LIttle black and white images

September 3, 2019 8:41 PM

Following up this question about this poster I just framed, is there a specialized term for the small black and white images on the poster?
posted by ShooBoo to Writing & Language (4 answers total)

Best answer: The style is "line art" and collectively these look like examples of pre-electronic clip art.
posted by mbrubeck at 9:00 PM on September 3, 2019 [4 favorites]

If this is a reference catalogue for a museum exhibition, I would say these are thumbnail images.
posted by robcorr at 10:19 PM on September 3, 2019

Best answer: Definitely clip art. Dover is a company that still makes books of this stuff.
posted by jonathanhughes at 4:06 AM on September 4, 2019 [1 favorite]

These are examples of why clip art is called clip art -- you would physically clip it out of giant books to use it!
posted by DarlingBri at 10:03 AM on September 4, 2019 [1 favorite]