Really, you lost me at Kant…

Wysocki’s analysis on ads is helpful to an extent. She breaks everything down in her argument and tells us “exactly” how her argument “goes”.

For example, she says that there are two types on compositions “the first composition” my very own “imaginative constructions” and “the second composition” a construction of formed markings on paper”. The second constructions is so beautifully vague (beautiful as Kant defines beauty? Nope…). She goes on to describe the elements that go into graphic design, page layout, form of beauty, formal re-connection etc…………….. Personally, I am more interested in the composition of graphic design-page layout with content.

Page arrangement, aka how my eyes travel through the layout of a page to glean meaning, comes in a few design principles. As Wysocki says, “Graphic design…gets shaped to be an efficient process for disseminating entwirred information and desire” (151). Essentially her premise concludes that visual arrangement will “streamline the direction and speed of one’s sight to hone in on” the purpose of the piece (151). 

Her argument so far in the text makes sense, I even agree with her four categories that are involved in graphic design.

-contrast

-repetition

-alignment

-proximity

I have read before about how ads tend to be laid out in a “Z” format to direct the reader’s attention across the page and “take in” the necessary information in that time. Wysocki’s example in today’s reading does exactly that with the lines of text at top to the line of female backside to the bottom text located more to the right than the text at the top of the page.

This page examines the many types of way to make an image flow. One of the design principles is something that we have already discussed in class, The “F” pattern—designed for those skimmers out there. Essentially, that is how I find the Wysocki argument helpful. It broke down some design elements that this website emphasizes.

The effects of certain shapes and directions on a page has been analyzed on many levels to explain how our brain works, and would add more to Wysocki’s argument because I don’t just “believe” that “smooth, flat, and horizontal shapes give us a sense of stability and calm” (154).

All of these categories are fine and dandy, but Wysocki doesn’t just leave the argument at these principles. She goes into depth as to why she found the add offensive with Kant’s scale and definition of beauty.

Frankly, my dear… I just don’t care. Kant’s ideas on beauty and sublimity is a fun concept to work with, but I tip my hat to the creator of Wysocki’s example for using the female body to emphasize the ad.