as i mentioned in a previous post, i am usually not a big fan of diagonals because a lot of people will tilt their lettering because they want something *eye-catching.* well, it catches the eye, and then flings the eye off the page. diagonals are useful to show depth and motion. subtle or implied diagonals will lead the eye around the composition. if you have a nice composition with some verticals and/or some horizontals and then you slap a big bold diagonal across the whole thing, it can be very distracting. here, finnbadger embraced the diagonal, the stamp and address fits in nicely. his subtle use of the 420 placed ahead of the name is a clever homage to the block of copy that was already on the page. subtle is nice.
he also lined up the stamp and address with the left justified caption and painting below. a small touch, but essential. good design is not rocket science. it is just paying attention to the details and making the elements work together. yes, you can *catch-the-eye* with jarring elements. but, it is just as effective and might hold the viewers attention a little longer if you have some subtle connections within the elements. that is just my opinion, but i am right. (that is a quote from the illustrious mary jones, an artist. http://maryjonesart.com/ )
Interesting that it made it through the mail system unscathed.
ReplyDeleteAnd I am really glad that they allowed the fact that it probably *should* have had extra postage added for the diagonal address slide.
This is a very attractive piece. Part of what is working here has to do with the negative space. The light triangular shape at the bottom seems, to my eye, to anchor the diagonals. As Jean said in her July 5th post, and I lettered a dozen different ways, then pasted to the corner of my desk, "space is as meaningful as matter."
ReplyDeletei agree with jackie about the triangle at the bottom. i was going to mention that none of the diagonals actually hit the corners. that might have been distracting. but, i am pretty sure finnbadger was just fitting the template on a page and probably didn't consider his corners....or maybe he did...either way, it looks great.
ReplyDeletethanks for the comments :-)
You're right, Jean, I mostly fit the template on the page. I think I paid some attention to where the white space (on some envelopes - they don't all have that) would vaguely end up. I hadn't even considered how the negative space worked on this one - thanks for your insight, Jacqueline.
ReplyDeleteEven though I don't consider myself to be particularly artistic, I do subscribe to the fact that art is DOING. So I don't obsess about how it will look in the end, I just do it and sometimes good things happen.
My favorite part of the envelope ended up on the back. That part is on the blog: http://envelope100.blogspot.com/