Beautiful paragraph… how I love thee.

Inherent to layout and typographic design is the use of the paragraphs. Usually other layout elements such as headers, sub headers, captions, quotation marks, quotes, captions, margins, page numbers tend to get all the attention the designer has to spare. Sometimes this is due to the project requirements. In the case of web layouts it is due to browser support or lack thereof, and issues with legibility. A paragraph must be read. It is after all the reason paragraphs exist—to be read.

In its simplest definition a paragraph is a collection of lines placed on top of each other and neatly arranged within a certain width forming a nice looking rectangle. If you take a moment to think about it, a paragraph is either a horizontal rectangle or it is a vertical rectangle in the case of narrow columns. The importance of seeing form in a rectangle is what allows designers to create experimental layouts or even simple layouts with some anomalies that call our attention. Sometimes these anomalies are perhaps out denting the first line, changing to bold weight the first line, perhaps doing both of those things in a middle line, indenting few lines creating another rectangle in the negative space, and sometimes these rectangles can be placed in a diagonal creating interesting compositions.

A paragraph must be read. It is after all the reason paragraphs exist—to be read.

 

Was it honest?

I have a story to tell you. My friend who we shall refer to as Designer S, was hired by Agency Q. Creative Director L did not live up to his promises. That did not stop Designer S from coming up with ideas. Some time went by and one morning a brainstorm session occurred about seasonal promotion materials. Designer S got excited and while this idea was being considered for Designer S’s promo materials, Designer S decided to put the idea on the table. The idea was received with great warmth and positive feedback. Moments passed and a private conversation ensued. In the course of the conversation Designer S was let go just moments after sharing a good idea. Designer S was offered a “settlement” and a condition of never contacting Agency Q again. In shock and not sure of what was going on, Designer S remained quiet holding back the sense of embarrassment. Creative Director L packed Designer S’s things in boxes and was escorted outside. A month in a half or so goes by and Designer S through the wonders of the Internet, discovers Agency Q’s promotional materials. The materials clearly depicted Designer S’s idea. Needless to say, Designer S called a lawyer. Unfortunately, the lawyer said, there was nothing he could do because when the idea was shared, Designer S was on company time. Therefore any ideas discussed, brainstormed, and sketched were the intellectual property of Agency Q. In other words Agency Q was not liable. True enough Designer S acknowledged, but asked “Was it honest?”

 

Just how big is your “X”?

One of the advantages of teaching the basics of typography to new students is that I get to review and relearn the basics. There is always something new to learn. As students grow as designers the ability to distinguish among the visual clues to identify a typeface becomes second nature. Thus, reviewing terms, parts of the letter, type classification and others is always welcome. Among those visual clues, perhaps the most distinctive is what I like to call the “X” factor. The “X” factor is also called proportions. Simply put, the “X” factor is what determines the typeface’s proportions based on the size of the lowercase x from baseline to the meanline.

But before we go ahead and explain the concept of proportions, let’s define some terms. The baseline is the line where the letters rest horizontally. The meanline is the horizontal line created based on the size or proportions of the letter x of each typeface. This line is relative since it moves up or down according to the size of the letter x. There is also the capline, ascent line, and descent line. These lines are also relative to the typeface’s proportions based on the letter x of each typeface. In other words, the only constant line between different typefaces will be the baseline.

 

The Papyrus controversy

The other day a good friend of mine, Paul Bruski who is also a design professor at Iowa State University posted a link on Facebook with the tag “Every font has its day?” The link would direct you to a blog called Pr*tty Sh*tty and a open letter to James Cameron regarding the use of the font Papyrus for his recent movie Avatar. The letter was very well written, it was funny, and it stirred certain controversy among the commentators. I read several of the comments and among them, there was one that caught my attention. This comment asked for an explanation as to why those of us who are designers would call Papyrus a bad font. It seemed, according to the commentator that the ranting against Papyrus had no basis. As it happens, I am in the middle of preparing lectures for the classes I am teaching. One of these classes is Typography 1. While preparing my lectures it crossed my mind to write about the font Papyrus. However, I decided instead to write about two of the principles that help us designers identify a font or a typeface as good or bad.

So, what makes a typeface good or bad?

 

Meet Ryan Peterson… a music lover & designer

Hello world!

I have been away for a bit due to recovering from being sick, Christmas decorations and shopping, and grading my students’ projects. Now I am back and this time I wanted to write about a good friend who is a great designer as well. His name is Ryan Peterson. I met Ryan in the Fall of 1998. He was taking classes with me and I remember thinking “this guy is talented.” Because I was also in charge of the Graphic Design Department at Iowa State Memorial Union, I hired him to work with us. There is a funny story behind that process. I did a portfolio call all along knowing I wanted to hire Ryan. And that year almost everybody applied! I had to sit through endless interviews and portfolio reviews! It was not that there was no talent in that pool of students. Rather, it was that I somehow knew he was the perfect person for our department. And he was! From there we maintained a good relationship through lunches to talk about design and our respective projects. Ryan now is the Art Director at Standard Printing, Ames, IA and in his free time he runs a freelance business and does pro bono work for the Greater Des Moines Music Coalition. I thought that was interesting and decided to interview him. Check out some posters Ryan has made with his blurbs about them. I think the posters are great!
You can follow Ryan via twitter @ryanwpeterson

Please read and tell us your thoughts!

Hi Ryan! Here are some questions for you. Finally!

Alma: What made you want to be a designer?
Ryan: In high school I took the career aptitude test, which after a series of questions conjures up some fantastic career suggestions for you. After displaying an interest in music and art, I believe it spit back Clown, Dancer, Interior Designer, and Commercial Artist. I laughed imagining myself doing the first three for a living, and had no idea what the fourth was. After some research I learned you could apply creativity to a non-circus related field and was sold.

 

Tacit Knowledge : Tacit Design

knowledge that enters into the production of behaviors and/or the constitution of mental states but is not ordinarily accessible to consciousness.”

In 2007, I was introduced to the work of Hungarian medical scientist and philosopher Michael Polanyi. At the time I was working on a paper titled Language, Images, and Symbols in a Bilingual Mind. I had become interested in how language and expressions flow from contextual and social meanings and how these meanings are lost to outsiders. One of Polanyi’s essays has to do with how we know what we know, what we know, and how we understand that which we believe to be certain. The implications of his work affect every area of one’s life since essentially Polanyi states that the scientific method is not the only way to gather knowledge. For Polanyi the belief that knowledge is only gathered through the scientific method is a disservice to our personal learning processes because “emotions are a vital component of the person’s knowledge. But this does not make our understanding subjective.” Tacit knowledge is how Polanyi defines the act of knowing. The Dictionary of Philosophy of Mind defines tacit knowledge as “knowledge that enters into the production of behaviors and/or the constitution of mental states but is not ordinarily accessible to consciousness.”

Polanyi’s essay Tacit Knowing walks the reader through several common situations where we are unable to see—to really see—what is in front of us due to our closeness to the subject or context. He maintains that certain things will become so familiar to us that we will not question or analyze them. We are rather absorbed by the whole and enmeshed with the particulars clues of any context to the point of losing awareness to them. He describes how we need to alternate between isolation and/or analysis of the particulars and the integration of them back to the whole. For Polanyi, doing and knowing—the act of knowing— are intertwined endeavors which he describes as similar to a see-saw effect, that sometimes need to be separated to be able to understand the context or the whole.

The desire to make something good, something that rocks the client, something that is accepted, something that is not just useful, but that also moves the audiences’ senses, somehow becomes an extension of us.”

 

You are a designer, I expected to see a more creative résumé….

Those were the words of a Creative Director last year when he interviewed me. It took me aback. I had walked in with a clean, easy to follow, conservative résumé. I was speechless. I did not know what say. I had always thought that résumés should be clean, and one page preferable. (They did give me that job, but the story of that job is for another post ).

I am completing a Web Development Program and for the class I am taking now we were assigned to research Visual Résumés. Those of you who know me, know that I immediately went to semantics… visual? résumé? I mean, when is a résumé not visual? After all, to read something, it has to be in the visual realm. Thus, I was not sure what she meant but I went ahead to google it. The search turned out to be longer and more invasive that I had expected. As it turns out, the terms Visual Résumé are interpreted slightly different depending on who creates it.

I immediately went to semantics… visual? résumé? I mean, when is a résumé not visual? After all, to read something, it has to be in the visual realm.

 

Research & Design: A match made in heaven or hell?

Many of you know I teach Communication Design at a college downtown Chicago. This semester I am teaching a class I really enjoy. The class is informally called “Capstone.” What this means is that each student chooses a topic to investigate and then design an artifact based on their learning.  To help with the research methods we are using the book titled: A Designer’s Research Manual by Jenn & Ken Visocky O’Grady. The book offers a diverse range of strategies, how-to’s along with visually stimulating  info-graphics, and case studies of successful research based design endeavors by designers and design studios.

“Though the power of design may not always be easily measured, there are many steps that practitioners can undertake to ensure that they are making informed communication choices, rather than producing artifacts rooted solely in aesthetics.”

by Jenn & Ken Visocky O’Grady.

 

“Here Sra. Hoffmann, my attempt at this type stuff….” A shortcut to teach type? Part 1

These were the first lines of an email I received earlier this week. For those of you who don’t know it, the abbreviation “Sra.” refers to “señora” which is the Spanish word for “Mrs.” I confess, the title sounds worse in Spanish than it does in English. My friend was being partly funny and partly serious when he sent me this email with an image he called his attempt to do typography. My friend had read my post two weeks ago titled “Well chosen words deserve well chosen letters….” Hype for Hope… and somehow it inspired him. His enthusiasm was contagious and I wished my students were that eager. I found it interesting that it moved him to go to the computer to type something up and send it to me. I admit I was conflicted about how to answer the email. Should I say “nice job” even though it was not up to par with regards to design standards or proper use or misuse of design principles? Should I say “well, it is ok but you can do better” even though he has no design education or background? Should I say “nice try” indicating that there was somehow a glimpse of understanding about size differences, placement, and meaning? But if I did say “nice try” should I offer explanations?” I agonized over this for a bit before I finally decided to simply say “nice try.”

Should I say “nice job” even though it was not up to par to design standards or proper use or misuse of design principles? Should I say “well, it is ok but you can do better” even though he has no design education or background?”

 

“Well chosen words deserve well chosen letters….” Hype for Hope…

“Well chosen words deserve well chosen letters…”
This is one of my favorite quotes. I read this quote in Robert Bringhurst book, The Elements of Typographic Style. I took it and still take it to heart. I strongly believe that words that have been well chosen deserve well chosen letters. Not every font is worthy of the words they are supposed to represent. Not every word is worthy of some beautiful fonts. In fact, some words are not even worthy of being printed at all, as we have recently seen in the media this week.

Few years ago, actually 10 years ago. My then Pastor asked me do design few symbols for the covers of our Sunday programs. I then, paused and said.. why not do type? What if we took this as a chance to give the verses you will be preaching about that week well chosen letters? He liked the idea. We made an arrangement that by Wednesday nights he would send me a verse. If he was late, we were to use a generic one or the previous week’s verse. I designed them, saved them as PDFs or JPEGs and sent them on Friday mornings to the copy center that was also printing the inside pages. I think I have more than 200 hundred versions of different verses stored in a disc.

Our arrangement did not involve money, though they wanted to pay me. I did this pro-bono. In exchange, I was free to design whichever way I saw appropriate as long as it was black and white. Sometimes we would do a color one and sometimes I printed it at home to keep cost down. We used white paper and eventually I created a template for the inside pages that Ivan, my best friend’s husband reconstructed in Word.