Throughout the week, I have collected different images that represent four design concepts for my design blitz; proportion, dominance, typography, and metaphors and symbols.
For proportion, I thought of the UMW turf field that I practice on daily for lacrosse. While I could take my own picture, I thought I could find a better overhead one to show proportion.
Here is the field:
Here is a better look at how it is lined:
While it is not likely that a graphic designer was in charge of creating the lines and proportions for a lacrosse field, these fields were still designed nonetheless.
What is most important about a field’s design is proportion. Each section of the field is proportional so that there is enough functional space. The middle section of the field that houses the “draw circle” is bigger because that’s how games are started and there is more room needed to play in this area. The other parts of the field distinguished by the restraining line are proportional to one another, because it wouldn’t be fair if one team’s offense had more room to play. This also goes for the 12 meter and 8 meter arches coming out of the goal circles.
The next aspect of design that I chose to write about was dominance. To represent dominance, I chose to examine Squishmallows stuffed animals. These stuffed animals are aimed to look like marshmallows, so they have no limbs. This allows them to be very face dominant, and the visual weight of the design is in the face of the stuffed animals.
Here is an example of my Squishmallows:
To examine typography, I decided to look at logos. In my opinion, logos have some of the most complex and interesting examples of typography because they often incorporate fonts that you wouldn’t see anywhere else in order to make the logo recognizable. The logo that I decided to look at was the HBO Max logo.
I thought this was a good example to show typography because it incorporates two different fonts. The HBO font is sleek and classic, while the Max logo is more playful. The incorporation of the two fonts work well together because they are not too different, and both have a simple look. The second font is more playful and the use of the two fonts as a whole makes it seem like HBO Max is different from just HBO.
Lastly, I looked at Metaphors and Symbols. For this design concept I chose too look at an elevator sign in my residence hall.
This is an effective use of symbols because I uses the person in the box (note that they are neither male nor female, simply gender neutral), and the up and down arrows to represent the elevator. However, they could use numbers to show one, because if the sign didn’t have words I’m not sure that people would know exactly what it meant.
