Week 6 Reading: Bang!

I really liked and really disliked this book. I thought it accomplished what it set out to do, but I had the occasional disagreement. (And what's with the cover? According to her writing, the way the white pops insinuates that she is the most important thing--I would have thought the title. And why the "mediation" configuration? I suppose the centered-ness makes the reader focus on it longer, but it feels much less dynamic.)

Dislikes:
Her word choice/tone. Example: the word "innards," the story of her art prof. on p. 52, referring to "drunken blood shot eyes" in a kid's book (I'm going on the basis that this is intended for kids b/c that's where the library shelves it). I think she's trying to be casual (or un-intellectual), but she kind of comes off as a know-it-all. Her over explaining gets tedious. Her redemption was flipping the page and reading, "The wolf looks stupid now..." (p. 34). That was laugh out loud hilarious.

Likes:
I thought her Little Red Riding Hood images were successful. Principle #9 was helpful, to paraphrase, we associate things of the same color as being together more than things of the same shape. I also enjoyed the image constructed by the 8th grader at the end of the book.

Highlight:
The images on page 82-83. To paraphrase again, some pictures are contained within their space and the viewer is left outside of it, but when our eyes notice an object within the picture, we move into the picture. I though the corresponding images to this idea were perfect. As a beginning designer, I see (and make) some really bad design, but am not sure what it is that's missing, why it feels so amateur, and now I realize that usually it's because the viewer wasn't brought into the design, the piece existed in its own space without the viewer. Being aware of this is going to be helpful.