Typography is the art and technique of arranging type. As seen in the image above by a designer named Gcore, Letters can be seen for their form and arranged to create an image. I love this piece because the letters coming out of the gun are arranged to read as a word as well as represent sound. This is a great example of how words and image work together in design. The word/image relationship can be tight or loose depending on the setting and purpose.
Words have filled thousands of image-less books with colorful stories that need no visual aid to describe to the reader every detail of characters, setting, and plot. It is easy to see how, with a rich vocabulary, one can use words alone to tell a story.
A good example where image delivered a message without the aid of word was in 1984 when Larry Hama of Marvel Comics stunned the comic world with the "silent issue" from G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero #21. The dialogue and exposition-less comic book, entitled "Silent Interlude", is considered by a generation of fans as a definitive classic. Marvel went on in 2001 to announce that all issues released in the month of December would be without dialogue or captions. The images in these comics were strong enough to tell the story, however many of the details of these stories were filled in by the minds of the readers giving the comics much more subjectivity.
While words and images have proven that they can stand alone, they are definitely stronger when respect is given to the strengths and weaknesses of each. In Scott McCloud's book understanding Comics he describes how there is a balance to the juxtaposition of the word image interplay. Too much of either can alter the flow of the story as a whole.
No comments:
Post a Comment