Book Review: Olly Moss' "Silhouettes From Popular Culture"

- by Señor Editor, 7 November 2012

Time to class the joint up a little and look at some art! You may be familiar with a young man called Olly Moss, who's been making a name for himself in the art and design cirlces for some time now. If you haven't yet seen any of his art, his debut artbook "Silhouettes from Popular Culture" is a very pretty thing dedicated to one aspect of it: his very own take on the Victorian silhouette portraits, featuring some of his favorite characters from all over popculture.

I admit that before I received this book, all my familiarity with Olly Moss came from seeing some of the movie posters he designed, like the original trilogy Star Wars ones (shown below). This book however is dedicated solely to the cut-out silhouettes of characters you know from movies, games, comics, cartoons and more. It's a popculture nerd's wet dream.

Not related to the book, but we're showing them cause they're awesome. The twin suns of Tatooine as 3PO's eyes? The Cloud City as Fett's visor? The trees of Endor making up Vader's facemask? AWESOME. Now, back to Olly Moss' book!

Right. So now that you're up to speed on Moss' other works (you can see plenty more of all kinds of art he did over at his website or, if you're lucky, in an art gallery near you!), we can take a good look at "Silhouettes...".

First impressions on the book, before even opening it, is that's a really pretty thing. It's a small book, about 17x17cm, and Titan Books really made a great job with the way it's published. Fancy! Since this article is already gonna be image-heavy, get a better look at the cover right here (and you can buy it there, too - money well spent!).

Each page of features a single portait (although sometimes there's more: there's a page with every Bond actor and every Dr. Who, for example) of a cult character. They are all paper cut-outs, with varied level of detail (appropriate to the character portrayed), but it's incredible how recognizable all the simplified portraits are. You'll find yourself immediately telling who is who, if you're knowledgeable  enough (read: if you're a card-carrying geek).

Moss himself, in his foreword, challenges the popcult fanatics to figure out who is who, and I gotta say I got MOST of them. Few I have yet to place, but it's very fun figuring them out.

Most of the portraits are in black and white, but some of them have colour when it's needed to highlight an important piece of the character's look (like the Godfather above, or Cosby, with his brightly coloured sweater etc.). Sometimes the characters from the same source are paired on opposite pages, and sometimes there's a twist to the layout, like Pinokio's nose extending from one portrait to another. There's well over a hundred portraits here and Moss' nerdy site definitely shows, as they come from all different corners of popculture, from The Legend of Zelda to Dirty Harry.

The Victorian portait style of all these also lends itself well to showing what makes the characters we know from movies, tv etc. so recognizable and visually striking. They are all stripped down to the outlines of their profile and some basic elements of their wardrobe and yet somehow you can immediately place them without even having to take a good look and think about it. It's an interesting thing, to think about how it works and what defines those characters so well.

The simplicity of the whole concept behind this book is really striking. It's very ogirinal, it totally works and it's a joy to look at. Since I got this book and browsed through it for the first time, I find myself going back to it very often and admiring Moss' work.

Another good thing about "Silhouettes from Popular Culture"? It's one hell of a conversation starter. Just put that baby on your coffee table, let people check it out, and all the "Who is that?", "Oh, that's X from XYZ" talk begings, possibly leading to longer popculture conversations. Or not, depends on who your friends are. It worked for us, though.

I'm very happy I got this book. It's a real pretty thing, and Moss' art somehow manages to convey humour, personality and his many influences using the seemingly simplest tools. He's already an established name both as an artist and a designer, but I'm pretty sure "Silhouettes" will be a great gateway to his works for many people. And that's great, because he's an artist to keep an eye on.

If you weren't following all the links throughout this article (shame on you!), here's all the essential linking you need:  You can buy the book straight from the publisher's website right here, and to check out all the different art and projects by Olly Moss, go to his official website. You can also follow him on Twitter.

Tagged: books, art, Reviews.

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