The A-Z of Visual Ideas

B

Building a bigger picture

An image built from a multitude of smaller elements is hugely arresting. The British photographer Arthur S. Mole created astonishing, giant images of American symbols, including the Liberty Bell and the Statue of Liberty made from photographs of up to 30,000 standing soldiers. Designers and artists have used everything from living flowers, Lego bricks and Rubik’s cubes to coloured paint pots, mugs of tea of different strengths, and even cars as building materials.

Ruth Adams,1984 book cover, 2006Cover design for George Orwell’s 1948 novel about the oppressive Big Brother state – the tyrant’s all-seeing eye is built ...