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09.04.09
Dead Trees

Illustration magazine Varoom recently asked johnson banks’ creative director Michael Johnson to nominate a compelling image as part of a series chosen by designers and art directors. His choice is discussed below.

Name of chosen work
‘Tote Bäume’ (Dead Trees) poster,
by Swiss designer Niklaus Troxler (shown above)
 
Name of Artist
Niklaus Troxler
 
Date of image
1992
 
Why did you choose this image?
There are two designers whose line-based work I've always loved, Shigeo Fukuda and Troxler. I could choose virtually anything by either of them, but these bloodied tree stumps have always got me. Fukuda himself said of this poster that it was ‘a requiem to our silent planet’.
 
What is its most important quality?
I've always loved the way that with just three colours, some wobbly-lined illustrations, and no type, Troxler created such a powerful way to illustrate the plight of the environment. Deeply minimal, deeply moving.
 
How would you describe your taste in imagery?
For years I’ve loved photography, perhaps less so now. But I’ve got no time for illustration that looks like illustration - the effect of all that ‘wine-bar-graphics’ from the 80s still fills me with horror.
 
Who are your favorite image makers?
It would have to be the classic photographers like Irving Penn...

and Robert Frank...

But Fletcher and Chermayeff's collages, Fukuda and Troxler? Perhaps I'm more drawn to illustration than I thought...
 
Photography or illustration?
20 years ago, photography. No contest. But now? Photoshop seems to have (paradoxically) removed photography's element of surprise. I think we’re now in a culture of anything goes, and a culture where the lines between illustrator, artist design and photographer are increasingly (and happily) blurred.

Issue 9 of Varoom Magazine is out now and is dedicated to illustrative type

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