I don't like pet-peeve rants because they rarely tell you how to find something original that works. They're very quick to tell you what doesn't work, and perhaps a little bit of why, but they don't really give much insight into how to find good alternatives.
For example, if you have a lot of faces in your film, how do you make them "pop" and stand out without using lots of teal?
I should have been more clear. The rants are interesting because they highlight things that have been subtly bugging me, but I don't know why.
In this case, I scroll through and look at all of those pictures, and I know something is wrong. It takes someone with talent and experience to talk about the color balance. That gives me something concrete I can look for when I try to put together designs -- don't just go and get yourself complementary colors and then just go nuts with the contrast.
in honesty, as a designer, you should refine your own taste. Know what you like, what you don't. Be unashamed of this: it's what separates your work from others'. Once you do, you'll have 'the angry years' where you go off and rail against this or that to everyone you know (blah blah lucida blah blah poor attempt at contrast harmony blah blah composition not dynamic blah blah).
But all the while, this is developing your internal taste barometer, things you love and things you won't stand for. This will influence your work in every way possible, from things like stroke width (looks too constructivist!) to decisions about texture (halftone again?!, what is this, the 50s?)
I'll agree that it's good to keep up with what other people bitch about (gotta keep up with the zeitgeist!) but it's often funnier than informational, and more often, their posts lack substance or rally around some shallow point that you no longer care about. I mean, yes, i've seen the golden rectangle, i studied maths, but i don't buy the whole "look! look! the golden ratio is EVERYWHERE!" argument that is basically what this webpage boiled down to. But that's my own taste talking.
Comments
I don't like pet-peeve rants because they rarely tell you how to find something original that works. They're very quick to tell you what doesn't work, and perhaps a little bit of why, but they don't really give much insight into how to find good alternatives.
For example, if you have a lot of faces in your film, how do you make them "pop" and stand out without using lots of teal?
I should have been more clear. The rants are interesting because they highlight things that have been subtly bugging me, but I don't know why.
In this case, I scroll through and look at all of those pictures, and I know something is wrong. It takes someone with talent and experience to talk about the color balance. That gives me something concrete I can look for when I try to put together designs -- don't just go and get yourself complementary colors and then just go nuts with the contrast.
in honesty, as a designer, you should refine your own taste. Know what you like, what you don't. Be unashamed of this: it's what separates your work from others'. Once you do, you'll have 'the angry years' where you go off and rail against this or that to everyone you know (blah blah lucida blah blah poor attempt at contrast harmony blah blah composition not dynamic blah blah).
But all the while, this is developing your internal taste barometer, things you love and things you won't stand for. This will influence your work in every way possible, from things like stroke width (looks too constructivist!) to decisions about texture (halftone again?!, what is this, the 50s?)
I'll agree that it's good to keep up with what other people bitch about (gotta keep up with the zeitgeist!) but it's often funnier than informational, and more often, their posts lack substance or rally around some shallow point that you no longer care about. I mean, yes, i've seen the golden rectangle, i studied maths, but i don't buy the whole "look! look! the golden ratio is EVERYWHERE!" argument that is basically what this webpage boiled down to. But that's my own taste talking.
Well, do you need to make them pop? Really, are we so far gone that we believe viewers can't identify people in a scene without making them 'pop'?
No, but high contrast images look better...