Emanate an object or objects from a given point.

Radiating evokes the sun—rays issuing forth from an essential center. It evokes the wheel—spokes joined at a central hub. It evokes pilgrimage and adoration. The center of a radiation is powerful and primary.

To radiate is show dynamic release or undeniable attraction. It is to show that the rays themselves have a central theme, a commonality. They come from the same source. And they are rays—they point to their source—even while moving away from it.

A. This Caslon ornament is a basic “radiate” illustration—simple graphic lines indicate the sun’s rays while drawing attention toward the facial features at the center. B. An asterisk (literally, tiny star). C. Minimal, radiating strokes representing a blinking light. D. Short, radiating strokes in perspective (and contained) representing radioactivity. (A = Adobe Caslon Pro; B = Zapf Dingbats; C and D = Apple Symbols)

Typographic radiation can be very effective for all of the reasons outlined above. In this example by Futurist Fortunato Depero, the center becomes highly charged by the typographic rays, and the rays in turn are unified by their core.

Detail of a page from Depero Futurista. Fortunato Depero, 1927.

The cunning typographic rays in this example shout from the mouth of the diva (Jennifer Lewis) while simultaneously forming an “X”—thus, diva + dismissed.

Poster for The Diva is Dismissed (Public Theater, New York). Paula Scher, 1994.

This 1948 wheel-chart from MFA Feeds, correlates weight, market value, and interest for various farm products. While the radiating lines help the user to connect values represented on the outside of the disk with those on the inside, they also act as repetitive pointers to the MFA Feeds company mark at the center.

Wheel diagram from Jessica Helfand’s amazing collection, Reinventing the Wheel. Princeton Architectural Press, 2006.

Here radiating lines of type represent the feathers of the ungrateful peacock, complaining to Juno about its sorry voice.

Page from Marc Chagall: Fables of La Fontaine, design by [sic]. New Press, 1997.

 

Detail from Marc Chagall: Fables of La Fontaine.

And here are a host of radiating graphics from Penguin books: two explosions, a four-leaf emanation, bombs for a halo, and humans at the center of their environment.

(top row) Penguin cover design: The Rebel, Albert Camus; Nuclear Reactions, W.M. Gibson; and Orbitals and Symmetry, D.S. Urch. (second row) Penguin cover design for Nick Cave’s And the Ass Saw the Angel and an interior spread from McLuhan & Fiore’s The Medium is the Message. (from Phil Baine’s excellent book, Penguin by Design. Penguin, 2005.)

And despite what this design intimates, for the expectant parent the central focus is not the proper pram (or the company that makes it).

Cover design for Baby Jogger catalog, 2009

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