portraits

I've had this postcard of the artist Bridget Riley for ages and it's perhaps one of my favourite photographic portraits. It was taken in 1964 by Jorge Lewinski and is part of the National Portrait Gallery's collection in London. What I really like about this portrait is the way the image has been structured. Riley is placed in the background of the image in front of one of her paintings. At first you don't notice the t-square in the foreground but it cleverly leads the eye towards the artist and gives the impression of slight reticence, despite her confident gaze. It's a very graphic image which corresponds with Riley's 'op art' paintings.
Another favourite piece of graphic design is this Japanese pamphlet for Godard's 60s film Alphaville. A film still of Anna Karina has been beautifully enhanced by the introduction of a rectangle of blue to her face. The same colour is then used to highlight text further down.
I love the simple design of both these images and they are definitely a couple of my design benchmarks.