Friday, January 11, 2013

What's This Effect Called?

There's a "floating" effect that occurs when one solid block of color is drawn inside another block of solid color that clashes with it in a certain way. One famous example of this is this album cover for the punk band The Adolescents:


 Another example is the album cover for The Waitresses "Bruiseology":


The '80s offered a lot of this sort of thing, but let's not leave it in the past. It's a legitimate art effect that I enjoy and would like to experiment with. BUT WHAT IS IT CALLED? My love of classic punk and new wave brought me to the above examples by chance. When I actually try to describe and search for the effect, to find photo references, all sorts of other things pop up --"3D color effects" brings up anaglyphs and Disney Pixar type renderings, while "clashing colors" displays tints that look garish together without any special floating properties...

If there's another term for it, let me know, but I'm coining the term HOVERGLYPHS to name images that exemplify this property. There's a neat obscure font called "Hoverglyphs," too, but that's such a narrow use for the term and I can't come up with anything better, so hopefully we can share.

Here's my attempts at hoverglyph effects in some Spook Show cards.:


Have you seen any hoverglyphs lately? What colors can YOU think of that go together to produce hoverglyphs?

Hoverglyphs.

2 comments:

  1. Nice! Would green and yellow do this, too?
    BECCA

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  2. Yes, depending on the shade. That combination isn't as attractive, though.

    -Chrissy

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