21 frame

“Art consists of limitation. The most beautiful part of every picture is the frame.”

G. K. CHESTERTON (BRITISH, 1874–1936) Author, Essayist

frame \'frām\ n

1: a closed, often rectangular border of drawn or printed lines

In basic terms, a frame is an enclosure to a visual image. It is a fundamental element of visual communications and can be used to separate, organize, unify, contain, and distinguish, as well as increase visibility and immediacy in any visual message. Like an actual picture frame, it can take various graphic forms and can be found virtually everywhere. In the familiar world, a frame can set off a work of art from the wall on which it is being displayed and simultaneously bring visual attention to it. In the broadest definition of the word, a frame can be many things and have many functions. It can be a proscenium stage for a theatrical event, an exhibition vitrine for displaying an artifact, or an architectural molding surrounding an entrance door. Frames can be obvious or implied. They can be realized as a border to a page or as an inset solid surface within a page composition.

The graphic identity for the Toledo Museum of Art uses frame as a graphic representation for the institution as well as an icon that has been an integral element to the presentation and viewing of fine art for centuries. The four words that make up the museum’s name help define the edges of the frame’s form. The frame also provides views inside the institution by serving as a visual stage for its collections, exhibitions, and cultural activities. Typography anchors and activates the inside perimeter of the frame and is knocked out of it to create a stronger visual figure–ground when incorporating and framing other visual elements, such as fine art details or images of the exhibitions. The sign system uses the logotype’s frame to focus attention on either historic and contemporary architecture or sculpture.

C+G PARTNERS LLC

New York, NY, USA

A frame typically functions as a containment element for an image, setting it apart from its background to give the image more prominence, as well as increase its visibility within a composition. It can also have other functions, such as dividing, cropping, fragmenting, and distorting elements.

In either extreme, a frame can be used effectively to emphasize or deemphasize the content of any visual message.

This brand identity is built on “structured flexibility,” a key tenet of this international financial consultancy, where the wordmark is bold and stable, while the dynamic “C,” or frame, can easily bracket different messages through text or imagery.

BRUCE MAU DESIGN

Toronto, ON, CA

1955

The Man with the Golden Arm Poster

SAUL BASS

Los Angeles, CA, USA

Saul Bass and The Man with the Golden Arm

SAUL BASS (1920–1996) was a graphic designer and Academy Award–winning filmmaker who received global recognition for his work in graphic, film, industrial, and exhibition design but was best known for his animated film-title sequences.

During his forty-year career, he worked with some of Hollywood’s greatest filmmakers, including Alfred Hitchcock (British, 1899–1980), Otto Preminger (Austrian, 1905–1986), Stanley Kubrick (American, 1928–1999), and Martin Scorsese (American, b. 1942). His work included the epilogue for Around the World in Eighty Days (1956), his direction and editing of the racing sequences for Grand Prix (1966), the shower sequence for Psycho (1960), and the prologue for West Side Story (1961).

Among his most famous film-title sequences are the kinetic typography racing up and down a high-angle view of the United Nations building façade in North by Northwest (1959) and the disjointed typography that raced together and then pulled apart for Psycho. His later work for Martin Scorsese allowed him to move away from conventional optical techniques he had pioneered earlier and work with computerized titles for films such as The Age of Innocence (1993) and Casino (1995).

Bass was born in New York City and studied at the Art Students League and then at Brooklyn College with György Kepes (Hungarian, 1906–2001). He initially began his time in Hollywood designing print advertisements for the film industry, until he collaborated with director Otto Preminger on the design of the poster for the film Carmen Jones (1954).

Preminger was so impressed with Bass’s work, Bass was asked to produce the title sequence for the film as well. This was Bass’s first opportunity to design more than a conventional title sequence and to create something that would ultimately enhance the audience’s experience and further contribute to the mood and theme of the film.

Bass was one of the first designers to realize the creative potential of the opening and closing credit sequences of a film, all contained within a fundamental design element—frame. He believed that title sequences could “set the mood and the prime underlying core of the film’s story, to express the story in some metaphorical way. I saw the title as a way of conditioning the audience, so that when the film actually began, viewers would already have an emotional resonance with it.”

His first popular success, for which he became widely known, was with Otto Preminger’s film The Man with the Golden Arm (1955). The film was about a jazz musician’s struggle to overcome heroin addiction, a taboo subject in the 1950s. Here he uses the addict’s arm, jagged and distorted, as the central, iconic image. The film’s poster is a study on how a frame can be used to bring focus, tension, contrast, and balance to an image that is extremely dynamic and powerful. The film’s title sequence featured an animated, black-paper cutout of the same arm used for the poster. As expected, the sequence caused a sensation and became a memorable benchmark for the design of future title sequences.

A continuous, bold, magenta frame surrounding this poster for the National Theatre School of Canada maintains a visual order and focus to the varied, free-form, and highly expressive illustrative elements used in its composition.

LAURENT PINABEL

Montreal, QUE, CA

A simple frame surrounding the title Mao and articulated in the same line weight or stroke thickness as the title’s three letterforms brings this book cover literally into focus, while the overall image remains out of focus.

MUCCA DESIGN

New York, NY, USA

A consistent-weight linear frame that matches the stroke thickness of the “Heath” typography further unifies this logotype, especially when it is integrated with other visual elements such as stationery, sales catalogs, brochures, websites, and advertising.

VOLUME INC.

San Francisco, CA, USA

Multiple framing of this project name and location, “Prospect New Orleans,” creates a structured, integrated pattern similar to brick coursing, further communicating strength, connection, teamwork, and community.

PURE + APPLIED

New York, NY, USA

In this poster, frame is used to contain and accentuate the film festival title—Japanese Cinema Festival ’09—as well as to separate and organize, in individual graphic frames, a wide range of information such as programs, screenings, dates, times, and locations. As a metaphor, frame in this context is also evocative of film frames, shoji screens, and tatami mats.

RYOTA IIZUKA, Student

SIMON JOHNSTON, Instructor

ART CENTER COLLEGE OF DESIGN

Pasadena, CA, USA

Another form of frame—in this case, margin—also provides a “safe” area in any composition, such as a publication, for specific elements such as folios (page numbers), headers, and footers. Though these page conventions are usually located in a nominal space, a margin can also be more pronounced to contain other elements such as images, captions, and sidebars.

A frame can also act as a border. A border clearly and concisely demarcates where an image ends and its surrounding background begins. It can be an obvious edge to an image or a composition that may lack a definitive perimeter or outline. Or it can be used to visually emphasize an outer edge, or frame, and to separate a section of an image or information within an overall composition. A border can be graphically articulated with line, shape, color, and texture, realized with simple and restrained visual characteristics or more detailed and complicated ones.

The framing of elements in a composition is called cropping. Cropping can alter the size and shape of any image, as well as directly impact an image’s content and meaning. For example, a vertical image can be cropped to become a square, circle, or such, each time taking on new proportions and potential meaning. Cropping in on a specific element or detail of an overall image can alter the focus of that image, giving it a new identity and visual presence.

The packaging and label design for Soto, an organic skincare product line, embodies an ingredient table, an effective use of color, and an alpha-based product identification system as its core idea. Bold, brightly colored frames used as the primary graphic device contain single san serif letter product identifiers that are immediate and eye-catching.

LANDOR

Paris, FR

The visual representation of a frame is not limited to compositional elements such as line, shape, color, texture, or tone. It can also be articulated with type and letterform.

In the virtual world of websites and electronic interfaces, a frame is a ubiquitous element with a multitude of appearances and functions. It is the literal and physical frame around a computer monitor, and it appears on a computer’s desktop on numerous windows that contain a hierarchy of information such as controls, icons, and other types of navigational information.

A singular frame, equal in prominence and weight to this public awareness campaign’s logotype for Darfur, allows it to stand apart and maintain its visual immediacy when layered on a variety of photographic images and graphic textures.

VOLUME INC.

San Francisco, CA, USA

A subtle, tinted frame is used to bring immediate attention to this restaurant’s restrained, sans serif logotype “S–INO,” an Asian-inspired Chinese restaurant and lounge. When layered on a variety of different color fields, textures, and images, this frame maintains a visual immediacy and focus to this identity program.

PUBLIC INC.

San Francisco, CA, USA

Graphic variations on a literal frame and bracket are used extensively throughout this branding program and annual report for “The 1%.” A bold, effective use of color, proportion, and figure–ground all enhance depth and dimension without illustrating the literal nature of these visual qualities and characteristics.

MENDE DESIGN

San Francisco, CA, USA

This cookbook cover has a sophisticated visual character, capturing the warmth, personality, and elegance of the restaurant Chanterelle, while at the same time communicating the gracious service found in this family-run establishment. The composition of the cover is also evocative of a fine art book, with a centered white field framing the book title’s classic serif typography, as well as bridging and connecting the two distinct photographic images, further unifying the cover as a cohesive whole.

MUCCA DESIGN

New York, NY, USA

A frame can be a functional, as well as an aesthetic element within a composition. It can strengthen and reinforce the viewer’s understanding of information as well as appear solely as a decorative element. With either of these functions, it is your responsibility to determine the appropriate use of a frame.

Frame takes on a series of varied graphic forms throughout This Book Is Not Pink, as represented in these spreads, which maintain a consistency and continuity for the reader as a means of bringing further focus and grounding to the varied visual elements and narrative content of each spread.

ANDREW LIM, Student

MICHAEL IAN KAYE, Instructor

SCHOOL OF VISUAL ARTS

New York, NY, USA