Layouts

I got really excited the other day when I was at work, because I was able to explain my hatred for the posters on the wall - and non -majors understood with what I was saying. We were all standing around inside Peg's Cafe (in the Shumo Center) and I commented on how crappy the posters were on the wall which were trying to sell Recovery Shakes. Let me describe them for you (since I have searched without avail to find pictures). They are an awkward size, I'm guessing about 15 by 15. Every single poster had a blurred edge to it. Every single poster had "RECOVERY SHAKE' written across the top, a picture of person after a workout directly underneath, and directly underneath that they had something to the effect of: Make your workout count. Drink Recovery Shakes." The font looked as if it was Times New Roman or in the same font family. Although I tried not to look at them, they kept bugging me and I finally voiced my dislike of them. My two co-workers immediately agreed. There was one poster that they didn't mind however. It was the same one that I could tolerate if need be. I asked them to explain to me why they liked it. Both of them could only answer "I dunno I just do."

Of course, since I am a digital media major I decided to test my knowledge and explain to them why they liked it. This poster, like all the others had the weird blurred edge, however it was not blurring out a crappy background it was framing the person with in it who took up almost the whole poster. It was a guy whose was leaning forward on a countertop or something of the like. He was leaning in from the left and he had his chin resting on his arm which was at about a 45 degree angle from the table. His head was not centered in the picture but slightly to left of the center. This made it so that the entire poster was not in one center line, but slightly skewed, making for a more interesting composition.

I pointed all this out to my friends and they sat there looking for a moment and went, "Wow. You're right. That's crazy." And I smiled, knowing that I had learned two important lessons: 1) my four years at Albright might not have been wasted afterall and 2) people know when something is wrong with a design, whether they "know" it or not. So when designing, keep that in mind. The details do matter and always check your work with non-design people.