Good graphic design is always clear in its visual hierarchy, in which important elements are emphasized and content is organized logically and predictably. A hierarchy in a graphic design can be generated by the page layout, size of the elements, contrast, color, shape, position and so on.

Hierarchy is a very important part to form a good design work. Usually we want the element representing the most important information to be the first in hierarchy. This could be the headline text in bold, with strong contrast color to the background, or an interesting image with big size, saturated color or unusual shape to be appealing to the eyes. Elements on top level of hierarchy are to give the audience a summary or principle concept of the message that the design is trying to express. Then the secondary level elements are in the supporting role to give more details or explanations for the headline information. Overall, to achieve a successful design with appropriate hierarchy, we need to be aware of the readers’ expectation and habits. Elements are supposed to be ordered in a logic hierarchy with pleasing visual balance as well. Only then, the message in the design work can be conveyed smoothly and clearly to the audience.

When it comes to graphic design, Unity is also referred as Integration, meaning all the elements in the work appear to belong to each other, and make a whole of composition.  This is a very basic and important goal of any graphic design work.  Components in one design work are not supposed to compete with each other or hide from each other but rather support each other in a certain priority order to give a flow to the design to provide messages.

Type and images are two different kinds of elements in the design world, but equally important.  Type comes up with words to tell the message in a direct and straightforward way, while picture gives people more space to portrait it to a certain meaning with their own interpretation. And when we put these two elements together into one work, the design gets sophisticated and being equipped more dimensions. In a lot of design works, types are placed in front of the picture and stands out from the background picture to give a clear view for the audience.  However, there are also works that have type appeared more in an imagery way, by means of extreme dimension of the text and uncommon fonts, which are not so clear for the audience at the first sight to read text message. And in this kind of design, the image elements may in a major role of the work.  However no matter which element takes the lead, unity is always the goal to put them together, in which case, type can convert to image and image can also be shown in a type way (just like the type mask we did).  CONSISTENCY is one of the methods we use frequently to achieve the goal of unity, which include the consistency of color, style, alignment, etc.  Color – we choose a color that appears in the picture (usually appears repeatedly) for the color of the type.  Style – around the theme of story the design is telling, we choose the style of the picture and the font.  Say, the design is telling a happy story, we may use a highly saturated color image with a cheerful-looking font.  Besides that, POSITON is also a very important factor for a unity design.  This involves with the concept in our previous topic – space.  Usually for the type that is placed in front of the picture, we would choose to place it on the portion of the image that has less variety and more monotones, which is also referred as negative space.  Type on negative space can get the effect of not only standing out of the picture but also integrate with it.

I believe there are more principles than the above ones I mentioned to create a unified design.  However, the point is to achieve an integrated composition as we desired, multiple methods and principles need to be applied to one art work than just stick to one.

Sarah McLachlan is a wonderfully talented Canadian singer/songwriter/musician. At a young age, she was trained at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Nova Scotia. She learned guitar for 12 years, piano for 8 years and spent 5 years refining her voice.

Her success in music leads to numerous awards, which includes: 3 time Grammy Award winner and the Elizabeth Cady Stanton Visionary Award for advancing the careers of women in music. Sarah has sold over 22 million records worldwide since her recording career began with her debut release, “Touch”, in 1988 and has been profiled by media the world over including cover stories for Rolling Stone, Time and Entertainment Weekly.

Her music is featured of her pure voice and beautiful harmonies along with love and loss in a depth of warmth.

The disc Surfacing was released in 1997 and come out of nowhere in a time when the teen pop craze was going on. It had sophisticated songwriting with great piano and guitar hooks and Sarah scored some great hits from this record that were in heavy rotation in 1997 and 1998.

I chose the album surfacing to design the CD cover for, because it is such a masterpiece of Sarah. It is a singer and songwriter at the top of her talent. I am amazed every time I listen to this CD. The design of the cover is trying to match the style of “Surfacing”. The black background with Sarah’s initial in dark grey, the type “surfacing” with reflection, and the feathered type of the name in the font of Mistral are all attempting to approach the depth of the music, the meaning of the lyrics and stunning beauty of her voice.