Anatomy of Design

21

ANATOMY OF DESIGN

The goal of advertising and graphic design is to implant memorable cues and

codes that, when activated, prompt recognition and therefore trigger positive (or

negative) behavioral responses. This poster for the Broadway musical BKLYN,

designed by Darren Cox of SpotCo, was created to elicit knowing, if not intimate,

reactions among New Yorkers and announce a new theatrical event. As for all

advertising, the goal of a theater poster is to raise awareness and encourage

consumption but, unique to this particular poster form, it must do so on the

crowded street when passersby are bombarded with way too much stimuli. It

is imperative for the designer to forge a critical mass of intertwined icons and

mimes that somehow grab attention and deposit a mental cookie that is

activated whenever certain buttons are pressed.

Pavlovian neurons are triggered by this poster largely because it employs

three tiers of familiarity that signal the urban context in general and Brooklyn

specifically. The chain-link hurricane fence, while not unique to the outer

boroughs of New York, immediately brings to mind any urban environment and

particularly those playgrounds where cold concrete prevails. Who can forget the

opening scenes of

West Side Story in the schoolyard where the Jets and Sharks

tangle in their rumble ballet? The combined grace and gracelessness of dance

and song in this prisonlike enclosure is bound to send a charged signal to the

viewer. Moreover, the chain-link fence has long been used as a graphic

component. As a background pattern in the 1940 cover of

Vogue, it startlingly

offsets the plaid pattern of the model’s skirt. And as the conceit in the poster for

a modern-day Othello, it becomes a veritable skeleton on which the protagonist’s

tattered face is held together. Of course, the fence is also a vivid symbol of

enclosure and restraint, with all the claustrophobic sensations that evokes.

The second graphic tier involves torn and ripped posters that artists and

designers have long used to symbolize either decay or transition. The layers of

desecrated paper on walls and signboards, like the rings on the trunk of an

aged tree, also exude the sense of venerability. Torn paper is a graphic means

to project the idea of revelation. Using an onion metaphor, as each layer is

peeled it dramatically reveals a message made somehow important. Moreover,

the torn paper technique has an abstract quality created by the randomness of

the tear the expressionist and surrealist artists of the early twentieth century

found appealing. The torn poster shard in

BKLYN adds another layer of

urbanness to the overall composition.

The consonant-heavy abbreviation itself is a further mnemonic. Rather

than spell out the word, which would be both cumbersome and unexceptional,

the gothic capitals become a stark signpost. The viewer is stopped dead by the

letterforms. Furthermore, set atop a bold heart, the entire composition echoes

Milton Glaser’s ubiquitous I [HEART] NY, which owes its success to the rebuses

so common in children’s books. The rebus itself, which has been used

effectively by designers, is a staple of graphic pun, of which Lou Dorfsman’s

Rock and Roll and Paul Rand’s IBM are witty examples.

BKLYN’s composite forms,

any one of which sparks recognition, are made more powerful in this critical

mass and transformed into a logo of the musical.

BKLYN

Art Director: Gail Anderson

Designer: Darren Cox

2003 Brooklyn The Musical, poster

ad: Gail Anderson, SpotCo

d: Darren Cox

c: Producers Four/Jeff Calhoun, John McDaniel

This poster for the Broadway musical BKLYN, designed by Spot Co, was created to

elicit knowing, if not intimate, reactions among New Yorkers and announce a new

theatrical event.

Chain-link fence

Ripped paper

Rebus and anagrams