Sugar
Text by Jim Coudal
It seems fitting somehow that the hulls of ships carrying raw sugar from the tropics, north through the Atlantic to the Jarvis Quay in Toronto, should be bright and cheerful. That, like those products that will be produced from their cargo, they should be the color of jawbreakers and soda cans, candy wrappers, and the sprinkles that dress the top of cupcakes. It’s also appropriate that they show signs of decay.
Marshall Sokoloff has captured a series of beautiful geometric photographs full of these colors and the rusty textures created by the sea bashing into steel. Interrupted by numerals indicating how high or low the ships ride in the water, or by fraying ropes, the shapes of the gently curving hulls extend beyond the rectangle of the frame on all four sides, compacting their three-dimensionality into powerfully concentrated two-dimensional compositions.
Sweet.
Jim Coudal runs a small creative studio in Chicago. Coudal Partners work for companies and they build companies, like Jewelboxing, The Deck and The Show, and
their studio site is a real productivity sucker. CP has been accused of doing nothing but following their whims to their logical or illogical conclusions. And they’re OK with that. For more on the company check this heartwarming story of courage and design,
“Copy Goes Here.”
» More by Jim Coudal
TODAY’S FEATURE
In times of respite, the mind settles, focusing on what’s really relevant. Here are the
TMN READERS’ AND WRITERS’ hot picks: the jam that fueled parties all summer long, the show we turned down the A/C to hear, and more.
Secret Service
Margaret Mason reports from 2004’s Democratic National Convention on giant paper cuts, political souvenirs, and how all those signs get together.
NEWSLETTER
More addictive than heroin, more challenging than Sudoku:
the TMN Map Quiz, delivered hot, fresh, and diabolical to your inbox every Friday.
» SIGN UP
DIGEST
David Byrne’s first collaboration with Brian Eno in 27 years: Eno calls it “electronic gospel”; we call it the sound of studio perfection.