Over the past couple of weeks, I have been learning about some new design principles in class. I ran across this anti-tobacco advertisement online and I noticed that it applies several principles of design in order to persuade its demographic. One of the first principles I immediately noticed was the use of highlighting to draw my eye to the focus of the poster. Highlighting, of course, is a way to draw attention to text or images visually through the use of color, fonts, font size, italics, etc. In this anti-smoking ad, the bright red word BURN in all caps grabs the attention almost instantly because it is so different from the shades of color from the rest of the poster. In fact it is very similar to the von Restorff effect because the red font is more unique than the rest. The font size is also bigger in order to get the message of that portion of the text across easier. The use of color here is also clever because the red and yellow color scheme of the text matches the colors of the cigarette burning. The second principle that came to mind when looking at this ad is the signal to noise ratio shown. Signal to Noise Ratio is the amount of relevant information to irrelevant information shown visually in design. So the more unnecessary components shown, the harder it will be to for the viewer to focus and understand the relevant information. For this ad the ratio is pretty high due to the simplicity of its design. Most of the components are efficient and do not take away from the message by adding unnecessary noise. However, one nitpick would have to be that the smoke effect could be distracting and should be lessened. The final principle I noticed was the exposure effect that takes place with most anti-smoking ads. The exposure effect occurs when people are “exposed” to the same stimulus over and over again, therefore that stimulus becomes accepted and liked. The only problem is that in order for the exposure effect to work it cannot be a stimulus that has a negative connotation. This is an interesting concept because children who have grown up with anti-smoking ads have a neutral opinion about cigarettes and that is when they grow up they will likely not smoke cigarettes. On the other hand, adults who already smoke have a negative opinion about cigarette ads and that is why most fail to persuade. In fact this poster does the opposite of what the exposure effect is intended to do, it makes people want to smoke more just to prove the poster wrong. Anyway, I thought it was an interesting design that utilized many principles I’ve come to learn.
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I really did not know what to expect when I first started the Crash Course in Media Design seeing as I have had zero experience doing anything in the design realm. As I walked through each step in Stanford’s design thinking process, I constantly shifted back and forth from feeling uncomfortable to natural. As someone who prides himself on taking time and producing the best possible work to my ability, I remember one of the hardest parts about this whole process was the fact that I had to share my unfinished work in front of others. I felt like my ideas were going to be judged harshly based on how low quality my prototype was. But I understand that it is necessary in media design for products to go through multiple cycles in order to create a good solution for the user. Designers brainstorm as many options as possible and it would take too long to fully develop them all before showing them. Even more so, attempting to try and sort all these ideas/concepts moving inside my head and into this very visual medium is not an easy thing to do. On the other hand, things were more natural during the empathizing step of the process. My partner and I were on the same page and talking one on one with the user became very fluid which caused good concepts to form. For example, my prototype completely changed after testing it with my partner because I was able to read into the person I was talking to. All these things like facial expressions, mannerisms, and eye contact can be seen when your with a real human being in the room and ultimately helped move the prototype in a better direction. In fact, my input into my partners concepts also improved the low resolution prototype made for me. I liked my partners prototype because it was made specifically for my problem but the impact was lessened because the level of resolution made me wonder how realistic of a design it was. If I had to go back and do the process again with the knowledge I know now I definitely feel like I could be more efficient. I would go deeper in the needs of my client because even though I was able to get good information I feel like I did not understand the process well enough to ask the right questions. As for next time, I will not be so focused on creating completely polished ideas but instead I will try to make as many options as possible to lead towards a final design. I think a good take away to come from this process is the idea of going back and revising as many times as necessary to get the product needed. I am interested in seeing how to better this process in the future.
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AuthorJames Caspary Archives
January 2019
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