22. O&J DESIGN, INC.
Dance is a wordless language. It engages the intellect by way of its inherently emotional nature. O&J Design’s 2001 identity system for Gina Gibney Dance—most recently used to promote the critically acclaimed 2003 debut of Thrown—mirrors this dynamic. “When we began working with Gina Gibney Dance,” says Barbara Olejniczak, “we wanted a typeface that was congruent with the movement behind it, so that there’s no separation. The photo and the words that appear with it should be as one.”

As Andrzej Olejniczak’s photographs of Gibney’s dancers interact with text, the reader experiences words emotionally, beyond the confi nes of their literal meaning. In the logo design, for example, the company’s name creates a square frame behind which photography sits, not obediently but with the sense that it might burst out at any moment—and the typographical frame, itself cropped at the edges, just might let it. Andrzej, whose modest claim that he’s not a photographer belies the quality of his work, shoots Gina Gibney’s dancers with a slow shutter speed. “When I pay attention to what’s happening in printed material for dance, it’s as if everybody is trying to steal the moment. Everything is frozen, and that’s not the nature of dance.” For him, the opportunity to represent movement through photography is otherworldly: “It’s like stepping into somebody’s dream.” Tiffany Meyers