Project 2: Visual Hierarchy

17 min readNov 10, 2020

Part 1—Typographic Variables

Typographic variables such as stroke weight, line spacing, and margins can create hierarchy within a block of text. To better understand the effects of each variable, we will first explore how changes among individual

Tools:

8.5 x 11 Letter Paper, portrait orientation
Induction Ceremony copy, flush left rag right
Neue Haas Grotesk Display Pro (45 Light, 55 Roman, 65 Medium, 75 Bold)

Researching the Copy

I went into the project knowing quite a few members of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, but very little of the actual institution that conducted the induction process behind the scenes. Learning more about their history, goals, values, and design language would help inform my decisions on my own designs.

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame seeks to document the history of the genre, celebrate key figures instrumental in shaping its sound, and share the spirit of Rock & Roll with others.

Their website is powerful, grungy, and spartan. Heavy, bold slab serif titles command the page, punching energy and power into each piece of text. In contrast, the body copy uses a thin, geometric sans-serif, balancing the serif’s intensity with its clean, light forms. Scratched and scuffed textures fill the backgrounds while torn paper is used to separate sections of content. The sparse amount of text on the front page, mix of domineering and elegant type, and stripped down color palette reflect the same rebellious spirit that defines the genre while remaining modern and inclusive. literally looks like the site would wear a leather bomber jacket lmao

Description
Telling the stories of the greatest rock & roll artists of all time.

Adjectives
Powerful, rebellious, contemporary

Defining Hierarchy

I then began looking at the contexts in which the text would be seen to better learn what parts of my text needed to be emphasized. The reading on systems and contexts from Denise Gonzales Crisp’s book Typography suggests we ask six questions to gain a deeper understanding of the text’s needs and context.

Who initiates the work?
We are creating the type for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, which values the history, legitimacy, and popular appeal of rock & roll music

Who are the readers?
The likely viewers of the type are rock & roll fans, listeners, and other music artists who embrace the energetic, rebellious passion of their genre. Due to the nature of the ceremony, it has to appeal to both older (50–70 years old) and younger (18–30? years old) audiences.

What is the artifact?
The text will be displayed on a letter-sized poster.

How is the artifact manifested?
The poster will be printed and hung on a wall? maybe hallway? bulletin board? unsure tbh

Where does the delivery take place?
The audience will see the poster at a bulletin board, the entrance of a building, or as a banner on the hallway wall.

When does the delivery take place?
The delivery likely happens in passing, as the person moves through the space. Thus it must quickly grab their attention and make them curious about digging deeper into the event.

I wanted the copy to be able to draw the reader in by making the most prominent portions to be the most recognizable. The title of the organization—Rock & Roll Hall of Fame—suggested prestige and authority while the names of artists such as Notorious B.I.G and Nine Inch Nails were iconic enough to make the audience look twice at the poster. I chose to leave additional information like the time and date of the ceremony less emphasized so that the reader could look further if they wanted to learn more about that artist. Instead, I decided to highlight the website URL so there was a clear transition from print to digital where all the remaining information could be found.

Communicating Hierarchy

Exercise 1: Stroke Weights

Using any two stroke weights, select lines (not words) to bold. All type must be 17/21, no linespacing or shifting the type.

Different options mocked up in Adobe Illustrator.

I found that a mix of the 55 Roman/75 Bold worked the best. The 45 Light weight was too light to be easily read, looking fuzzy from anything but right up close. From farther away, it simply blended into the white paper, making it difficult to even distinguish that there was text on the page. The 75 Bold weight worked well to guide the eye as well as support the style of the content.

Exercise 2: Linespacing

Using one stroke weight and 17/21 type, place one linespace (newlines) between any two lines of type as many times as you like.

I ended up deciding on separating each artist so that each block highlighted a different part of the program by both time and content. Separating the website URL at the end helped distinguish it to give viewers a conclusion to continue their interaction with the poster. Keeping the organization’s name and event title together makes it easier for the viewer to learn the key details and purpose of the poster. In addition, I kept the “Free Online” portion on its own line to incentivize people to read further and attend the event.

Exercise 3: Horizontal Shift—Two Flush-left Margins

Using one stroke weight and 17/21 type, shift lines of type using tabs, resulting in two flush-left margins.

After testing different margin ideas, I was immediately drawn to this layout because of the way the most iconic and recognizable names jutted out of the rest of the content. The two major blocks—one on the top left with the primary info, and the other running down the middle section—group together information that a reader might be interested in after stopping to read about the event. However, the real eye-catchers of the copy—artists, band names, and the website—are the most prominent.

Exercise 4: Horizontal Shift — Three Flush-left Margins

Using one stroke weight and 17/21 type, shift lines of type using tabs, resulting in three flush-left margins.

With three different margins, I had many more options in where to place text and how much to separate them by. I found this layout to be the most succesful because of the way the titles of the artists still stand out. By placing the times and dates of each event on the third margin, the two lines of each title become much more prominent and readable. The only exception is for the first artist, whose description I pushed to the center margin as their relationship to Notorious B.I.G might catch more attention. I decided to push the title of the organization and event one margin to the right to get the reader to see the artist names first, drawing them in before giving them context about the Hall of Fame. This way, people who haven’t necessarily heard of the organization or were interested in the ceremony itself would still end up reading the poster out of curiosity for the artist or band names that they recognize on the text.

In class, we used two of the three given tools (stroke weight, line spacing, and shifting margins) to emphasize the hierarchy. With more than tool now available, I found that the strengths of one could compensate for the weaknesses of another. For example, adding line spacing to create individual content blocks helped break up the wall of text from the original examples, making the bolder typeface suddenly stand out more.

Of the three, I enjoyed the way this layout made each artist title easier to spot. My use of the multiple margins seemed to be too jarring, making it difficult to figure out where to look and how to move down the page. Furthermore, the many different edges made the composition so visually busy that even the bold typeface or opening lines were hard to spot.

Exercise 5: Adding Color

I started by glancing through the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s promotional content and noting down the types of colors they already liked to use. Different shades of red, dark and light greys, gold, and tans helped content pop off the page. All of their colors tended to lean towards warmer hues that were incredibly bright and saturated. Their overall color palette relied heavily on black and white, with a single spot color usually drawing the eye around the composition.

Next, I pulled color swatches out of different magazines, using a mix of issues from Motor Sport and Rolling Stone to take a look at the colors in typical masculine, high-energy or music-related spreads. I wanted the color palette to match the theme, so I tried to sample more saturated colors first, and then pulled lighter or less saturated shades from the rest of the magazine.

Starting with my scraps, I began to put together color palettes with four scraps so that I had enough colors to vary up the palette within a poster but keep it easy to apply to the text. I moved through the different types of palettes, first making some that were monochrome, then some that were complementary, and some analogous, paying attention to vary the proportion of one color to another. Many of my more successful palettes were a combination of three similar hues of different values or saturation with one that was opposite on the color wheel, making that one color pop much more vibrantly.

I pulled some of the magazine palettes that stood out to me into Adobe Illustrator so I could play around with their proportions further. I had trouble figuring out how much to emphasize certain colors so that I could spotlight its hue or value. On darker backgrounds, emphasizing value by using only a small amount of a light color with large amounts of heavier hues worked well. On lighter backgrounds, certain hues like green or yellow had poor readability unless incredibly saturated, but made them difficult to look at.

With only one color, I found that keeping as much type either black or colored worked best. The example on the far left caught my attention because the minimal use of color emphasized the titles of the artists. The one second from the right worked similarly, but used the low-contrast of the yellow to make the black type seem comparatively more bold.

As I experimented with colored type and colored backgrounds, I liked how the darker backgrounds gave me more options in choosing how I wanted my type to stand out. The dark blue and grey backgrounds gave emphasis to both red and yellow, and I could change which took precedence by increasing the porportion and/or saturation of the other. However, I also really enjoyed how the first dark example created a distinct point of visual interest by using the brightest yellow very exclusively, and distinguished the rest with shades of blue. Moving forward in color, I wanted to keep playing with both having a single dominant color as well as using two primary hues with different values or saturations.

Exercise 6: Size change and Stroke Weights

Next, I experimented with how scale affected hierarchy. I printed out my copy in four variations: 55 Roman at 17 pt, 75 Bold at 17 pt, 55 Roman at 36 pt, and 75 Bold at 36pt. By doubling the size of the variations, I could now build clear blocks of text that had a single attention-drawing piece of type with supporting information that faded into the rest of the page. I ended up using the largest Bold/36 only for the artist names to make the people of the event the primary draw. The remaining type that gave background info about either the event or the artists were much freer in their treatment, switching between thin but large and small but bold.

By shifting the composition around the page, I tried to use the negative space to establish blocks of content. The inherent length of the name of the bands limited how much left or right I could shift the blocks. I found that without any color, organizing the blocks to extend longer horizontally by placing the dates in their own column helped emphasize the names further while placing all the content in one row seemed to make the composition too busy. I also tried staggering the blocks, creating a jagged flow down the page.

Class Notes 11/12

10 Minute In-class Investigation: No single-color backgrounds

Hotter, warmer colors pop off more than darker, more saturated colors
In context, many of the darker tones blend in
Fight the urge to simply go colored text on single color background
Having colored shapes bleed off the page or center on content spotlights attention towards that portion of content
Dark color shape on top of light background almost alters the shape of the letter paper to a different proportion
Whenever using complementary colors, note the proportion of the two colors and way they interact (vibrating?)
Movement, swooping forms
The thin type and complementary on black vibrating too much
The jiggling forms are way too hot dog-ey, like the rhythm theme though
Lighter, punchier colors on dark, stage-like background working for rock & roll theme, unsure about the primary colors though
Michael’s single red line squiggle successful in pulling the eye, feels organic and genuine, adds a human element that isn’t the same as just putting red in the type
Breaking edge of the margin vs. pressing the edge of the page have different effects on the perceived page size, also changes letterform
start imposing grid over content, playing with empty grid space
Playfulness of Grace’s slight tilt works well to the feel of the content
Changing what moment is being focused on (and the quantity of things needing one’s attention) changes the energy of the page
Going BIG BIG and teeny small small really shapes the negative space, also gives opportunity to do interesting things with horizontal vs vertical stacking of content @michael’s experiments with scale
How much space around each piece of type? How does that space/emptiness give little moments around the spread?
Human face has immediate appeal, even when illustrated, especially with facial expressions represented
Don’t copy posters, steal the ways that make them work

Digitizing Scale Mockups, Adding Color

I chose a few of my paper cutout experiments to digitize and see how they would look on simple black and white. A 12-column grid helped line up elements to create an underlying structure. As I scaled the text up, I found that the band names became so long that pushing them to be either left or right-aligned rather than simply centering the column helped the names pop off the page better. I played with alignment helped isolate certain blocks like the event title or website to add emphasis through composition alone.

After playing with a mix of predominantly reds and blues before, I found that the contrast of hue was slightly jarring and too childish feeling for the content. Instead, I chose to take out the cooler tones in favor of warmer, brighter colors that have a better value contrast against the dark background. The grey helps set the mood of the event as concert-like and grungy.

I first tried using different textures to illuminate the text, keeping the type as the main attraction on the page. Different ripped paper samples and spray paint swatches that I created in Photoshop did a good job at guiding the eye, but I found that the variety in transparency around the edges of the paint gave more visual interest from a distance, while the ragged edges of the paper were lost once the viewer stepped away. The yellow seemed to work better than the red even from a distance because of the value change even though the red was louder in saturation.

The set felt a little flat and abstract, with only the associated clout of the band names to give indicators of what the event might be. Looking back at my adjectives—powerful, rebellious, contemporary—it didn’t seem to be as expressive as I wanted. I liked the way the yellow popped off the dark background, so I wanted to keep the high contrast in the text, but bring more interest in the rest of the negative space.

Scaling up from letter paper to tabloid paper made the poster much taller than I expected. I wanted to use the extra vertical space to separate the artists from the rest of the content and pull the eye away from the additional information that needed to be there. I chose to desaturate the yellow tone to help it read more clearly and help the overall color palette appear less hot dog-ey. Adjusting the proportions so that there was much more yellow than red also helped move away from that perception.

Reflecting back on the color choices, I think I was naturally drawn to the reds and yellows that tie the colors back to the rock & roll theme. The yellow/gold tone on the dark background help associate the type with the hall of fame side of the equation. To extend this connection, I wanted to choose large, expressive pictures of prominent artists to make the poster noticeable on the wall. I chose images of artists that would be recognizable and tried to blend the image behind the rest of the copy.

I decided to desaturate the image to help it blend into the background more and keep the primary hierarchical level on the colored type. However, I had trouble dealing with how type interfered with how the audience read the artist’s face. In addition, I used some paintbrushes to scratch up the picture to add to the grunge factor, though I realized after blending the picture into the poster that the paint strokes fade to almost invisible.

I wanted to see how different facial expressions affected how the poster was read. While Biggie made eye contact with the camera, his sunglasses made it difficult to actually read his emotions. I tried using pictures of more direct eye contact and more expressive actions to make the image more obvious.

Peer Feedback:

Title and image fight for dominance
Red color blending in, starting to go hot dog mode again
Be much more particular with what needs to be highlighted
Maybe slimming down the palette?
Flat grey contrasts sharply with grunged image, play w/ detail
watch out for skin tones, overall value contrast
without rock and roll hall of fame as context, picture/expression gives context to the event

Crit Feedback:

try radically different, flip type hierarchy on its head → is the largest size the lowest color contrast? etc.
should the line have to hold together? drop a word? etc.
be radical → think of the “only bold one line” exercise
hierarchy holds together better when one block, pay attention to if alignment is enough or if more proximity is needed
rock and roll hall of fame needs more emphasis, it is *the* hall of fame
rock and roll goes off the rails, challenge the edges of the page to activate the margins, break da grid ! be less respectful !

In order to break the edges of the poster and make the composition feel more expressive, I played with making one piece of type much larger than the rest. I tried using “Rock & Roll Hall of Fame” and “Induction 2020” since they both split nicely into two lines of roughly equal length. I ended up choosing “Induction 2020” since it allowed me to use a larger type size which felt more dynamic and powerful than having more text. Since the type for the title of the organization was now smaller, I made sure to keep it as bright in color as possible. In addition, I kept the image that was the most energetic and loud so that it hinted at what the event was about without needing to read the fine print.

Initially, I had trouble figuring out where to place the text so that it was readable but left enough space for the rest of the content. The title of the event and organization was important, so I had to make sure I left enough space for the two pieces of type. Leaving type off the page so that the reader had to fill in the context helped add a fun aspect to the layout by introducing a moment where the reader figured out the full text.

Eventually, I decided to overlap the text and larger type so that I could fit more of the text on the page, making it easier to figure out. It also had the secondary effect of keeping the smaller type easy to find, since its bright yellow and red popped off the negative black space. However, I found that the two pieces of type seemed to fight for hierarchy in the top right. I addressed this issue by making the type color of the smaller type closer to white while making the large type a duller grey.

This way, the lighter block of text was easily distinguishable from a distance while the larger type revealed itself and dominated the page when the viewer walked up to the poster. Playing off of the idea of creating contrast through the selective use of an element, I chose to only use red type on the two most visually important pieces of small type in the top and bottom right side, naturally pulling the eye there once the viewer was within reading distance. I really tried to develop the idea of having the hierarchy change depending on the distance the viewer was from the poster, shifting from value to size to color as they move from very far to very close.