Levity Apparel Artifact

For my artifact I chose to create a direct mail piece/brochure. I wanted to keep it simple and easy to read while conveying information about the brand; such as, attitudes and ideas along with displaying some of their products. By using this simple format, I believe Levity's target audience could be reached better. Levity Apparel didn't have a brochure to critique, so I went to their website's store to compose a better way they could display themselves through a print medium. Their web store was very bland and contained their products on a plain white background seated in rows of three without any form of visual design. So here is my version of what a print store, brochure, could look like. Please excuse the black border as it wouldn't crop out with out messing up the format.

The first two pages are the beginning of the brochure or could be broken down as a single card with a front and a back. On the front the abstract artwork acts as ground separating the levity apparel logo and the hat for viewers to perceive a figure ground relationship.

  

It all begins with the company logo, motto, and clear course of action to follow.

Next is page three where some product is shown and a piece of art to accompany it. The photo's blue sky gives contrast to the maroon side of the print. 

 The next page is a product plug that is matched to the style guide. The recurring white text boxes act 

as a visual frame and guides readers eyes. 

These last two pages convey messages about the brand and encourage interaction through social media. Video thumb nails are shown in the second to last page, even though this is a print medium a viewer could see them as a poster to come visit the company's YouTube channel since they depict a sense of movement or could show a more visuals about the brands values and attitudes. And in the last page there is another call to action along with a photo of a mail box that could justify the wording "order today" or it could be seen as a actual representation of social media messages.

* Page five added to post 12:26, 12/6/2015. Thinking more about this page, a QR code would have made a nice touch.

The deeper I got into creating this artifact the more appreciation I found for the print medium. I tried to implement gestalt principles, like proximity and similarity while keeping a good sense of balance; however, relaying a message at the same time turned out to be difficult without creating a cluttered composition.

I shot all the pictures included in this piece except for the images of clothing and logos.  

Levity Apparel Style Guide

Paige has done a great job in creating a clean style guide for our project.

Levity demographic target.

18 - Taylor Oliver, From Utah.  Taylor wants to roadtrip new places. She is super adventurous and a tomboy. Has always hung out with guys in high school and is always considered one of the guys. With her clothing she is drawn to anything comfortable and easy going. Her go to attire is jeans, a t-shirt and a pair of vans. Taylor grew up with all brothers and has always been into skating. Any free time Taylor has she spends at the skatepark trying out new tricks. She is drawn to this clothing line because of its comfortable fit and cool designs. She has always worn guys clothing so she loves anything more masculine. This clothing line also allows taylor to be active with her skating and traveling.

Rock  Musicians -

John Freeman, age 21, lives in Utah. John is a music head. He can always been found with headphones on, listening to the newest indie rock album. He will always talk about how he knows all the members to his favorite indie bands and spends all of his paycheck on going to their concerts. He loves clothing that represents his “edge” and his laid back demeanor. That’s why he chooses Levity Apparel. Not only they have designs for when he is chilling with friends, but also has designs for when he goes out to drink and smoke. Not that it matters to him, since, you know, he is so cool and all.

College/High school  drivers

24 - Jackson. Lives in the Southern utah area and recently graduated from DSU. Drives a 2003 Subaru WRX. He often uses his car to go camping and snowboarding. His job allows casual apparel in the workplace so he is looking to grow his closet of clothes. He likes clothing companies that reflect his emotions and values. He likes to show off his branding of clothing on his car with decals. With his free time he likes to go to car meets and hang out with his friends there.  

Mis-en-Scene

Directors hold a large part of creativity in the making of a film. Some have larger roles than others depending on the film and studio they are working on. Generally, directors guide actors and crew members to visualize their idea of the script.

Gore directed Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003). His prior experience in directing before pirates were the feature films: The Ring (2002), The Mexican (2001), and MouseHunt (1997). He is also credited with directing several music videos including Monster Magnet's Negasonic Teenage Warhead (1995), along with Bad Religion's "Atomic Garden" (1992) and American Jesus (1993) The combination of his previous works I believe brought the movie together as a whole especially the comedic sequences.

A Verbinski Trait. From viewing his previous work I’ve noticed that he is fond of rotational shots and as seen in the first shot of our sequence and the opening of the music video Negasonic Teenage Warhead. By keeping the subject or character still and having the camera move around them gives off good figure ground relationships.

Interesting design video

Compose your frame

I took this photo some time ago of my girlfriend out in Warner Valley.

She is in the rule of thirds along with the motorcycle. The mountain horizon and the dirt road create diagonal lines while the shape of the motorcycle headlight causes a vector pointing off frame. These traits make up the composition of this photo which makes it more visually interesting from a design perspective.

Good Vs Bad Motion Media Design

Which ad do you think is better designed? Which one conveyed a message better? I found the second ad to be better designed than the first and ill tell you why.

To start there are far better figure/ground relationships in the second ad. The subject is in focus and easy to spot out from the background. In the first ad the audience isn't exposed to the subject until the ad is already halfway over along with the jittery camera movements that make it hard to focus on the composition.

Another reason why the second ad is better than the first is its use in the law of proximity. Throughout the ad there are texts that are placed close to the subject matter. This makes it easy for the audience to understand a message. The only law of proximity seen in the first ad might be cowboys, sheep and dogs go together.  

What is best part about the second ad? What makes it a good design? It is the use of the law of continuity. There isn't physical lines that the camera follows in the second ad but the way the camera zooms in out and pans give off the sense that it is following a path in which the ad does. It starts out showing the truck then goes deeper into how its made then loops back to the truck for the end. In the first ad there isn't any continuity. The subject of the truck is shown driving from right to left and then in the next scene is showed going left to right. It also gives two shots that are 180 degrees opposite of each other to end the ad which doesn't really help convey a message.  

Contrast, Balance, Harmony.

In this image I have found contrast, balance, and harmony. Lets start with balance, the horizon line in this photo is set a little above center so that we can see the reflection of the ship in the water. I believe the photographer did this as a way to portray balance in a radial sense. 

Contrast has a few more meanings in this piece compared to balance. First there is the contrast of color from the rust of the ship to the greens of the plants and algae. A second meaning of contrast can be viewed in a cultural aspect. The wild vegetation is an opposite to the civilized buildings of man in the background. And one last aspect of contrast is in a psychological form. The dead ship and the living plants. The dead, decaying, rusting away ship is giving life to a small ecosystem. This could be seen as a metaphor for us and entire planet, that even in death there comes new life with it. 

With that in mind this becomes a very harmonious picture. We get to view a small snapshot in which many things are taking place, a cycle of life, a cycle of human development, a cycle of our world.    

My Visceral Response

The image you just viewed is that of a BMW S1000RR motorcycle. This portrait strikes me as being stupefying on a few different levels. First are the lines, even if one wasn't concerned with motorcycle design they could come to appreciate the combination of aerodynamics and art that form within this piece. The composition has the ability to guide one's eyes at the tail of the motorcycle and make them scan over the rest with help of using negative space. Another area of design that sets this picture and bike apart from others is its texture. Instead doing what others have done to showcase a performance motorcycle or car and making the lines of the subject crisp and flashy, the artist through one way or another made the lines of the bike very soft, almost a blur into blackness as a means for viewers to rely on their own imagination to fulfill the bike. Lastly there is color, again instead of going for bright vivid colors like others; the designer of this image used low intensity hues of low value grays and blues to insight curiosity of viewers to stay and try to make out what it was they were looking at.

On a separate note this bike stupefies me one last time from its creation. This motorcycle was born out of competitive professional racing. Its soul purpose was to race against all others at top levels of competition and in doing so BMW decided to bring it to the public roads in a street version for others to enjoy.