Oct 7

How to Balance a Design

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Our design of the week will emphasize one of the main qualities of a good design: Balance. In every composition, one has to always worry about balance, or the lack of it. The latter will definitely kill a piece.

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Sep 26

Design of the Week (Tabou Combo)

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This is the first installment of our Design of the Week feature. It’s a post where we will pick one of our designs to find out if it works or not, and why. A kind of troubleshooting after the fact. At the same time we will be learning a few principles of Layout, Typography, Beauty, Balance, etc.

At first glance this looks like a beautiful composition. I would say it is! It has simplicity, symmetry and Continue reading “Design of the Week (Tabou Combo)” »

Sep 26

Studying Vintage Movie Posters

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I love Vintage Movie Posters. Their beauty and style are unmatched by today’s graphic compositions. I completely agree with whomever said that the designers of our times are just technicians (in computer graphics). But, the designers and sign makers of the 40s, 50s and 60s, were first and foremost, artists. In the true sense of the word!

For today’s study, we will consider two posters of the movie “A Streetcar Named Desire“. First the popular American version, then the German version.

American version. Here we have a beautiful poster. Rather unconventional but nevertheless beautiful. On this side of the Atlantic, it’s a Classic. I kind of like it for the controlled balance it exudes. But, let’s study it thoroughly, to see if there is anything we can learn from a Layout point of view.

Let us start with the top part. It stands in strong contrast against the bottom part, for being mostly graphic. We have a brushed red rectangle and a scene from the picture. In this frame, there are two distinct areas which are almost diametrically opposed: the picture with the gray background vs. the white space. We also have a block of text vs. the picture itself. We could even go so far as to say that the text relates directly to the man, while the woman is interposing. Even though it may not seem so at first glance, this top part has very good balance.

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