23 image

“A picture is a poem without words.”

HORACE (ITALIAN, 65–8 BCE) Poet

im·age \'i-mij\ n

2 b: a visual representation of something: as (1): a likeness of an object produced on a photographic material (2): a picture produced on an electronic display (as a television or computer screen)

6: a vivid or graphic representation or description

An image is an artifact usually defined as a two-dimensional picture, idea, or impression of a person or physical object. A powerful and memorable image can make or break any visual communication. Photography, illustration, and other types of image forms can communicate a specific idea or emotion, gain a viewer’s attention, further a reader’s imagination, and ultimately enhance and enrich any visual message.

A variety of illustration styles is used in provocative and meaningful ways, creating a memorable and highly communicative series of covers for these public awareness brochures for the Scripps Research Institute.

MIRIELLO GRAFICO

San Diego, CA, USA

An image can be two-dimensional or virtual, such as a photograph, an illustration, or a screen display; or it can be three-dimensional, such as a sculpture or statue. An image can be captured by an optical device such as a camera, mirror, lens, telescope, or microscope, as well as by natural objects and phenomena such as the human eye or the reflective surface of water.

The word image is also used in the broader sense of any two-dimensional figure such as a map, graph, pie chart, or abstract painting. Images can be rendered manually, such as through drawing, painting, or carving, or rendered automatically through conventional printing or digital technology.

This singular photographic image of a rich, lush landscape is used to communicate a series of performances titled Promenades at a regional theater and arts center located in southern France. The subtle, yet dynamic, use of a figurative cutout from the same background image and then juxtaposed is eye-catching and extremely engaging. The incorporation of hand-drawn lettering is secondary and supportive of this powerful photographic composition.

HELMO

Montreuil sous Bois, FR

1959

Common Sense and Nuclear Warfare Book Cover

IVAN CHERMAYEFF

New York, NY, USA

Ivan Chermayeff and the Modern American Paperback

In the 1960s, American paperback book publishers and American graphic designers started working together for the first time with a collective, creative objective. At the forefront of this new collaborative movement was a group of visual pioneers and designers such as Paul Rand (1914–1996), Alvin Lustig (1915–1955), Roy Kuhlman (1923–2007), Rudolph de Harak (1924–2002), Tom Geismar (b. 1931), and Ivan Chermayeff (1932–2017).

IVAN CHERMAYEFF, with his partner, Tom Geismar, have created some of the most memorable and recognizable images of the twentieth century.

In his formative years, Chermayeff worked as a record album cover designer as well as an assistant to Alvin Lustig in the early 1950s. He studied at Harvard University, Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), and Yale University School of Art and Architecture. Following his graduation in 1960, Chermayeff and fellow classmate Geismar moved to New York City to join with already-established Robert Brownjohn (American, 1925–1970) to start their own design consultancy firm.

It was during the early 1960s that Brownjohn, Chermayeff, and Geismar established themselves as one of the few progressive and innovative groups of image makers in American graphic design. They were masters in combining their background and training in modernist ideals with the streetwise visual language of the times. Their early work explored a remarkable integration of type and image combined with expressive, intelligent, and literate storytelling. Their numerous book covers produced at the time combined images and symbols to further convey and brand the essence of a book’s subject matter. They were powerful signs that grabbed the attention, and sparked the imagination, of the reader.

Ivan Chermayeff’s design for the book cover for Common Sense and Nuclear Warfare by Bertrand Russell (British, 1872–1970) is a high-contrast, photomontage of two black-and-white photographs—a mushroom cloud superimposed on the back of a man’s head. These powerful metaphors act as a counterpoint and provide the reader with an unnerving and fearsome idea about mankind’s vulnerability to nuclear war, even before opening the book. It is a seminal example of the marriage of image, symbol, and word to create powerful visual communications.

Chermayeff said, “Great images, to be great, must be original and memorable. Occasionally a designer recognizes a commonality between two separate visual images and pins them together, making one new, powerful, and provocative form. Finding connections, large and small, is what the design process is all about.”

Ivan Chermayeff and Thomas Geismar were awarded the prestigious American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) Gold Medal in 1979.

Character-driven themes, such as for these three plays—The Guardsman, Travesties, and Glengarry Glen Ross, provide any graphic designer with a multitude of image challenges and opportunities. This poster series for the Soulpepper Theatre uses dynamic and provocative imagery that is composed of photography, illustration, line art, and a layering combination of styles. All provide a highly interpretive and communicative visual story directly related to each of the play’s themes.

SANDWICH CREATIVE

Toronto, ONT, CA

The Penguin Classics imprint is more than a half-century old and is recognized around the world for its offerings of world-class literature. In these three book covers for Robertson Davies’ (Canadian, 1913–1995) novels, four-color photographic imagery is used as bold, iconic storytelling vehicles for each of the book’s fictional themes. The imagery also has distinct, memorable, and relevant characteristics from each narrative due to the unconventional vantage points and interpretations taken with each photograph.

SOAPBOX DESIGN COMMUNICATIONS

Toronto, ONT, CA

This set of book covers is part of a branding campaign based on the illustrative reinterpretation of classic book covers directed toward junior high school students. Dynamic, textural, and highly emotional line illustrations engage the young reader, giving them an immediate and meaningful connection to each book and its themes. Vibrant and intense color palettes, hand-drawn letterforms, and reductive and representational visual elements are collectively used to unify this diverse series.

MIKEY BURTON

Philadelphia, PA, USA

Images can be stylized and take many graphic forms, such as an icon, sign, symbol, supersign, or logotype. Photography and illustration are forms of image that are broad based in content, composition, and style, each affording the designer a specific visual language or dialect. Both forms can be realistic representations or interpretive expressions depicting a wide range of visual narratives. Each of will have a direct impact and influence on the ultimate meaning in a visual message.

Type (letterform, narrative form) is also a form of image that can have meaningful qualities for effective visual communications.

This class assignment is an exploration of addition, subtraction, transformation, and substitution relationships created with photographic form. Students start with two photographic images—one of architecture and one of a landscape. These images are first printed, then cut to a 4 cm (1.5-inch) grid and flush mounted to black kraft paper. This process involves a substitution of sixteen landscape squares into the architecture image, and then sixteen architecture squares into the landscape image. The goal is to achieve the greatest transformation with each substitution. This process is also informed by the composition of each image, not only in terms of the overall arrangement of visual elements, but also in the formal qualities of each unit in the imposed structure or grid. The substitution is defined and governed by such design principles as contrast, continuity, rhythm, juxtaposition, similarity, and difference. The ultimate objective is for each student to develop new relationships of photographic form that did not exist previously.

SARAH AL GROOBI, Student

AMIR BERBIC, RODERICK GRANT, Instructors

AMERICAN UNIVERSITY OF SHARJAH

Sharjah, UAE

The presentation and representation of any image can span a broad spectrum defined at one end by realism and at the other end by abstraction. Between these two visual extremes are myriad possibilities for you to choose from—the more realistic, the more direct and immediate the image; the more abstract, the more restrained and interpretive the image.

They can visually represent a specific person, place, event, or reference in narrative text, as well as provide a counterpoint to it. An image can be literal, representational, metaphorical, or abstract. It can also imme-diately alter the meaning of words, just as words can change the meaning of any image.

Combining image and narrative form is challenging for any graphic designer. These distinct visual forms can be combined to establish more meaningful relationships or contrasting counterpoints between the two forms and simultaneously strengthen the collective message.

Bright, saturated colors and iconic photographic images with an out-of-focus appearance create a visual power and immediacy for each of these book covers. Additionally, bold, sans serif typography combined with open-space kerning allows the typography to be visually perforated, creating more immediacy and connection for the viewer.

MUCCA DESIGN

New York, NY, USA

When deciding to use photography versus illustration, you need to consider that most people will respond and engage more immediately with a photograph because they perceive this image type as the closest form of their own objective reality. Illustration is traditionally seen as an artist’s (or designer’s) visual interpretation of a subjective reality. One form is immediate, intuitive, powerful, and persuasive; the other, less so.

Ultimately, there are many methods to communicate meaningful messages and ideas with image. The possibilities are endless for you to create rich, communicative, and memorable visual experiences for the viewer. The only limitation is your own imagination.

The juxtaposition of line art and photography, scale and texture, and horizontal and vertical orientation, all provide visual impact and presence to the figurative images used on this cover for the Visual Arts Journal. The biannual publication features work from School of Visual Arts students and alumni, as well as perspectives on the latest art trends.

VISUAL ARTS PRESS

New York, NY, USA

These covers and magazine spreads are representative of the extensive variety of images, such as four-color photography, photomontage, line drawings, illustrations, and large-scale letterforms used effectively in Architecture Boston, a quarterly magazine on architecture and urban design.

STOLTZE DESIGN

Boston, MA, USA