Make an object black. Apply black to an object.

Black objects are formal, foreboding, somber, and/or mysterious. Most people associate black with death or (perhaps not unrelated) with formal dress. It’s the night and the darkness of an abyss or void. Blackness steals light. It’s a gothic celebration of gloom. Blackening plays on fear. Think of the sinister, E-minor chord and lyrics for the Rolling Stones Paint It Black.

Following the death of lead singer Bon Scott in 1980, ACDC released Back in Black. Dedicated to Scott, it became the band’s best selling album (49 million copies). The record cover is appropriately (if not infamously and predictably) black and features spare typography—the band’s logo in thin, white outline and the album name in Times Roman capitals.

Back in Black album cover. Bob Defrin (Art Director), 1980.

In the photo essay “A Winter Tale” from 2wice magazine, one member of the Parsons Dance Company is provocatively “blackened”, in stark contrast to the other dancers (who are “whitened”) and the snowy landscape in which he’s photographed. Nancy Dalva of 2wice writes:

“What is this darkling creature who creeps among us, eyes aglow? Benign? Malign? Predator? Protector? Make of him what you will, whenever your eyes close, his open. Aprowl between conscious and subconscious, waking and sleeping, he’s the man of our dreams.”

Photo from “A Winter Tale”, 2wice magazine. Abbott Miller (Designer), 2003.

Lessen detail and/or edge definition in an object.

Blurring mimics the limits of our depth perception. Blurred objects appear far away or separated from the viewer by a translucent plane. The fuzziness of a blurred image evokes the haze of being drunk or dizzy.

The Fuzzy Clock. Tibor Kalman (M&Co), 1984

The implications of blurring are generally negative (unfocused, unclear, receding, lessened, obfuscated, abstracted), though blurring one object can bring heightened focus to another, as in this book cover from Mucca:

Book cover design, Mao by Philip Short. Mucca Design, 2007

Create an array of repeated objects.

Patterns are pleasing because they represent order and multitude simultaneously. They provide hope that reason and complexity can coexist. They are to design what assonance is to poetry—rudimentary and repetitive. We are used to seeing patterns, and there are patterns we are used to seeing. Take this one, created in 1896:

Louis Vuitton monogram pattern. Georges Vuitton, 1896.

We’ve all seen this particular pattern enough to know what it is and what it represents. In fact, it represents quality to such a degree that it’s widely copied and counterfeited.

I’ve long admired these patterns created by Doyle Partners for Champion International Corporation. The handmade quality, exquisite colors, and stochastic printing set them apart from other patterns (and design work) of their time.

Patterns from a paper promotion for Champion International Corp. Doyle Partners, 1997.

The Doyle Partners patterns are reminiscent of those found in the pattern treasure trove that is Owen Jone’s Grammar of Ornament. I can’t recommend enough that every designer own a copy of this book.