The Role of Humor

Readership surveys demonstrate the significance of humor in the field of visual communication.The reference is not principally to cartoon strip advertisements or to out-and-out gags, but to a more subtle variety, one indigenous to the design itself and achieved by means of association, juxtaposition, size relationship proportion, space, or special handling.

The visual message that professes to be profound or elegant often boomerangs as mere pretension; and the frame of mind that looks at humor as trivial and flighty mistakes the shadow for the substance. In short, the notion that the humorous approach to visual communication is undignified or belittling is sheer nonsense.This misconception has been discredited by those entrepreneurs who have successfully exploited humor as a means of creating confidence, goodwill, and a receptive frame of mind toward an idea or product. Radio and television commercials have made tremendous strides in the use of humor as a potent sales device. And, as an aid to understanding serious problems in war training, as an effective weapon in safety posters1, war bond selling, and morale building, humor was neglected by neither government nor civilian agencies in time of war.

1. Printers’ Ink, December 28, 1946.

Stressing the profound effects of entertainment, Plato, in The Republic, declares: “Therefore do not use compulsion, but let early education be rather a sort of amusement.” The arts of ancient China,2 India, and Persia reflect a humorous spirit in the design of masks, ceramics, and paintings. American advertising in its infancy also demonstrated this tendency toward humor in, for example, the cigar store Indian and the medicine man. That humor is a product of serious contemporary thought is revealed in the significant paintings and sculptures by, for instance, Picasso, Miró, Ernst, Duchamp, Dubuffet. “True humor,” says Thomas Carlyle, “springs not more from the head than from the heart; it is not contempt, its essence is love, it issues not in laughter, but in still smiles, which lie far deepen”

2. Roger Fry, “Some Aspects of Chinese Art, Transformations, 79 81.

Advertisers of pharmaceuticals, more circumspect than others, use the light touch of humor for its soothing and profitable results.

The kind of humor expressed by the “Dubonnet man” (originated by Cassandre) is inherent in the design itself. The funny face and general attitude seem to suggest rather than to illustrate a quality of conviviality. To adapt this figure for an American audience, the problem was to impart this same spirit without altering the original visual conception.