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Imagery · Photographic

Straight photography

Documentary, portrait or product photography.

A design choice in Stylogeny’s vocabulary, under imagery: what kind of pictures, if any?

styles make it: 95
as a defining choice: 13
as a usual one: 40
now and then: 42
avoid it: 136

Styles defined by it 13

For these styles it is one of the choices that make the style.

Nippon Kōbō & Tōhōsha Photo-Propaganda Magazines (NIPPON & FRONT)1933–1945 · East AsiaLuxury photo-propaganda magazines that imperial Japan sent abroad, 1934–45.
Fotoromanzo (Italian Photo-Romance)1947–present · Southern Europe, Western Europe, Latin America & CaribbeanThe photo-romance of the Italian women's weeklies: a melodrama told in staged photographs, first printed by Il mio sogno and Bolero Film in May 1947 and copied from France to Brazil.
Drum Magazine & Sophiatown Photojournalism1951–1965 · Sub-Saharan AfricaThe picture magazine of Black urban Africa in the 1950s.
Hipgnosis Photographic Concept Sleeve1968–1983 · Western EuropeThe sleeves the London studio Hipgnosis made for Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Genesis, Peter Gabriel, 10cc and others from 1968 to 1983.
ECM Sleeve Aesthetic (Munich)1969–present · Central EuropeThe cover language of the Munich label ECM, made since 1970 by Barbara Wojirsch, Dieter Rehm and later Sascha Kleis and Mayo Bucher with co-founder Manfred Eicher.
Roots Reggae Sleeve Art & Rasta Iconography1973–1985 · Latin America & Caribbean, Western EuropeThe record sleeves of roots reggae, from Catch a Fire (1973) until dancehall took over in the 1980s.
Lebanese Civil War Party Poster1975–1990 · Middle East & North AfricaThe posters that some twenty parties and militias pasted on the walls of Beirut and other towns between 1975 and 1990, marking each quarter as one faction's territory.
ACT UP & Gran Fury AIDS Activist Graphics1987–1995 · North AmericaThe graphics of New York's AIDS activist movement: the SILENCE=DEATH poster of 1987, a pink triangle above white capitals on black, and the posters, stickers, T-shirts, billboards and bus ads of Gran Fury (1988–1995), ACT UP's 'unofficial propaganda ministry'.
Ghanaian Funeral Poster & Banner1990–present · Sub-Saharan AfricaThe printed death announcements of southern Ghana, also found elsewhere in West Africa: colour posters, mostly A2, pasted on walls, trees, poles and vehicles, and by the mid-2010s large PVC banners hung at the family house.
Slow-Living Editorial (the Kinfolk Look)2011–present · North America, Northern Europe, Global / networkedThe look of Kinfolk, the slow-living quarterly founded in Portland in 2011 and run from Copenhagen since 2015, and of the indie lifestyle titles and Instagram feeds that copied it.
DTC 'Blanding' / Millennial Minimalism2012–2022 · North America, Global / networkedThe friendly, frictionless minimalism of 2010s direct-to-consumer start-ups, built for the phone screen, the Instagram feed and the unboxing.
Plain Tobacco Packaging2012–present · Oceania, Western Europe, Northern Europe, North America, Global / networkedA packaging language written into law to strip tobacco of persuasion.
'Good Morning' Greeting Images (WhatsApp Forward Vernacular)2013–present · South Asia, Latin America & CaribbeanThe ready-made greeting pictures that millions of smartphone users, many of them older and new to the internet, forward to family, friends and groups each morning on WhatsApp, above all in India and Brazil.

Styles that often use it 40

A characteristic choice: usual in these styles, though not essential.

Styles that use it now and then 42

An occasional choice in these styles.

It often goes with

Choices that the styles making it make more often than the atlas as a whole.

Grotesque & neo-grotesquein 55 of 95
Photomontagein 38 of 95
Offset printingin 60 of 95
Rules & barsin 40 of 95
Treated photographyin 34 of 95
Rectilinearin 43 of 95

Styles that avoid it

Styles that deliberately leave it out.

Other choices in imagery