Success:
Taylor Swift's third record, Speak Now
The album cover artwork for Swift's junior record, Speak Now, is a perfect representation of how to follow syntactical guidelines. It has balance, shown by the t-like shape of Swift's stance and the flow of her dress, accented by the fact that the the words "Speak Now" are slightly canted to match the swirl of the dress - all perfect amounts of stress as well. It has the perfect amount of leveling and sharpening, shown by the clear focus of Swift's face, hair, and shoulder and the painted and splatter effects of her dress. The Taylor Swift logo at the bottom of the photo is perfectly centered, all the while giving Swift a sort of hourglass shape to her album cover. The primary message Swift intends to send out through her third album is to seize the moment and say what is on your mind, rather than spend the rest of your life wondering what if. In terms of syntactical guidelines, the album cover does just as it is intended to do. From the balance of the image to the paint splatters, this image conveys a message that when you say exactly what you mean, exactly when you mean it, sometimes things can get a little messy. However; in the end, things will always turn out balanced and focused, for better or worse.
Failure:
This is the album artwork for Ken's album, By Request Only. This album cover does not use very many syntactical guidelines. One of the only syntactical guidelines this artwork uses would be #6: positives and negatives. This is clear from the moment the photograph is seen - the eye is automatically drawn to the left side with the bigger face (positive), and then to the right side with the full upper-body pose (negative). From a viewer's point of view, when I look at this picture, I have no idea what message is trying to be conveyed. I see a close-up shot and a seated pose, but I haven't the slightest idea how those two separate images, which have been blended into one, relate to the album's overall purpose.
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