Links: A Shadow of a Letter is Cast

• April 24, 2009
  6 Comments // Links

Without intention, the design half of this week’s links are all strongly typographic. I’ve been wondering of late what weight good typography holds in good graphic design. If what is shown here is any indication, it’s must be the majority of the work, no? But then there’s the art, with which the typography has something to play off and reflect. Hmmm. Ponderings aside, enjoy this week’s links!

Good Designers Ask "Why?"

• April 20, 2009
  59 Comments // Working Life

Asking the simplest of questions can debunk the oddest of requests. Asking Why? means those requesting the questionable must stand tall and proud and explain with certainty why they make their request. If they cannot answer, then it proves it was on a whim and probably worth ignoring. If they answer well, then chances are there is something beautiful-in-reason to be found in the answer.

As designers, we provide a service. Ok, nothing revolutionary in that statement. We’re service providers. Clients come to us with a problem, we perform the service of giving them a solution. Right? Right. Hmmm.

A problematic mind set …
is that we are nothing more than button pressers

A problematic mind set that has infectiously attacked many of our brothers and sisters of design is that we are nothing more than button pressers. An easily found conclusion. After all, when clients come to us for something, we must give it to them, that’s our role as, all together now, service providers. They want – we give.

The client, or some of the nastier ones, think along these lines, but aren’t stopped by the cure carrying designer. They demand we do it their way. And that’s fine. What isn’t fine is when the designer doesn’t question the decisions. Because when you, the designer, doesn’t question and just acts, then you simply become an interface that sits dumbly between the client and the software. You know the magic buttons to press, you have the software and the large monitor. Apparently this makes a designer.

You simply become an interface that sits
dumbly between the client and the software

The best part of doing so is that these types of designers later bitch and moan the loudest. The job looks awful! My client is an idiot! Why, oh why do I get the bad ones? Wah wah wah.

Don’t be one of these stooges. Just don’t, it’s stupid and a waste of your talent and time. The only difference between the self-loathing Mac operator and the happy and successful designer, who have both had their suggestions ignored, who both have clients who push them to develop shitty work—work the client loves and the designer loathes—is a simple questions. Why?

The good designer will always ask Why?

Links: Craft within the strokes

• April 16, 2009
  Nil Comments // Links

The wing of a bird flutters, as the spoke of a wheel twirls, while the clouds of a wall float past a beast on a table and landscapes of fog mist. All this and other wankery phrases turned in this week’s links! Oh, and a healthy dose of beautiful type! Can’t forget the lovely letters.

Real World Grunge Type

• April 13, 2009
  12 Comments // Typography

In this feature-length article Grunge Type is looked at a little more thoroughly than most who employ such fonts would think to do. While there isn’t anything wrong with type that has been beaten and broken, there is definitely an issue with most of the fonts that are put under this category. Let’s have a look at how to do it well and how to give your headings real world grunge character.

In theory, grunge fonts are lovely things, aren’t they?

They can be used to help give a feeling of tangibility—this piece of text, these words and their message have gone through hell to meet us. Through their beaten but still standing shapes they give a sense of longevity, all while having an air of the modern to them.

The real charm of these cracked letters is a result of our ever refined culture—the computer affords the designer the ability to make all the lines straight, all the circles perfect. Yet here are these forms that aren’t clean and neat and shiny. They serve as a break from our gloss screens and polished metal. They’re almost organic in a sense.

Or at least that’s their goal – to look as if they exist outside of the realm of pixels and vectors. If the computer makes things perfect, the real world gives it character. And this is what grunge fonts try to achieve – a sense of character and charm.

Too bad that this is almost never truly the case.

Links: Olivetti & Bold Type

• April 9, 2009
  2 Comments // Links

Graphic design and those creative souls who linger behind the elements of it are, at it’s core, fun, aren’t they? Graphic Design is quirky. It’s clever and it makes the world around us a better place to be in. This week’s links are a small showcase of the fun people have had in their work, from the quirky cards of King Popcorn, the still brilliant posters for Olivetti to the workspaces where creative wonders are produced and the advertising that leads us to the places where the seeds of our skills are planted.

Reimagining Nineteen Eighty-Four

• April 6, 2009
  14 Comments // Graphic Design

George Orwell’s masterpiece, Nineteen Eighty-Four, is a piece of literary work that few are ignorant of. Yet after a bit of time looking at different covers designed since its first edition, I began to think that there weren’t many that felt like true reflections of the original.

George Orwell’s masterpiece, Nineteen Eighty-Four, is a piece of literary work that few are ignorant of.

A chilling story of a world at war where all information, culture and, to a terrifyingly easy extent, ideas are controlled by the Thought Police from their Ministry of Love—it’s a lot worse than it sounds—under the law of a strict ruler – Big Brother and his totalitarian regime. We focus on Winston, a man of no importance in this alternate world of 1984, whose purpose is to alter records as to better reflect the current politcal mood of the party.

When the designer includes a subtle reference
or link it’s always a delight

While the covers of books don’t have to represent exact moments or ideas contained within the pages they cover (there’s a saying about it, I believe), when the designer includes a subtle reference or link it’s always a delight. When the cover makes more and more sense the deeper your understanding of the story becomes, it begins to become an inside joke between you and the block of paper in front of you.

This doesn’t really happen with many, if any at all, of the covers of this classic novel. There seems to be something lacking for most of the covers designer for Nineteen Eighty-Four since it’s original writing, which is surprising given its popularity and position within literary history.