visuals that fits the “feel” of the ice cream.



Audio is a very challenging form because it is difficult to master. We are saturated by noise in our everyday lives. With respect to audio, good design is having “important” familiar sounds played out to get attention. For example, vocals of a well-known artists/actor, sound of fire alarm truck, or someone that is well known within our society, like President Obama, are all “important” familiar sounds that can be uses to create a good design. Music plays an important role also, however not every one have the same taste in music. In that case, familiar sounds should be used with caution unless you are targeting a specific audience.

With respect to the literary aspect, Good design is to have good typography with the appropriate colors, font size, spacing, balance and contrast, which can carries the mood/feeling of the message effectively to the individuals that will be receiving it. Here are some examples of great typography in its creative form.






A great design triggers emotions and sensations that the receiver of the message didn’t expect to feel, happy, inspire, sad, lonely, etc. It is the composition and presentation of the overall design that can generate these feelings inside of us. It is not the visuals or the audio alone that plays the part of carrying this message, it is the overall part of the design machine, visual/audio/typography and its gears, color, balance, content, contrast, words, spacing, etc, that are responsible in creating a working design.

Museum of the Moving Image

Going to the Museum of the Moving Images for the first time was quite an experience. I was presented with works of the first motion pictures made to modern day technology used in creating 21st century motion picture. It was a fascinating walk through the time line, of the creation of media as an art form. Things like sound effect, sound editing, and music supervision were some of the elements that has evolved over the decades that breathe life into this medium. A few interesting items that are worth mentioning include the first use of tri-color camera in film, early forms of video games, and sound editing processes used in movies.

The use of the tricolor camera had a major impact on the industry because introduced the audience to another layer of the narrative of movie making, color. The first feature films to utilize this technology are The Wizard of Oz, Gone with the Wind, and The Woman (1). As it was also pointed out by my tour guide, making a tricolor was very expensive, however the quality of the film remains intact for an extended period of time.

Video games also played an important role transforming media into the form we know it as today. This 10 billion industry had its major success early with video games like Space Invaders (1978), Asteroids (1979), and Battlezone (1980) (2). It was also exciting to see some of these old school arcade video games, from the era they were built, at the museum intact and playable. On a closing note on the subject, video games has also given us some of our noticeable culture icon to date, Donkey Kong, Frogger, Pac-Man, Mario, etc.

Personally speaking, the highlight of the tour was the sound editing process used in film. I was blown away by the sound editing demo that had been shown to us. It never occurred to me as to how much work goes into the sound with respect to creating a feature film. It was brought to my attention that in a typical action film you have over 100 different layers of sound in one scene. This could range from the sound of a fire truck in the background, to the explosion of atomic bomb in the foreground. I was in awe by the process of putting together different sounds to bring an image to life on screen. I now have new profound respect for a Foley artist.

Sources:



1) http://www.films101.com/earlycy.htm



2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Age_of_Video_Arcade_Games