Presence: The Invisible Portrait Book Design

Presence, The Invisible Portrait is a counter-intuitive, conceptual, and thoroughly entertaining take on the search for celebrity. Photographer Chris Buck hides his famous subjects without the use of digital manipulation in this perverse take on power portraits. The book features fifty sittings, including Robert De Niro, Günter Grass, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Chuck Close, Cindy Sherman, Russell Brand, Snoop Dogg, Nick Cave and David Lynch. I kept the design the out-of-the-way to let the concept and the photos take center stage. This was translated in to the design by creating a repeating cadence of a simple white left page with the witness statement where the name of the witness was written by hand, the celebrities name was type set and the witness signature written at the bottom. This provided a repeating visual structure that grounded the design by giving it the constant of the repeating witness statement with the uniqueness of the hand written name, signature of the witness, the celebrity name and photograph changing in each layout.

 

The book has been written up in Wired, Huffington Post, GQ Magaine, London Telegraph, New York Magazine, Toronto Standard, Los Angeles Magazine, CoolHunting, Nowness, Fast Company Design, LA Magazine and Photo District News.