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2. Systems Design

The keychain at the top of the post is part of a larger design system for Fenner Conservancy. Fenner Conservancy is the non-profit that manages Fenner Nature Center for the City of Lansing. Throughout the system, the same logo is used, but with different taglines. For the keychain, it’s “conservancy.” For the business card, it doesn’t have any. For the newsletter, it has “nature center,” with the secondary tagline “learn to go wild.” It all goes together, because they all employ the same fonts, same color scheme, and the same white space around the logo. There are clearly defined rules when each tagline is appropriate, and it serves to differentiate the different product’s purposes and affiliations while still creating a cohesive brand.

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1. Data visualization

This infographic depicts seven data categories, informing viewers about different aspects of the population’s phone usage. The underlying agenda stems from the company that sponsored the research: Comcast. According to Comcast’s corporate website, it “is one of the nation's largest video, high-speed Internet and phone providers.” Comcast also owns NBC and Universal. This infographic is seemingly straightforward. However, it also serves to draw attention to underutilized aspects of mobile phones, like gaming, apps, and tv and movie streaming. All of these features, Comcast has an interest in, whether it be streaming Universal’s movies or using up your Comcast Xfinity data playing games and downloading apps.

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This magazine is a perfect example of designing within a system. Magazines typically have a stylebook, or system manual if you will. This ensures that everything from the nameplate to the fonts to the number of columns in the grid system. HOUR Detroit’s nameplate remains at the top of each of their issues. It uses a sophisticated serif font and decorative script. They use a three column grid system. Beyond their style rules, or system constraints, they exercise some creativity, like with photo placement (pictured in the left column) or using a background and reverse type (bottom left). This allows designers wiggle room without the burden of absolute freedom. It allows for interesting design while still maintaining the magazine’s personality and brand recognition.

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These book covers are designed to function within a system. The layout is the same, with the author’s name at the top and the title at the bottom. The system incorporates a system of fonts, using one serif and one script font. The images also function within a system. Each is a head shot of a woman with short black hair and black sunglasses. Reflected in the sunglasses is an image hinting at the young thief’s target. Because the covers were designed using a consistent system, the covers flow together, establishing reader recognition and a cohesive aesthetic speaking to the content.

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These playing cards are an example of design functioning within a system. The deck is called “Horse Breeds of the World,” and the system’s design focusing on the different breed illustrations. However, with playing cards, the system includes constraints like size and suits and material. They also need to be recognizable for easy playing. To distinguish between “face cards,” the Ace, King, Queen, and Jack, and the number cards, two through 10, they made very purposeful choices, further solidifying the system. The number cards are all headshots and include the breed. Black suits face right, and red suits face left. Face cards are full body images and do not include the breed designation. They use a more fluid design style but there is still a unifying factor between the face cards in the same suit. For example, the black kings both featured here are rearing. The system not only aids design, but aids players in recognizing and relating cards.

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Post Modernism

This magazine spread is an example of post modernism. Overall, it rejects everything modernism promotes: cleanliness, progress, fractured sense of self, ambiguity, juxstaposition and drawing attention to the medium. It incorporates a chalk border, hand written calligraphy, a deeply textured, rich background. The text takes up only a third of the space. The vibrant carrots are earthy, rustic. They interact with each other and the text.

The artist uses cultural connotations to make meaning. The handwritten font and chalk border makes it feel rustically elegant yet homey. The warmth of the background makes it feel inviting; it evokes the feeling of the fall harvest. The carrots bring to mind home gardens, washing and cutting carrots at the sink with your mother or grandmother, perhaps. All these elements are meant to promote an emotional message. The text is simple enough: it is instructions on how to clean and use carrots. The deeper meaning is the feelings the piece evokes, and it is successful in connecting with the reader, where a modernist approach simply conveying the text’s message would not.

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Modernism

This lecture series poster advertisement is an example of modernism. Overall, it rejects ornamentation and strives for sleek design associated with modernism. It also embodies the four modernist principles Barnard outlines. It draws attention to its medium: photography, with the use of large cutouts and wide shots, and graphic design, with the fractured typeface and line elements. It juxstaposes the photographs and text in unsettling ways, turning them at odd angles, in ways they should not be in real life. The affect is vaguely nauseating. If there is a deeper message it is ambiguous. Though the colors and design choices may mean to communicate, it is far from obvious or accessible. It also portrays a disjointed sense of self, from the typefaces to the breaking up of the text to the images breaking through images.

The artist takes a modernist approach to meaning making. The text is to be read, and the information it contains is the most important. The design serves to grab people’s attention, and it comes across as a “universal” design, rather than an emotional, subjective design.

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6. Past style

This book cover design employs a medieval style to suggest the book’s content and personality. The title of the book employs a medieval-calligraphy style script. It is similar to the hand-lettered calligraphy used in medieval manuscripts, with its decorative flourishes. The cover also features medieval-style illustrations in the right and left borders. These illustrations feature aspects of the narrative and are drawn in a flat, medieval style— both common features of the illustrated manuscripts of the period. The design references this medieval style to establish the setting for the book, as it is set in medieval times. It also prepares readers for the traditional hero narrative. By referencing medieval style, it plays on readers expectations of the period, rightly suggesting there will be fantastical adventures set in a mystical kingdom battling monsters. 

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5. Symbolic function

This housewarming invitation utilizes the pineapple as a symbolic sign to signal the celebration’s intended atmosphere to its recipients. The pineapple, especially in the south and the west coast, symbolizes hospitality, warmth and friendship. This relationship between the signifier (the pineapple) and the signified (the event’s themes of hospitality and friendship) is arbitrary. It is agreed upon by a cultural or social group, and the recipients of the invitation would have recognized it. The society it is appealing to have conventionalized this relationship, and therefore, it serves a symbolic function.

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4. Indexical function

This Home Depot ad employs indexical function to represent a happy home and promote its flowers by including smiling children, a dog, and the front door of a nice-looking house. The children’s smiles (the signifiers) are the result of their happiness (the signified). The happy, well-dressed children (the signifiers) belong to the presumably happy, well-provided for family who owns the house behind them (the signified). The dog, being hugged by the child (the signifier) is owned by the family (the signified). The front door and the well kept flowers (the signifiers) belong to the happy, presumably middle or upper-class family (the signified. These signifiers are related to the signified casually, and point to the piece’s indexical function.

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3. Iconic function

This Ferguson ad employs iconic signs to represent the product they are selling, as well as evoke the feeling their product will bring to the consumer’s home. It uses a photograph to showcase a statement chandelier, promoting their design. Of course, the photograph of the light is only an iconic representation of the light, not the light itself. The rest of the photograph is dedicated to other pieces, like the table, the tea and bread on top of it, the chairs, the vases on the dinette, the window in the background and the trees outside. They have a very distinct style, and the represented light compliments the represented pieces exquisitely. All these are iconic representations, meant to remind the consumer of their own dining room, and to suggest their own room could benefit from Ferguson’s design. The relationship between the signifier (the photograph) and the signified (the actual dining room and chandelier) is resemblance.

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2. Connotative meaning

The Baird Brother’s connotative meaning answers the question, “what does the piece make you feel?” The warm tones, especially in the hardwoods evoke a feeling of coziness, of home. The smiles of the man and woman, as they look at the boy and girl make you feel happy, showing familial love and contentment. The inclusion of the dog further solidifies the feeling of family and domestic happiness. The fonts chosen for “welcome home” evoke the rustic chic vibe promoted in the advertisement for shiplap and antique oak flooring. The children playing on the floor and the family’s postures make you feel relaxed, as if you are looking in on any lazy Saturday in the happy home.

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1. Denotative meaning

This Baird Brothers advertisement’s denotative meaning is a factual description of the ad. The smiling man and woman are seated on a couch to the left, a dog lies at their feet, while a boy and a girl play checkers on the floor to the right. The floors are wood and the wall has shiplap wainscoting. The largest text, “welcome home,” is in the top right corner. “Welcome” is written in a rustic, handwritten style, all-caps san-serif. “Home” is written in a hand-written, calligraphy-type script. The text below the children is a serif font, the text in the bottom left is a san-serif font and the Baird Brothers logo is pictured in the bottom right.

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8. Connotative type

The font used for “horse-opoly” is meant to connote the wild-west, cowboy theme by tapping into the historical implications of wood type. This supports the game’s advertising goals.

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7. Small X-height

The Robinson Crusoe title has a small x-height. The ascender and the capital letters, though the “r” is offset, are significantly larger than the x-height.

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6. Large X-height

The Macy’s logo has a large x-height. It’s descender is comparatively very small.

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5. Crossbar

The “a”s in “waterfall” each have a highly contrasted crossbar.