GREEN BOOKS: Type 3.

It’s always weird looking back through these books. Like looking at those insects trapped in a chunk of amber.  There they were, right in the middle doing something, simply walking or picking their nose, frozen in time. These books are a bit like that, a snapshot of what was happening at a certain moment in time, captured chronologically. (Encased in green this time, not amber.) This moment is ’93 to ’94, type & graphics, and what an odd moment itRead more

Hands Up Who’s Heard Of Andreas Feininger?

My first office didn’t have a computer on the desk. The key piece of kit Art Director’s needed to operate in those days was a pen. The people who were best at drawing were generally the best at Art Directing. It probably seems like a weird coincidence now; what has drawing go to do with Art Directing? It wasn’t the drawing. Because they could draw they ended up in art colleges, the better they could draw the longer they gotRead more

Hands Up Who’s Heard Of ‘Environmental Portraits’?

Not me. Well, not until last week. Don’t get me wrong, I knew portraits had been taken in environments, I’m no fool, but I didn’t realise it was a genre with its own name. Environmental Portraits are portraits that have been “executed in the subject’s usual environment, such as in their home or workplace, and typically illuminates the subject’s life and surroundings”. It turns out that one of my favourite portrait photographers, Arnold Newman, was it’s father of Environmental Photography. (Although he hatedRead more