For any kind of visual communicator, one of the key principles is for the outcome to be legible for the audience/user, this is dependant mainly on layout which includes things such as font size, font style, font colour and the placing of images and text.
In this example of legibility, it is obvious to the reader which one is legible and which is illegible. The differences between the legibility for each is staggering, yet the changes to be made for it to be legible were so simple.
Mass Effect 2 - Text illegibility
Whilst I was doing my own research into illegibility I came across the problems of this xbox/ps3/PC game. User's have complained about the text being too small and that the colour of the text makes it even harder to read. Because the game relies on so much dialog and story to grab gamers, the fact that the gamers are having to squint to read the dialog is surely not part of the design!
Kate Moross - In Moross' work, illegibility plays a big part, after looking through her work this kind of eccentric play with words being too bright and with the sizes and font type differentiating so much; this would usually be said to be completely illegible, however for the type of work Moross does, I feel it works well on the whole, adding her own twist. The most important thing of course, is that you can read the writing, just maybe not as easily as others!
There are a number of different types of legibility, these include: printed communications, online communications, animated graphics and legible environments. It is just as important in each category that it is user sufficient and meets the requirements of the user/reader.
Visual Hierarchy
A visual hierarchy in a communicator's world is one of the most important things, what the communicator feels is the most important thing in a piece of work is what should 'stand out' the most, whether this is through colour, size or boldness. Different ways to distinguish these are: colour, typography, images, lines, weight, scale, composition, structure, grids, grouping and movement and sound. Most visual communicator's manage to grasp this concept well, these will be the most developed and important communicator's of today.
After looking at Kate Moross for the previous principle, I decided to look at some of her other work. Here she designed a billboard for Cadbury's. The visual hierarchy is quite obvious here. I would say that the colour's are the first thing you look at, because Cadbury's is a well known brand most people will know straight away what this advertises as purple and white are the famous Cadbury colours. The second thing you'll notice is the text/the illustration around it, being the two glasses of milk (a glass and a half full productions). Finally we notice the 'Cadbury' bar in the top right corner. As a whole this billboard definitely works and is definitely identifiable.
Here is another good example of a visual hierarchy, however this is done slightly differently to the previous one as this is based more on typography rather than illustration. The layout of the words and sentences on this website is simple yet effective. Straight away we're being welcomed to Rik Catlow's portfolio. Secondly we notice the Rikcat industries logo in the top corner, this is because it is bold and the colour's have been inverted so it is white on black rather than black on white like the rest of the design.
These good examples show us therefore, that a number of things point us to what we want to look at first, whether it is related colours and illustration or just simply making one sentence bolder and larger than the rest of the text. It also shows us how important a visual hierarchy is, without one, the audience wouldn't know where to look first.
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