micklethwait's blog

Updates to Theory and Assignments

micklethwait — Thu, 07 May 2009 17:37:39 +0000

There's a new page in our theory section on graphic design. It gives a brief overview of the history and elements of graphic design theory, which is basically a practical application of theories of visual rhetoric. Supplemental to this article is a new unit-length argumentative assignment that uses Adobe InDesign, a computer-based publishing tool, to create publishable proposal documents.

Type Directors Club

micklethwait — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 21:43:21 +0000

After putting together my own rudimentary bibliography on graphic design, an old acquaintance posted a link on Facebook to this bibliography of around 50 books on typography at the Type Directors Club.

Plenty of summer reading.

Digital Manipulation and the Ethics of Representation

micklethwait — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 20:15:16 +0000

An article this week on Stinky Journalism, Danielle Mastropiero's "Photoshopped Images Booted from Press Photo Contest," calls to mind a couple of other similar incidents in recent memory: first, Adnan Hajj's laughably bad Photoshop manipulations of smoke plumes over Beirut during Israel's summer '06 bombing campaign; and second, Iran's equally laughable manipulation of publicity photos from their summer '08 test missile test launch.

Image source: Stinky Journalism.org

Click on 'voteringen' in the menu of this Flash-animated comparison of Christensen's submitted photographs, their RAW files, and the Photoshop auto-corrections.

The ethical question of representation in these cases branches out beyond simple questions of technique. My gut reaction is that these questions of authenticity in reportage only seem to crop up in depictions of 'the Other'--realities of Haiti, Lebanon, and Iran being the examples I've chosen--but other cases come to mind as well, such as the indignation over unretouched portraits of Gov. Palin (for the cover of Newsweek) and Sen. McCain (for the cover of Atlantic Monthly).

As far as pedagogy is concerned, these cases of photographic manipulation provide an object lesson in the subtleties of plagiarism that are harder to convey than taking credit for another's work. Digital media and tools of manipulation have already deposited this comfortable academic principle in a vague, soupy ethical context. Still, how one represents the works (or realities) of another person opens the door to the specter of plagiarism. A careful exposition and discussion of these cases of manipulation and reportage might help to elucidate these vague or complicated situations for the average undergraduate student.

Time Lapse Unemployment, USA 01/07-02/09

micklethwait — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 20:41:23 +0000

At a glance, this map created by Chris Wilson at Slate.com is pretty terrifying with its Strangelove-esque red mushrooms evaporating the United States' industrial centers.

Image captured from Slate.com

Wilson used statistics on county-level unemployment, comparing each piece of data to the same county's numbers from 12 months prior. The blue dots represent gains in employment; the red ones, losses. Subtle finger-pointing?

I give this map high marks for data compression. Not only does it visually dramatize some pretty abstract numbers, but it also offers location-specific snapshots of the data from which it was composed. And all of that without sacrificing elegance.

Caricatures of Obama, Continued

micklethwait — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 16:28:03 +0000

A simple prediction: the new comic series Barack the Barbarian and Drafted from Devil's Due Press (mentioned in an April 4 Chicago Tribune report) are less likely to offend than the political cartoons Nate blogged about several months ago.

Image credit: Devil's Due Press.

Still, the decorum of these comics is questionable. Perhaps some instructors would find them to be a useful tool, used in comparison to the New York Post caricature, to probe deeper into questions of propriety and decorum in class discussion.

The New Facebook Layout and Visual Culture

micklethwait — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 16:32:49 +0000

Maybe it's trite to bring up the new Facebook layout, but the current stink about the second major redesign of the site in less than a year exposes a frightening level of mass narcissism in the evolution of graphic design. For just a random sampling of news articles and blog postings on this topic, just look here, and here, and here (Facebook's own poll of user reactions).

The new Facebook layout undertakes some interesting experiments in the cognitive and communicative intersections of text and imagery (the classic domain of visual rhetoric), and people really don't seem to like it. There is a certain delicious irony in Facebook's users mistaking their unremunerated labor generating Facebook's content for some kind of squatter's rights ownership of the design: all the huffing and puffing about the changes simply generates more click-through ad revenue.

Given all the real problems in the world right now, an astute spectator will likely notice the conspicuous absence of Facebook from the graphic design Tim posted below. This is good news for people interested in visual rhetoric--that people are taking graphic design seriously enough to threaten boycotts against the world's biggest social networking site over the visual 'feel' of their new design--but bad news for everyone else.

Terror and Visual Semiotics

micklethwait — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 17:54:25 +0000

The March 9, 2009, issue of Newsweek Magazine inadvertently draws attention to a pathic characteristic of graphic design: the capacity of visual images to create emotional appeals.

The design of this magazine cover uses color--the pure green background--to evoke the political flags of nations like Libya and Saudi Arabia and political parties like Hamas. The surprising thing is the text itself. The Arabic script here, though meaningful in itself to those who can read it, is reduced to a simply visual signifier as its 'literal' meaning to the readers of Newsweek is made parenthetical. The Arabic text here seems geared solely toward evoking fear and apprehension in the non-Arabic speaking audience.

However, I would certainly praise Newsweek for their decision to avoid the stereotypical images that have become iconic of radical Islam in Western media (chanting crowds, burning flags and effigies, suicide bomb vests, 'Quranic' calligraphy, etc.) in favor of a simple textual presentation.

But why the seemingly gratuitous use of the Arabic script?

The article in question is available to read online.

Helvetica and Shapes of Things to Come

micklethwait — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 19:22:15 +0000

A few weeks ago I caught an episode of Independent Lens on PBS about the font Helvetica.

In the undisputed manifesto of modern graphic design, The New Typography, author Jan Tschichold argues in vaguely Heideggerian terms that modernity requires a typeface consistent with its worldview. In fact, typeface has always been consistent, in his opinion, with the worldview of the civilization that used it, insofar as he sees that worldview as an expression of the relationship between with individual, the whole of society, and the technae they employ to shape and frame the world around them.

Then over the last week I caught sight of this pair of advertisements for the typeface Helvetica font featured on Ffffound.com.

http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/files/helvetica-ad.jpg alt="sexist helvetica ad" class="center" width="180">

Image from Ffffound.com.

What kind of worldview does a font like Helvetica express? What does Helvetica mirror in the style, say, of the men in the first advertisement, with their neatly shaped hair and their tightly efficient neckties? Where does the woman fit in this worldview?

Arab Image Foundation

micklethwait — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 17:34:44 +0000

The progressive deconstruction of Orientalism is catching up with information technology. Since 1996, the Arab Image Foundation, based in Lebanon, has been amassing a digital collection of photographs from the Arab world.

What's refreshing about this collection is that it leaps beyond the topic of the Western gaze (popularly studied by such likes as Malek Alloula in The Colonial Harem) to offer up thousands of unfiltered photographic self-representations from the modern Arab world. In short, this collection stands as a visual counter-argument to the tradition of harem girl postcards and romanticized portraiture that emphasize the "biblical" antiquity of the peoples of the Middle East.

Their website has two features: a publicity section and an image search that requires free registration. Registration allows you to create your own portfolio of images found through keyword searches, photographers' names, studios, collections, genre, technique, etc. Sadly, there is no dynamic browsing feature as you might find on image sites like Flickr.com or Ffffound.com, so it's not a friendly place for the cyber-flaneur. Best to know what you're looking for before you visit.

"I Can Read Movies"

micklethwait — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 21:02:06 +0000

This is my first blog for Viz., so I thought I'd post some lighthearted fare from ffffound.com.

The picture below, part of a series of visualizations of film titles, really grabbed me.

The rest of them can be found here at Space Sick's website.

Ffffound.com is itself an interesting site. Membership is by invitation only (and rumor has it that each member can only invite one new member), but that's only for uploading content. This policy, as cliquish as it may seem, does guarantee higher quality content than a more "democratic" site like Flickr.com. Otherwise, the lay surfer such as myself is free to browse the images which are bookmarked by Ffffound's resident connoisseurs of graphic design and stylish imagery.