Sunday 13 January 2008

Yog Aasan Ate Tandrusti





I found this Indian yoga manual in a charity shop last year. I'm sure that to the designer, the moiré patterns, horrendous misregistration, atrociously uneven blacks and smudged type were entirely unwelcome adjuncts to his work, but to me they all contribute to a charming piece of vernacular art. The layouts have clearly been arrived at entirely by eye, and the decision to present the various yoga positions as cut-outs is an intriguing one, in which the figure is used purely as an exercise in composition.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Some of those poses are truly distressing. Is the wording underneath just cut and paste. I like how the layout seems to have no grid to it whatsoever.

Paul Pensom said...

Those are nothing: you should see page 58! Yes, it's all cut-and-past, including some labels that are black-on-black and disappear into the murky background. David Carson eat your heart out.