
9
ANATOMY OF DESIGN
Bold black bars tend to be alarming. When words or pictures, statements and
ideas, faces or body parts are involuntary concealed in this manner, the bars
signal suppression by a controlling power. Call it censorship or national
security—whatever the term, whatever the motive, these otherwise simple
rectangular slabs have chilling ramifications; even when used as graphic
decoration they evoke something sinister. As a designer’s tool, black bars
are perfect for evoking prohibition or illegality.
This cover for
The Design of Dissent could easily have been illustrated
with any of the startling posters designed to counter oppression or ...