VC: Meggs & Juxtaposition

When images, text, or graphic elements are placed in close proximity to each other whether intentional or not creates the possibility for juxtaposition. The article, "Laura Fields and the Page Three Sutra", examines the constant relationships between the Tiffany Company ad and the international story on page three of the New York Times. These unplanned relationships may occur conceptually or visually such as the mimicking of shapes. Artist Laura Fields, as mentioned in the article, uses both planned and unplanned juxtaposition to evoke an emotional response and stimulate social awareness in her piece entitled Child's Play. Although the juxtaposition in the paper was serendipitous, Fields uses the serendipity in a calculated manner to communicate an idea.

In the current stage of our project, we are working in a similar manner as Fields with planned and unplanned juxtaposition. The lines that exist in the city are unexpected because they weren't created for our purposes. However, we the artist, capture these lines and manipulate them for deliberate juxtaposition and by using deliberate juxtaposition, we can communicate ideas and emotions about the neighborhood that we are describing.

In context to the readings on pages 22-29 of Type and Image by Philip B. Meggs, juxtaposition can occur through combining, altering and exaggerating images. Meggs uses the example of a poster for Nieman Marcus by Sibley/Peet Design which combined the traditional portrait of a British monarch with a brightly colored shape portrait of a monarch. This juxtaposition helped reinforce the theme of "Britain then and Now", the tradition portrait being then and the colorful portrait being now. By combining images graphic designers can enhance conceptual reality.

As I mentioned earlier, during the current stage of our project, we photographed lines and sometimes manipulated them in order to communicate an idea. One example of manipulation that we used especially while photographing is camera angle and viewpoint. According to Meggs, ordinary images can be transformed and presented to the viewer in new ways when photographed in various perspectives. While shooting we have the image of a line study in mind and so we position and angle ourselves to recreate the line study in a similar, but different way. Another form of manipulation that Meggs mentions is cropping. By cropping images we can enhance the effectiveness of our composition. For instance, in order to create a cohesive composition with the line study and image certain areas of both needed to be cropped in order to create the most effective composition.