What Are You Drawing?

Sometimes work produced takes more research than just looking into existing work and practitioners. Sometimes a piece of work will require further investigation into the topic of the work, for example if creating illustrations for a medical book research may be required into how the organs look, how they need to drawn or broken down for the book or a book on pregnancy may require research the stages, the baby, organs etc . Without this knowledge the illustration could be wrong and no good for the purpose.

One final piece for my domestic violence brief.
An information card on how to help to prevent domestic violence.

For one previous brief I created a campaign for domestic violence against women, using facts and figures of domestic violence to create awareness and prevention. For this work I had to do a lot of research into the figures about the amount of violence. There was a lot of available material, lots of existing figures and records for many different years, countries and world wide. It required a lot of research into the information available and because i did this I was able to correctly incorporate and create my campaign around them.

Swine Flu Virus, Edmond Alexander
From: http://www.cynthiaturner

Looking at an working practitioner, Edmond Alexander shows us that research is required to create informative diagrams and illustrations. Edmond Alexander shows us how medical illustrations can not only be informative but beautiful. Alexander is a medical illustrator that specialises in not only 2D but 3D visualisation of medical information. Alexander notes that his illustrations 'have been heavily influenced by the beauty of the Disney films during his childhood years, and the art of Frank Armitage during his formative years in medical illustration,'
http://www.alexanderandturner.com/html/edmond_alexander_biography.html.
Alexanders work is recognisable through the strong and vibrant colour and very graphical, digital look to the works. The swine flu virus work demonstrates that Alexander would have had to do research into not only the swine flu virus but it's transmission from pig to human, how the virus looks and that the virus causes the production of antibodies in order to create an accurate illustration.
This principle is also demonstrated by Alexander's partner Cynthia Turner who is also a medical illustrator. One of her works on Asthma would have required research on the condition itself, bacterias, cytokines, histamines and how these all look not only themselves but within the lungs.

Cythia Turner's Illustration On Asthma
From: http://www.alexanderandturner.com/assets/images/autogen/a_19a.jpg

Looking Legibility At Work

Road Sign
Taken From: www.proshieldsafetysigns.co.uk

I am now going to look at how different designers use the legibility of the type in their work.
In some cases it is important that the text is easily legible. The best example of this is road signs. Drivers need to be able to read signs quickly and easily, usually from a distance so that they will be able to make a decision in time. If the designer didn't make signs easily legible it could cause a serious accident.

NHS Advertisment for stopping smoking during
pregnecy. Taken From: www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/

However the designers doesn't always have to use text that is legible. Sometime the image used can be strong enough to convey the message and the text is used to strength this or to add extra information.
This advertisement for stopping smoking during pregnancy. Almost all the text is very small and would be difficult to read at a quick glance. However the image itself tell the viewer everything. If you smoke during pregnancy your baby smokes as well. The text is used to add information on how it harms yours child and how to get help.

David Carson is a graphic designer who uses text that is not always legible. I have chosen to look at him because he is known for his graphic designs for magazines, which is what I am doing for my current brief.

David Carson's legibility often relies upon the reader having good attention span, the reader has to want to read what was there on the page. Here is an example of David Carson's cover for Ray Gun magazine. Here he uses large amounts of texts, they are placed all over the page, in different sizes and font styles. The text is layered over an image, with another appearing to cut up the text. To the viewers eye line they are drawn to the magazine title, Ray Gun, the rest of the page tho appears chaotic and distracting, the reader has to be willing to spend the time reading this cover. This lack of legibility works for Carson because not only is this his intention but his audience is willing and want to spend the time reading what is on the page.



Can You Read This?

The consideration of the legibility of text is one of the key points to consider when creating a piece of work. The situation the work is going to used in could affect what choice is made for the text. For example, is the viewer going to need to be able to see the texts clearly and quickly, like a road sign or billboard where a viewer may only get a few seconds to read it as their car goes by. Or is the viewer going to have time to be able to read the texts over a period of time, such as magazines or newspaper article, advertisements or perhaps a piece of art.
What makes something legible is dictated by certain choices made by the designer. What affects the legibility of something is:

• SIZE- It is obvious that larger texts are easier to read; small sizes are not always as easy and could cause the reader to become bored of trying to read the piece.
• COLOUR- can affect the legibility. Dark colours on light backgrounds should be easy for the eyes to read, such as black on white however certain coloured type for example red and green cause confusion to the eye. Light font colours and a light background are usually straining on the eye to read, such as yellow on white.
• ALIGNMENT- When the text is all aligned the same the eye will simply follow the sentence from line to the next. If the text is aligned differently, one line is aligned left and the next is centred and the next is aligned right, the eye might struggle to follow the lines of texts.
• TYPEFACES- simple typefaces are easier to read; sometimes certain typefaces at smaller sizes are too difficult to read.
• MEDIA- Where or how the work is going to be displayed could affect the legibility. Large media surfaces such as billboards could make the legibility easier. Small media platforms could make the type harder to read.
• BACKGROUND- Plain backgrounds allow the eye to focus purely on the text, busy backgrounds or text over the top of images make the text harder to see and therefore harder to read.

Designers consider all these points, if not more, when creating a piece of work. The designers choice can and will affect the legibility. Most work needs clear text in order to convey the message to the viewer however sometimes designers make the conscience decisions to make the legibility difficult to coincide with the message or visual look of the piece.