Project: Choosing Type. Experiment with Layouts.

Again I completed this exercise using Photoshop Elements 7.  I first opened a new document and then dragged in my image and resized it.  Next I added the title using a text box, then the body text and finally the caption.  When I had completed each version I flattened the image, as I had been working in layers, and finally saved it as a JPEG before undoing the flatten image command and working on my next version.

 In this first version I selected Georgia font for the title in bold and at 18pt.  The body text is Arial regular at size 13 and the caption Arial italic at 14 point.  I like this version; the title is large and clear and contrasts with the simple ariel body text and the caption is differentiated by being in italics.

In my second version I kept all of the text the same but moved the image to the left hand side.  In this version the eye is immediately drawn to the image on the right hand side and then has to move from right to left to read the text.  This is counter-intuitive in our culture and for this reason I feel that version 1 is better.

For version 3 I selected a heading font of Kirsten ITC, again at 18pt and regular rather than bold.  The body text is arial italic at 13pt and the caption Arial regular at 14pt. Having the body text and caption the opposite way round doesn't seem to work for me and the Kirsten font doesn't seem very professional.

 Here I have used Bradley Hand font regular for the body text at 13 point with the caption Times New Roman italic at 14pt.  The headiong is Arial regular at 18pt.  I am happy with the heading and the caption but feel the body text is not clear enough; it would perhaps have been better in Bradley Hand bold.

 This version is the same as version 1 but I experimented with a smaller font for the title: 12 point.  I feel that this hasn't worked as the title is not dominant enough.

I next rotated the canvas so that it was in vertical format and placed the image at the bottom.  To do this I had to reduce the size of the image, giving it less impact.  I don't feel this works.

 I kept to the horizontal format for this version but replaced the blue tit with a horizontal format robin.  I feel this works better.

For this final version I rotated the document to the vertical format and replace the robin with the blue tit once more.  This works better if the image is going to be in a vertical format.

Overall I prefer version 1 but I don't think it would work with a horizontal format image, although it would, I think, with a square image.