Basic Elements in Works of Visual Communication Design

Visual Communication Design:

Lines

The first element that came to mind when I saw this vintage magazine ad was lines.  There are many lines in this advertisement.  These lines include the shape of the Wrigley gum box, the lines in the font of the writing and letters, the lines of the advertisement itself, etc.  For example, the lines in the font of the letters are defined and differentiated.  The outline of the letters are straight and direct lines, not curved ones.  The typography is very sleek and precise.  The job of the lines in this advertisement is to convey a clean font so that the letters are easily readable.  

Shapes

This is a picture of a Microsoft Tag, one of the new designs of a QR code.  The element that came to mind when I saw this piece of advertising was shapes.  In this box, there are triangles, rectangles, and parallelograms.  These shapes are important in the design of each new QR code because they are a code for something.  When you scan this box, you are taken to a website for a particular product or service.  With the use of shapes, Microsoft is able to design hundreds of different codes to different websites.  The combinations of shapes are endless.  

Scale

This is a vintage Disneyland poster advertising some of the attractions you may find in the park.  The element that I saw in this advertisement was scale.  Scale is a visual measuring tool and communicates actual scale and relative proportion of different objects to each other.  In this ad, most of the objects are in perfect scale and are the correct size.  The mountain in the background is proportional to the monorail next to it.  In the front of the advertisement, the mermaids are a bit out of scale.  I believe the submarine should have been a bit larger and the mermaids a bit smaller.  But, I do understand why the mermaids were created larger:  They are one of the focal points of the poster and are placed right in the front of the poster.  Overall, the objects placed on this poster are to scale, and do not look like they were created too big or too small.

Picture Works Cited:

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/04/21/celebration-of-vintage-and-retro-design/

http://alessandrarlima.blogspot.com/  

http://www.amazfacts.com/2011/07/vintage-disneyland-posters-42-pics.html