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Sempé Fi: Cover Art
Sempé Fi: Lumino-city
Filed under: Sempé Fi Tagged: art, covers, iPod, Jorge Colombo, New York City, Pollux
Pollux writes:
Jorge Colombo’s new cover, “Night Lights,” for the November 16, 2009 issue of The New Yorker, is as much about negative space as it is about positive space. The blackness and void of nighttime occupies most of the cover; the rest is filled with dots, blots, and rectangles of white and colored light.
Colombo has become a magician with his iPod-created covers. He creates visions of New York City, giving us new versions of it through the filter of his Brushes application. He gives us atmosphere rather than a literal depiction. We already know what the city looks like. Colombo tells us what the city is.
His New York is not just a city of light. It is a city entirely composed of light. Amidst the negative space of the night, lights unconnected to one another create a pattern, like a constellation in the night sky. Colombo’s cover is a collection of street lights, stop lights, office lights, building lights, and car lights.
His illuminations vary in size, strength, and color. His lights do not have boundaries; they radiate and emit indistinct glows that seem to pulse like the radii of a giant red star or the corona of the sun. His lights are blurred by nighttime, by weather, by movement, and by distance.
Colombo’s New York City is beautiful, unburdened by the mass and gravity of solid structures. During the night, the city is pure light. And then day comes, and we must face, and see, the solidness of reality.
About us
Hello! We're a small band of media enthusiasts, culture addicts, and journalists based in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Emdashes, formerly a New Yorker fan site, is our collection of conversations—mostly civilized—about magazines, movies, politics, design, punctuation, and other things that stir us.
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Tell me more
Dashes, some say, “are particularly useful in a sentence that is long and complex.” Emdashes—like an em dash itself—provides a thoughtful pause amid the hubbub.
Emdashes, founded in 2004, is written and drawn by Emily Gordon, Martin Schneider, Pollux, Jonathan Taylor, and Benjamin Chambers, as well as occasional guest contributors. All posts before October 2008 are by Emily Gordon.
The site was designed by House of Pretty with illustrations by Jesse R. Ewing.
Additional drawings are by Carolita Johnson and Pollux (author of our web comic, "The Wavy Rule"). The Emdashes pencil logo is by Jennifer Hadley, based on a 1943 Dorothy Gray ad.
Other writing by Emily Gordon
- Writing on theater: reviews (for Time Out Chicago; imperfect but workable search results)
- Profile: Valerie Casey, Designers Accord founder, is spearheading the design of sustainability (for SXSW World)
- Feature: Rea Irvin: visionary art director, bon vivant, New Yorker founding father (for Print)
- Slide show: the Coney Island Mermaid Parade (for NYCgo.com)
- Feature: Muslim immigration iconography in the Netherlands, and an interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali (for Print)
- Review: King's Gambit: A Son, a Father, and the World's Most Dangerous Game by Paul Hoffman (for Newsday)
- Homage: Celebrating lindy-hop legend Frankie Manning (for NYCgo.com)
- Inquiry: Does a New Republic redesign mean a change of tune? (for Print)
- Interview: James Surowiecki on what's next for the wisdom of crowds (for Assignment Zero)
- Interviews: four up-and-coming designers under 30 (for Print)
- Profile: novelist and dance critic Laura Jacobs (for Newsday)
Blogroll highlights
- Box Office Boffo
- World of Pollux
- Jonathan Taylor
- Carolita Johnson
- Songs for blogroll lovers (more links)
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Comments
Thank you for the lovely article about Jorge Colombo’s “Night Lights”. But I went to the bottom of the essay to learn more about EMDASH, and I’m unable to read ANY of the captions that are printed in white on a bright yellow background. Surely I am not the only reader with this problem, not will I be the last. Will you please, please correct this captions problem?
Hi Mona, I’m sorry this issue is occurring for you. It should be light green at the bottom of the Emdashes website. Have you tried adjusting your monitor? I’m also looking into this issue on our end.