Formal elements comparison

I have selected two pieces of work, one by Peter Saville and one by Neville Brody. I have chosen an album cover that Peter Saville created for OMD and a Nike advert created my Neville Brody. Both of these design pieces use many of the formal elements.

First of all, the OMD album cover uses lines to create a strong image upon a bright orange background, emphasising the shape created upon the page. Because the artwork is not set into equal proportions there is large area of negative space that is created by the shape of the lines, this navigates your eyes to the logo. This is a clever way of making you focus on the thing with the highest visual importance. The colour of the lines set on a bright orange background create a nice unity to the piece, they are all flat basic colours with no tone or texture and because of this the artwork is really eye catching and bold.

The Nike advert is a great contrast to Peter Saville’s simple and stylistic piece. There is a minimal use of colour in this piece just using volume to create a collage of words. There is slight proportion in the artwork as it is set into clear half’s, however there is a distinct lack of line and proportion as the text is placed randomly in different directions and angles. The works well as the words have the biggest emphasis as they are the clear focal point of the work and they hold the most visual weight. Because of how the artist has sectioned the work and created a negative / positive style using black and white there is a good harmony and rhythm as everything seems to flow with a nice continuity.

Overall both of these pieces cover the majority of the formal elements but I think Peter Savilles album is the strongest piece.