Category Archives: designthoughts

Design Reflections

Prior to watching the videos and reading the articles, I feel like my understanding of design was more surface level. As I am studying and working in marketing, I have spent a decent amount of time designing graphics for my courses or for my email newsletter at work. I kind of viewed the task in terms of tasks versus a design as a whole. For example, for a sales promotion graphic, I was only concerned with:

  • Dates of the sale
  • Sale price
  • Picture of item on sale
  • Making it look good

The videos and articles forced me to look how each of the elements of a design play off of each other, especially the Vanity Fair video on the use of blank space. I was particularly interested in the cultural relationship between movie posters and book covers, and how books covers have historically influenced trends in movie posters.

In terms of books covers, I had never thought about how a book cover tells a story of a story. In my personal experience, I sometimes have a creative block when trying to figure out the best way to visually relay a piece of information. I cannot even imagine how intimidating this task is to create a book cover.

Design Reflections

Upon watching the video from Vox, I was fascinated to hear that not only did the title designers of Stranger Things utilize a font from the 1980s but they also created the title sequence just how they did in the 80s’. It has become quite a trend to bring back older techniques and styles. Not only in technology but in fashion as well. It is one of my favorite trends to be quite honest. I absolutely enjoy seeing things be utilized from different generations.

The video by VanityFair has completely changed how I will now view movie posters. I never before picked up on the common theme with the colors and font sizes of various movies. It was interesting to see how small hints of red means comedy and dark, eerie blue is for thriller.

I think I have grown a new interest in finding out the history and techniques of movie posters and titles.

The Art of Cover Design

In listening to these experts explain their processes in designing covers and posters, I was constantly thinking about schemas and archetypes. I’m a psychology major so everything I see is processed a manner of behavior to me. When listening to the movie poster designer I was thinking about the psychology of colors, laws of attraction, attention seekers, etc. The covers and posters of these pieces of entertainment, which are art themselves, have to be a correct depiction of what it contains, but also yank attention and potential viewing. If you can portray symbols that have common meaning to people they will come, but also you can follow strategies like depicting taboo topics or risky vulnerabilities. And if all that fails you can just put pictures of beautiful women half naked, and men will go and see it (a sad truth lol.) Nonetheless, that still is a symbol that attracts humans. This art may be visual, but it ultimately must attract behavior by depicting the summary of the contents within the book or movie or whatever piece of entertainment and that is why it is so important.

Things To Watch and Read – Talking About Poster and Book Design

This week I learned about book jacket and movie poster design. Some of the videos and articles I read are below so you can enjoy them as well. (Not all of them could be linked)

Going in, I was interested to hear what professionals had to say about their work. Visual art is something that feels so abstract and illusive, but there are formulas that only the artists know. In Chip Kidd’s TED Talk and Between the Lines interview he briefly discussed how to approach a story from a design standpoint. He explained that the designer’s job is to distill a story to it’s fundamental pieces and then try to relate those to an audience. Movie poster and TV title designers seemed to agree: a designer’s job is to attract readers or viewers.

There are many ways to convey an idea or emotion through book jackets and movie posters. James Verdesoto explained how different colors are tied to genres and the purposes they serve. For example, red text and a white background are often used for comedies, especially in the early 2000s. These colors help to focus the viewer on one element of the poster, which is usually a staged photograph featuring key characters. Posters with yellow backgrounds signal that the movie is indie or otherwise has a small production budget, as yellow quickly catches people’s eyes. He explained how many indie posters get inspiration from vintage posters and punk rock graphics.

Graphic design has many tactics to gain attention, but ultimately a design is personal to the story, time, and artist creating it. I think it’s important not to forget the care put into posters and book jackets. While there are trends and methods to catch eyes, this work is first and foremost about the stories and the people behind those stories.

A Kid’s Guide to Graphic Design by Iconic Designer Chip Kidd

Reflection on the Videos!

I really loved these videos, it really was engaging in a sense of being able to break down piece by piece and went to the professionals for help. I really found fascinating was the color schemes with all the movie posters in the Vanity Fair video! When he was showing a ton next to each other it was shocking to see how similar they all truly are. After watching that video I looked up if all of the Disney Princess’s movie and it is cool to look at because it seems to pair the colors from the dress and their hair to the background. for Example, Rapunzel and Sleeping Beauty have pink dresses and blonde hair and both of the backgrounds are blue and green.

With the Vox video I also really loved because Stranger Things is one of my favorite shows to watch just because it is such a time jump to a time I wasn’t born in but my mom was growing up around that time and its cool to watch a thriller and also learn what my mom grew up with. I think it was really awesome with the typography pair with that they had a vision with and how they executed it to the wonderful masterpiece it is! They used book covers they loved in their time to make it happen but with the video with the book cover artist, it was cool to see how creative he is and how to pair the story to the cover without using too much negative space with the letters. I am not so much a book fan myself so I normally don’t pay attention to book covers because they do have they same kind of style in my opinion.

I think these were really cool ways to break down a graphic design for a movie, book, or show!

-Reese Kubricki

Reflection about design

While doing my first readings of this week was about this picture here:

I am a big fan of photography and when I first saw this article, I thought it was going to be the same content as the blue/black dress that went on the internet. I was pleasantly surprised that it was not about the color of a dress, but rather was something more. This article was about how Artificial intelligence took multiple pictures and stitched them together to make one photo for the viewer. I thought this was interesting because I did not know that iPhone took pictures to get the best picture and to decide on which one looks better. You can read the full story about this confusing pitcure here: ‘One in a Million’ iPhone Photo Shows Three Versions of the Same Woman | PetaPixel

The next reading, A Kid’s Guide to Graphic Design by Iconic Designer Chip Kidd – The Marginalian was about Chip Kidd. In reading they states that everything is considered design unless it is nature. Everywhere you look someone had to have designed it one more or another. Kidd address out neglecting culture within the graphic design primer for kids. The word “graphic design” was coined in 1922 by William Addison Dwiggins.

Then I started watching the videos that was assigned to me. These videos were actually very interesting because they talked about covers to books, posters, and movie titles. Between the Lines: Chip Kidd – Alexander Street, a ProQuest Company (oclc.org) talks about the books and how a book cover works in the design community.

To anyone that makes books covers they need to make sure the audience is readable to anyone no matter their language or age. The cover represents what the story is about just by one look. A cover needs at least two parts for it to be readable which would be: words and pictures. The cover is the “first impression” even though the words of the book come first so it is a lot of trial and error before the cover is perfect. It may be a challenge and you might get stuck but try your best to work on one project one at a time.

There are 26 different abstracts symbols that create the alphabet.

Between the Lines: Chip Kidd – Alexander Street, a ProQuest Company (oclc.org)

26 different abstract symbols that when put together can create anything. So the design would be would be having different types of abstract symbols. While storytelling is putting those symbols into telling someone anything. It is very interesting for Kidd to be able to make that connection.

Chip Kidd

Everyone loves the TED talks so here is the one where Kidd talks about books: Chip Kidd: Designing books is no laughing matter. OK, it is. | TED Talk Throughout his talk he mentions a lot of great points. It is important to give a book a fun title and then using a picture that relates to the story within. A book cover that was created was called “Dry” and how he created a book cover was simply throwing water and making the word dry, wet so it looked like the ink was running. There are different ways to make a book cover appeal to the audience like making a cover that wraps around to tell a story by pulling it out of the shelf or making all the spine create a full picture with them next to each other. A unique way to pull in a reader would be using texture to a book cover. Everything about making a good book cover is having good design skills. Another connection for design would be movie posters.

When The Art of Movie Posters: View Online 40,000+ Movie Posters & Learn How They’re Made | Open Culture talks about movie posters. Movie poster will always change with the generations. Black and white movie posters will most time have some sort of color to make the viewer stand out to that particular part of the poster. It makes me happy that I know colors have an effect on what kind of theme the movie will have.

  • Red and white is comedy.
  • White space is good because it lets the viewer focus on the main part the designer would like them to see.
  • Blue with someone running is action/thriller.
  • Yellow background- smaller film because it has a smaller budget and yellow is a cheap way of getting attention.
  • Black, white, and orange would be action.
  • Blue and orange would be a surefire approach.

I did not know that there was so much thought into creating a title to a movie, show, or even a book and How Stranger Things got its retro title sequence (youtube.com) dives into how this show created such a eye pleasing and eye catching title into each opening of the episode.

Don’t (or Do) Judge a Book by Its Cover – Design Thoughts

Watching and reading all of the articles and videos related to designing of covers was very interesting! You don’t really think about the thoughts behind the cover or the poster or the intro because you become too focused on the actual media, that you just go immediately into it without a second thought.

It really made me think about the whole idea of “don’t judge a book by its cover,” which I always thought was so interesting to me. Personally, I think you should judge books by their covers. If you aren’t judging it by the cover, you are just opening a book or a show or something just for the sake of watching it. I feel like you have to acknowledge that cover to understand the media, to understand what you’re getting into.

It’s almost like first impressions, which we talk a lot about in Social Psychology. Do they matter, and if they do, why do they matter? Why do we make them? Are they fair? Are our first impressions right?

It’s human nature to make those first impressions, but the honest answer to the other questions is that it depends. Sometimes they matter, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they are fair, sometimes they aren’t. Sometimes they are right, sometimes they are not. It’s situational! And I feel like this applies to covers too! Because we never can be sure if the first impression is right, I think it’s important to not rely on first impressions, but I also think that it is completely fair and natural to make that first impression.

There is so much work put into designing these covers to give you that first impression. In a sense, the designer is retelling the story through another format. If you don’t like that telling, you may not like the book or the show or whatever media it is. But, you also may love the story despite not liking the cover. Why does it matter?

We make these assumptions and impressions so fast, too fast for us to even realize. You can look at a cover once and immediately decide your thoughts on it. But that makes me wonder, why?

Then that also makes me wonder, why are some covers easier to judge or quicker to be judged?

I just think it’s really important to acknowledge how designers choose to retell these stories in ways that can speak to the audience. The design is the first impression, they have to make it speak out and stand out towards the audience. They have to be so important that they are judged quickly, that attention is brought to them, and I think it’s okay if that attention is good or bad. Attention is attention and publicity is publicity.

I think my thoughts are kind of all over the place, but this is just so interesting to me on so many different levels! I personally love judging books by covers and making my own thoughts and impressions because then I like to see how they’ve changed by the time I’ve actually consumed the media! It’s like a journey to me!

The Johnson Journal

by Andrew Johnson

Chip Kidd Interview: My analysis of the interview with Chip Kidd is his expression of comic books being considered a cinematic medium. He does not agree with this because there is much left out and much for the reader to accomplish. Kidd refers to movies, and how the film determines the place of not the person watching it. Comics, however, allow for the reader to be involved, meaning you have to bring something to it.

The Works of James Verdesoto: Verdesoto introduces color trends in movie poster designs. Throughout the video, The Fast And The Furious posters caught my attention because they are some of my favorite films. I personally love action thrillers and the series of these movies has impacted my movie lifestyle. As Verdesoto represents the first movie poster of the action series, the detail of the black & white faces of the main actors blends well with the green, yellow, and red outlining of the car that is shown. This brings the perspective of the eye to be drawn into the car design, then the whole poster itself.

Stranger Things Retro Style: It is unique how the popular television show, Stranger Things, came across the 80’s style theme. Especially how the title design company Imaginary Forces came across such a perfect retro-style intro. Imaginary Forces wanted to replicate a title design that was rugged and imperfect so that it represented a 1980s-style theme. The sequence that the company used for the lettering, Kodalith, shows a high-contrast image that draws in the individual(s) watching the show.

Photoblitz: Seven Points

  • Take a picture from the inside of something looking out.
  • Create an interesting photo that includes looking through one object to see another
  • A photo that looks better in black and white than it did in color.
  • “The dusky path of a dream…” Tagore. Photograph that idea.
  • A fork in the road. Casting a ballot. Buying bread. Choices abound.Take a photo of a choice.
  • Take a photo showing the wide open space, the great outdoors.
  • Take a photo that emphasizes the detail of a human hand

Middlebury College: During the process of the Middlebury assignment; It’s not art, it’s data. The page supplies some very detailed descriptions of how AI imaging can be used. Some steps that the site proposed as how to start AI-image generation continued as; Pick your tool, such as Craiyon. Build your base, refine your prompt to generate a simple image that you will enjoy. Add some flair, allow for more detail in your description for the image generator. Transform it, an example they shared is “Marilyn Monroe in the style of Mona Lisa. Share your output, share the image that you most disliked and most liked. Dig deeper, they provided a link such as AI can make art that feels human. Whose fault is that? Overall, this post gave me some things to think about for the next time I use an AI image generator.

Populate the Landscape: Character Image.

The Grand Canyon, destination poster: The Golden State Bridge, where my character may be.

Weekly Summary: To open up with week three of ds106, I encountered creative aspects on the assignment board. The three videos that I watched; Chip Kidd, James Verdesoto, and Stranger Things, introduced numerous factors for the illustration of popular films and books. For example, James Verdesoto expresses his detailed posters and how he wanted to catch the eye by coming up with different color combinations. As I finished up the videos I started to move to the Photoblitz assignment, there isn’t much to say about this, to be honest. The Middlebury College assignment helped me to learn more about AI digital imaging, it was informative and I recommend reading through their website. With the Middlebury assignment, I created two visual design images that represent my character, I think they speak for themselves. Overall, for the assignments this week, I did not have any trouble using the websites as well as producing the daily creates.

By design

Chip Kidd says that everything that is not made naturally is by design. From the buildings you frequent to the food that you consume, design is in almost all things today. I would argue that design is what makes today, today, and the future, the future. It influences how we think, and what we choose, and creates memorable experiences. The articles that I read (mostly about Chip Kidd) shine light on some of the creative processes behind how creators design.

Graphic designers give every story a face or an impression of what you will get yourself into. They think about what stories look life and give form to content while keeping balance in their medium. They want to convey a message without treating their audience like morons. Its either a show or a tell, not both. Sometimes, when designers start they do so without knowing what they are going to do, but when they do start they have to stop when keeping going would be too much. If you are a book designer your responsibilities are to the “audience, the publisher, and most of all the author”- Chip Kidd. It’s like they are looking through the wardrobe of the content and putting the best outfit forward so that you pick that up and want to know more. I didn’t know that I was influenced by the covers of movies and books so much!

Movie posters are the best example of this creative process. Each genre has specific criteria to portray what the movie is about for example horror tends to have a black-and-white background, some red highlights, and very specific fonts for the genre. Comedy tends to have a huge red lettering and either a specific set up of characters or a scene that looks like it has been pulled from the movie itself. The white backgrounds of the comedy gives focus to the subjects of the movie poster (usually main characters) and emphasis on red lettering. If the main characters are very well known then usually the font will be smaller and the picture of the actors will be large. Vice versa, the smaller actors have larger text and the actors in the for ground small.

We learn about negative space in High School English but I never thought too much about it until revisiting the topic through this assignment. The use of negative space is also used in graphic novels and comics. In comics and graphic novels what is happening between the panels is more important than what is going on in the panels. The use of negative space, fonts, and panel content to get the reader to fill in the blanks, graphic design makes you pay attention to what is not there and fill in the blanks for yourself. 

In summary, graphic design is about telling a story or a piece of a story without explicitly stating it. They ask themselves what a story looks like. Graphic designers take a lot into account when making designs and it’s all in respect to the audience, publisher, and the author. While there is a blueprint that they can follow to show that it’s a horror, thriller, comedy, or action, a lot of the decisions are ultimately up to the designer. Its really interesting to know what goes into creating what we consume visually each and every day. When looking at anything with a sign I don’t really appreciate the time, consideration, and work that went into it. Moving forward, I will definitely look at things from a different perspective.

Am I the next Chip Kidd?

It’s been interesting to read the article and watch multiple videos on graphic design guru Chip Kidd in order to gain insight into his career and ideas. Chip’s ability to come up with all these diverse visual styles while making it appear easy was astounding throughout the Ted Talk. Even though I’m not a professional designer, I could comprehend his explanations of each design, which were nonetheless incredibly imaginative. Every design he discussed and displayed highlighted its backstory. This certainly has to do with our digital storytelling course; like Chip’s work, everything we do here should have a backstory in addition to being a beautiful visual design. All of Chip’s ideas and viewpoints broadened my understanding of design and made me understand that it’s more than simply an image or cover; each design shapes my perception and tells a story.

The second movie cover design YouTube video I saw gave me a very fascinating behind-the-scenes peek at how meticulously movie covers are created to provide a synopsis of the film. As discussed in the video, the color schemes and every minute element help to convey the genre of the film as well as the message it is attempting to convey. As an avid moviegoer, I never gave much thought to the narrative or message conveyed by the front cover. However, after seeing this video, I can truly appreciate all of the work that goes into making a movie’s visual cover. A movie poster emphasizes the significance of a target audience and harmonizes the cover with the film’s theme, reinforcing Chip Kidd’s theory that design is a language that communicates with the audience rather than just an image.

Watching the creative process behind Stranger Things’ throwback title sequence was a fascinating video, especially for someone who loves the show as much as I do. Imaginary Forces purposefully created a design that evoked a retro 1980s vibe by carefully selecting the typography, colors, and other visual components, as they stressed in the video. Many people have praised the show for its title sequence, calling it an impeccable nod to the 1980s. The design “transports” viewers to a certain moment and evokes those feelings, making it a prime example of how powerful design can be. As Chip mentioned, design needs to be done strategically, and the designer needs to have a clear idea of what they want to convey.