A Columbia Compostion

The third project of Visual Journalism consists of a magazine page reproduction. In the first complex design, the page reproduction has many different visual elements. 



The typography is the most complicated aspect of the page. The main quote in red at the top is the hardest to duplicate, because the word size and the tracking between the words changes. There is also four different types of fonts, which is a bit challenging.It would be used for print.

So the colors used would CMYK inks, which abstracts light to make the color. The font color was mostly black and white, however red is used a lot, a little blue and even less yellow.

The pictures weren't hard when the photos were found. They must be the right size, direction and placement. The aspect that is most difficult is finding the right picture with the best attributes.

For example, the picture in the top right needed to have a white background, so the red text would show up.

Let's add Some Color

For the second project for Visual Journalism at Columbia College Chicago, the students would apply warm and cool colors to their previous black and white design.

Since it is for online the designer has to use RGB light scale, which makes the colors by reflecting light.

WARM COLORS

The dark toned colors still draw the viewer's attention to the center like in the black and white piece, but it brings unity to all the other pieces in the design.

COOL COLORS

Yellow, orange and red are the warm colors that obviously makes the viewer feel warm and closeness to the piece. Blue, green and magenta are the cool colors that reminds the viewer of a cold feeling.

A Black and White World

The black and white design is the first project in the Visual Journalism class at Columbia College Chicago.
The purpose of this project is to use black and white shapes, the designer's intention is to have the middle be in front and the center of attention.

The project from 2011 uses shapes to draw the viewer's attention to the center of the page. The four sets of three rectangles, which make a pyramid like shape, surround the piece to draw the viewer's attention even more to the center. The different magnitudes of the rectangles almost create an arrow pointing towards the middles.

 

People usually follow the direction of the straight and curved lines due to a human's curiosity to see where things end. The background X line has the least gravity to draw the attention to the center for unity. Behind the other objects it fades away as it gets closer to the center of attention, so it doesn't take away from the designer's scheme.

The lines also represent construction lines in the program InDesign to portray project's building process.

The lack of color helps the lines and shapes standout. But the shade and gradient of white and black become gray bringing unity between the colors.