This week in class we covered the use of photography and images within design and UI/UX design. Majority of what was covered was more of a refresher from what I learnt and gained from semester one such as the use of the golden ration along with the four points of the grid and their effect of interest.
What I did find pretty interesting would be the comparison of good and bad photography, especially within advertising and marketing. For example what caught my eye within the lecture was comparing the photography by Translink, which just wasn't very good and the photography by The Royal Scotsman.
What I also found interesting was how and when photography should be used over illustration within branding. For example some companies would focus on illustrations as it may be in line within their tone of voice or their core values. An example of this would be Kindsight:
This company is very gives off a very open and friendly personality to their customers that may come across their page. however, the illustrations may not give enough visual information for what their company may have to offer, so this is when they would also decide to include some photography to show how friendly they can be aswell as what they do in a day to day basis.
Kindsight - Making Fundraising Easier
I also took a look into Sony for another company that would tend to use photography a lot within their website. I found it interesting when researching a lot that just about all photography that is used for advertising is altered in some shape or form to make it seem more ‘professional’. Looking back into Translink, an image of a train featured an excavator in the background, giving it a very dirty and raw look to it, which could have easily been photoshopped or edited to have it covered or removed.
Similarly, Sony would alter their photography especially when advertising as it looks more professional but doesn't give it too much of an over exaggerated look, depending on the circumstances of course.
For example, when Sony uses photography to advertise their TV’s they alter it as if the image or movie is literally popping out of the screen, over exaggerating the device, to make it stand out from its competitors and catch the viewers attention.
Whereas when Sony shows anything that may feature their cameras or people they just alter the image slightly, such as making the colours more vibrant, or the image sharper. They may do this to make it seem as if they just took the photos raw and that the camera advertised took the image without any alterations at all.
