Example 1: Goggle Boxes, David McCandless. informationisbeautiful.net
Example 2: Andrew Bird Concert Poster, Garrett Karol. gigposters.com
Example one is an information diagram that uses stark juxtaposition in content and scale to illustrate an ironic point. Here, McCandless has taken two totally unrelated statistics to produce confronting, and even humorous analytic visual communication, where its success lies in the clever use of visual hierarchy, complemented by hue selection. The diagram illustrates the ironic fact that the time spent on such a complex activity (creating the online encyclopedia, Wikipedia) pails in comparison to that of the mindless ritual of television- watching in the US. The contradiction of these facts is immediately exemplified by the extremes of visual hierarchy used within the diagram.
On the other hand, example two uses a more conceptual approach and reverses the role of visual hierarchy. In this design, in contrast to the previous, the physically largest visuals are in fact the least important to the function of the design, and vice versa. Here, the viewer is immediately drawn to the centrally illustrated, bright- coloured and overly large paint bucket. Karol then uses the visual metaphor of paint dripping downwards to affect the gaze of the viewer. The paint hits the lion down below and continues to drip, and our eyes are finally lead to the similarly bright, but exceptionally smaller, artist's name. Our learned convention of reading from left to right then directs us to the even smaller, and perhaps most important communicator in the design: the time and place where the concert will be held. Without even noticing, the viewer is taken on a journey, where visual hierarchy has been very successfully used in an unorthodox way.
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