The Delivery of "Word and Image" in Comics

Comics are a very unique medium because they utilize both words and images to express their purpose. The purpose may be to tell a story, or to depict a viewpoint or paradigm of consciousness. The words and image have a symbiotic relationship in delivering the message, requiring both for its effective communication.

In Brian Fies' Mom's Cancer, image and word purposefully interact to communicate small messages that throughout the story lead to an overarching theme, that cancer is a serious and personal event, amidst the chaos of the surrounding world, and that the system that is designed to heal you cements your fate in the process of healing. The interaction between the words and images is what I will be analyzing here.

In the excerpt from the comic above, Brian Fies utilizes the strength of the words to describe how his mom is feeling with the cancer. The images depict a symbolic representation of mom's sensations and reality, but the audience connects to at a physical and intuitive level. The words, by itself, have a vague representation of meaning, as does the image, however, when combined, the image and word communicate the concept to the mind and body at different levels of our anatomy. The contrast between words and image, and the juxtaposition of them in the scenes are the dynamic that links the split mom on the right back to reality, with us understanding that she is being symbolically represented this way.

Also, the placement of the words and images guides us through the storytelling. In comics, the main focal point usually resides in the words, because that is where the central part of storytelling resides, and in the above image, the placement of the words at the very top with small confining boxes for the image of mom to express herself allow the reader to get a sense of the claustrophobia of understanding that she is experiencing, even from herself. The Text, positioned at the top lead the eye from left to right through the sequence to arrive at Fies as the narrator having a somber message, which depicted without image, is much more powerful. The lack of image, in this case, allows us to fill in the blank with our imagination, which is constantly redefining the situation and connected to our physical body and nervous system, actually reacting in small ways to the physical, allowing us to connect and experience the meaning of the text on multiple levels. As well, the very straightforward text in this segment is balanced in speech by the white bubble on the black background that surrounds mom, and creates a personal and foreboding sense that accompanies the frames, especially as the chronological sequence displays lined features on the hair and face that depict a older and more ill appearance as the sequence continues from starting frame to ending frame.

A similar chronology and contrast of text and image is displayed above. The smooth lines and positioning and stances of the doctors at the left bring a sense of heroism and dynamism to their jobs, portraying them as superheroes, ready the patient. The contrast of this image amidst the storytelling to the right, and the way in which image and word interact to depict the whole of the images of mom enduring various effects and the bipolar reactions of the doctors lead the audience to take in the concept that the doctor's are as lost as the patients in simply dealing with the patients. The zooming in of mom's head in each frame with her on the telephone also commits a very personal relationship between the audience and her, especially with the combination of each set of words depicting a more serious symptom, and the doctor's apparent lack of care or concern.

Also, the use of color in certain parts of the book, rather than the whole book highlight certain aspects to be expressed. The colored mom amidst the black and white representations of the party guests above can be contrasted with the words which bring to mind a polar opposite image: one of party guests alive and well and full of "color," and one of mom's condition and her fate sealed in black-and-white clarity. The color used in the example below, as well as the stylistic drawings of each person contrasted with their black-and-white "normal" representations, depicts each member as a dynamic and powerful individual. In the context with the text, which represents each individual as trying to provide help to mom, the reality is shown where each individual is communicating their good intentions through their egoic self-centeredness, which ends up creating a stark contrast to the super-heroic image depicted in color, the fantasy self amidst crisis. This contrast of image and color gives the audience a chance to step back and be wowed by the ways we as individuals deal with crises, and how our subjective reality can be very different from the objective reality.

Brian Fies succeeds in storytelling by using contrasting imagery, balanced whole images, and the contrasting concepts that evolve from image representing one aspect and text representing another.

What's Your Word and Image Combination?

Images and words are seen as two distinct forms of communication, however, when they work together to communicate a signifier, they often express multiple aspects of the same central concept in each medium of communication. In advertising, this pairing of words and images can be very effective when designed correctly. The relationship between words and images, if supporting each other to express a concept, rather than simply each representing their own message independent of one another, sends a compounding message. After all, the central message of Gestalt Theory, is the sum or whole is greater than and different from its parts.

Three Olives Vodka has a very distinct advertising campaign, targeted at invoking the arousal of young adults, and being subliminally open about the sensual expression attached to their product. "What's your O Face?" is the clever and memorable way of capturing the concept of fun and sexy with the brand name "Three Olives." The advertisements utilize a unique image and word combination that each carry up to 50% of the weight of the overall message, and neither could be understood without the relationship of the other.

The above image alone simply represents a woman in ecstasy and possibly climax, paired with the image of the three olives vodka bottle, which suggests that the vodka is connected to a fun and sexy image. The words of "What's Your O-Face?" on their own would usually lead the audience to begin imagining scenes that the Catholic Church would be quick to reprimand, however, no connection to alcohol would be present. The contrast between the person depicted, in flattering light, clothing, and positioning, and the overall theme (of grape, original, or root beer) allows the image to balance well and creates a great rhythm and flow within the image, while bringing the eyes to the very human and very arousing person depicted in the center, the main focal point of the image.

The unique pairing of both allow an effective concept to be conveyed to the audience in a delightfully fun and seductive way, that is explicit enough to tell us exactly what the product is about (and, for many young adults, what it hopefully leads to), yet is discrete enough to capture an entire marketing campaign and brand image in a slogan that can exchange social knowledge, popular culture, and planned night of excitement that contrasts the mass audience to their boring days.

An Analysis of Denim Jeans

Jeans are a part of all of our lives today. They have become as common as t-shirts, and everyone will wear a pair of jeans at some point, usually in a variety of flavors (baggy or tight, dark or light, bootcut, skinny jeans, regular fit, etc). On May 20, 1873, Jacob Davis and Levi Strauss obtained a patent on what is now known as "blue jeans" pants, and began creating these pants. Blue jeans were worn mostly by blue-collar workers until they became popular among adolescents in the 1950s, and from then on denim has become a common apparel material. Denim jackets, denim backpacks, even denim underwear has entered the market of available clothing for the modern family, but why is denim such a great material?

Denim has some very unique qualities to it. The texture of denim jeans is generally smooth and thick, yet rough and tough. Jeans were created by Jacob Davis installing rivets at certain stress-points of the jeans, which allowed the jeans to hold stronger, and become the "sturdy work-pants" they are typically associated with. Denim jeans have diagonal lines, and vertical lines displayed throughout the jeans. These patterns create balance and unity through repetition. The typical yellow-orange stitching of dashed lines around the seams of the jeans creates a great contrasting and complementary color combination on the jeans, which adds a subtle effect to the dynamism of the jeans. The stress-areas on the jeans allow a darkened area where the dye has collected to show deeper colors, emphasizing these areas that already get scrunched together.

The actual textile of denim is created when the weft passes underneath two or more warp threads, which produces the identifiable diagonal ribbing. Of course the diagonal and vertical lines displayed in most denim jeans creates a staccato visual rhythm and a visual pattern of dark-value and light-value which really creates the vertical and horizontal lines, and the focal points that we look at because of the darkened or lightened values at certain stress points on the jeans. The diagonal lines that are created by the weaving of the cotton that creates the denim jeans creates the dynamic sensation that makes this clothing such a timeless item. It looks hardworking, relaxed, yet modern, and sexy all at once.

Of course the focal points in the jeans are the denim pockets, which are always unique in shape and size, and the front rivet button that hold the pants together right below the navel. The denim jeans takes the concept of a durable and stylish working pants and creates a cheap and effective form to express its purpose.

An Analysis of a MacBook Pro

Alice Rawsthorn, the Design Editor at the International Herald Tribune says that "many of the best examples of industrial design are things that people don't think was 'designed' at all [...] and what they don't realize is that from the moment they wake up, almost everything that fills their world has been designed one way or another" (Objectified). I'm going to analyze one of the premier products of contemporary industrial design, the MacBook Pro, because it is a beautifully designed tool, because I use it constantly in the design process, and because I am typing this blog on it now.

The day I opened my MacBook Pro, my immediate first insight was that this company focused on great design, and wore that fact proudly. Opening the MacBook Pro's box, you see glossy-white casing all around with an apple stamp, and an inside with a black surrounding protective interior where the laptop sits almost like a ring in a felt box, waiting to be put on and worn. The design of the presentation of the MacBook Pro already has had its effect, as the owner now looks at this MacBook Pro as a piece of him, not just any laptop.

Open the MacBook Pro and you can see the uniform casing body. Jonathan Ive, (senior VP of the Industrial design sector of Apple Computers) discusses that "there is a remarkable efficiency and beauty to how much a single part can do, [... in which] this one part is providing so much functionality, and that this one part really does enable this product." The grid-inspired pattern of the keyboard and layout of the bottom piece of the MacBook Pro, with its black-filled keys and white-luminous letters on the keyboard, give this laptop a unique and well-thought feel. The array of tiny holes to the right and left of the keyboard clearly yet unobtrusively represent the speakers, and the multi-touch trackpad leads to a very intuitive usability, yet keeps the entire interaction between user and tool simple and direct. The power button at the top right, blends in seamlessly, yet keeps functionality elegant.

On the right side of the bottom casing body is the DVD Superdrive, which is a slim holed-out slot. The left side of the bottom casing body has several different holes for plugs, the MagSafe power port, the gigabit ethernet port, a Firewire 800 port, a Mini DisplayPort, two USB 2.0 ports, an audio in port, an audio out port, and finally set of seven mini battery-indicating LEDs. These are all essential elements in our modern world of Plug-ins and connectivity, and Apple fervently discards the rest that most people will not use regularly.

The top of the Macbook pro has a wide-far screen, with a black-glass frame around, and the obvious apple logo on the aluminum casing when closing this fine product.

Objectified

Henry Ford once said that "every object tells a story, if you know how to read it." The movie, Objectified, depicts both content and form of its objects very personally and openly by showing close-ups of many common industrial-designed objects that most people don't fathom as having had a part of the design process, because they are simply "there." The content and the form in these objects are so obvious and unified that the design is seamlessly tied in to make the functionality of the object aesthetically pleasing, and the aesthetic sense in synchronicity with the functionality. Andrew Blauvelt discusses how the toothpick, a very common item has not only been designed in specific ways, but how many objects, including the toothpick have evolved.

In the creation of a handle for common household tools, like a peeler, or shears, both content and form come into play, as the purpose of the handle it to design for ease of use and mobility and the form is an extension of that purpose. Putting great design into everyday things helps people improve the way they live their lives, without forcing them to notice the great design, because it is so natural.

Dieter Rams speaks in Objectified about how great design must be both clear and understandable, allowing users to trust the designed object quickly. He discusses that good design is: innovative, aesthetic, honest, unobtrusive, long-lived, consistent in every detail, environmentally friendly, makes products both understandable and useful, and is as little design as possible.

Alice Rawsthorn talks about how nowadays, we have so many designs where the form has no relation to the function of the object. She argues that, because of the microchip, design is shifting from the tangible and material form in connection to the content, to an increasingly intangible and immaterial form that is very loosely connected with the content, which poses more tensions and conflicts within design. As designers, we are primarily used to working in constraints, and with the constraints freed by the invention of the microchip, the designer is more free to explore other avenues of great design, however now has more conflicts and tensions as to how to explore these other forms in terms of scale, shapes, and user-interactivity, while keeping the product and the design well-suited for the user, and for its own purpose.

Three phases of modern design are discussed by Andrew Blauvelt: the formal relationship of the object, the symbolism and content or the purpose of the object, and looking at design contextually, looking at the human-object relationship. These are the different ways that form interacts with content in objects, as shown in Objectified. Even the film's form of showing close-up, personal stills of objects interacts with the content of the objects, showing their most clear and definite essence, and how the form is shaped to display the content in a functional way, not just for the form, or the object, but for the human using the object as well.

Design in Type

The general populace has a mental image of graphic design as a creation of various images using photoshop for print and web ads, and using 3D editing software for more advanced CGI in movies and games. However, many gloss over the subtle ways that the text we read affects us. Literally, the face of the type we read may present us with a completely different personality and experience of the design we are viewing. The updated Gap logo is an example of this.

The newly unveiled, and recently retracted, Gap Logo has a very different feel compared to the old logo. Gap released the logo as a signifier to show the transition from the concept of the Gap apparel line as having a classic, American look, into a look that would evoke cool, modern, and sexy. Now lets forget about the blue box and really delve into what the type says about both logos.

The old Gap logo has a personality that depicts classic, American, and iconic so well. The characteristic super long stem in relation to the incredibly condensed width of the letters, the classic serif typeface, and the skinny left of the A and upper and lower crossbars that hold the G and the P together create a type that emits classy with classic. The new type, on the other hand, is a very bold and heavy Helvetica, one of the most overused fonts ever created. Not only do the short, stubby, and roundness of the letters not express sexy or cool at all (they do express modern, but the old type expressed a classic modern as well), they almost express an institutionalism. The small tail on the "a" provides about the only bit of personality found in the very structured font. Overall, Gap's new logo, contrasted with their classic, iconic one, creates a feeling of super-conformity and restriction in a field (textiles), which should be about expression and creativity.

A visit to the Gap website, and one can see that ads for cool Men's and Women's wear is laden with bold, Helvetica font. This font does the perfect trick on the website, and with ads to contrast the modern, universal Helvetica font with the super-condensed, serif-laden Gap logo, it creates a great dynamic between American and iconic and modern. With proper use, the typeface can dramatically change the look and feel of any organization's representation and the perceived personality of any represented entity.

Works Cited

"Type: Anatomy." Princeton Architectural Press * Welcome. Web. 18 Oct. 2010. <http://www.papress.com/thinkingwithtype/letter/anatomy.htm>.

"Typeface Anatomy and Glossary | FontShop." FontShop. The World's Best Fonts. Web. 18 Oct. 2010. <http://www.fontshop.com/glossary.php>.

Weiner, Juli. "VF Daily." Vanity Fair Magazine | Vanity Fair. 12 Oct. 2010. Web. 18 Oct. 2010. <http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2010/10/new-gap-logo-despised-symbol-of-corporate-banality-dead-at-one-week.html>.

Comparison & Contrast

We as humans are very interesting creatures. Many times, what we see, we conclude is the reality of what is in front of us. We do not question that it may be a subjective perception of the truth. Designer's knowledge of this subjectivity, and how our mind perceives that which we see allows them to create dynamic pieces that grab our attention in obvious and subtle ways. The concept of comparison and contrast in relation to our perception is the synonymous with the gestalt principle of figure and ground in perception. In particular, illusions tend to play on our perception of figure and ground, that through our current vantage point we will see the objective world subjectively by comparing and contrasting what we see and reassembling the pieces in a unified form to represent what we believe is in front of us.

Enter Julian Beever. This artist shows us just how our perception really affects us, creating a whimsical world for all to see. He is one of a few artists that has created 3D pavement art. This pavement art creates the illusion of a 3D image by using a projection technique known as anamorphosis which creates a three dimensional illusion for the eye when viewed at the correct angle. The three dimensional illusion of anamorphosis is created by comparing the colors and image that has been drawn on the pavement with the rest of the pavement, contrasting it with certain parts of pavement that are supposed to represent the "background" or "real pavement," and reassembling the image at that angle to create the three-dimensional perspective effect off of a two-dimensional surface. This comparison and contrast creates the "figure" the three dimensional object and scene in this situation, and the background, the connection to the "real world" from the pavement art.

The creations of Julian Beever are not limited to his pavement art, although at this level we can see the obvious ways that our vision and our perception of figure and ground, comparing and contrasting the two creates this very unique illusion, as well as the distortion applied when viewed at the specific angle. Julian Beever also creates murals, large pastel portraits, and renderings of old masters. He uses chalk for all of his pavement work, and his work only lasts for a few days, long enough for him to document it with photography, as after that point the weather will wash it away in a few days. Still, the anamorphosis he uses to create his intriguing effect that utilizes our visual cortex and our perceptual need for unification and our subconscious comparison and contrast of shapes, sizes, colors, and all gestalt principles to determine a three dimensional illusion really sets Beever apart from other contemporary artists.

Works Cited

"Julian Beever." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 18 Oct. 2010. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Beever>.

"Julian Beever's Pavement Drawings." Mon Espace Web (Personnel) / Mijn (Persoonlijke) Webruimte / My Personal Web Space. Web. 18 Oct. 2010. <http://users.skynet.be/J.Beever/pave.htm>.

Skaalid, Bonnie. "Figure and Ground." University of Saskatchewan. 1999. Web. 18 Oct. 2010. <http://www.usask.ca/education/coursework/skaalid/theory/gestalt/figround.htm>.