2016年2月28日星期日

Pulitzer Photo Analysis


This photo was took in 1973, called ‘The napalm nirl of Trangbang’. The girl in the center, her name was Kim Phuc, she was nine years old. She was running with her brothers and cousins, because of a accidentally dropped napalm by South Vietnam, which is their country’s own army. The girl was running naked because she just got rid of her burning clothes. Soldiers followed them are South Vietnam Force. The photo was took by Associate Press photographer Kick Ut. 

Now, it has been more than 40 years since this photo was taken. In a interview, the girl who is already 53 years old, talked about her experience with this photo. She said that at first, she hated this photo so much, because she thought this photo made her embarrassing. She didn't want to face that horrible time and the terror. She tried to be as far away as she can with the photo. But after years of struggle, she realized that if this photo didn't capture that horrible moment, this history might be uncovered. She started a charity to help children suffering from the war, called Kim Foundation International. Kim now also do speeches about her experience and try to help more people with similar experience. 

My first impression of this photo is the strong contrast between the girl and others. The girl was naked while others were clothed, besides, this girl was in the very center of the picture, it just attract people’s eye. Another strong contrast is between the soldiers and these kids. Soldiers were tall, armed, creates an impression of powerful; while these kids were small, crying, terrified running, without arm and even without clothe.   

This photo captured a frozen action moment of kids running,and also the moment of crying, creates a atmosphere of terrifying and tense. The angel of view to be eye level of solders behind the kids, and since these solders are taller and more powerful than these crying, running kids, this also creates a feeling of oppressed. The picture has a much depth of field, the angle of view is low, which allows audience to see the black smoke behind as also the terrified expressions on these kids faces. There is a invisible horizontal line with a slightly curve inside the picture, gave the picture a sense of movement, and a clear view on each characters. The photo is filling the frame, also creates the atmosphere of tense and oppressed. 


In my opinion, I think this photo transferred an idea to the audiences, that having war is creates a hell on earth. In China, we all believe that things you do, will eventually come back to you later. If you create a war to others and one day this will also happens on you, just like the story behind this photo, that citizens were being attacked by their own army. And if you treat others good and friendly, they will also treat you well. This picture reminds me that there still a lot of similar picture happens all over the world everyday, and so many children are running for their lives.  

“SELL US YOUR PEPPER”


1. Motion Blur

2. Use of balance 

3. Use of lines

4. Shallow depth of field

High contrast (color)
1.

2016年2月22日星期一

Photo Series Round One (redo)

I think black and white can emphasize the emotion and information that pictures want to send to audience.So all my pictures are in black and white. When shooting for this assignment, I realized that this is not just about shooting pictures in black and white mode, you need to express something with these two original, simple colors. When all other colors were taken away, you need to play with light, shadow and shape.
I appreciate the company of my friends and my family, and in my pictures, I want to create an atmosphere of 'enjoyable alone-time'. These pictures were took in different time and different cities, including Beijing, Dalian DC, Paris and New York.

2016年2月14日星期日

LAYC—Client Analysis



Latin American Youth Center is a center helps young latin americans to achieve success in academic, social and career in the future. I’m quite confusing about their logo. First, they don't have a actually logo on their website page. And second, the logo our guest speaker showed to us, is quite complicated and I think it’s too much. When the logo is too colorful and complicated, people cannot focus on the information that logo should send to audience. 

The similar organization is the Latin American Working Group. They have a simple and eye-catching logo at the top of their website page, right next to the name of their organization. Their web is simple but very organized.
But the website of our client, LAYC, as their logo, it’s too much. All the pictures and links are thrown on the home page, audience can’t find the most important information. 

I think their web should be more organized. Since our client is focus on young people, maybe they should add more pictures of young people studying together or pictures can show that young people are actually benefit from this organization and they can live a better life because of this organization. 

Maybe they can make small videos of this young people talking about their life and how this organization bettered their life.  


2016年2月11日星期四

Jim Webb's Logo 2

                                                    
Here is the candidate logo for Jim Webb. 

Basically we can divide this logo into four parts by the differences of colors, including the background. 

The first part is the background, which is a whole black area. The second part is his name, which is in white color, bold type. These two parts makes the main part of the logo. The third part is the year he is run for, which is 2016, in the same type but with a red color. The last part is the slogan, says:“Leadership you can trust” in grey and bold type. 

Color

Let’s look at the colors of the whole logo, white, red, grey and black, they are different in tones, makes a strong contrast, which helped to call attention. The slogan part is in grey but not in white as the name part, shows that the candidate’s name is the first thing that designer wants to stress. Although the grey color is less contrast with the black background, but it can also make words stands out in the background, but less eye-catching than the main part. This all shows that the slogan is the second important part (compare with the name and the year). But I don't like the color they chose, because when put them together it’s indeed create a strong contrast, but it’s also quite annoying.

There is a small red star in the name part. Using a red, small block in the big, white block, can make a contrast, which can also call people’s attention.

Type:

As I look it up, the font used for this logo is Franklin Gothic. It is a classic font but the space between the words is too small, makes it looks annoying.

Slogan words in this logo are in capital type, this can call for attentions, and since the slogan is short, capitalized words are not so hard to be read, and can can emphasize these words.

Line:

This logo is in horizontal lines, and it all goes from left to right, which makes it can be read easily.  The logo is being organized into two lines. 
The size of the words in the main part is bigger than the slogan part, create a contrast of size,  makes the logo less bored. The slogan part are not so small, the main part didn't overpower the smaller words, so that people can still read and pay attention to it. 


Shape and volume:

All words are in 2D format. It makes a little boring but did create a serious atmosphere. The designer used a red star to replace the dot on the ‘i’, which I think it’s brilliant. But the only problem is that the star is too small, that if you see this logo in a distance, you can barely see the star.

Composition-Unity:  

The shape of this logo is in a good balance, but as I said above, I don't like the combination of these colors. Although they are not boring nor monotonous, the contrast is too strong and not balanced, which makes it annoying.

Composition-Variety 

The contrast of color can really catch audience eyes. The visual weight is on the upper part,  but the designer used a grey slogan to balance it. Focal point is on the main part, which is the name and the year. 

Space and motion: 

All the words are fitted in a small, invisible box, not the edge of the black background. I think it’s too close, it might can use more space. Although the logo is more balanced in this way, but the invisible box limited the shape of the logo, which makes it lack of motion. Maybe should use more curve in the logo. 

Connotation:

The little star can represent the Unite states, since states are all represented by stars on the national flag. The combination of color can show that Webb is ambitious and bold. The balanced shape of logo can show that Webb is serious and cleaver, that he can balance things with his ability.