Just another WordPress.com site

Effective communication design: “Fine Cooking” magazine
I think that the cover of the magazine is successful for the following reasons:
1) The key word “Cooking” in the title is very clear, easy to read, and descriptive. The colors are bright and crisp, but harmonic. The text doesn’t blend in with the background.
2) The highlights of this particular issue are listed in orderly manner, and not just scattered all over the page.
3) There is some use of “all caps”, but it doesn’t look bad, because it actually does serve its purpose – it highlights certain headings.
4) Different recipes are printed in different color, so that they don’t blend in with each other. Also, the most important one has larger font size, which immediately attracts attention. The text colors match the colors of different foods on the picture, which makes the cover look balanced.
5) The picture is nice and looks appetizing, which is definitely a good reason to buy this magazine. This means, the goal of the designer has been achieved: people will look at the cover and spend their money on this magazine.

Ineffective communication design: “Notice to all tenants!”
The notice is an unsuccessful example for several reasons:
1) The printed page is not aligned well with respect to the physical paper page, which makes it look hasty, and may indicate that whoever printed this didn’t care much about effectiveness and readability of the notice.
2) The notice is “all caps”, which makes none of it emphasized.
3) The use of multiple exclamation marks makes this notice aggressive, and therefore reduces its effectiveness, because people don’t like being yelled at.
4) The paragraphs are rather long and dense, and they don’t convey the meaning properly, since they are poorly worded. Also, the quotation marks are used improperly, which makes the message even more confusing.
5) Different sizes of the font are used within the same paragraph, which makes the text look not well-aligned.