Key Principals: Legibility and Tone of Voice

Legibility (a word which you will become sick of after this blog) is an integral aspect to any design, either creating your work perfectly legible for the audience to immediately recognise and receive your concept/message, or purposefully create a seemingly illegible design in order to intrigue your audience to looking closer. One of the main elements to legibility is a coherent visual hierarchy around each part of your design; if this hierarchy is not coherent then it is likely you will end up with a confusing thus likely illegible design. An example of legibility concerning visual hierarchy is when text is placed directly over an image. Sometimes this can work, assuming the text is of a contrasting colour, and image itself is of a relatively plain contrast with little detail, such as a sky or a simple wallpaper. When it is placed over a more intricate image, or the type colour is similar then the text gets lost and the visual hierarchy is blurred. 

As can be seen here, the text becomes lost over the darker elements of the image and becomes significantly less legible to the audience. This links heavily with another aspect of legibility: colour. Like with text over an image requiring a high contrast, colours used in designs need to be coherent and suitable too. For example, yellow is a poor choice when placed over white, like this.Whereas even if I were to use light grey over white like this, then your eye will be able to note a difference and read the subtle text. Due to research though, white is apparently not the most easily visible over black; according to their results, yellow is in fact easier to read, as shown here.

shirt ironically saying 'illegible'

While colour is important, so is the choice of font. If I were using a celtic/gothic script font to advertise a foreign student English course, then although native English people could easily read it, the style of font may pose a problem for foreign people, whereas a clear sans serif would convey the message easily. Font size and layout styles pose similar conundrums, because although a small font size to a staggered baseline and offset paragraphing may be legible under examination, it is not initially legible, and probably of little use. Legibility can also vary when alternated between print and screen viewing, and further vary in those contexts of; screen: tv, phone, computer and print: paper, billboard, and mediums such as clothing material. When designing for a brief, you must consider the optimums and negatives of each required medium and tailor your design to maximise legibility across each viewing. Will there be too much text to fit on a phone screen? Will the cultural context of the layout be transferrable and legible when applied to a foreign design (in the case of internationally available websites or tv shows) A common mistake made in design is also the transfer of a design from full colour, to greyscale for a letterhead. Most people will often use the colour design but print in mono, what they do not understand is this may make the design illegible, as although colours appear different, they have similar intensities and thus will result from a mono print, into very similar shades of grey, removing contrast and clarity. 

In this poster here, designed by myself for the WWF, I chose; the colours, word count and layout very carefully, maximising legibility. The three tone palette makes the design bold, while the word placing allows the eye to read it in multiple ways, while maintaining a consistently strong message. Help stop poaching. help poaching stop. It is possible to read it in other ways too, although the white 'Help' placed in the top corner immediately sets a visual hierarchy of being the initial word, and making the exclamation mark the final. The font is a clear sans serif and at a high point size, and while the layout is unorthodox for reading, it is specifically like that in order to appear aesthetically pleasing but more importantly to draw the interest of the audience member to the design.

This links to my second key point, tone of voice. As odd as you may think it at first, fonts, images and colours each have a 'tone of voice'. The tone of voice in this design is bold and forceful due to the bold, high point sized text in correlation with the bold colour scheme. Since this is a charity poster, it may be thought that a 'shouting' tone of voice would be largely unacceptable and would drive the audience away, although the tone of voice here is reflective upon the context and content concerning severity of the cause; poaching (as reinforced by the satirical image I produced beside)

Now look at the following examples. The first two words do not seem right, as the don't have the assumed tone of voice. The fluid script text is commonly associated with a delicate subject, while the heavier bold sans serif has far more presence, demanding attention. When these are reversed as shown in the following two words, they make much more sense. This is also where tone of voice, in application to fonts make sense too. The crucial principal to it, is that each and every subject carries a preset connotation formed by general consensus. For example, if 1990 romance films had chosen not to use use script fonts such as this, then the cultural connotation may be different. If over time the use of bold sans serif fonts was widely used in progression towards the representation of delicate subjects (as unlikely as it is) then the associations and thus tones of voice attached to those fonts would change too.

So, does the tone of voice connected with a particular typography, image or colour affect the way I react? Very likely so, yes. To begin with, reading 'whisper' in the scripted font probably felt much more natural than that of the sans serif. But it goes deeper than that. Colours contain a tone of voice too, the colour red will often either brood an inherit emotion of anger OR passion depending on the context it is used in. In advertising campaigns tone of voice is carefully chosen as to attract the desired demographic, and may even be used in juxtaposition with the project to cause a controversial interest. 

The image set here for the Volvo XC90 is an interesting advertising campaign, using the tone of voice connoted by these images to bring a feeling of serenity to the viewer. By using this tone of voice, the audience is likely to be housewives looking for relaxation rather than a more masculine loud car. The tone of voice also implies that these scenes are achievable through this product. Cleverly, the designers have omitted a photo of the actual car, as visually (its personal tone of voice) is quite bold and contradictory to the desired message. 

When comparing this campaign to another car, such as the Mazda 2  changes are immediately seen in the tones of voice, through: the chosen imagery, typographics and colour schemes. The overall tone of voice for this design is now very action based and modernly stylish, likely aimed at a mid 20 to mid 30's male target audience. This tone of voice is created through the predominate black, in contrast with the neon greens and turquoises closely resembling clubs and nightlife. The dynamic angle to the car in relation to text baselines (which hold an italic text this making the strokes vertical again) and blocks also connotes a progressive action theme along with the movement captures in the slow shutter speed stylised elements to the photo as well as the flying taper banners.

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Key Principals: Research and Inspiration

Research is an integral part of project practice and development in the both the creative an 'academic' world as it broadens your understandings, helping towards problem solving. The research stage allows the user to explore their subject deeper, gaining a far greater knowledge and understanding which will likely reflect into the outcome of work. Although research can be quick and simple now days with the growth of the internet, such as gathering images from google or taking information from wikipedia, you are gaining a very shallow understanding of your subject. With this secondary research, you are gathering someone else's views and opinions through image and text (despite it being your choice what media to select). This may sound negative, but there is an upside, as through selecting these aspects you are able to see a vast quantity of 'other peoples opinions, views and adaptations' in contrast with each other, thus creating a rule of average: aka elements which tie the majority of the examples together are likely to be useful and influential. This is similar to tertiary research, where you take sections from other peoples research: even though you are selecting what you want to include, they are not wholly your interpretations and opinions.

Primary research on the other hand will yield a fresh wealth of knowledge and understanding. By going out and collecting first hand photos, sketches or feedback you are having to take a much more active role in the process, pushing to think about it in various ways. In the design practise, visual research is probably the best method, this includes anything visual from sketches to photos. In surrounding yourself with visual stimuli and noting down ideas as they come to mind, or even making a quick illustrative note of something which inspires you, you begin to feel more inspired and stimulated.

Illustrator Paul Davis constantly collects visual research, saying 'I feel sick when I forget potentially good ideas. I don't slack, I take photographs, I draw, I scan, I photoshop', this leads him to quote the iconic illustrator Saul Steinberg 'Boredom is the enemy of the artist'. Here he is otherwise saying without creative input you will become bored and uninspired, thus feel a lack of motivation and creativity. In the sketchbooks below, there are two examples of illustrative journalling. 

The first is an observational logging style, likely collected in a park while watching people. the use of watercolour and ink here creates a very bold yet detailed image, reminiscent of early Paddington Bear illustrations by Peggy Fortnum. Having illustrations  like this in a visual diary can be useful to the user when referring back for certain stances, dress styles or characters in a later project. Doing research so precisely as this will also help hone the artistic style, and develop it too.

In this sketchbook, we have moved away from the style of observational research, to more of an abstract research method, looking more at the context of emotions and senses. With the simple stimuli 'shiver' the sketchy drawing method and use of rough cold blue hues relates to the word, and becomes a visual representation/interpretation. By attempting a portrayal of words like this, a deeper understanding in the styles, feelings and mediums that can be suitably attached with it emerge.

This additional sketchbook page below, by C.K Koh can be a further example of visual research. Rather than drawing an object, or portraying a sensation, he is sketching the development of an idea. By drawing it in frames, he is able to reveal the full potential of it, with the aid of annotation. If this was purely written, it is likely many aspects and details of the idea would be forgotten

This leads perfectly to the second key point I have chosen; where do illustrators and designers find inspiration? Quite simply, all around them I believe. By observing, collecting and drawing, a creative mind is likely to find inspiration anywhere to some degree. Constantly heckled by mentors 'which icon inspires and influences your work the most', I find it difficult to respond, as while it is definitely important to have an understanding of prior artists, I find that an implied constant inspiration by them is virtually non existent. As the creative industry and its trends fluctuate massively, I feel that ones surroundings will always be the biggest influence upon a creative mind, reflecting the current trends of the culture. This collaborative inspiration source will lead to a far more original and creative outcome, than one inspired by a single figurehead. 

"Research should be broad and in depth, enabling you to innovate, not imitate" 

~ Mark Wigan, thinking visually 2006 ~

In terms of 'where would a creative mind find inspiration', the key is both in the world around them, and the world they create through visual research such as in the examples I displayed above. 

Key Principals: Notions of Originality and Cultural Context

Originality is a rare thing to come across in modern creative forms, as ideas are now likely to to be pastiches or bricolages of prior ideas (whether inadvertently or not). Something that does aid the production of original ideas though, is the flux in cultural values, thus allowing various styles and condemning others. This means that in some years of cultural context a designer will be pressured into one avenue of themed design, whereas in a latter age of cultural attitude, the range of acceptability in design might have shifted thus allowing different ideas.

“I did not invent anything. I took ideas from everywhere.
The only thing I did was combine things together.”
~ Blek le rat ~

In the world of art, Banksy is a well know graffiti street artist. He is characterised by his extensive use of stencils with spray paint medium, many people believe this public satirical graffiti to be original, although there are many who compare his choice and application of media to the less mainstream known 'Blek Le Rat'. Within the culture of any art, there are critics who look negatively at style/idea imitation in work, but neglect to see many artists are either; inspired by each other and accidentally come close to imitations, or take totally different paths of inspiration and development to arrive at the same point unaware of each others work.

"I’m not interested in convincing people in the art world that what I
do is art. I’m more bothered about convincing people in the graffiti
community that what I do is really vandalism! " ~ Banksy ~

The French artist Blek Le Rat had different intentions for the stencil graffiti though. His main ideal was to create a public form of art which passers by could view without having to purchase it or visit a gallery. This was to make a statement portraying a discontent with society. 

Rats, both popular subjects in the work of Blek and Banksy, are symbolic figures of disease, pestilence; vilified by villagers in fairy tails such as the Pied piper. In corresponding to this, Blek and Banksy use this symbolic and cultural reference to state 'we are underground, we are the street, we are a subculture you can’t understand, you can’t see me because I come out late at night and by the morning I have single handily changed your world'

“Blek started out in and around 1981 cutting stencils of rats and spraying them in and around Paris, and the sudden
“outbreak” of Blek rats all over town was noticed.  He has put up thousands of these creatures around the city, and his
reason is simple: rats are the only free animals in the city and that they are feared by humankind.”
~ Alan Bernard 2007 ~

The audience for graffiti art like this can vary extensively. The graffiti element firstly attracts a urban and rebellious teen demographic, while the satirical elements are likely to intrigue and capture the attention from older more sophisticated audiences who may otherwise hold some objections to the general graffiti art. 

The styles of sophistication within each artists style is taken from a different angle; Blek uses a rough 'distressed' form of typography in correlation to his applied style to the rats. This implies that his representations relate to the rats iconography of being 'rough, ragged, dirty but survivors'. Banksy on the other hand takes the approach of stencils which create a more precise aesthetic. This stylised design makes each design extremely bold, supporting the satirical element more through the context of the images produced. This, in contrast with the freehand typography results in an extremely striking representational message he wished to portray. As far as originality goes though, while both styles are greatly similar, they both set out to achieve varying goals with varying interests. So are these still notions of originality despite their similarities?

Roy Lichtenstein -- Girl With Hair Ribbon - 1965

Above are some images, by Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and Matteo Bertolio. While it is clear the final image is a pastiche of Andy Warhol's, Much controversy was sparked between Lichtenstein and Warhol's styles, over who copied who (if at all). It is widely believed Roy followed Andy, although as far as notions of originality go the key question has been overlooked (the same goes for Blek and Banksy): Did anyone coin the style before the favoured 'original'?

Cultural context is an important aspect to bare in mind when choosing the medium of your work as it canned drastically influence the message you're attempting to portray. Going back to the work of Blek and Banksy, the spray paint method is carefully chosen in aiding the representation of satire within their pieces. In cultural contexts, spray paint is associated with graffiti, which is in turn under the semantics of vandalism and rebellious nature both against the establishment and outside the community. By fusing these contextual assumptions of their chosen media with their witty, satirical themes they raise the 'acceptability' of graffiti by removing the crude vandalism against society element. Instead, these graffiti art pieces mark a witty message which resounds with the community, especially relating to the current trends in opinion they might hold.

If these pieces were to be done in oil paint, watercolour or detailed and elaborate pencil sketches then the juxtaposition of media to message would be less effective. It is down to the seemingly uneducated, crude and underground medium contrasted with rhetorical and witty messages that makes these designs so effective. A more precise and formal method/style would completely change the cultural context to the demographic likely to encounter one of Blek's or Banksy's pieces, thus removing the suitability and  contrasting shock value of the design. 

Key Principals: Overcoming Minsets and Managing Creative Environments

Creativity is they keystone in the design world, and is something not everyone is good at. As children we are all highly creative as we are more in touch with the right hemisphere of the brain. We learn new skills from our experiences in education, from our personal 'adventures' and social interactions. This skill exploration and development can be motivated by our curiosity or in order to keep up to date with our changing lifestyle and surroundings. Although these fascinations and urges (or even felt necessities) to develop skills are not reflexive, but can be down to deep manifestations of creative abilities we each have.

Despite this seemingly primal instinct, many of us lose our creative sparks to the left 'logical' hemisphere from the routined educational system which can downplay creative essences. So, you ask, how do I know if I'm creative? Creativity is generally viewed as:

Originality in thinking - new solutions for old problems

Generating different ideas, outside of the box

Creating unusual associations, bringing different perspectives

Breaking 'rules' and taking 'risks' in creative ways during tasks

Adopting a playful attitude

To maintain a creative mind, just nurture that spark of imagination. "An essential aspect of creativity is not being afraid to fail." - Edwin Land

Overcoming mindsets is an important element when retaining a fresh and creative attitude. After going through years of primary and secondary school and perhaps even college, we have all picked up some degrees of habitual thinking. Habitual thinking, as the name suggests, is approaching problems through a habit patterned thought process. Tackling these every day problems in such a routined and conventional method can stunt the creative thought process thus bringing us to predictable outcomes and 'average' work. By breaking this practice, we allow our imagination to see the same problem from an altered viewpoint and come up with more interesting and original solutions.

Although we are breaking the habitual rules, structures and patterns we have learnt, it does not mean we are doing things incorrectly. Quite simply, we are not thinking in a linear fashion, but rather take a different approach which linear thinking would not often see: this can also be called 'lateral thinking' or in common terminology: 'thinking outside the box'. Thinking outside the box also removes you from your comfort zone, aka your 'habitat' and thus forces you to think in alternate ways, which lead to increasingly eccentric, creative and imaginative approaches.

There are various ways to challenge the rules of conventional methods of problem solving and thinking, most of which are merely questioning them and thinking in more abstract ways concerning either the problem: point A) or the goal: point B). In AS level fine art, I knew a girl who was extremely precise and immaculate when drawing, but struggled and became frustrated when attempting a more sketchy and abstract style for the project at hand. To help her relax from the habitual process she was used to, I showed her the image she wanted to draw, gave her some paper with a stick of charcoal and told her to draw it while I covered her eyes. This took her outside her comfort zone and forced her to think in a completely different way; rather than drawing what she could see in a precise manner, she had to loosen up and be much more fluid. Each time the image was revealed to her, she could see how much closer she was getting to the desired style. This broke her habitual methodology and pushed her into adopting a sense of lateral thinking, on how to try and achieve the drawing.

Aware of how plain and predictable work can become when project risks aren't taken, I for the past 2 years have been attempting to put myself beyond my comfort zone, and into differently styled projects. Although this will inevitably lead to lateral thinking and creativity, there will still always be a subtle and underlying pattern as to how I tackle problems. To break my now paradoxical habitual lateral thinking, I will have to think even further outside the box to really maximise my creative potential. One way I can do this is to not just break/question general habitual thinking rules or even my current patterns, but expand my personal attitudes, interests, inspirations and thought processes. This, in turn, will have a knock on effect with my work in broadening its potential. Posing questions to current 'rules' such as 'what if..?' 'why..?" and 'How..?' have always been a useful method for me when solving problems, as I find they open your mind into accepting or even creating a wider variable of solutions. These go hand in hand with a playful attitude: knowing, yet not feeling totally bound by limitations and preconceptions. A physical playful attitude allows you to open yourself up to more experiences and thus inspirations, while a mentally playful attitude will allow you to radically develop and toy with concepts in your mind. Imaginative innovations are unique and beautiful byproducts of these methods to thinking, and ones that are rarely achieved through linear thinking.

Despite this, spreading in thought 'outside the box' will eventually cause some controversial pieces. Although controversy in the artistic and creative world can be seen as a huge positive, I feel that as a graphic designer, high levels of controversy can be extremely bad: alienating your audiences and thus creating a niche product which may have potential of something much larger. So in reality, habitual patterns are not at all a bad thing. While they may limit your creativity, they do ensure a safe outcome. Therefore the real importance of overcoming mindsets is not to become trapped in a loop of them and bound by their patterns, but to delicately balance them into a fine equilibrium that enables you to both achieve a suitable outcome that serves its desired purpose, in an original and creative way. 

Looking through Christoph Niemann's work at http://www.christophniemann.com/, there is a very strong sense of creative thinking as he breaks the linear thought process in portraying visual metaphors. This lateral thinking and breaking conventional mindsets enables him to create witty and original solutions to these metaphors, resulting in likely amusement or deep thought struck in the viewer. Although all his work is witty and encoded, he remains to think laterally in comparison to the majority of the audience. And while his styles are very similar, variating between vector art and pen/ink sketches and washes, it is the visual concept which carries his fresh style. 

Managing a creative environment can be the main source of inspiration to creative mind, and should provide a form of haven to the creator. It is a place where a designer, illustrator, animator, photographer or artist should feel comfortable and inspired: walls and desks are likely to be covered in tools of the trade, magazine cutouts, things the person might collect, passions, hobbies, and general things that are personally meaningful. The reasoning behind creating such an inspirational environment, or work area, is to break any 'designers block' by sparking ideas. 

The environment also aids in the development of ideas and can even bring out emergent styles in pieces of work. Because of all of these aspects, the area will begin to be a collaborative representation of your personality and thoughts. By making this personal cultural escape, you are further motivated to work by your encapsulating surroundings. 

As can be seen in the images above, it is extremely easy to customise your areas into somewhere special for yourself. Simply by sticking up posters, notes, photos or snippets of whatever you find interesting and inspirational, you begin to surround yourself in your passions. Since you are the 'target audience' there are no wrong answers either; no queries about layout, content suitability or colour schemes as it souly for yourself. As can be seen in the images, the layouts have some structure, but still a huge element of randomness, and over time as opinions change, each element can be moved and replaced accordingly. Obviously, since there are no restrictions of any sort, you are not limited by just images and things you can stick up to the wall. As can be seen in some of the images above, but more so in the image here, you can shelve objects which can be interacted with. So long as you have a desk and a wall, it is straight forward to make your own personal environment.

The thing is, you don't even need to collect photos and objects to create a comfortable and inspiring creative environment. As can be seen here, an interesting and tailored wall painting can be just as effective. Since I am currently unable a paint my walls, I have to stick with hanging pictures, tacking cut outs or collecting objects. Despite this, I find this method extremely effective and suitable in creating the essential base for an inspirational designers space. The use of block tones here in bold and angular shapes creates a very dynamic scene, promoting an active atmosphere all round.

If you want to go even further and become more elaborate in personalising your space, then click here to see a series of standard cubical office areas, which have been transformed into far more creative and interesting spaces for work. Although, while these are impressive customisations, the best place to look at for truly creative studio spaces, are those in Pixar.

As you are heavily influenced by your surrounding work places, and often will implement themes or aspects of them into your ideas, the workplace is more important than people give credit. In the following two Pixar studio tour video links, you will see just how far they go in order to create a relaxed and creative work environment. 

Built and designed to stimulate the minds of the employees, this highly relaxed and creative studio building is a haven for ideas to be created and shared between people, broadening their minds and thus thinking outside the box. Spaces like this break the boundaries or stereotypes of 'offices' and enable creative lateral thinking to flourish thus leading to diverse and unique ideas. Since these videos their studios have grown and now hold huge statues and models of some of the most popular cartoon characters they have born, unfortunately I could not find a video of that. Inside the Pixar studios fun work is promoted and a mini culture is created. 

Video 1

Video 2