Analysis of Images, Graphic Design, Magazine Covers - Essay Example

I chose five cover illustrations from Graphis magazine for my analysis; the first is from the 1940's, and the last is from the 1980's. The images I chose are somewhat unconventional -- they all consist of mixed media, including some ingredients used in "abnormal" ways. They vary quite widely in mood and subject matter; but while they share nothing in terms of content, they do demonstrate a trend towards increasing self- reflexivity. While the earliest image in the series is a fairly conventional demonstration of the techniques of sculpting with paper and of photography, and the second image, while rather enigmatic, appears to present something of a commentary on form versus chaos, the later images seem to want to tell us something about their own creation. The third image, from the 1960's, presents us with the impossible: it shows the outside of a package that presumably contains the image itself. The fourth image is a rather dark visual joke, portraying a Mickey Mouse watch "caught" in a mouse trap; and the fifth image uses colored pencils as its subject matter rather than as a tool for drawing. There is no clear progression in technique from the beginning to the end of this series of images. There does, however, seem to be an increasing trend towards dry, ironic humor; while the first two images seem to take themselves rather seriously, the remaining illustrations are all, to some degree, visual jokes. The first cover illustration, from the 1940's, is an angel constructed entirely (or almost entirely) out of paper by E. Haefelfinger. Her face and limbs are essentially flat, but the position of her body, legs, and delicately-cut-out hands gives a dynamic feeling to the illustration: she looks as if she had just lost hold of her staff, and is in the process of jumping up to retrieve it before it falls to the ground. The angel's hair -- which provides almost the only splash of color in the picture -- is made of paper cut into fine strips and curled; her dress is made of some form of very thin paper, mimicking the translucence of chiffon and carefully shaped to portray its fluffiness. She is photographed in harsh, focused light, creating strong shadows to emphasize the three-dimensionality of the composition. The dark background emphasizes the whiteness of the angel's skin and clothing, giving her a particularly ethereal look. On the other hand, her staff (or is it a spear?) has a very sharp-looking point; perhaps it would be unwise to trust her otherworldly appearance overmuch! The goal of the artist in creating this illustration would appear to have been relatively straightforward: to use paper, a stereotypically flat and static substance, to create an image with a strong feeling of depth and movement. In this regard, Haefelfinger's illustration seems to be basically a demonstration of technical skill rather than a commentary about the process of creating graphic art. The Graphis cover illustration from the 1950's is by Rudolf De Harak. Its dominant components are two contrasting pieces of paper: on top, we see a precisely-folded origami-like construct, with each letter of the magazine's title on a different triangular segment of the paper; while below it another piece of paper has been crumpled and then partially smoothed out. The third major element of the illustration is a superimposed design made of transparent red and blue triangles, suggesting a logo of some sort. While this design mostly overlays the crumpled piece of paper, it does not really seem to be connected to it; in fact, the design's triangles are positioned to suggest that it is a continuation of the origami construct. The two pieces of paper are photographed in directional light against a white background. The effect of this lighting is to emphasize the dimensionality and texture of both pieces of paper; but as the light is less sharply focused than it is in the previous example, this illustration consists of a wide range of grays rather than starkly contrasting light and shadow. The only part of the illustration that appears two-dimensional is the colored design, which lacks any shading or other indication of physicality. While it continues the origami figure's motif of triangles, it seems in all other ways to be rather out of place. Like the previous illustration, De Harak’s Graphis cover presents paper as a three-dimensional object. However, while Haefelfinger used paper as a sculptural medium, De Harak chose to present us with paper in two more "classic" forms: folded and crumpled. While Haefelfinger's paper is meant to represent skin, fabric, and feathers, De Harak’s paper is nothing more or less than paper. Any deeper meanings of this illustration are somewhat difficult to discern. There is a clear contrast between the orderly folding of one piece of paper and the random crumpling of the other; perhaps De Harak is making some point about order and chaos. The red and blue design is even more mysterious, a sort of artificial superimposition that does not seem to be an organic part of the image. It is ironic that the one part of the illustration with any color to it is otherwise the least "alive" part of the image. Fletcher/Forbes/Gill produced the Graphis cover from 1965; the illustration is a photograph of a paper-wrapped parcel sent from the artists' studio in London to the magazine's office in Zürich. The parcel boasts an entire collection's worth of postage stamps, along with Customs forms, rubber-stamps, and multiple stickers. The parcel is further wrapped in shipping twine; the strong, sharp lighting makes this twine appear to stand out from the plane of the image, and also emphasizes the texture, wrinkles, and small abrasions of the wrapping paper. It appears that the parcel is genuine; certainly all of the cancellations and other rubber-stamps look like the real thing. Judged purely from the standpoint of technique, this illustration is very simple. All the artists needed to do was wrap something up, mail it to the magazine's office in Zürich, and then either have the package sent back to London in a larger box or arrange for someone to photograph it in Zürich. (It is possible, of course, that someone from Fletcher/Forbes/Gill flew from London to Zürich in order to photograph the parcel upon its arrival; while this approach would have everything to recommend it from the standpoint of authenticity, the resulting illustration would have been rather costly to produce.) In this sense, this image is (ostensibly) the only one of the five selected illustrations to depict an ordinary, "real world" object rather than something constructed specifically to be photographed. Of course, there is a paradox here: our first assumption on seeing a parcel sent by the artists to Graphis is that the parcel contains the cover illustration they have been invited to submit. However, since the cover illustration is a photograph of the outside of the parcel, this cannot be the case. What, then, does the parcel contain? Moreover, assuming that the parcel was created and mailed only in order to be photographed for this illustration, does it really qualify as a "found" object rather than something constructed by a graphic artist in his/her professional capacity? For the cover illustration from the 1970' s, Phil Marko photographed a Mickey Mouse watch that had been "caught" in a mouse trap. The trap has shattered the watch's crystal, scattering shards over the dark background; the largest piece of the crystal is at the bottom of the image. The watch is positioned at an angle, with its buckle pointing up rather than laid flat. This informal positioning of the watch contrasts to the position of the mouse trap, which is precisely lined up square to the camera. We thus get the impression that the watch was arrested in mid-movement, and poor Mickey met his untimely end before he could sample any of the delicious cheese with which the trap was baited. (The lump of cheese must have been quite a temptation, being almost as large as Mickey himself!) Of all the images selected, this is the only one that does not involve paper. It is also the only one in which the magazine's title appears at the bottom rather than at the top of the page. This, along with the angle at which the scene was photographed and the subdued lighting emanating from somewhere behind the mouse trap, creates a feeling of distance: the mouse trap -- or at least the cheese -- is a destination. The slightly macabre joke behind this image is readily apparent: a Mickey Mouse watch is not a mouse! Even if we accept the Mickey Mouse watch as a stand-in for Mickey himself, Mickey Mouse is (unfortunately?) not the sort of mouse one catches in this sort of trap. This illustration, unlike any of the others chosen, is entirely focused on content rather than on technique. It tells a story, albeit a strange and rather surreal one; but the process of creating the image is not in itself unusual. (This is not to say that this illustration does not demonstrate considerable technical skill; but the image is not primarily about this skill.) None of the other chosen images are narrative in the way this one is. Mendell & Oberer's Graphis cover from the 1980's consists of a photograph of thirty colored pencils stuck through a piece of white paper; the pencils are positioned at various angles and their colors have been chosen to suggest randomness and spontaneity. The lighting is just directional enough to keep the image from looking overly flat, but the shadows created are soft and diffuse and do not interfere with our perception of the pencils' colors. This image is deceptive in one sense: while it has been designed to give the viewer the impression of randomness, in fact the placement and the choice of the various colored pencils were carried out in a very precise manner. The places where the pencils were to be poked through the paper were laid out in a precise, evenly-spaced grid; and the pencils were placed so that there would be no "clumps" of any particular color. Had the pencils in fact been chosen at random, it is wildly unlikely that the end result would have had such an even, "random" distribution of color. Similarly, the angles at which the pencils are placed are much too random-looking to be truly random. Like the other images in this selection, Mendell & Oberer's illustration generates interest by presenting the viewer with an incongruity. Colored pencils are normally used to draw a picture, but here they have been used unconventionally as a visual subject in their own right. Another interesting aspect of the image is the contrast between the pattern of the pencils themselves -- colorful, sharply focused, and linear -- and the much more subtle and diffuse pattern created by the pencils' shadows. Of these five cover illustrations, my personal favorites are the third and fourth. The package that suggests that it contains itself is a wonderful bit of mental gymnastics, even if the technique involved in creating the subject matter amounted to no more than enlisting the cooperation of a shipping clerk. The Mickey Mouse watch "killed" by a mouse trap also appealed to my sense of humor; I am not sure whether this says good things about the illustration or bad things about me. (Would I like this illustration so much if I did not have an intense antipathy to Mickey Mouse?) The first two images, while certainly well conceived and executed, are a bit too "serious" for my taste; they are certainly artistically interesting, but are too earnest to be fun. The last illustration left me a little cold; while I can appreciate the irony of using artists' tools as the subject matter for art, the joke is a bit rarefied for my taste. On the other hand, this last image is my favorite in a strictly aesthetic sense. As mentioned above, I do not find a clear progression in the degree of sophistication or in the aesthetic quality of these illustrations. However, I do see a trend towards increasing irony and self-reference: the later images in the series are more and more about themselves and how they were created, and less and less about anything outside themselves. Read More