ITAP Week 3

Key Practices: 

• Legibility
• Visual Hierachy 

When designing a visual communication, in particular one with a direct intent to provide information to the viewer, it is incredibly important that the message put across is legible. A designer commissioned for a large project does not wish to confuse the audience; the correct balance of text, image, composition and overall layout is essential.A visual communication for the commercial sector must have direction and the image must be aesthetically clear and concise. Sometimes a second or two is all that is available to capture an audience, therefore this practice is key. 
The second practice to take into account is that of visual hierachy. This is in simple terms, the way image and text are formatted on a page to determine the order in which we view them. This is present in almost all forms of visual communication, and is particularly relevant in web design, newspapers, books, leaflets, forms etc. 

Take this webpage for example:

Although the software claims to be "easy to use", the legibility of it's website suggests otherwise. Considering it's visual heirachy, we are first drawn to the rectangular panel to the left of the screen, which although attractive in terms of colour, font size and scale, is merely a repetition of the upper banner which due to its light grey tone is only noticed third or fourth - we only need to see the web URL once on the page, especially considering we are likely to have typed it in ourselves to find the software.  The mixture of bold links placed repetetively mid-sentence is confusing and the lower 3 columns with no weighty breaks and light background colours make this section appear to merely be a wall of text - relatively offputting when deciding whether to download a 'simple' piece of software. 


In contrast is this page is legible in a typographical, structural and aesthetically-bold sense. Individual sections have their own links to the side of the page, splitting content into defined sections, unlike the open office site. The visual hierachy is clear, with colourful images of food taking the main stage, thus projecting the company's values as fun and contemporary.We then observe the title with logo, increasing brand awareness. This is a similar story in magazine publishing, with an image taking centre stage before the publication name, so we directly associate the two and become increasingly aware of intended audience, magazine content and brand values.