In terms of content, this thesis takes inspiration from both historic and contemporary published works. These influences either work with poetry in order to create an appealing visual or have created visuals for a selected text.
Historically, the use of poetry with visuals has been done with a focus on the typographic effects. Calligrams and concrete poems border the line of visuals arts as they use words and letters to create pictures related to the subject of the poem. Much like modern typography, these poems have a strong focus on the visual effects by using text. They aim to not look like regular poems, but rather as a picture that support the written words.
As this thesis deals with the integration of words and illustrations, it looks at these poems to understand how the visual usage of words influences the reader. Guillaume Apollinaire is a poet and art critic whose work “took the elements from drawing and writing and combined them into a single art form.” Apollinaire worked with the arrangement of letters to give meaning to his poems. In these arrangements, he not only played with the size of the typeface, but also with the style, often times choosing to use his own handwriting to create his images.
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The more contemporary influences come from published books that focus on the usage of poetry and illustrations. For instance, this thesis takes great inspiration from Rupi Kaur’s Milk and Honey. The illustrations found in Kaur’s book are simple and heavily focus on the use of line to create the image. As she explores a variety of dramatic themes ranging from love, loss, trauma, healing and more, these illustrations are raw and expressive in their line usage. Many of the illustrations and text in the book have a linear relationship, meaning that if a poem uses a specific noun the illustration may literally illustrate it.
In addition, many of the illustrations for Kaur’s book flow around the text closely but never touch it. However, it is Kaur’s illustrations and their proximity to the text on the page layout that have inspired this thesis to push words and images even closer. It also Kaur’s linear relationship with illustrations that makes this thesis push the lines of how the image and word can become closer in relation.
Content influence also comes from a modern graphic design group, called Wig-01, who created a book called Graphic Poetry. It is in this book where the there is a collaboration between words and image and the idea for this thesis was fully solidified. This book features the works of both graphic designers and poets. The designers were each tasked to visualize a given poem, many of which border the line of comprehensibility and ambiguity as they place a strong focus on the visual effects.
