These notebook covers effectively use the design principle of contrast to present a graphic message that is powerful, and immediate. The bold use of pure geometric shapes, textures, figure–ground, and letterforms, further strengthen this concept.

The extreme scale, cropping, and juxtaposition of these fluid, calligraphic letter-forms, placed in counterpoint to formal serif typography and articulated in a stark black-and-white palette, provide contrasts that create tension, movement, and visual impact to each and every one of the spreads in this promotional brochure for Colour Cosmetica.

Comparative Relationships

Contrast is the comparative relationship between light and dark. Many other types of contrast in visual communications refer to comparative relationships or juxtapositions between two or more compositional elements. These juxtapositions can be positive and negative, geometric and organic, organized and chaotic, smooth and rough, static and kinetic, and large and small.

Contrast between black-and-white letterforms and hand-written script, as well as in the scale of graphic forms and textures, provides visual drama and excitement to this poster promoting a performance by the world-renowned French mime Marcel Marceau (1923–2007). The emblematic use of a black-and-white palette, the dynamic cropping of the graphic hands as if they were moving beyond the edges of the poster, and the pure representation of the performer’s face as a visual anchor and frame for the title of the performance all add to this series of visual contrasts found in this active and impactful composition.

These Eastern European–inspired labels and packaging for Slavko, an alcoholic beverage line, were created using contrasts in color, scale, typography, and graphic form. Bold, inline letterforms layered with high contrast, posterized imagery, and bright, saturated colors all give increased visual emphasis, weight, and prominence to this branding program.

Characteristics and Functions

Contrast can create emphasis by establishing juxtaposition with compositional elements to stress their visual differences. For example, bright colors juxtaposed with dark colors, angular shapes with curvilinear shapes, and minuscule elements with monumental elements can create visual excitement and emphasis, as well as direct attention to focal points in a composition and organize hierarchal orders in a visual message.

Solid black fields layered over existing textural elements and intense colors of a tabloid newspaper create a highly distinctive contrast for this publication celebrating the ten-year anniversary of a contemporary art museum in Bregenz, Austria. Large-scale, sans serif letterforms and blocks of narrative text are knocked out of these black fields, allowing existing backgrounds of the newspaper to show through and provide ample contrast for immediacy and readability of specific information.

The promotional materials for the AIGA Boston Twenty-Fifth Anniversary use a subtle ornamental background pattern, composed of fragmented decorative and typographic elements set against a silver metallic, highly reflective, foil-stamped version of the event’s logotype. In this context, contrast is used in both a restrained and obvious manner, to achieve surface variation, nuance, and an immediate visual impact.

Types of Contrast

Contrast effectively uses opposing design elements such as tone, color, and shape in a composition to produce an intensified, visual effect. For example, chiaroscuro (Italian for “light-dark”) in fine art and photography is characterized by strong tonal contrasts between light and dark. It is also a technical term used by artists and art historians for using contrast of light and dark or tone to achieve a sense of volume in modeling three-dimensional form such as the human body.

The visual branding program of Casa Lever, a restaurant located in a modernist New York City architectural landmark, uses warm colors, bold shapes, and simple geometry to evoke the spirit of Italian modernist work. Graphic contrasts can be found throughout the visual characteristics of this contemporary program—in its typographic form, two-tone color palette, informational scale and hierarchy, as well as in its logotype, packaging, and website.

This bold and distinctive brand identity and packaging program effectively uses contrast by pairing two different typefaces from two distinct type classifications, modern and sans serif geometric, and presents the brand typography reading in both orientations, offering different visual experiences when viewing and pouring.

This logotype for Terence Higgins Trust’s HIV campaign in the United Kingdom draws visual attention with the effective use of extreme contrast. A vibrant red symbolizing the potential nature of a person’s HIV status is set against flanking monolithic black letterforms, creating a dramatic focus to the powerful impact of HIV throughout our society.

Simple, obvious contrasts of large and small, black and white, and serious and playful, are all evident in the interpretive graphics for a Tim Burton (American, b. 1958) retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. For example, Burton’s hand lettering is juxtaposed with formal sans serif typography used for an introductory timeline, and a large-scale, spiraling floor graphic, which directs itself onto an introductory entry wall while simultaneously underlining the exhibition title “Tim Burton,” shown in his own smaller-scale, restrained hand lettering.

This memorable poster celebrating Fritz Gottschalk’s (Swiss, b. 1937) seventieth birthday is a study in graphic simplicity, visual immediacy, and linear contrast. A segment of the crisp, evenly continuous outline of the universal cross symbol found in the Swiss flag is abruptly ragged and irregular, reconfigured to create a letterform. The designer literally tore off the left side of the cross and recomposed it into an F for Fritz. Here, the simple transformation of graphic form is further realized with contrasts in line, shape, color, and letterform.

In this editorial spread titled “Ashamed to be Asian?”, dynamic contrasts appear between its compositional elements—the figure–ground of black and white; the free-form character of letterforms and the sharp, cutout lines of illustrations; the intense and muted colors of the figurative illustration; and the scale of large and small elements.