[img]http://upload.vstanced.com/images/2018/02/16/xLE.png[/img]
Welcome back to works's third Crit Pit. Every Sunday, one of us will analyse some art posted in Rate My Graphic, or submitted to us privately. If you'd like us to consider your work for next week, please post it in RMG or PM it to me! works will not critique any project which has been rushed, produced in a few minutes, or is a work in progress: it's pointless to seek criticism on anything but your best work, for then you'll never improve.
The idea is that by sharing feedback on your work, everyone will improve together - it's extremely useful to read criticism of others' work because doing so hones our own critical eye, and means that we can self-analyse our work as we create it.
Piece #1 - #TDR
Spoiler (Click to View)
First of all, it's great to see the huge amount of work posted in RMG this week! Activity has really stepped up recently.
I really like the colours selected on this piece. They're bright and clean, and stand out well against HF's grey skin. Nicely-executed gradient! I also like the flow of the work; the diagonal slant given to the whole piece by cutting the corner works well, as does the chicken being thrown out into the text: this leads the eye nicely to the text, and shows good thought behind the piece. However, the text is very weak. I count four different fonts: this is huge overkill because they all clash. Personally, I'd use a clean sans-serif font and italicise it to complement the slanted flow of the rest of the piece. The 'PayPal... Ethereum' text should align with the text it's subtitling. I'd keep the gradient on the CS:GO text, but as I said before I think all this text needs deleting and replacing with a simpler type scheme. At the minute it's a bit of a mess!
Piece 2 - G--D
Spoiler (Click to View)
I think this looks fine at first glance, but there are several issues with the execution which I'll address first before talking about a wider problem with this sort of piece. The speckles on the nose need removing: why are they there? It just looks like he has nose dandruff. They won't scale, and just look weird. The teeth emerge oddly from the mouth; the mouth is basically just a line and then these huge teeth protrude from it: it looks whacky. I'm unsure about why there's a lighter grey patch on the back of the black mane. Some of the line-work looks very low quality too, but this could be imgur ruining things for everyone. I also dislike that the eye looks to be staring out at the viewer while the head is pointed forwards.
My more abstract issue with this sort of piece is that it doesn't work in black and white. It is essential that your mascots/logos/visual identity work functions in black and white as well as colour for printing etc. If this means you have to design a simpler version of the mascot to work in BnW then so be it. Usage is vital to bear in mind when approaching any design project!
Piece 3 - Sickness.
Spoiler (Click to View)
Gradient looks familiar ;) There's an awful lot wrong with this, mostly at a fundamental level, but I do admire the use of gradients to give it some pop, and you've used layer styles quite tastefully throughout to add emphasis - good work. Try to make your gradients a bit subtler; using them on text as you've done can look really overwhelming and make the text harder to read. Leave more space between sections and make your margins consistent (and narrower, you're really cramming everything into a narrow central column). NEVER use all-caps for body text. It's very difficult to read. Save all caps text for title text only, and use regular caps for anything longer (e.g. your features box). While your gradients are cool, try to stick to only one - otherwise you'll end up with a really busy, gaudy design. Here, decide if you want to go with a purple/blue scheme or red/orange and stick with it. Structure is generally good, well done. However, you can ditch those arrows in the section heading boxes; the viewer knows to read down the page, so these arrows indicating to do so are redundant. Decide if you're going to use drop shadows on text or a '3D effect' (which you used at the bottom of the design on the website and whatnot). Personally, I'd stick with the drop shadow on this one.
Those are some mistakes, but there are big fundamental aspects you're yet to grasp. What I do like though is that you're clearly borrowing from work you like: this is teaching you a great deal already and means that - for example - your structure is solid. Keep looking for inspiration! I made a thread a long time ago about very basic fundamental aspects of thread design, which you could do well to read :)
[img]http://upload.vstanced.com/images/2018/02/16/xLL.gif[/img]
Welcome back to works's third Crit Pit. Every Sunday, one of us will analyse some art posted in Rate My Graphic, or submitted to us privately. If you'd like us to consider your work for next week, please post it in RMG or PM it to me! works will not critique any project which has been rushed, produced in a few minutes, or is a work in progress: it's pointless to seek criticism on anything but your best work, for then you'll never improve.
The idea is that by sharing feedback on your work, everyone will improve together - it's extremely useful to read criticism of others' work because doing so hones our own critical eye, and means that we can self-analyse our work as we create it.
Piece #1 - #TDR
Spoiler (Click to View)
![[Image: VmK9IT8.png]](https://i.imgur.com/VmK9IT8.png)
First of all, it's great to see the huge amount of work posted in RMG this week! Activity has really stepped up recently.
I really like the colours selected on this piece. They're bright and clean, and stand out well against HF's grey skin. Nicely-executed gradient! I also like the flow of the work; the diagonal slant given to the whole piece by cutting the corner works well, as does the chicken being thrown out into the text: this leads the eye nicely to the text, and shows good thought behind the piece. However, the text is very weak. I count four different fonts: this is huge overkill because they all clash. Personally, I'd use a clean sans-serif font and italicise it to complement the slanted flow of the rest of the piece. The 'PayPal... Ethereum' text should align with the text it's subtitling. I'd keep the gradient on the CS:GO text, but as I said before I think all this text needs deleting and replacing with a simpler type scheme. At the minute it's a bit of a mess!
Piece 2 - G--D
Spoiler (Click to View)
![[Image: qa7Dq24.png]](https://i.imgur.com/qa7Dq24.png)
I think this looks fine at first glance, but there are several issues with the execution which I'll address first before talking about a wider problem with this sort of piece. The speckles on the nose need removing: why are they there? It just looks like he has nose dandruff. They won't scale, and just look weird. The teeth emerge oddly from the mouth; the mouth is basically just a line and then these huge teeth protrude from it: it looks whacky. I'm unsure about why there's a lighter grey patch on the back of the black mane. Some of the line-work looks very low quality too, but this could be imgur ruining things for everyone. I also dislike that the eye looks to be staring out at the viewer while the head is pointed forwards.
My more abstract issue with this sort of piece is that it doesn't work in black and white. It is essential that your mascots/logos/visual identity work functions in black and white as well as colour for printing etc. If this means you have to design a simpler version of the mascot to work in BnW then so be it. Usage is vital to bear in mind when approaching any design project!
Piece 3 - Sickness.
Spoiler (Click to View)
![[Image: 7JrPFn2.png]](https://i.imgur.com/7JrPFn2.png)
Gradient looks familiar ;) There's an awful lot wrong with this, mostly at a fundamental level, but I do admire the use of gradients to give it some pop, and you've used layer styles quite tastefully throughout to add emphasis - good work. Try to make your gradients a bit subtler; using them on text as you've done can look really overwhelming and make the text harder to read. Leave more space between sections and make your margins consistent (and narrower, you're really cramming everything into a narrow central column). NEVER use all-caps for body text. It's very difficult to read. Save all caps text for title text only, and use regular caps for anything longer (e.g. your features box). While your gradients are cool, try to stick to only one - otherwise you'll end up with a really busy, gaudy design. Here, decide if you want to go with a purple/blue scheme or red/orange and stick with it. Structure is generally good, well done. However, you can ditch those arrows in the section heading boxes; the viewer knows to read down the page, so these arrows indicating to do so are redundant. Decide if you're going to use drop shadows on text or a '3D effect' (which you used at the bottom of the design on the website and whatnot). Personally, I'd stick with the drop shadow on this one.
Those are some mistakes, but there are big fundamental aspects you're yet to grasp. What I do like though is that you're clearly borrowing from work you like: this is teaching you a great deal already and means that - for example - your structure is solid. Keep looking for inspiration! I made a thread a long time ago about very basic fundamental aspects of thread design, which you could do well to read :)
[img]http://upload.vstanced.com/images/2018/02/16/xLL.gif[/img]
![[Image: HMHpl76.gif]](https://i.imgur.com/HMHpl76.gif)
![[Image: 3WBe0SA.png]](https://i.imgur.com/3WBe0SA.png)
