Anatomy of Design

29

ANATOMY OF DESIGN

On the eve of its extinction, the CD jewel box cover still asserts itself as a

medium for graphic expression that is more than a simple frame in which to

put recording artists’ portraits. In this era of computer download, CD

graphics are given considerable license to suggest mood or signal concept

through abstract and representational forms. CD covers no longer have to

hard-sell the music, but they must imply an idea or evoke an attitude

consistent with the artist. For the English electronica duo Solar Twins’ (David

Norland and Joanna Stevens) cover of the Clash’s “Rock the Casbah,” Stefan

Bucher designed an image that was more sci-fi than punk, more abstract

than literal, and more enigma than illumination. It establishes a visual

presence for the CD that dips into three wells of past references to devise

its decidedly futuristic aura.

Bucher draws from the eighteenth (and earlier) century graphic

illusion known as topsy-turvy, wherein an image—say, of a face or body or

cityscape—is exactly the same whether turned right-side up or upside down.

In fact, there is no right or wrong way; it is all the same. In the nineteenth

century, this visual trick was common in children’s books, notably Peter

Newell’s classic The Topsys and Turvys, and routinely found in decks of

playing cards; by the twentieth century it was a common illustrative trope

on posters and magazine covers, like the one for Modern Priscilla, as well

as book jackets and record sleeves. Sometimes the topsy-turvy was simply

a mirror image, while other instances included subtle yin-yang changes that

contrasted the two images. Often the conceit is used to make a conceptual

point, like the “Good News/Bad News” cover of Time magazine, which when

turned around shows . . . well, the good and the bad—both sides of the

argument in one illustration. But it can also be void of overarching motive

other than the sheer aesthetic appeal of the mirror image.

In addition to images, typographers have used the topsy-turvy method

for logos and headlines as well as pictorial images. “Specs” can be read the

same way from any vantage point, or it can be a mirror image, or reflection,

like “New Man,” which perfectly balances the two three-letter words.

The mirror image is also found in the classic Rorschach or inkblot test

developed by Hermann Rorschach in 1918 for psychological testing. During the

1920s and 1930s, flopping photographic negatives evoked a similar graphic

sensation to that of the Rorschach, if only in a stylistic manner. Rather than

faithfully duplicating a face, body, or anything else, the seemingly balanced

perfection caused by flopping an image can produce a futuristically surreal

visual, as Bucher has done, or a bizarrely comic one, like the foot with one big

toe in the middle, or “Mono-Mickey,” the one-eared, one-eyed Mickey Mouse.

To further achieve the futuristic attitude of the Solar Twins CD, Bucher

relies on a now common bitmapped, digital typeface, originally based on the

limitations of computer readouts but currently a stylistic conceit. The polka-dot

motif that forms the letters further owes a debt to the earliest computer

readouts, the holepunches printed on ticker tape, and the flashing light readouts

on news zippers, like the famous wraparound on the Times Building in Times

Square. On the CD cover, the letterforms appear to flicker as flames in the

background shoot through the sky. Taken together, these three strands of design

DNA intertwine to become an image that effectively evokes the electronica genre.

Solar Twins

Designer: Stefan Bucher

1999 Solar Twins: “Rock the Casbah”, CD cover

d: Stefan Bucher

For the English electronica duo Solar Twins’ (David Norland and Joanna Stevens) cover

of the Clash’s “Rock the Casbah,” Stefan Bucher designed an image that was more sci-

fi than punk, more abstract than literal, and more enigma than illumination.

Flip-flop Rorschach

Flip-flop images

Flip-flop logos

Technological influencing tyopgraphy