Last of Kress

Ahh ... punctuation ... the last bastion of civility. Seriously, though, it's interesting to think of punctuation in terms of visual "text."

In its traditional sense, punctuation is VERY important -- for those to whom it's important, that is. For instance, there's a clothing shop on S.C. 123 between Clemson and Seneca whose sign reads "Two Sister's Boutique." It drives me absolutely mad. I've taken pictures of it, and sent them to all my copy-editor nerd friends. They, too, are beside themselves. Did the owners commission the sign incorrectly? Did the sign hangers simply hang it wrong? Semiotically speaking, it drives me away from doing business with the place. As I said, ahh ... punctuation.

In terms of the punctuation of space, I had experience with this recently at my job as a copy editor/page designer at a newspaper. I'm A LOT better copy editor than I am page designer, and as such, I was having difficulty with a particular B-section cover that required, as all designs do, a dominant image. In this case, the image meant to be dominant was included with a story that also included a column signature (picture of the writer) and text boxes (with ancillary info). Since a column also occupied the entire left side of the page, I had but five columns left with which to work. To worsen matters, the secondary art (photo) on the page was a huge standalone (no accompanying story) depicting a pastor lighting the Easter flame. How could I make the dominant photo dominant while "taming" the flame photo?

I've always been one to follow the rules, so thinking outside the box spatially poses me a problem. As I puzzled over this particular problem, it occurred to me, "Hey, why does this flame photo need to take up the entire space it's allotted? Could it work with some 'air' around it?" I tried that, simply downsizing the photo and leaving about a 1/2- to 3/4-inch white "frame" around it. Suddenly, the dominant art was indeed dominant, and the flame -- with its fiery foreground and dark, solemn background, was "punctuated" by the space. I loved it, and I was pleased.