HW8

Communication Arts, January/February 2017. Page 101

For this week's blog, I cover positive and negative space.  Positive Space being the subject of the composition and negative space being the background.  I initially was confused at first when I saw positive and negative being paired with space.  At first I thought that it meant positive and negative emotions, but after some assistance from classmates as well as looking in the textbook glossary, I found out that positive and negative space meant the subject and background of a composition.  As all of us know, we just finished a Lynda assignment on how different colors represent different emotions, that was not the case so this was completely brand new to me.  I chose this photo off of an ad in an early 2017 issue of Communication Arts magazine and immediately thought it was interesting.  Not only is this a good example of positive and negative space, but the fact that the positive space was composed entirely of words made the piece somewhat unique.

Though a clear picture of the canteen was displayed on the bottom right of the page, the words that are compressed in the shape of a canteen represent the subject and the bluish background is running water.  The background is just as interesting as the canteen because it represents nature.  This canteen is being marketed for people who hike or camp and my guess would be that the product can be used to scoop some of the water so the consumer could drink it.  That would make sense since part of the positive space reads, "Go on an adventure with your oasis" (the product name being "Oasis" with an actual oasis surrounding it).  What is also interesting however is the fact that the subject itself doesn't completely cover the negative space.  In between the words you can still see the beautiful flow of fresh water.  The only thing that covers the water is the photo of the actual canteen on the bottom right.

What stuck out to you about this piece?













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