Moiré Index creates what is perhaps the first visual lexicon of moire patterns.
Carsten Nicolai is a visual and sound artist who’s new book Moiré Index from Die Gestalten creates what is perhaps the first visual lexicon of moire patterns.
A moiré pattern is an interference pattern created when two grids are overlaid at slightly different angles or when they have slightly different mesh sizes. Moiré patterns are often an undesired artifact of images produced by various digital imaging and computer graphics techniques, for example when scanning a halftone picture or ray tracing a checkered plane.
In graphic arts and prepress, the usual technology for printing full-color images involves the superimposition of halftone screens. These are regular rectangular dot patterns—often four of them, printed in cyan, yellow, magenta, and black. Some kind of moiré pattern is inevitable, but in favorable circumstances the pattern is “tight;” that is, the spatial frequency of the moiré is so high that it is not noticeable. In the graphic arts, the term moiré means an excessively visible moiré pattern. Part of the prepress art consists of selecting screen angles and halftone frequencies which minimize moiré. The visibility of moiré is not entirely predictable. The same set of screens may produce good results with some images, but visible moiré with others.
Nicolai’s body of music engages the blips, bleeps, and static of data being visualized, sometimes through automation. He carried this interest into a series of published work categorizing the artifacts of visual data representation. Moiré Index methodically —and obsessively— sorts through the variety of moires patterns to deliver a comprehensive reference point for the patterns.
Old Ink: The Yellow Book
An original printing of 'The Yellow Book', 1894
I have been interested in The Yellow Book, a legendary late-Victorian literary magazine, since my introduction to the work of Aubrey Beardsley. I found a coffee table book of his illustrations in my childhood home many years ago, and still credit the first hour I spent pouring over its pages as my biggest influence in developing a graphic design style.
Beardsley’s refined lines and balance of space and use of contrast are extraordinary. His work manages to be simultaneously both innovative and classic. The Yellow Book began, as legend has it, during a conversation between Beardsley and Henry Hartland, an American expatriate (who was the magazine’s literary editor) on a foggy New Year’s day in 1894.
The magazine became instantly distinct for its nearly complete separation of literary and visual content. It was also notorious for its association with sinful content, which derive from other associations of the time with racy French novels bearing yellow jackets, and with some lines referencing “yellow books” in Oscar Wilde texts.* Wilde himself was associated with the magazine, largely because he was friendly with Beardsley (who had illustrated his Salomé the year previous to The Yellow Book’s first appearance). Wilde was reportedly seen clutching a yellow book at the time of his infamous arrest. Beardsley served as art editor and designer for The Yellow Book but was dismissed after the fifth issue, for his association with Oscar Wilde. It is widely believed, and I will have to concur, that the quality declined after Beardsley’s departure.
It is safe to say that in the world of lit mag history, The Yellow Book held the place that McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern does today. The simple fact that it was founded a solid 104 years earlier makes it a must-see for lovers of all independent publications. The letterpress pages make the words and pictures notably sharp and vivid. The Yellow Book’s exquisite design and and ground breaking content make it a very significant player in the history of independently published books and magazines.
All 13 volumes of The Yellow Book are available for viewing at archive.org. Many academic and well established public libraries hold complete collections of the originals.
Interior illustration
Cover design for The Yellow Book
*An Ideal Husband and The Picture of Dorian Grey