Ella Wheeler

Category: Visual Media

  • Reverse Engineer Post

    I found this image of a magazine spread from Womankind Magazine and it was created by a studio called Patten. Patten is a freelance design studio located in Spain with a goal of developing creative content. Also, Womankind Magazine is an “advertising-free women’s magazine on self, identity, and meaning in today’s society.”

    Typeface Category

    The main typeface of the entire piece is Oldstyle. You can see that there is a diagonal stress on the letter “O” and “C” as well as the others. You can also see the bracketing on the curved parts of the tops of each letter. It is all uppercase so we cannot see any slants, but we can see the other features. There is also present thick/thin transitioning. In the typeface for the magazine’s logo we see a Modern typeface. I drew vertical lines to show how there is vertical stress in this case. There is also no bracketing on the tops of the letters. Once again, it is all uppercase, so we cannot look for the serifs that would occur on a lowercase letter.

    Screenshot

    Typeface Contrast

    I would say the main elements that makes these two contrasting would be the fact that the stress is different. One is diagonal and one is vertical. There is also a big difference between the thick/thin transitioning of the letters. For a Modern typeface, this transition is much more drastic than compared to the Oldstyle. The bracketing is also a big distinguisher because Modern doesn’t have any bracketing, while Oldstyle does. This is mainly because of the history of each typeface in which Oldstyle represents the slant of a pen while in hand and Modern does not.

    Photography

    I would say that this image follows the Rule of Thirds and Depth of Field. In the first image I drew out a grid to represent the Rule of Thirds, and it seems to line up fairly well. I think to make it better the girl would have needed to be more to right, but overall it seems to sit on the three corners of that middle square. I would also say that Depth of Field is apparent. The girl and her chair are the focus point in the foreground. Then, we have the table and the dresser and the objects in the middleground that fall behind the girl but don’t seem super far away. Lastly, I put lines in the very back to show the background. This would be the wall, the objects on the dresser, and anything that is hanging on the wall.

    My photos mimic the original because they all have that sort of cozy vibe and they all have a representation of time. The first is my shadow of me checking my watch which not only shows me physically checking the time, but also the light is because of the sun setting or the time of day almost being done. The second is showing the widget on my computer that has a clock (even though the computer already shows it in the top right). The last one you can see a missionary countdown calendar in the background. They also use the same concepts. The Rule of Thirds is in play because each main section of the image is imagined to be on those right side line intersections. They also follow the Field of Depth as some objects are very close to the camera while others are much further.

    Conclusion

    Overall, I really liked dissecting the design of this magazine spread. I think that the typeface wasn’t as contrasting as it could have been, but I tried my best to still compare. I think that if the larger headings on the page had a very different typeface, then that contrast would have been more clear. I did really like the image they used as well. It definitely contributed to the overall vibe I was getting from the piece itself.

  • Reverse Engineer Post – “Introduce Your World To Ours”

    Original Photo

    This advertisement was created for Cathay Pacific Airline (designer unknown). It was created in 2015 when this airline had a new non-stop flight from Boston to Hong-Kong.

    Contrast

    I can see that contrast is almost the main focus here, and it is represented by the dotted line going straight down the middle separating the two sides. I think that the main contrast that you would notice first is the teacup. It appears as one uniform shape but made from different colored cups. Each side of the cup also has different patterns and actual tea inside. I think that the next biggest thing would be the contrast in language. On the left, we can see the English language. On the right, we can see the Chinese language. Overall, there is a lot of contrast as the ad is quite literally separating everything in half.

    Repetition

    Next, we have repetition. For this concept I wanted to focus on the text. Although different languages, the same message is written twice in each location. So, for every English word stated, the Chinese translation of the same message is on the right. Also, for the smaller words under the cup, the spacing in between phrases stays the same. This makes it look clean and organized.

    Alignment

    The alignment is very interesting here. On the left side, there is right alignment, and on the right side, there is left alignment. I think that the main reason is because it creates a straight line against the dotted line, and makes it look clean. But, it is also interesting how the alignment is opposite because then we could say that this is another observation for the contrast concept.

    Proximity

    For proximity, I was looking at the language translations. Each phrase is directly next to the phrase that is its translation. Their proximity indicates the relation that they are saying the exact same thing. So, even if we can speak one of the languages, but not the other, we can assume that they are saying the same thing.

    Color

    For the background, the colors are very simple. There is blue for the main background and white for the text. I think white was a good choice for the text because it will obviously stand out best over the blue. I also think this combination was chosen to represent the colors of the sky and clouds. Without reading the ad, we could probably tell from the colors and the airplane symbol what it may be about. I also put lines near the cups because this is where we see the most colors. From the tea colors, to the pattern colors, there is a ton of variety. I think the main reason for a very different color palette on each side is to relate to cultural things perhaps. It is showing how you are able to travel from one country to the next. One far away place to the next.

    Conclusion

    Overall, I feel that this design is very well done. I think that the more I looked at each section, the more things I could point out for each concept. I think it does a very good job of mixing all of the concepts to create this idea that the countries from airport to airport are very far away and different. But, this flight has “connected” them in a way both by literal non-stop flights, but also other things too. Also, the main quote in the ad, “Introduce Your World To Ours,” suggests that these differences should not keep us from sharing our cultures with places around the world.