A little review about the international non/fiction book fair that happened this weekend at the Central House of Artists in Moscow. 

I will start of with expressing my opinion on the posters that we see on a daily basis and that were hanging in the lobby of the event. I am not going to go through all of them one by one but point out the things that repeat and which I believe are not delivering the message clearly and in general being the quite opposite of what they teach you in a design school. I believe one person has designed all of these posters as they have the same features repeating on and on.

The first thing that really sticks out is the corner based typography and the author not following the grid. I am aware that this is not a typography poster but it shouldn’t be all pushed in the corner. Play with type but don’t be too clever. Clearly, these are not the best combinations of typefaces, type size and overall hierarchy of information. For example, why in the bottom centre poster ЦДХ is bigger (type wise) than anything else. The hierarchy here says that it is more important where the event is taking place rather than the event itself.

Next, I don’t think that the designer has used gridlines to help him out.  Proportions of photos, negative space and typography doesn’t look right. In only one poster (top middle) I see a leading edge. The overall alignment is very chaotic. Then it’s centered then left then right. There is no order and the author has not helped people read in a particular way. 

Another thing that bugs me is the integration of real life photography with the background. In some posters it’s better that in others but as I’m putting myself in a seat of a critic I will drag your attention to where it’s really bad- the very centre poster with the brick wall background. First of all, I am trying to figure out why particularly this background was chosen and what’s the connection with the event. Second, it adds so much unnecessary noise and makes the information less visible. Last, if we assume that those people in the photos speak for themselves and anything else is not important, then again, the background doesn’t highlight the photos. I do love the choice of colours and how they work with each other, however, I don’t think this is the right occasion for such a choice. 

Conclusion. I often wonder how would the target audience react and would they receive the message if the information would be delivered in a different way. Meaning if these posters would be clear and clean cause we are so used to this “way”. The reason I wonder this is if we take a look at the packaging industry and those many rules of colours, typography, photography etc. If a yogurt packaging wouldn’t have a fruit on it, would a person even pick it. I don’t know the facts, but I remember some things from my marketing lectures in business school. One of which is, you cannot go too far from what people are used to because they have very strong associations. Another thing is that good design is often mistaken for being expensive and making something look cheap is another whole of “science”. What do you think? Would the target audience receive the information if it would be delivered in a way they are completely not used to?

To finish of, this is my first time expressing my opinion in public as I have been working on not being afraid of others and their opinion because at the end of the day there is no truth except for science (and also they make mistakes) and it’s my opinion against yours. I am so willing to learn, be “wrong”, change my opinion and express myself. Thank you all for reading and let’s just take a real quick look at some of the nice book cover designs I stumbled upon. 

I was very happy that literally ALL of the typography books were sold out as I wouldn’t have bought them anyways (they all were in Russian and I prefer English). Bottom left is a polish design poster and there is something I just completely love about their typography. And last, the only design book I brought home was by Lebedev publishing studio- About child drawing. I will review it as soon as I am done reading.