Type as illustration:
Using type as your art can be as straight forward as turning up your storytelling really loud. Here's an example by Margit Toovere.
Here are a couple other examples where the story shape becomes the art. On the left, a page by Politiken. On the right, a page I did long ago at the Sun Journal. We took a lot of care to keep the story legible and there were no complaints from readers. It was interesting to watch people holding their paper at a 45-degree angle to read the story.
Stock images and file images:
This centerpiece by Nuri Ducassi still uses type as the dominant art, but adds small iconic images to punctuate and help the content be more accessible.
It's pretty easy to find stock images to illustrate your story at one of the many stock photo websites out there. My staff uses bigstockphoto.com quite a bit. Here are a couple examples that looked for images that express a simple visual metaphor that, combined with the right display type, helps to sell the story. The page on the left is by Brandon Ferrill and on the right, by Suzy Palma.
Admittedly, our editor was squeamish about a big picture of pavement on the front page. I suppose we could have assigned a photo of someone getting a ticket, but sometimes being literal is not so engaging.
Mug shots as dominant art:
When Julie Elman was at the Virginian Pilot, she was a master at this. Here's an example. What makes it work is that she used the colored text blocks to tie it together into a single dominant piece.
Take the picture yourself:
I'm not suggesting that everyone is suddenly a photographer. In fact, try to use your limitations as an advantage. How about a deliberately low-tech approach like using a plastic Holga camera or even your cell phone? The centerpiece image of the office building on this page was taken and manipulated by Taimy Alvarez on her iPhone.
The flat-bed photo studio:
You may be surprised how well a flat-bed scanner will scan objects. Some of the things I have scanned so far are a business editor's face, crumpled documents, TV cable, barbed wire and mud. Here are a couple examples.
Mediocre handout art:
I always try to respect the work of photographers, but entertainment handout images are fair game for manipulation. Just be cautious with Photoshop filters. Poor use of Photoshop is the biggest cliché of bad illustration. Here are a couple examples that use extreme crops to make the images more abstract and more engaging.
Anyone else have any examples to share?
Next up: More examples of type as art.
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