J. C. Leyendecker is one of the key players in modern advertising, though few have heard his name. Working with Cluett, Peabody, and Company (the makers of Arrow collars), Leyendecker proposed not just one ad, but an entire campaign. He helped them work out the look and feel of the “Arrow man” and demonstrated the power of branding. This image is one of the Arrow collar ads, and it shows an emphasis not on the shirt or collar itself, but instead on an ideal. The ideal is that of the upper-class American man, at the same time masculine and refined.
Ideals are abstract, though. Let’s look at how he constructs this image to communicate that ideal.
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I picked this one for several reasons, one of which is that I plan to analyze artwork from around DA in addition to other sources. Though I don’t plan to only do my friends I thought I’d start with one of Adam’s because he is a friend and because he’s helped me immensely with my own work. Mainly, though, I picked this one because it’s fun and made me laugh when I first saw it (for all the right reasons).
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This is the cover for the issue of Fables titled “The Last Castle,” a prestige issue that tells the story of Boy Blue’s last stand against the forces of the Adversary as the fables were driven out of the Homelands. Fables is a great comic that uses characters from classic fairy tales. Shown here are Boy Blue (grown up from the Little Boy Blue nursery rhyme) and Red Riding Hood on the horse. The goblins are the army of the Adversary.
I picked this image partly because it’s a nice example of a conceptual illustration. It’s not showing just one specific scene but rather combines three scenes to give an overall sense of story. That’s a technique I’d like to work on and improve.
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This is the first in a series of analyses of various illustrations. I want to look at the nuts and bolts of these pictures to see what makes them work. It’s not enough to vaguely talk about “bold linework” or “lush textures” – why is the linework bold? What do the lush textures accomplish?
Canto VII of Dante’s Inferno begins with Dante and Virgil descending to the fourth circle of Hell – the Hoarders and Wasters. Plutus, a Roman god of wealth recast here as a demon rises to block their way. The wood engraving, done in 1870, is by Gustave Doré from Dante’s Divine Comedy: Hell, Purgatory, Paradise.
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