ITAP - Week one

The two principles of visual communication I have chosen to look at from this week's lecture are Draw and Utilising the creative brain. These two principles stood out to to me because I could easily relate to having used them in my work.

This is a collection of images I drew based on the city of Norwich. Together as one image, it has a wide target audience, with ages ranging from 20's up to 60's. The intention was for it to be used in a tourist information leaflet or website to attract tourists to Norwich. It is an obvious example of the visual communication principle that is Draw. The original pencil lines are still visible in the images with just a slight use of colour here and there. This shows there hasn't been much of a design process used to create the images; they are still mainly in the form of the original thoughts that I sketched out onto paper. This shows poor use of the design cycle. To create these images I used the link between hand, brain and paper which has allowed my hand to sketch my design ideas and thoughts straight from the creative side of my brain. The creative brain is described as being like a child at play. The bold block colours shown here prove that the creative brain was working in a childish manner whilst producing these images. The images are also very simple and rough, like an inexperienced person such as a child has drawn them. I have deliberately left them looking slightly unfinished to make them more interesting and therefore more eye-catching but I think I may have left them too unfinished as they have turned out too plain and therefore a bit boring on the eye.

This is a well-known piece of artwork by famous pop-art artist Andy Warhol. From the colour scheme used in the piece you can tell that it is trying to attract a younger, more vibrant audience. The contrast between the bright colour and the black bottle make the piece extremely eye-catching but also a little bit sinister, as if there is a hidden message in the image. That makes us question meaning of the piece. Its gets you thinking why has Warhol chosen to use that colour and what might have happened in his life to make him want to portray vodka in that manner. There could be more then one purpose for this piece. It has a strong advertising value due to its design and would serve well in making the target audience want to purchase the vodka shown in the image rather than other brands. On the other hand, the image has a dark, eerie side that could put the target audience off wanting to buy the product, therefore turning the image into a work of art rather than a commercial advertisement. Besides the hidden dark side to this image, there don't appear to be any other messages or signs being portrayed. The media used to produce the image looks to be very basic. The techniques used are traditional; you can still see where the artist has put pencil or paintbrush to the paper to get his ideas down. It is as if the image is a rendered and manipulated version of his first design ideas.