viz. - graphic design

Seeking a Universal Language of Symbols: The Noun Project's Crowd-sourced Creation of Icons for Communication Across Languages

Todd Battistelli — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 19:16:19 +0000

Image Credit: UNOCHA

How can you quickly communicate concrete concepts to an audience that includes speakers of many languages and those who can't read? The Noun Project sees an answer in symbols, and it offers a platform for people to submit icon designs that others can download and use. On its "About" page, the Noun Project describes itself as:

a platform empowering the community to build a global visual language that everyone can understand. Visual communication is incredibly powerful. Symbols have the ability to transcend cultural and language barriers and deliver concise information effortlessly and instantaneously. For the first time, this image-based system of communication is being combined with technology to create a social language that unites the world.

But do symbols "have the ability to transcend cultural and language barriers" as they suggest? In looking at the symbols on the site, I wonder whether these icons rely just as much on enculturation for understanding as any written language does. The benefits of speed of comprehension and intelligibility across languages and cultures seem to depend on a similar learning process to that any literate person goes through if, perhaps, abbreviated.

For instance, what does the icon at the top of this post, with several people standing in a V formation with a speech bubble coming out of the front-most person, represent? Take a guess and scroll down to the bottom of the post for the answer. That icon and the others I discuss here are drawn from a set submitted by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. As The Noun Project says in its blog post introducing the set:

Symbols are some of the best communication tools we have to overcome many language and cultural barriers. When a disaster strikes, it is vital that the humanitarian community can gather reliable data on the locations and needs of affected people and who is best placed to assist them. This often involves the need to present complex information in a way that everyone can understand.

Image Credit: UNOCHA

There's an implicit tension in this blog post and in The Noun Project's overall mission that any effort to create universally understood symbols has to confront. The Project's "About" page talks of "transcend[ing] cultural and language barriers," but in describing the UNOCHA icons the Project discusses a narrower audience: "the humanitarian community." The humanitarian community is, of course, not a static and finite audience, as it continually changes as crises break out in different regions of the globe. However, there is more coherence within the "humanitarian community" as an audience than there is in an audience of any potential person who could come across a symbol, providing the opportunity for icons to be learned by that audience while people encountering the symbols for the first time would not have a similar opporunity.

Image Credit: UNOCHA

Even icons can't seem to get away from words entirely, as the symbol above designating a building associated with non-governmental organizations demonstrates. While English may be one of a few languages commonly used by many humanitarian organizations working with the UN, the promise of iconography is that it does not depend on knowing any one language to be understood. While professionals working within organizations may know English, it stands to reason that those working for local organizations with which the humanitarian groups are interacting may not. As seen in the screen shots below from the Wiktionary, the concept of an NGO is translated in a variety of ways, several not using the Latin alphabet.

Image Credit: Wiktionary screenshot

Image Credit: UNOCHA

Icons without letters do not necessarily communicate any more clearly to an undefined audience. Above we see a man, woman, and child holding hands standing in a house (at least a Western version of the house symbol: two walls with gable roof). The meaning of this symbol, according to the UNOCHA is "community building." I assume they mean a literal building (a structure) for community use (as opposed to the abstract concept of community building), because the Noun Project focuses on concrete concepts. Without the caption, I would think the icon represented something more along the lines of "family shelter" than "community building" because of the family image.

Image Credit: UNOCHA

The icon as a genre poses its own limitations. I'm not sure how I would represent "community," other than a dozen or more people of different ages, but a designer would be hard pressed to draw that many figures in a small building. These limitations, however, also result in some inventive use of visual design, especially in terms of conveying action. Above we see the icon for "forced recruitment," as one person pulls violently at another's arm who resists by leaning back and away from his assailant. The violence is conveyed through the use of a sharp-edged and angled bubble around the head of the person being conscripted, describing, it seems, the sharp movements associated with a struggle and/or the sudden shock of an assault.

Image Credit: UNOCHA

The nature of the violence in the "murder" and "assault" icons above is more difficult to interpret. The murder victim falls backward, their body presumably dead, but one could also be thrown backward by a non-fatal blow. Oddly, the icon for assault shows a persons standing straight up, not moving in any way, while the sharp-edged violence bubble stands at his/her side.

Given the need for audience participation in both learning to read the icons and creating icons that can be widely understood, the crowd-sourced nature of The Noun Project, such as seen in its iconathons and open submissions, seems vital to successfully designing symbols that are widely comprehended if not universal.

Concept for the first icon: "advocacy."

Form, Function, and Fonts: Eric Gill’s Branding Type

Rachel Schneider — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 06:03:09 +0000

Image Credit: The Library of Congress

Eric Gill’s illustrated 1931 The Four Gospels of the Lord Jesus Christ According to the Authorized Version of King James I may be the most beautiful text in the Harry Ransom Center’s King James Bible exhibition. Gill, who was a graphic designer, a sculptor, and a firm Catholic, melded his minimalist design aesthetics with Catholic art’s gilded tradition to make what the Library of Congress calls “a modern homage to the tradition of illuminated text.” Gill’s black and white figures, however, dance around the elegant typeface to create a Catholicism aesthetically rebranded for the twentieth century: sparse but still striking.

(Slightly NSFW after the break.)

Image Credit: Wandering the Dream Space

The rationale for Gill’s design choices can perhaps be understood in his Essay on Typography, which was first published the same year as the Four Gospels:

It is now clearly understood that modern building must not rely upon ornament, it must rely simply upon grandeur, that is integrity and size. There are things which can be measured; with these alone can the modern architect, employing the modern workman, concern himself. Of beauty there need be no lack, for the beautiful is that which pleases being seen, and those things are pleasing when seen which are as nearly perfect as may be in their adaptation to function. Such is the beauty of bones, of beetles, of well-built railway arches, of factory chimneys (when they have the sense to leave out the ornamental frills at the top), of the new concrete bridge across the Rhine at Cologne, of plain brick walls. (8-9)

Reading this against the Gospels, what strikes me is Gill’s interest in form and function. He writes here that beauty comes not from ornament but from forms adapted best to function—thus, why “plain brick walls” may be beautiful, but perhaps not jewel-encrusted objet d’art. Typography, however, has different functions than a chimney. As Christopher Micklethwait has previously discussed on viz, graphic design concerns itself with typography, layout, and chromatics. The New Typography, represented by Jan Tschichold as well as Eric Gill, concerned itself with clarity instead of beauty. If text’s designed function is clarity and legibility, Gill’s designs do not get in the way of reading—in fact, they enhance and draw attention to text as his characters sometimes seem to perch over the letters. The iconographic figures resonate with a medieval religious tradition, but the design avoids being overly florid.

Image Credit: The Harry Ransom Center

This illustration is particularly interesting as the major figure’s alignment with the downstroke of the N draws our attention to the word—both the one on the page and The Word of the Gospels. Also running parallel is the squiggly line of the snake, climbing towards the innocent Adam and Eve, who almost seem to greet the fall awaiting them. In this way, Gill’s design highlights the function of the text: to bring the reader to a greater appreciation of Christianity.

Image Credit: Wandering the Dream Space

However, Gill’s designs are not without art. As a Catholic in the mode of Hilaire Belloc, Gill’s designs also provide an interpretive gloss. The starkness of Jesus being taken from the cross invokes not the Second Vatican Council but a much more medieval tradition. It also doesn’t seem coincidental that Gill’s famous Gill Sans typeface has effectively served to brand other organizations, like Penguin Books’ famous paperback designs.

Image Credit: William Wu Books

Gill Sans also has power as a nationalistic British brand, as the BBC has used Gill Sans in its logo since 1997.

Image Credit: The BBC

Martin Lambie-Nairn, the designer responsible for the new logo, redesigned the BBC logo not only because the slanted letters used previously did not transfer well to pixels, but because “by choosing a typeface that has stood the test of time, we avoid the trap of going down a modish route that might look outdated in several years’ time.” As a brand that attempts to be associated with solidity and seeks the trust of its viewers, it seems a good choice on the BBC’s part. However, it leaves me to wonder how the University of Texas at Austin's and the Harry Ransom Center’s type brands them.

Image Credit: The Harry Ransom Center

The Harry Ransom Center’s classic logo not only conveys a certain stylish solidity but also includes its windows and its materials as a design element alongside the font. By putting Gill’s lettering not only in its exhibitions but also on their windows, the Harry Ransom Center nods to Gill’s design legacy and its value for research institutions today.

The opinions expressed herein are solely those of viz. blog, and are not the product of the Harry Ransom Center.

Lolita's Legs and Cover Images

Michael Widner — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 13:30:00 +0000

Movie poster from Stanley Kubrick's film adaptation of the novel Lolita

Having just finished teaching Lolita again, I find myself thinking about representations of Dolores Haze and of the novel. While my classroom discussions often revolve around how Humbert Humbert depicts her character, I'm interested here in the related issue of how publishers (and movie producers) metonymically depict the work through the image of a girl.

Some potentially NSFW images after the break.

The poster for Kubrick's movie is probably the most famous image of Lolita: red, heart-shaped sunglasses, red lollipop, red lips, and red title. (The image is appropriate: H.H. first sees Dolores Haze sunbathing and wearing sunglasses in a garden; he calls her the reincarnation of his childhood Riviera love.) The poster girl is a seductive stand-in for the movie.We assume Humbert Humbert's gaze and breathe her "nymphean evil" as she manipulates the gentle, shy European professor.

Cover image of Lolita, Random House, 1997

Browse a local book store and this edition is the one we often find (replete with the infamous Vanity Fair quote). From under a pleated skirt a girl's thin, bare legs bow inward in a demure, childish pose. Like the sliver of eyes peering over sunglasses and the red lips, here again we find a double metonymy (or, for purists, a synecdochal metonymy). The young girl's legs represent Lolita's sexual desirability as well as the novel itself. There's no indication of H.H.'s role, his complex mind, or his linguistic acrobatics.

We see the leg motif repeatedly in Lolita covers:

1970s NL Omega, Amsterdam

1991 POL Panstwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, Warsaw

1995 GB Penguin, London

2001 FR Gallimard (Du monde entier), Paris

2007 POL Muza, Warszawa

All images and publisher information from Covering Lolita

Inhabiting a spectrum of sexuality from the demure to the frankly erotic, each of these images situates desire in a girl's legs. Sometimes she is seductress, at other times innocent prey. This visual motif for illicit desire, however, comes not from the novel. While H.H. does describe Dolly's limbs, he does so in the course of the many anatomical meditations that explore her entire body and which even express a desire to turn her inside out and see her lungs and heart. Indeed, if we might say there are body parts he fetishizes, they would be either armpits or hips, not legs. It is primarily the adult women, with their "thick thighs," whose legs the narrator notices most often.

2000 TAI Xian Jue, Taipei

2005 JAP Shinchosha (PB), Tokyo

Images and publisher information from Covering Lolita

The prevalence, then, of a girl's legs as synecdoche for Lolita-the-girl and metonym for Lolita-the- novel must come from elsewhere. Maybe the publishing houses are simply turning to images that seemed to work well for their predecessors, which appears to be the case for the two above. But these images carry meaning beyond a publisher's reliance on visual cliché. Legs easily differentiate woman from girl and are provocative yet still tame enough not to offend. They simultaneously embody sex and innocence while fragmenting a girl's body into fetishized object.

Still, all these covers leave me dissatisfied. The novel's focus is less the girl than the man who desires and abducts her. H.H.'s eloquently ambiguous narration spends more time conveying his variable moods and rationalizations than describing Dolores Haze. In one respect, however, the images correspond to the contents they cover; H.H. betrays little interest in Lolita as anything other than a desirable body that he catalogues in meticulous detail, piece by piece. Her mind remains a mystery, even though it might contain "a garden and a twilight, and a palace gate" forever forbidden him.

A fairly recent design contest, prompted by the Covering Lolita exhibit, attempted to address this bias toward lollipops and legs. John Bertram, the contest's sponsor, writes:

Nabokov’s work is masterful in its clarity and overflows with powerful and finely-wrought imagery and yet so few of the covers attempt to capture any of this richness, and many of them are merely absurd, or banal or a laughable combination of both.

Here's the winner of the contest:

Image by Lyuba Haleva of Bulgaria

Bertram likes this image because "it really gets at the poetry of the novel. Humbert is transported by Lolita, so the wings are an intriguing choice. Whether they represent Lolita and Annabel Leigh or Lolita the fantasy and Lolita the real person I have no idea. Somehow it all feels right to me and very inspired, and although the typeface is anachronistic and suggests to me a classic European novel, it seems to work.” I have to agree. Unlike the vast majority of extant covers, this one not only blurs fantasy and reality (another prevalent theme of the novel), but also shows the narrator, a figure who is far more central than the girl(s) he desires. The girls are appropriately nymph-like rather than realistic; we see H.H. only in silhouette and as through a veil. His "slippery self" eludes us as it does his own narrative, yet remains indispensable.

The Inner Life of Toys - The Art of Jason Freeny

Cate Blouke — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 13:18:33 +0000

Image Credit: Jason Freeny Moist Productions

Elieen's viz. post from a few weeks ago on Justine Cooper's photo-documentation of the American Museum of Natural History in New York has been bouncing around in my head ever since. It (re)kindled a long-standing interest I've had in both natural history museums and slightly morbid kinds of art. In both digital images and sculpture, artist Jason Freeny invests familiar children's toys with anatomical interiors, suggesting an inner life/death that both unsettles and intrigues.

Along the lines of natural history displays, this Mickey Mouse figure in particular speaks to an archival and archeological interior. The iconic Disney character has been a part of American culture for nearly 80 years now, and, as such, has gone through a series of evolutions and "lives." By granting Mickey an inter anatomy, replete with full-color intestines and other innards, Freeny argues for a life outside our imaginations. Mickey is a living, breathing (even though we can't see his lungs) figment of our imaginations. Animated by humans in both senses of the word, Mickey exists as an entity both different from and similar to ourselves.

Image Credit: Jason Freeny Moist Productions

Despite his three eyes, toes, and fingers, the Alien's skeleton also seems familiar. This Toy Story figurine literalizes the conceit of the film where toys come to life in the absence of humans. The 3-dimensional medium of action-figure turned sculpture adds to the "liveness" of the figure. While recent studies on Tyrannosaurus rex fossils have led scientists to conclude the dinosaur may have been cannibalistic, one wonders what this skeleton might indicate about its vessel. If we can create a fictional world for him to live in, what would this intertior tell us about that world?

Image Credit: Jason Freeny Moist Productions

Though as a child, this image of a My Little Pony might have horrified me, my adult self finds it both amusing and fascinating. The statue gives the doll an inner life that I certainly dreamed of in my youth, and might not have been surprised to discover. I remember feeling that dolls and toys could be hurt and could heal, that I had to be careful with them, and that though they may possess magical powers (like the ability to fly) they otherwise operated on the same principles as I did. Maybe that was just me.

Image Credit: Jason Freeny Moist Productions

Freeny's digital work mimics traditional anatomical charts hung in doctor's offices and classrooms. I particularly like the dissonance created by a balloon animal with a skeleton. The instructions at the bottom of the image demonstrate how to create a balloon-animal dog, and this strikes me as paralell to the evolution of a zygote. The poster suggests that we can call these creatures into being, and through their creation, invest them with life.

I wonder if the anatomical charts would be a useful tool for teaching anatomy to kids? I can't decide if they would disturb or delight. Biology never interested me much, but maybe it would have if interiors were more fictive and imaginative.

All that glitters is not gold... or in good taste

Cate Blouke — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 20:15:55 +0000

Image Credit: posted by "Hellen Killer" on Regresty, originating from PeachyProfiles.com

H/T to Megan Eatman for sending me the blog

As recent Twilight films have demonstrated, sparkling is one of the few things that doesn't translate well into new media. It also makes it hard to take anything seriously - regardless of authorial intention or gravity of subject matter.

In the wake of the September 11th attacks nine years ago, comedians across the country were faced with the question of how soon would be "too soon" to joke about the tragedy. The question of timing has arisen over and over again, recently in conversations about Clear Blue Tuesday, a movie musical with 9/11 as its narrative foundation that premiered in New York last week. The subject is inherently a sensitive one, and though the blog post I pulled these images from used them as a source for ridicule, this will be a conversation more about glitter than the ethics of humor.

Image Credit: posted by "Hellen Killer" on Regresty, originating from HitUpMySpot.com

Though these images were (presumably) created as hearfelt monuments to one of America's most significant tragedies, the use of a "glitter" effect fundamentally undermines any sense of solemnity that they were intended to invoke. The underlying photographic image of two New York City firefighters with hands clasped and arms raised, signifies a brotherhood and sense of community that infuses our collective memory of the 9/11 attacks. Yet the sparkling overlay, though it certainly draws our attention, also obscures the sincerity expressed in the caption. Sparkles are tied to feelings of festivity and celebration that seem utterly inappropriate for the content, and the juxtaposition verges on laughable (depending on your sense of humor) or downright tragic.

While these images are bound to stir up an unpedictable mix of feelings, they might serve as a useful tool for talking about context, content, and ethos. They seem to come from websites that specialize in icons for use on MySpace, and this could be used to fuel conversation about social networking and the "image" students present to the world. Or, an equally interesting converstation might arise regarding marketing strategies and pathos - to what lengths will advertisers go to grab our attention?

I'm not including a link to the url listed at the bottom of this last image as it seems to be a spam site that traps you into answering survey questions before you can navigate away from the page. Perhaps that's fitting given this is probably the most tasteless of all the images "Killer" collected. The cartoonish sparkling sky set against the reality of the smoking buildings completely negates the seemingly reverant message.

Image Credit: posted by "Hellen Killer" on Regresty, originating on MySpaceLayoutsHome.com

Save the Words (through Images)

emcg — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 03:55:42 +0000

Image Credit: Screenshot of Save the Words

H/T to Elaine and Very Short List

To kick off my return to Viz. this semester, I’m excited to share two artifacts at the intersection of verbal and visual cultures. After the jump: a design savvy website that functions as a Linguistic Extinction List of sorts. Also, a short film that invites viewers to consider the neuroscience of language.

Oxford UP's web site Save the Words uses graphic design to re-invest obsolete or antiquated words with modern charm, even (perhaps) a certain glamour and intrigue. Employing colorful typography worthy of a Cosmo cover, the site gives words like jobler and squiriferous a graphic make-over, while the experience of navigating a virtual Wall of Words engages the roving eye of a 21st-century internet user. Once smitten by a particular graphic representation, visitors may pledge to use their adopted word daily.

Image Credit: Everynone

H/T to Elaine

Produced in conjunction with WNYC’s Radiolab, a weekly science podcast/radioshow, the short film “Words” is a curious celebration of words via their absence. After the opening frame, the textual presence is minimal. Instead, the viewer encounters a sequence of images and sonic information, and is asked to supply the words that make sense of these relationships. In addition to being just plain lovely, the video works as an interactive experiment: once you become clued into the logic of the film, you watch a second (or third or fifth) time to observe your brain’s language use--its ability to make verbal associations--in action. On another level, while the video assumes a kind of universal narrative that speakers of American English recreate to decode its "visual wordplay," I'm curious about the stories that individuals construct to make sense of these images: clearly, a clip of an amateur theater production or a coach outlining a football strategy signifies more than just the noun play.

I initially envisioned "Words" as a possible introductory activity for my Literature and Biology class, but ultimately decided to begin with some evolution rap instead. Do Viz. readers have any thoughts about the kinds of conversations that either of these artifacts might prompt in a rhetoric or literature classroom? I have a hunch that, given its explicit invitation to explore the intersection of word and image, "Words" might pair nicely with some of the questions raised by Paul Messaris in "What's Visual about 'Visual Rhetoric'?," which Tim Turner profiled for Viz. last year. This review essay asks whether there is something unique about the status of the visual in argument. For instance, the effectiveness of "Words" hinges on the narrative impulse that's particular to viewers of image sequences; according to Messaris, "Because of perceptual habits cultivated by the dominant role of movies and other visual narratives in our visual culture, all viewers are primed to see sequences of images as bits of stories, even when those images are also connected in more symbolic or conceptual ways."

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.

Apocalypse Infographed

timturner — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 00:26:24 +0000

Just spotted a link to this at Andrew Sullivan's blog (h/t): check out the wonderful compilation of explanations of the current financial crisis by graphic designers at FlowingData. Image credit: cypher13 via flowingdata.com

FlowingData is a site that "explores how designers, statisticians, and computer scientists are using data to understand ourselves better - mainly through data visualization. Money spent, reps at the gym, time you waste, and personal information you enter online are all forms of data. How can we understand these data flows? Data visualization lets non-experts make sense of it all." To my knowledge, the site hasn't been linked on viz. before--but I think it's something our readers would really like (but then, they probably already know about it).

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?

"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.

Origins of the bomb

John Jones — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 19:34:47 +0000

A recent New York Times article on the invention and dissemination of atomic weapons included the infographic above on the travels of the atomic bomb. The article references some new works on the history of the bomb, noting that it was only invented once:

All paths stem from the United States, directly or indirectly. One began with Russian spies that deeply penetrated the Manhattan Project. Stalin was so enamored of the intelligence haul, Mr. Reed and Mr. Stillman note, that his first atom bomb was an exact replica of the weapon the United States had dropped on Nagasaki.

Moscow freely shared its atomic thefts with Mao Zedong, China’s leader. The book [Robert S. Norris’s Racing for the Bomb] says that Klaus Fuchs, a Soviet spy in the Manhattan Project who was eventually caught and, in 1959, released from jail, did likewise. Upon gaining his freedom, the authors say, Fuchs gave the mastermind of Mao’s weapons program a detailed tutorial on the Nagasaki bomb. A half-decade later, China surprised the world with its first blast.

America’s design future

John Jones — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 23:02:28 +0000

Some people still think design matters. (link is NSFW)

I think this video should be able to spark a great discussion as to whether or not digital tools help to improve visual culture.

via Boing Boing

The Bite of Coffee

Nate Kreuter — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 14:50:46 +0000

The Copyranter, a blogger I'm becoming more and more of a fan of, recently posted these images from an Italian ad campaign for stove-top coffee makers. The title of the ads, or the slogan paired with them is, "the bite of coffee."

I'm not sure I want to drink coffee with a bite strong enough to remind me of a scorpion or spider, and the slogan seems a bit, well, forced or something. But, I do find the images really intriguing. They're weird for one, but something about the dark coffee bean creatures against the model's pale skin and bright red lips sets up a contrasts that I find aesthetically very pleasing.

At any rate, the images are a good example of just how far some ad campaigns reach in their attempts to grab our attention. And Copyranter's blog is well worth checking out, though it may at times be a bit too irreverent/borderline crude for some. That's what I like about the blog though.

Track oil donations to presidential candidates

John Jones — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 15:27:22 +0000

PriceofOil.org has posted a dynamic information graphic showing contributions from the oil industry to U.S. presidential candidates.

In the “relationship view,” the more money a politician has accepted from the oil industry, the bigger their picture is on the map. The more money they have accepted from an individual company, the thicker the line will be that connects them. Elected officials & companies are positioned by their relationships, those that are close together tend to have similar patterns of giving and receiving. In the “table view,” politicians are ranked by their total dollar amount received, together with the companies that donated them.

via Information Aesthetics

Watch out, Marty McFly

John Jones — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 02:51:43 +0000

The image below, from the March, 1936, edition of Science And Mechanics, shows how you can rig up your car so that it will shock anyone who tries to hang onto the bumper to hitch a ride.

Such a device would surely have prevented this tragic waste of fertilizer.

via MAKE Blog

History of children’s literature illustration

John Jones — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 00:20:26 +0000

Slate has posted a slideshow on the history of the illustration of American children’s books. The slides are based on Timothy G. Young’s book, Drawn To Enchant, which explains how images for children went from orderly scenes of proper behavior, like this one by Justin H. Howard for Doings of the Alphabet (excluding, of course, the bratty mischief-makers in the background):

to the madcap drawings of Maurice Sendak:

The book is clearly a must-have for anyone studying children’s literature and visual rhetoric, while the slideshow should be interesting to students and instructors who want to see how our ideas about children and what’s good for them have evolved.

Incidentally, my new favorite name is Hatesope Goop.

Analysis of political campaign posters

John Jones — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 16:41:34 +0000

The New York Times has posted a slideshow by Ward Sutton, “Reading Tea Leaves and Campaign Logos,” analyzing the posters and bumper stickers of presidential candidates.

via Boing Boing

Making type taste good: Typographics

John Jones — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 17:39:15 +0000

This short film by Boca and Ryan Uhrich provides an introduction to typography while illustrating some of the possibilities of typographic videos.

via information aesthetics