DESIGN COMMUNICATION and EFFECTIVE CRITIQUING

Design can be one of the most important aspects of attracting someone's attention. Poor design can immediately have someone bored or unimpressed, having them move onto something at grabs them immediately. There’s a good reason why there’s college classes based around graphic design. Two specific examples are from Times Magazine and from someone's own personal resume. Both of these are well done, one professionally made and published, the other made as a way to help get someone into a field they desire. Let’s dive into the minutia. 

Looking at the Times Magazine spread, you can tell they know what they're doing. At face value, this is a piece highlighting something about mainstream actress, Emma Waston, of Harry Potter and Beauty and the Beast fame, to help draw attention to her. The first thing that jumps out and grabs your attention is the giant S that takes up half the page. With the cursive-ish font, and boldness, it immediately grabs your attention. It then immediately leads your focus straight to the star of the page, the amazing Hermi… I’m sorry, Emma Watson. With the very vogue style photo, it oozes style. You can tell the designer of the page knew what he/she was doing by choosing to make the picture black and white. This intensifies the black eyeliner on her eyes, drawing your attention from the S, leading straight into her eyes. It’s a very smart move that almost draws you to Emma whether you planned to or not. Whether or not this gets your to read the article, because let’s be real, who actually reads magazines nowadays, it definitely gets your attention for at least a little bit, and could peak your interest enough to maybe get you to read the contents inside the article.

Moving on the resume, Christina immediately grabs your attention. Reading the contents, you’d be safe to assume she’s most likely applying for a film or media position. The way she designed her resume is smart because, A, it is unique, and B its stylized in such a way that it will most likely standout amongst the giant crow of resumes. She’s designed it in such a way that it resembles some form of end credits in a major motion picture. The way the I drags down, it almost forces your eyes to scroll down with it, much like movie credits scroll at the end.

The only downside to this super long I, is that it can be so distracting to the eyes that it can be hard to focus on the contents inside, which when you want an employer to read and see that you're qualified, can be a somewhat negative thing.

With both of these pieces, you can look at both and tell the creators both have good knowledge of graphic design. Both are laid out and assembled creatively and with enough vision and foresight that they’re almost confident in the fact that they will grab your attention. For this reason alone, it’s why both pieces should be considered effective and well designed pieces.