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Picture this
BOOKS & MEDIA UPDATE
From Bakelite to composite – design in new materials
Picture this
Design Museum Gent
Felice Frankel’s artful new book explains how to use images to communicate effectively while capturing the wonder of science, says Jeremy G. Frey.
Gent, Belgium
The history of the use of fiberreinforced materials in consumer products, and the influence of composites on design in the second half of the 20th century, are the subjects of this new exhibition. The stiffness, lightness, and freedom of shape that composite materials afford have made them a favorite of designers and engineers. Focusing on the use of composites in furniture, lighting, construction, cars, bikes, and sportswear, the exhibition includes a Ferrari, bullet-proof jackets, and an airplane. Until 23rd February.
Art in the making – underdrawings in Renaissance paintings National Gallery London, UK
Modern technology is allowing the preliminary drawings hidden beneath the surface of many paintings to be revealed. In this exhibition, images of these underdrawings are displayed next to important paintings from Renaissance Europe. The images, which are recorded digitally using infrared reflectography and processed by a computer program developed at the gallery, give fascinating insights into the way artists worked. Some paintings underwent dramatic changes of composition, and some workshops used tracings and stock patterns to produce replicas routinely. Works by Bruegel, Raphael, Altdorfer, Memling, and Crivelli are included. Until 16th February.
Homepage Felice Frankel’s webpages http://web.mit.edu/felicef/
These webpages are the place to find out about Felice Frankel’s use of images to communicate science effectively for different audiences. Frankel is a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), but also collaborates with scientists to create images for presentations and publications. Using some of her fantastic images, and web design that is easy on the eye, this site makes most other homepages an embarrassment. Contact details are not included.
As the author states in her introduction, Envisioning Science is about the kind of scientific image that communicates information effectively both to colleagues and to the general public. The amazing impact generated by the transition from a flat image used in a laboratory notebook to an image that captures the marvel of the phenomena, explains why this process is sometimes referred to as ‘Art’. Many of the images in the book could indeed grace the walls of a gallery, but they are not created at the whim of the photographer. They are honest interpretations of the results of scientific investigations, and are used to communicate the importance of the observations in a manner that truly fulfills the aphorism ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’. Envisioning Science explains how to achieve this marvel. Frankel’s work has appeared on the front cover of many of the world’s major journals. Her first book, On the Surface of Things, written with George Whitesides, gave us a glimpse of her abilities. The details of the techniques used to photograph these images were briefly given at the end of that book. In Envisioning Science, we find out much more about how Frankel works. There is a danger that readers of the book will think that the images are like those we see in cookery books – fantastic looking dishes that look much better on the page then we can ever get them to look in the kitchen! But this is just the book we need. We are shown how to make images that do not just look impressive, but serve the job of communicating the ideas or principles of the scientific research behind the object being photographed. With the advice of this book, and with practice, we should all be able to produce much better images of our work (even if not quite a superb as those shown). While the thrust of the book is about the use of photography through many different devices, the basics of picture making would apply equally well to both conventional photography and computer graphic creations. The photographic techniques covered in the
book include the direct use of a 35 mm camera, and photography through stereo- and compound microscopes to look at images down to the micron scale. There is a section on digitally altering images, for example coloring scanning electron microscope (SEM) images. The book also contains an interesting introductory chapter by Phylis Morrison giving a historical perspective. The final chapter has useful advice on how to keep and use your images. The shape of the book is unusual but the layout is friendly to the reader. The text refers to the relevant images in the conventional manner (e.g. figure 6.39); there are over three hundred images in the book’s 335 pages. The presence of the figure numbers on the left hand side of each page of text makes it easy to find the text relevant to any given image. This bi-directional link between the images and the text is further enhanced by the 30-page visual index in addition to a quite detailed conventional text index. Even the contents pages abound with colorful and dramatic images. The book is produced to a very high standard on high quality paper and a study binding; a very important aspect of a book that will be referred to frequently and used open in the laboratory. There are a number of exercises provided for Felice Frankel Envisioning Science: The Design and Craft of the Science Image (2002), The MIT Press, 335 pp., ISBN: 0-262-06225-9 $55 / £36.95
each of the main chapters to bring out some of the points made. These would also be useful if the book was being used as a course text. Such a course would certainly be a very useful addition to science graduate studies. This is a book full of amazing images and details of how to create them, showing how to present your own exciting observations as effectively as the examples. I recommend this book most highly to anyone who wants to know how to communicate their work visually. Jeremy G. Frey is a senior lecturer in chemistry at the University of Southampton, UK.
December 2002
59
From Bakelite to composite – design in new materials
Picture this
Design Museum Gent
Felice Frankel’s artful new book explains how to use images to communicate effectively while capturing the wonder of science, says Jeremy G. Frey.
Gent, Belgium
The history of the use of fiberreinforced materials in consumer products, and the influence of composites on design in the second half of the 20th century, are the subjects of this new exhibition. The stiffness, lightness, and freedom of shape that composite materials afford have made them a favorite of designers and engineers. Focusing on the use of composites in furniture, lighting, construction, cars, bikes, and sportswear, the exhibition includes a Ferrari, bullet-proof jackets, and an airplane. Until 23rd February.
Art in the making – underdrawings in Renaissance paintings National Gallery London, UK
Modern technology is allowing the preliminary drawings hidden beneath the surface of many paintings to be revealed. In this exhibition, images of these underdrawings are displayed next to important paintings from Renaissance Europe. The images, which are recorded digitally using infrared reflectography and processed by a computer program developed at the gallery, give fascinating insights into the way artists worked. Some paintings underwent dramatic changes of composition, and some workshops used tracings and stock patterns to produce replicas routinely. Works by Bruegel, Raphael, Altdorfer, Memling, and Crivelli are included. Until 16th February.
Homepage Felice Frankel’s webpages http://web.mit.edu/felicef/
These webpages are the place to find out about Felice Frankel’s use of images to communicate science effectively for different audiences. Frankel is a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), but also collaborates with scientists to create images for presentations and publications. Using some of her fantastic images, and web design that is easy on the eye, this site makes most other homepages an embarrassment. Contact details are not included.
As the author states in her introduction, Envisioning Science is about the kind of scientific image that communicates information effectively both to colleagues and to the general public. The amazing impact generated by the transition from a flat image used in a laboratory notebook to an image that captures the marvel of the phenomena, explains why this process is sometimes referred to as ‘Art’. Many of the images in the book could indeed grace the walls of a gallery, but they are not created at the whim of the photographer. They are honest interpretations of the results of scientific investigations, and are used to communicate the importance of the observations in a manner that truly fulfills the aphorism ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’. Envisioning Science explains how to achieve this marvel. Frankel’s work has appeared on the front cover of many of the world’s major journals. Her first book, On the Surface of Things, written with George Whitesides, gave us a glimpse of her abilities. The details of the techniques used to photograph these images were briefly given at the end of that book. In Envisioning Science, we find out much more about how Frankel works. There is a danger that readers of the book will think that the images are like those we see in cookery books – fantastic looking dishes that look much better on the page then we can ever get them to look in the kitchen! But this is just the book we need. We are shown how to make images that do not just look impressive, but serve the job of communicating the ideas or principles of the scientific research behind the object being photographed. With the advice of this book, and with practice, we should all be able to produce much better images of our work (even if not quite a superb as those shown). While the thrust of the book is about the use of photography through many different devices, the basics of picture making would apply equally well to both conventional photography and computer graphic creations. The photographic techniques covered in the
book include the direct use of a 35 mm camera, and photography through stereo- and compound microscopes to look at images down to the micron scale. There is a section on digitally altering images, for example coloring scanning electron microscope (SEM) images. The book also contains an interesting introductory chapter by Phylis Morrison giving a historical perspective. The final chapter has useful advice on how to keep and use your images. The shape of the book is unusual but the layout is friendly to the reader. The text refers to the relevant images in the conventional manner (e.g. figure 6.39); there are over three hundred images in the book’s 335 pages. The presence of the figure numbers on the left hand side of each page of text makes it easy to find the text relevant to any given image. This bi-directional link between the images and the text is further enhanced by the 30-page visual index in addition to a quite detailed conventional text index. Even the contents pages abound with colorful and dramatic images. The book is produced to a very high standard on high quality paper and a study binding; a very important aspect of a book that will be referred to frequently and used open in the laboratory. There are a number of exercises provided for Felice Frankel Envisioning Science: The Design and Craft of the Science Image (2002), The MIT Press, 335 pp., ISBN: 0-262-06225-9 $55 / £36.95
each of the main chapters to bring out some of the points made. These would also be useful if the book was being used as a course text. Such a course would certainly be a very useful addition to science graduate studies. This is a book full of amazing images and details of how to create them, showing how to present your own exciting observations as effectively as the examples. I recommend this book most highly to anyone who wants to know how to communicate their work visually. Jeremy G. Frey is a senior lecturer in chemistry at the University of Southampton, UK.
December 2002
59