One of our favorite collaborators is ‘Design and Purpose‘ Art Director, Alison Eddy. She brings very varied projects to our studio, including some really interesting magazine cover work. These visuals from Global Witness are examples of how image manipulation can transform some simple key photography into an impactive front cover visual message. NGOs often need to react quickly to events but face the obstacle of sourcing appropriate images and illustrations at short notice. Working together, combining our illustration and image manipulation skills with Alison’s art direction, we have been able to deliver editorially-driven images to tight deadlines, without compromising on either the quality of the visual or best-fit between visual and article.
Alison Eddy, Art Director, Design and Purpose:
“Sometimes a cover image, especially when it’s to head up a serious issue, needs to have a fairly literal visual solution. However, as any designer will know, photo libraries dealing with business or political issues, often have the ‘whiff of cheesy’ about them!
If the budget doesn’t stretch to a shoot, then using a retoucher can solve this issue. Knowing Piction Media is there allows me to imagine how images could be transformed.”
“So it becomes a bit like art directing a shoot, but with Matt behind a computer rather than a photographer behind a camera.
Sometimes retouched images can become over produced and loose a certain freshness. With a retoucher like Matt, who knows how to draw, it retains an authentic quality, even when the images aren’t scaled realistically.”
“Working together in this way means we can merge, rescale, remove or add sections to these found images, giving a more contemporary feel, whilst keeping the message strong and unmistakable”.
Ali Kay, 2010
