Week 9 Text and Image

Our final ITAP lecture consists of only one single principle – the lecture itself, on the use of text and image. Knowledge of this topic is essential for visual communicators, particularly graphic designers and illustrators. Text gives images a context if they don’t have one, or a new one if they do. Consider the image below:

There is little that we can gather from this. Maybe the artist likes fields, but that’s just wild guessing. The point is, on it’s own, the image means nothing. If it were alongside other photos, we might gather a little more. If it were in a police station, we could assume that it is a crime scene. Images need some form of context to be meaningful. That’s not to say that a caption or a second image is needed, necessarily, the context can be easily integrated, but it must be there.

Something else to consider though is that context can be misleading. It is only in our minds that two things next to each other are connected – there is no logical reason for this to be the case. The fact that we associate two things next to each other is used by us subconsciously all the time. When you caption an image, you do not feel the need to tell the viewer that you are captioning that image and not just writing there, as it is accepted in our minds that the things are related. But this concept can also be exploited, and often is. Tabloids often use it to shock, putting headlines that alone are acceptable (or at least not as shocking as with a picture) next to unrelated and similarly innocuous images that together mislead the viewer and create something very provoking.

Related to this, is that even when captions are deliberately attached, they are not always truthful. The photo below I took at the student protests in London over the rising tuition fees. By changing the caption, the meaning of the image completely changes:

The bonfire party was a huge success.

Mob of youths kidnap South London woman and burn her alive during horrific
spree of gang violence.

Another artist that uses changes of context is John Hilliard, a conceptual artist who uses photography to show its uncertainty as a documentary tool. Of particular note is Cause of Death (below), which depicts the same staged murder scene framed and captioned in 4 different ways, leading the viewer to a different conclusion for each one. At the time it was made, it was revolutionary, as black and white photography was heavily associated with documentary photography, and therefore truth.

Clockwise from top left, words read: Crushed, Drowned, Burned, Fell

Week 8 Production for Visual Communicators

I found this ITAP a bit more difficult to complete than usual, as the overall theme was extremely similar to earlier lectures that I’ve already written about, and the 5 principles weren’t really the same type of principle as the other 7 sets we’ve had. But lets give it a go.

Click this text for his website (which I highly recommend)

The first principle I’m going to look at is “Experts”. Within Visual communication, there will be many experts in each discipline, who approach a given task each with different preferences in approach to and incorporating their own unique style.

Even within a specific specialism, such as illustration, there will be many experts, each excelling at different things, and one working in their own style is not necessarily better than another working in an opposing style. The expert I am looking at in regards to this task is the illustrator Kekai Kotaki. I feel that he is an expert in the art of concept design, an area that I am particularly interested in.

He has spent almost 10 years working for ArenaNet, the makers of the MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game): Guild Wars, mostly as a concept artist, and 5 years as the Lead Concept Artist, and his designs are breathtaking. The drawings themselves are not all in intricate detail, but they are very atmospheric and you can feel the energy captured in the scene. Some of his work is beside and below this post:

The next principle that I am looking at is “a Brief History of Production”. It can be useful to know what our heritage is and the history behind the technology we use as visual communicators, as it informs our designs.

The Diamond Sutra is the earliest printed and dated book that has completely survived. It was produced in AD400, created using wood blocks and ink on paper. The wood blocks would have been hand carved, and then pressed onto the paper, in this case in the form of a scroll.

Below is a picture of a print within the Diamond Sutra. Considering the method used to create it, and how long it has survived, the level of detail is quite amazing:

In the mid 15^th century, Johann Gutenberg invented the mechanical printing press (including many of the components it was made up of, and processes upon which it relied), which was able to mass-produce prints, making them affordable for printers and readers alike, introducing printing to Europe. Prior to this invention, the method of book production in Europe had been hand-made manuscripts.

Our methods of production have changed dramatically throughout history, but knowledge of the old methods is nevertheless useful in creating new and interesting forms of art. As they say, knowledge is power.