GOOD DESIGN / BAD DESIGN

 

Here is a great example of a successful design. It is a visually balanced piece that not only is pleasing to the eye, but clearly conveys the information contained within in a straightforward way. The elements of the octopus-brain along with the 'SATURDAY' and '4/28/12' are a great example of the gestalt principle of closure through the implied triangle they create.

On the other hand, this flyer shows bad design. All the text elements are so splayed out, that there is real no visual hierarchy. I think we could call it Gestalt-Anarchy. One thing that I think is interesting about what's going on in the above piece, is that what was probably meant to convey a sort of frenzied visual stress, is actually rather boring, simply because it's all stress. The designer could have tried to provide a bit of composition by putting the text cutouts in a more, say sharpened layout, but they didn't - leaving the world with one more bad, messy punk flyer. 

(It was probably was a better show than the top one though.)