MED4110 Visual Design | Week 4 | Colour and Image

How to Source Images

Designers use images for a number of reasons, which include; as a visual rhetoric, semiology, to encode meaning and to create meaning beyond aesthetic. Designers will have to source their images from either their own images that they have taken, from stock image websites or from teaching materials. 

Websites like Flickr, which is an image hosting website, can be useful to designers for sourcing images. Users will upload their own photographs and will chose what type of Creative Commons license they want it under. Creative Commons is "a non-profit that offers an alternative to full copyright".

Creative Commons work alongside copyright and enable people to modify their copyright terms to suit their needs. Creators can give the public permission to share and use their creative work, on conditions of their choice. 

Designers can also use stock image websites like istockphoto, shutterstock and fotolia. Shutter stock for example maintains a library of royalty-free stock photos, vector graphics, and illustrations (and also video clips). Shutter stock licenses images on behalf of photographers, designers, illustrators. Users can pay by subscription or a la carte to buy and use the images. 

Colour Case Studies

Google

Google logo/homepage

Google uses multi-colour. As Google allows users to search for anything, this is what the different colours represent. It shows the diversity in content that Google has. Not only will it search the whole web, but it also offers email services, news, maps, images, books, video and shopping. This is similar to eBay's logo which also uses the same colours and shows the diverse products that it has. 

The logo uses the primary colours red, blue, yellow, and secondary colour green. These are basic colours, and it communicates that Google is basic and ready/easy to use. These colours are used in design to represent different things, for example blue communicates trust and security, red represents energy and power, yellow represents fun and friendly and green represents wealth and growth. 

Google also uses white and grey for their homepage. The white used is negative space, and this symbolises cleanliness, purity and simplicity. This can suggest that Google is easy and simple to use. Grey is neutral and cool, and works well with most colours. It is used for the text on the page and for the boxes. It is used for its practicalness, and shows that Google is corporate too.

The shape of the Google homepage is made of rectangles (the logo as a whole, the search bar, and the buttons). Rectangles are used to show stability, strength, power, balance, reliability and efficiency, which again shows how Google is reliable and efficient to use.

This is Google's latest logo and it is simpler than the previous. The old logo is in the style of skeuomorphism, which is design that mimics real life objects. Google got rid of the shadowing on their previous logo and made the colour flat (it just looks like it has been run over by a steamroller). Using a flat design allows Google to maintain a consistency across print and the web. Flatter design has been a recent trend, which many brands have changed their logo to.

Old and new Google logo

Coca-cola

The colour that Coca-cola (or Coke) uses is red, and it is likely to be the most widely recognised brand in the world that uses red. Coca-cola uses red with usually only black or white, and this colour combination and red alone is instantly recognisable. 

Red is scientifically proven to increase your heart rate and raise your blood pressure. There are also studies that connect red to hunger, which is a clever choice for Coca-cola to use, as they are a beverage company. In this logo the red activates the sense, making people act (to drink Coke). 

Red is a colour that represents anger or danger, but as a company Coca-cola will want to communicate a positive message. As red can also communicate energy, attention, passion and activity, it offsets the negative connotations by using a cursive font, which helps communicate movement and happiness. Red can also show confidence, ambition, power and leadership, which reflects how Coca-cola is a market leader. 

Coca-cola also uses positive marketing and advertising campaigns like the "Share a Coke with..." campaign. Coke are communicating a sense of friendship by showing their customers that Coca-cola is made for sharing with their friends. This campaign shows just how recognisable the red and white together are - the logo is replaced with the most popular names of the country, and paired with the famous white wave. Coca-cola said they did this to take their global brand and make it personal to their consumers, to create special moments of happiness and memories. It draws on the global trend of self-expression and sharing, but in an emotional way. 

The white wave in the logo and bottle design is called the Dynamic Ribbon, and was part of a graphic re-design in 1969. The bold, dramatic curve reflects the unique contour of the Coca-cola bottle - which is just as recognisable as the logo and red colour. Using white communicates purity and simplicity, which also helps to offset the negative connotations of red, and shows the Coca-cola as a brand is sophisticated. 

The iconic colour of Coca-cola makes consumers feel happy, and connects different consumers together by targeting family, culture and friendship. 

Share a Coke advert 1

Share a Coke advert 2

Image Case Studies

TAC

TAC: Confusion, Metropolitan print advert

TAC's Confusion, Metropolitan advert depicts what it is like to drive whilst on drugs. It shows a crossroad with cars approaching creating an optical illusion of the cars being upside down. This kind of optical illusion can be associated with Dutch artist M. C. Escher.

M. C. Escher's Relativity, 1953. 

TAC's (Transport Accident Commission) purpose is to fund treatment and support services for people injured in transport accidents in Victoria, Australia. They also have a duty to help reduce accidents on Victorian roads and is responsible for the majority of road safety advertising in the state. 

This image has been constructed and retouched, so that it can create the optical illusion which shows the confusion of being on drugs and supports the "if you drive on drugs, you're out of your mind" strap line. It is an educational message that TAC wants to communicate, and this is done well through the image. 

Surrealist painting by Salvador Dali

I think that the style of the image looks like that of a Surrealist painting. Surrealism was an art movement that creates unnerving, illogical scenes with photographic precision, with unexpected juxtapositions - the scenes were surreal, and depicted dreams and imagination. 

The shading of the advert's image is what I think makes it look like a surrealist painting. This helps to communicate the message of "this is what it is like to drive on drugs, this is what happens in your mind".

Oreo

Oreo's New Double Lait print advert

Above is Oreo's New Double Lait (milk) print advertisement, created by the ESA St. Luc Tourney school in Belgium. Oreo's are owned by Nabisco, an American manufacturer of cookies and snacks. An Oreo is a sandwich cookie consisting of two wafers with a sweet creme filling in between. 

This advertisement shows the two wafers with a glass of milk in-between. Oreo's tagline is "Milks favourite cookie" which is supported with their television advert that shows the "twist, lick and dunk" catchphrase. This advert communicates this by using the glass of milk and making it the centre of interest. The "new double lait" shows that they are advertising a new type of Oreo that has double the amount of filling, and the glass of milk represents that and exaggerates it. It also evokes the taste of the Oreo cookie. 

The background is a light blue, and the gradient of it draws the eye in to the centre, where the image is. The image has been retouched in Photoshop, and then is brought into a new document with the background etc. The light blue colour communicates trust, security and modernity and paired with white which communicates simplicity, sums up Oreo and reflects the brand values and the idea of the cookie. 

Using an image creates a depth to the meaning of the advertisement. It hyperbolises what Oreo are trying to say about their new double stuffed cookie. This would be difficult to show with a graphic illustration and would not have been as powerful, as the image shows the real life object of the cookie and a glass of milk. 

Album Redesign 

Our task was to redesign our favourite album using the skills we have learnt so far. 

Macklemore & Ryan Lewis' The Heist

Final Design

Front cover for a jewel case

I decided to recreate Macklemore & Ryan Lewis' debut album, The Heist. The album was independently produced, recorded and released by the duo. I chose to design a cover for a jewel case. The front cover for this is 12x12cm and the back 15.1x11.75cm.

To start, I found an image of the pair and changed it in Photoshop so that it was print ready. I then went round the edges with the wand tool and then chose an effect called "crystallise". This takes the colour of some pixels in one area and makes it into a single coloured shape. I like how by using this effect, you can still see that it is two people, but in an abstract way. I think that it reflects their colourful music and their eccentric ways. I then saved this as a TIFF and placed it into InDesign.

I then found a font online called "Racoon". This font is similar to the design of their initials that they use in their live show set design. I chose to go with "M&RL" instead of "Macklemore & Ryan Lewis" because it was smaller, and would fit into the white space better. I then placed "THE HEIST" under it in a serif font called Bell MT. I used this font because it is similar to the font that they used on their original album design, and I wanted to pay homage to that. Instead of changing the kerning or tracking, I individually placed the letters for "M&RL", so that I could arranged them how it looked best.

When thinking about what colour means, I like how the different colours can suggest different things. It is mainly blue and brown/beige in the background, which suggests strength, spirit, perspective, openness, success, communication, support and warmth - which I feel the album tracks has a lot of. The white background also suggests clarity, and simplicity - which contrasts well with the multicoloured background. 

Back cover for a jewel case

For the back cover, I arranged several of the crystallised front cover images over each other and then crystallised that, which created a background with bigger "crystal" pieces. I did this so both sides went together and flowed. I used the same Bell MT font for the track listing, and used a white drop shadow so that the words didn't get lost amongst the background. I also added a barcode and copyright notice, so that this could be a fully usable design. 

Other designs

Design 2

Design 3

I experimented with some other front cover designs, for example with design 2 I made the image smaller and placed it under the logo, however I thought that there was too much white space on this one.

For design 3, I layered some of the altered images over each other and then blurred them, which gives this 3D blurred effect. I also made the logo bigger so that it overlapped the image. I quite like this one, but felt that the first design was the best.

Process

Changing the image to 300dpi and CMYK.

Creating an outline so that the effect could be added

Placing the image into InDesign and arranging it

Adding the logo

Moving the logo around slightly

Adding the album title

Experimenting with different layouts

Over lapping the image to create design 3 and the back cover

Before adding the crystallise

The previous image crystallised

Using an image I found based on Macklemore & Ryan Lewis' "Shark Face Gang". This was to be used for the back cover

Removing the text

Changing the shape to white and placing it on the background design

Changing the transparency

Adding the track listing - centred

I then changed the arrangement of the track listing, but then decided I didn't like the way the text looked over the shark fin shape and then over the background too. I decided to just have the coloured background and place the track listing over that, so that it wasn't too busy.