Week 13 Blog Exercise: Visual Techniques

This piece done by the Trust Your Struggle collective exemplifies many visual techniques such as intricacy, accent, and understatement. Clearly, the swirling white lines are very detailed and interesting. They are very intricate in nature and capture the eye. The pinkish swirl on the left is visualized as an accent because it differs in color from the rest of the image, and stands out. I also believe that this design exemplifies understatement because the though message it is giving, "Trust Your Struggle" implies a harsh reality that comes with hardship and perseverance, the image is light, delicate, and beautiful. It could have been bolder and more graphic with images of struggle and oppression. However, the artists chose to highlight the beauty of people that endure struggle and shed light on the unseen strength that is acquired through overcoming obstacles.

This 'Panther Power and Tupac' poster designed by Jesus Barraza includes several visual techniques mentioned by Dondis. There is economy, singularity, and assymetry. The poster exemplifies economy in that it uses a minimal range of color (neutral pallette), and only shows outlines of the figures instead of photographic detail. The artist created the image specifically to be simple and bold, in order to allow for fast and effective printing. The design exemplifies singularity in that the main focus of the image is Tupac Shakur, who is standing with his fist raised on the left side of the poster. Furthermore, the design exemplifies assymetry, because the heaviest content is placed off-center, allowing the eye to focus more-so on the left side of the image, as opposed to the right.