Elements of Effective Layout by Dorothy Cohen Essay

Marketing, a strategy to attract a person’s attention to a visual element, is part of today’s commercially based economy. In Dorothy Cohen’s Elements of Effective Layout, the author illustrates her principle argument through means of persuasion focuses on how a given layout can indeed attract attention and how the dominant requisites of an effective marketing layout are, in fact, balance, movement, proportion, simplicity and clarity, unity and emphasis. Within the text, a segment focusing on unity and how it is an important element of attracting attention, Cohen argues: â€Å"A border surrounding an ad provides a method of achieving unity. Sets of borders may occur within an ad, and, when they are similar in thickness and tone they provide a sense of unity. † Here, the author debates about how the graphic requisites of attraction in advertising are crucial in order to spark interest to a viewer. This process is best defined when describing the unity requisite of graphic layout by Cohen when she describes the similarities in ‘thickness’ and ‘tone’ providing a strong sense of unity. The author begins by describing the balance requisite and how an advertisement can rely on how ‘visual weight’ is distributed within its ‘landscape’. In this first section of the article mathematical terms are used to illicit a sense of visual and spatial concepts, for example the ‘fulcrum’ or balancing point. In a secondary section, proportion is emphasized in regards to aesthetic layout in a graphic representation to best describe the size of an element in regards to the rest of the image/picture/advertisement. More specifically, it is demonstrated that non-proportional images use the proportion of a layout to fortify a particular theme or underlying message. In a third section, the movement aspect of graphic layout is explained as a sequence which enables directional flow in order to direct the interpreter into a coherent and cohesive manner. Typically via, either, gaze motion or structural motion which can differ from one individual to another. The fourth requisite of graphic layout is unity, this element being an important aspect of interpretation, is how Cohen identifies the combination of all aesthetic, structural and visual aspects of the image form a whole in order to display the intended message. This being the accumulation of the graphic representation as a whole is dominantly the main aspect when summing up the advertisement in its entirety. Particular attention is paid to form and the use of white space in order to bring out all aspects rendering a thorough representation of a particular theme or idea. Also, another section pertains to the clarity and simplicity, which tells us about how the message will generally be interpreted and what will be the outcome of such a message when displayed. Lastly, Cohen discusses emphasis in order to best identify how the most important element is emphasized in order to strengthen the intended point behind the advertisement. Although the information provided within this text is accurate, the segment concerning unity and how the border of a graphic layout achieves a sense of unity by adding a boundary is appropriate for the particular topic, but has a fallacy that of hasty generalization. For some, such boundaries help strengthen the image’s unity, but others may simply see such boundaries as limits or borders. This generalization is also hasty, because the thickness can identify the unity of the advertisement, but can also identify the particular look or style the creator is attempting to illustrate. The information within this passage is certainly accurate, but is not final. In my response, the provided information regarding graphic layout may be illegitimate, because I am not studying marketing, but as an individual or interpreter of an advertisement I know that borders that are similar in tone and thickness do help unify the image, but don’t make the graphic layout limitless or one-sided. As an interpreter, I can justly see such borders as a means to create boundaries keeping the strengths of the image concealed within a structured environment as opposed to a united one. This article helps illustrate the fundamentals behind graphic layout and advertisement in contemporary marketing strategies. Cohen reveals such concepts in an essay on unfairness about trade regulating rules where advertising takes a whole new approach towards legality of advertising and appropriate demonstrations of graphic layout (Cohen, 1982).