The Broadside

            Broadsides are a challenge to define, as through the years they have come to take on many shapes and purposes.  These single sheets of paper have allowed for the proliferation of ideas during both religious and political reformations and revolutions.  They have been a staple in the news world since the development of the printing press made printing quick and accessible to the general population.  From Martin Luther’s 95 Theses to wanted posters, broadsides have offered a platform for all sorts of announcements no a printed, sharable sheet of paper.  However, in the years since, broadsides have been able to take on a much more artistic function.  Utilized to present stories or poems in a more graphic format, broadsides have allowed for interactions between visual representations of the piece to play as important of a role in the experience of the piece, sharing the attention and significance of the words.  With all these varying functions, it can be difficult to come up with a set definition of what a broadside actually is.  The article we were assigned as reading approached the broadside as a means of conveying almost any type of information, and then went on to list the multitude of ways this is done, from “Typographic Poetry,” to “Integrating Display Type” where the text is incorporated into the image itself.

            Allowing for this sort of creativity in expression has a great deal of advantages artistically when creating a broadside.  One of the most obvious is in the use of a broadside as a means to convey information.  For example, in using a broadside, a person can manipulate fonts, text size, colors, and images in order to be more attention grabbing.  This could be particularly beneficial is public service announcements, posters for events or bands, and campaign posters.  Sometimes, this can even come into play when addressing the concept of art as a means to reach the masses.  Examples can be the interplay of art and images in order to convey a message, such as “Meat is Murder.”  Approaching it from an artistic standpoint again, the use of broadsides allows for the manipulation of texts and images, even the presentation of the title or the layout of the words on the page, can contribute to the readers understanding and allow for greater liberty of interpretation.   I can apply these benefits to my own creative purposes in understanding that words have a physical presence on the page, and to limit myself to the bare minimum of what they can convey would be to put boundaries on the creative process that are not necessary in today’s society.  The way that people are exposed to both poetry and art because of the technological nature of our time allows for this medium to be particularly successful.  While broadsides are a very longstanding tradition, they exist in a new form in the digital world.  People do not spend as much time reading through texts as they used to, especially while just perusing the internet.  Broadsides can be contained to a single image that is attention grabbing and can be transferred to various mediums quickly, such as blogs to twitter to actual print.  The nuances in imagery and text manipulation can be highlighted and greatly appreciated through the zoom functions on phones and computers.  Broadsides are a timeless form of mass communication, whether of art or of literature, that has transcended seamlessly and successfully into the technological world.

            While this medium is exceptionally versatile, it can also be extremely limiting for the obvious reason of its length.  Broadsides are not a means to communicate large pieces of writing.  Novels, or even short stories of a certain length, can’t be translated into broadsides as the physicality of the words makes this simply impossible, and incorporating imagery or manipulation of text would be frivolous and only add space.  However, the experience and understanding of broadsides can translate well into this medium in the ways of certain skills.  For example, while a novel could never be a broadside, the skills in creating a broadside could lend to designing a cover or understanding the simple affect that proper font selection can have in even chapter headings and page layout.  While the broadside is not appropriate for every piece of literature, it can translate well into many different fields of study that are contingent upon the skills developed in the creation.

            Approaching broadsides has opened the door for me in understanding literature as a visual art.  I enjoyed creating my own broadsides, because it gave me liberty to work with font and style in ways that I have previously been unexposed.  Writers by nature are lovers of words, and thus I have always been appreciative of the way that a font can convey the connotation of a word and change the mood of a text entirely.  I have become much more interested in the visual representation of pieces in that aspect the most.  While I’m not an entirely artistic person as far as images and drawings are concerned, exploring the way a word or series of words in a piece is physically placed and designed has been a pleasure in the study of broadsides.  I would love to explore further into the creation of the extremely similar broadsides of a few words to convey a message—such as the “Meat is Murder” example previously mentioned.  Where would this be most applicable in our day and age now that posters are no longer a very popular means of mass communication, and how would I be able to utilize that in the future of my career?