Burns

When I thought about this assignment, the Watchmen poster immediately came to mind. It’s a perfect example of how good graphic design can have an emotional effect on the audience. For me, the best part of this poster is that it has very little copy. Besides the title, release date, and “From the visionary director of 300,” which tells us nothing about the actual movie, there are no words. However, we get a great feel for the emotional tone of the film. The sharp contrast between the bright, happy yellow of the smiley face and the deep red of the blood spatter makes us uneasy, and the extreme closeup of that smiley face creates a claustrophobic, anxious effect. All of this is largely achieved through a respect for visual heirarchy, or the “Z” formation that our eye follows. Starting in the upper left, my eye was drawn to a white clockface, and then a sudden splash of red blood. I moved from left to right, seeing the smiley face, and then diagonally leftward and down, watching the blood drip down the face and reading the blurb about the director. In the bottom left is the release date, and then, as the eye travels left to right again, all of the logos for the companies involved in the film’s production. Throughout all of this, the vertical title “Watchmen” is ever present, ensuring the audience remembers it.

The Lollapalooza logo for the United States version of the popular music festival event is loud and fun.  The clashing orange and blue colors make the letters pop and the stacked double “o” toward the end of the word force our eyes to take the extra split second to appreciate the artwork.  The wordmark represents a good time, a party.  Setting it in the visual center over the Chicago Skyline adds to this effect.  Studying this poster close almost makes you want to nod your head as if you were in the festival.  The warm whites and yellows of the skyline illuminates and contrasts the deep blue and purples of the crowd below drawing further emphasis to the wordmark on top.  Everything about the poster screams crazy wonderful fun.