Design 1
I have chosen the design of the gift shop shown in this image, the shop named Lucky 7 GIFTS “since 1992”. The overall front design of this store uses similarity by the orientation of its elements. The proximity of the design of this shop has two elements separated with negative space that makes it seem like they are not pertaining to the same relationship even though they have similar elements. The figure and ground is shown by its continuity by having a sign popped out above the sidewalk to draw attention to the pedestrians or vehicles passing by. It utilizes symmetry by having the sign that pops out directly aligned above from the middle of the sign below. The design above that protrudes out appropriately shows hierarchy by having the logo above a separated element that says souvenirs in a different font, smaller font size, and color. The design shows repetition by having the logo of the store displayed twice. Even though this design utilizes a lot of negative space the contrast between the white and red make the elements seem to be the focal point. The balance here is that it isn’t crowded and has the information it wishes the viewer to see. I do not think this design shows closure and common fate.
I feel like this design grabs the attention of its viewers by getting straight to the point of what this shop is all about. The feel I get from the shop is an old town store front due to its architecture. The overall design is favorable because the surrounding shops have different designs. Its understanding of negative space to guide the viewer to the name of the store is a well thought design since it is effectively communicating the intended message that it is a gift shop. The design could utilize a more legible font and increase its size. The sign on the bottom could also be increased in size overall. Also they used green text with a red background for their name which does not show well but the white letters and red background, the word; GIFTS, does contrast well which is the main idea of the shop. So I would change the green text to white. The subtitle element, souvenirs that have a white background and black text have a good contrast. They utilized hierarchy well in the words gifts and souvenirs. And the small insert under the word, gift, “since 1992” is too small of a font size to be viewed even across the street so I would increase Lucky 7 and “since 1992” to be at least legible from across the street but maintain the word gifts to be larger than both. I would not want to modernize the shop’s front design too much since I would want it to maintain its old town feel since it’s been operating since 1992.
Design 2
The Website : https://www.providence.org/locations/socal/holy-cross-medical-center
For my second design to critique I chose the website for Providence Holy Cross Medical Center. This site uses similarity by having images and text in similar rectangular shapes. They maintain a neutral color scheme throughout the website. The figure would be their logo and the ground is the cross within their logo since their name is Province Holy Cross Medical Center. There is balance since they added the image of the how the center looks outside and directly below it there are two sections that contain paragraphs of information but over all nothing seems too crowded. The alignment has clear spacing and closeness to show what elements belong to which sections. The site hierarchy in text is clearly shown at the top as it has the title, the name of the center, which draws the viewers attention and smaller subtext of the address. Also the selections above are not in a bigger font compared to the title. The closure in the image below would be the pattern withing the section of browse hospital departments which give the illusion that the pattern is continuous even though it ends withing the rectangular element.
The symmetry and order would be how in between sections such as the browse hospital department the four elements are evenly distributed. Also in the image above, the bar under the categories would be common fate as it implies theres more sections, it also displays arrows which would lead to new sections.
In this section of the site, the image above, it utilizes continuity by having the people in the images drawing their attention to the right side. They also use contrast in this section by having one section within a light beige rectangular element to distinguish the two. The method of using negative space to differentiate the two sections as well as the white space goes with the background.
In this section it shows how proximity differentiates how the image with text in blue, title, and the subtext under all of the same sub-section from the whole section of, “From our Blog”. And there are four sections. The repetition on this site is how the images in this section above have the same size within this section are from their blog. And on the browse hospital departments the onces displayed in the rectangles are also the same size which each signifies a department.
The overall design is thoroughly thought out. It has a simple and straight foward design allowing the user to search and find what they need on their webpage. I feel like they could improve on the visibility of some of their fonts subtext since they look grayed out and too thin. They do get their point across that their facility has credible resources that state that it is a reliable place to get a service. As it is shown below the title and overview are the Awards the center has obtained. Then it goes into options to navigate to specific departments or to view all the hospital departments. I like how they used Gestalt Principle of continuity in the use of the images. It made me focus on the direction of where the text is. Its pleasant how they used neutral color scheme so it will not distract one from viewing the information. Their alignment of used negative space to inbetween sections helps differentiate each section. Also the proximity of each section is not crowded. The use of the pattern with the browse hospital departments made the contrast of the blue not stand out but not be overbearing. The accurate use of hierarchy text to show the title is shown clearly then paragraphs under. I like the website’s overall balanced given it contain a lot of information.