E P Y T E G A IM S E M E G SA N IC DESIG H P A R AG OP ORKSH W T U O LAY
ANNALE
A E SASAH
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SKOLOS/WEDELL
TYPE IMAGE MESSAGE
CONTENTS CONTENTS 3
NANCY SKOLOS & TOM WEDELL
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SPACE & POINTS OF ENTRY
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CONTRAST, COLOR, & TEXTURE
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MEANING
10
FOUR CRITICAL RELATIONSHIPS
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SEPARATION
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FUSION
16
FRAGMENTATION
18
INVERSION
TYPE TYPE IMAGE IMAGE MESSAGE MESSAGE
A GRAPHIC DESIGN LAYOUT WORKSHOP NANCY SKOLOS + TOM WEDELL
It has often been said that a picture is worth a thousand words. More recently in a lecture at the Rhode Island School of Design, multimedia designer Mikon van Gastel offered, “One perfectly chosen word is worth thirty minutes of footage.” Value judgments aside, one thing is clear: graphic designers are both blessed and cursed for working with two very distinct modes of communication, the word and the image.
The viewer depends on type and image to five form and meaning to many messages and ideas. Both contain room for interpretation by the audience and extend the role of the graphic designer from form giver to mediator and guide. Through form, designers construct and create an organized system for content, emphasizing some concepts and deemphasizing others, providing ways into, around, and out of each work.
As in any successful partnership, type and image work best when they complement each other—when they finish each other’s sentences. For graphic designers, a photograph isn’t finished with a click of the shutter. That is just the beginning of the creative process, as an image becomes a part of a piece of graphic design. In fact, the image must be “incomplete” so there is something left for the type to do.
While much has been written about typography and photography, surprisingly little has been written about how the two work together. Many times while in the final throes of completing a project that employs both type and image, designers will confess, “I’m just no good with type.” The reality is that nobody is naturally good at combining type and image. Even though words and images are familiar ways of expressing human experience, the two forms of communication are inherently difficult to reconcile. This book is intended to begin to fill that gap. We call it a “graphic design layout workshop” because it originates from a place of making as much as analyzing. Pioneering, innovative graphic designers and photographers from around the world have contributed their extraordinary designs to this endeavor, and it is their inspiration within these pages that serves as the backbone of this discussion and possible reconciliation.
In the conceptual phase of a project, designers often begin working with type and image intuitively, in a mind space where the two are more like substances than entities. We experience them, imagine them, see them in our sleep, and consider them simultaneously. They never operate outside of a context and their meaning is never fully realized until they are put into play. Often they are assigned a “format” within which to interact. They can be visualized with common textures, shapes, and colors, and unified with light or shadow, but even in the realm of our greatest imagination, they remain uniquely discernible as type or image.
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SKOLOS/WEDELL
TYPE IMAGE MESSAGE
E C A P S & & && S T N I PO N E F O Y R T
“Reading” a photograph is very different from reading a text. For example, in Western culture, a conventional hierarchy is well established, dictating a left-toright, top-to-bottom approach. Letters make up words, words make up sentences, and sentences make up concepts. It is a primarily linear construction that cannot be easily rearranged without affecting meaning. Photographs are representations of the physical world possessing a three-dimensional sense of time and space. Photographs of landscapes feature a horizon, while photographs of architecture have perspective and a vanishing point. Portraits contain unique human features of eyes, nose, and mouth. Each of these elements and scenarios commands a different point of entry into a picture. Unlike objects rendered in photographic space, letters and their forms do not customarily exist in three-dimensional space. Letterforms themselves have no intrinsic third dimension. Jan Tschichold, renowned typographer and designer, wrote a wonderful metaphorical essay about working with type called “Clay in the Potter’s Hand.” But type is less like clay and more like Legos. It is a prefabricated kit of parts, a closed system, with typefaces whose inner harmonies make them complete in the and of themselves.
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While images render the world in a complete tonal range, tonal shifts generally interfere with, more than contribute to, the clear reading of text. Type is therefore an inherently high-contrast medium. Dieter Feseke of the Berlin-based studio umbra-dor observes, “The type is more geometry, more digital and clean. The image is patchy, spotted, more analog, natural, and dirty.” As the viewer looks at and discovers a work that is formed of both entities, the flow of experience is varied, with each medium dictating its own point of entry and rate of comprehension. The reading gets even more intricate when the piece contains multiple images and text elements. Complexity adds to the time needed to investigate and interpret a work, regulated by each viewer’s level of experience. For intricacy to transcend entanglement, designers must embrace the creative potential of strategies should guide the viewer SKOLOS/WEDELL
TYPE IMAGE MESSAGE
photo-typographic space. These beyond what Rick Poynor, in his book No More Rules: Graphic Design and Postmodernism, calls “fully postmodern representational space, where all that is solid often melts into an intoxicating, semiabstract blur.”
N N O CO C , , T T S S A A R R TT , , R R O O L L O CO C X X E E T T & & E E R R U U TT 7
SKOLOS/WEDELL
TYPE IMAGE MESSAGE
N A E M G N I
“WHEN TYPE TYPE “WHEN MEETS IMAGE...” IMAGE...” MEETS As containers for meaning and
interpretation further, additional
expressions of human experience,
relationships can spring up from
type and image have different
the viewers’ backgrounds and
properties—but they also operate
personal points of view.
on different levels of cognition.
In his essay “The Photographic
Images open the door to multiple
Message, Roland Barthes said of
interpretations through varied
the interaction of text and image:
experiences and memories. These
“It is true that there is never a real
connections make photography a
incorporation since the substances
more complex, and more visceral
of the tow structures graphic and
form of communication. Unlike
iconic) are irreducible, but there
images, words are essentially shapes
are more most likely degrees of
that have learned, recognized
amalgamation.”
meanings. Willi Kunz describes this phenomenon in Typography: Macro–and Microaesthetics: “Every word is comprised of a particular set of letters, whose sequence and form makes each word semantically and syntactically unique.”
During the process of analyzing the photo-typographic works contained in these pages, the difficulty of teasing out the visual from the verbal brought the struggle between the two forms of communication to the forefront. It is impossible
When type meets image, there is
to construct an authentic written
automatically a dialogue between
description of the type/image
them and each can pull the other in
relationship at work in a piece
many different directions. The text
of visual communication. For, in
can support or contradict the image
order to measure that dynamic
just as the image can illustrate or
completely, one has to go to a place
refute the written message. Each
in the mind that doesn’t speak or
may also contain independent
explain, but rather absorbs. These
meanings that may react with
examples are rare because they take
or against the overall message
you there.
in the work. To compound the
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FOUR CRITICAL CRITICAL FOUR RELATIONSHIPS RELATIONSHIPS When type and image coexist, each remains a distinguishable entity, occupying its own space and time to greater and/or lesser degrees, while continuously interacting in distinct ways. Through the combinations of permutations of type and image are infinite, the integration of these media can be delineated according to the following criteria:
This workshop is focused primarily on poster design as a form because posters transcend and propel layout into a realm where type and image can combine seamlessly. In poster design, words and pictures step out of the compositional boundaries and workaday responsibilities that often distance them in conventional page layout. All four interactions—separation, fusion, fragmentation, and inversion—manifest themselves both formally and pragmatically. Designers can use them for many purposes as well as to create a range of visual effects. The practical applications reviewed here include: to present and clarify facts, to tell a story to persuade, and to express emotion, or to create an atmosphere.
N O I FUS
SSEEPPA AR RA ATTIIO ON N
N ON ATTIIO NTTA MEEN GM AG RA FFR
N N O I O I S S R VEER NV IIN
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SEPARATION SEPARATION
w hen t yp e and image op erate indep endent ly
er ins esign
e ws th r allo
e esign the d omy; n o t u lear a age. tain c and im age re type e im h d t n a te epara s text force e or s ediat ation r m a r p e e th le of s at fur rincip nts th The p eleme ic h grap ional addit
o text t
w react
ed en th e. Oft imag e h t from ently epend d in r t, o gains ith, a
FORMAL QUALITIES LAYERING: The type is
superimposed on the image but remains distinct from the image. BORDER OR FRAME: A border or frame contains the type and sets the stage for the photograph. The picture plane is divided into type spaces and image spaces.
SKOLOS/WEDELL
TYPE IMAGE MESSAGE
COMPARTMENTS OR WINDOWS:
APPLICATIONS
To play the type against the image To create a series To provide clarity
erts
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SKOLOS/WEDELL
TYPE IMAGE MESSAGE
FUSION FUSION
w hen t yp e and image blend for for m unit y
The p rincip le
Some
of fus ion, u imag ses a es an unify d text ing fo are op rce to tically synth esize altere the ty d, and pe an other d ima s are ge. Th circu mstan e allia tial th nce o f form rough and m motio n or ju eanin g pre xtapo sents sition itself , they in a s are all trong the re visua sult o l cohe f delib rence OPTICAL EFFECT: perspective, erate, —a “c holist ause ic cho and e ices m ffect.” lens, or filter ade b y the desig ner. Shared surface or texture: Type and
FORMAL QUALITIES
image are woven into a texture of, or adhered to, a unifying surface— either the picture plane or other homogeneous field(s) in space. MOTION OR GESTURE: Type and image are acted on by a common force, or affected by the implied motion of a human or mechanical gesture. METAPHOR: Type and image are fused by a calculated visual
APPLICATIONS
To blend two or more things that
metaphor that operates through
aren’t customarily related to make a
mutual dependency of the verbal
strong association
and pictorial elements.
To strengthen an existing conceptual connection through harmony and integration in order to present a galvanized point of view To create an altered reality that challenges the viewer to reexamine a particular subject from an unexpected perspective
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FRAGMENTATION FRAGMENTATION
w hen t he t yp e and image disturb or disr upt e ach ot her
ere is ux. Th te of fl a t s e th ation g. r activ ecodin tus fo e p e of d im e r e g h t e d g high vidin e pro and a ith on nings a w e y ll m ua ultiple er, us ing m anoth rweav t one e p t u r in m or dis ial for isturb otent age d the p im e v d a n h s ea nship n typ elatio s whe interr occur e n h t io , t n ta ntatio gmen agme of fra ith fr ciple w in r n p sig The f a de ure o IRREGULARITIES: Elements are torn, d nat le t t e s un
FORMAL QUALITIES
DISPLACEMENT: The composition appears as an individual frame that has been extracted from an animated film
SKOLOS/WEDELL
TYPE IMAGE MESSAGE
divided, or unevenly dispersed.
INTERRUPTION: The type or image intrude on one another or punctuate or disconnect the message. Exaggeration: Actions are amplified through scale, color, and complication
APPLICATIONS
To animate and energize To imply the passing of time To construct a complex message with multiple m eanings To create a surreal scenario To privilege one idea over another
an
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INVERSION INVERSION
a for m of Fusion, w hen t he t yp e and image t rade pl aces and t he t yp e t a kes on pic tor i a l prop er t ies or t he image t a kes on t yp og raphic qu a lit ies
t is buil image n a n r whe age, o . f an im overy o t r a f disc p nse o ed as e y s a r d t e r o elevat e is p to an en typ and in s. Wh e le n o lo r g age a angin e or im y exch of typ s fuse b ie e t g r a prope nd im ative type a munic which m o in c , l n ia otent f fusio the p ory o yond categ e c b ifi s c u e ports is a sp trans rsion n and f inve io o t a le in g rincip r ima The p res ou captu it , e typ from
FORMAL QUALITIES HYPER-REALISM: The type is
physically photographed or rendered BUILDING BLOCKS: The letterforms SKOLOS/WEDELL
TYPE IMAGE MESSAGE
through other hyper-realistic means. appear within the picture plane as the building blocks from which the image is constructed.
APPLICATIONS To reveal a potential or
FRAMES: The letters create frames for
unrealized connection among
preexisting photographic images.
elements and ideas To create harmony and integration among different or related texts by blending them into visual union To generate visual or verbal puns, or both To invent fictional narratives between words and letterforms become characters To create the strongest possible connection between the word and the image
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SKOLOS/WEDELL
TYPE IMAGE MESSAGE
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