Prof. M. Brown | COMD1112 - OL15 | Fall 2020

[Discussion] Conundrums

Take 15 minutes and review as many of the conundrums as you can. Pick your favorites and write a brief post on our discussion board describing how the designer manipulated the type and layout to get the message across.

19 Comments

  1. Dequan

    My favorite is page 72
    I believe the message means ā€œLittle Lieā€

  2. Dequan

    My favorite is page 72
    I believe the message means ā€œLittle Lieā€

  3. Edwin Almanzar

    My favorite designs were 01, 03, and 13. They were very easy to understand within seconds and were executed perfectly. For 01 the repeated letter i on top of the word eye came across as eyes on the prize easily. For 03 the words fish separate from water and a tiny bit elevated made me think of fish out of water. For 13 the word head above heals made me think of head over heels. I think the fact that they wrote heals instead of heels also added to the design.

  4. Jordan Stanley

    I like “YOU JUST ME,” “LEGS TAIL LEGS,” and “HEAD HEELS”. Because pf the placement of the words just and tail between the other words, its cool and its understandable as being between them. I also like how head is places on top of heels, making it understood as head over heels.

  5. Anthony Quiles

    My favorite conundrums are 1, 3, 8, and 13.
    1: eyes on the prize, having the i’s on top of the work prize but still allowing the prize to be visible by having it in white.
    3:fish out of water, spacing out both words to have fish within the word water, but still being out vertically.
    8:Gone but not forgotten, underlining and crossing out
    13:head over heals, similar to 1 but reversed colors and more pronounced

  6. Anthony Quiles

    My favorite conundrums are 1, 3, 8, and 13.
    1: eyes on the prize, having the i’s on top of the work prize but still allowing the prize to be visible by having it in white.
    3:fish out of water, spacing out both words to have fish within the word water, but still being out vertically.
    8:Gone but not forgotten, underlining and crossing out
    13:head over heals, similar to 1 but reversed colors and more pronounced

  7. Hakeem

    I like number 15
    I think its trying to say that ā€œLessā€ is or sometimes better than ā€œmoreā€

  8. Eduardo Cortes Martinez

    The one that I choose is number 43, because of the meaning that I think it meant which was saying “looking up from the darkness”. The reason why i said this is because the aurthor spilted the image into two images. On the left its all black and on the right has the word “LOOK” in the top right coner,
    which the designer is telling us half of us is looking in the dark while the other half is looking up past the dark.

  9. Zhuolu

    My favorite is the 66th. “shh…”remind me “keep quiet”, I believe it means be quiet at night.

  10. Mercedes Alvarez

    My favorite is the one that says “PANTS”. I think it means ‘ants in your pants’ because the designer made the letter ‘P’ different than the ‘ANTS’. It draws attention to the message meaning there is literally ants in the word pants.

  11. Jawanza

    Out of the 108 of Pearceā€™s Typographic Conundrums, the one that I enjoyed the most and admired the most was number 105. In block 105 there is simply one word in black bold letters that says BLOCK, it is placed in the center of the red square. What can be noticed is the chipped and missing part of the letter B and L. The designer really did not do much manipulation to the type, yet the message came across loud and clear to me. I remember hearing the statement often as a child ‘You are a chip off the old block’.

  12. Samantha

    My favorites will be the one that says “Gone but never forgotten”, the designer underlined GONE and crossed out forgotten to symbolized that the word never is being used. The phrase “Laid Back” was also manipluated as the word LAID was backwards, to show the word back was being used without using it.

  13. Mercedes Alvarez

    My favorite is the one that says “PANTS”. I think it means ‘ants in your pants’ because the designer made the letter ‘P’ different than the ‘ANTS’. It draws attention to the message meaning there is literally ants in the word pants.

  14. Cristal

    My favorite is the first one, the one that says, ā€œeyes on the prizeā€. The color of the iā€™s are black while the word ā€œprizeā€ is white for more contrast and clarity. There are eight iā€™s overlapping the word ā€œprizeā€.

  15. Imurs35

    Pro
    Mi
    se
    I think the artist manipulated this is many different ways. using broken letters to make words sound may be similiar but with a catchie spelling or phrase.

    Promise me or see me

  16. Oumardat Basdewa

    I really like the ones on pages 3, 4, & 13.
    3 has fish above water so it looks like a fish out of water with the contrast between the black and white letters . 4 has Promise broken down into sections. 14 has head over heals and that one just felt a lot simpler.

  17. Oumardat Basdewa

    I really like the ones on pages 3, 4, & 13.
    3 has fish above water so it looks like a fish out of water with the contrast between the black and white letters . 4 has Promise broken down into sections. 14 has head over heals and that one just felt a lot simpler.

  18. Kmedina

    Some of these are pretty simple like page 85’s no brainer and others are actually interesting to figure out. for example i dont understand page 81

  19. Jennifer Salazar

    I really like the simple aspects like pictures 12 and 10, something that is easy to look at, and placed in a way you can visualize what your seeing.

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