i believe in design

Building a Wooden boat: Part 2

2011-12-17T17:47:00.008-05:00

A "ladder" framework had to be built to form a base on top of which, I would construct the boat. This particular boat called for it to be built upside-down. With the help of my friend, Gordon, we drew out a full-size "lofting". I used the lofting to measure out and build the frames. Again with Gordon's help we positioned the frames on the ladder frame using pieces of wood jigs to hold them in place. These frames, like ribs, form the rough skeleton of the boat.

Below is the view from the front end of the boat.

This is the "stem", at the very tip of the bow. It is a thick, curved laminated construction.

More to come in the next post...

Building a Wooden Boat - Part 1

2011-12-07T11:25:00.012-05:00

Some years ago the idea of cross-training in sporting activities was one of those "breakthrough" ideas. It made a lot of sense for someone to not completely concentrate only on training in one specific physical activity. It was found that an athlete who was a tennis player, for instance, could improve his game if he also lifted weights, or did running. Those extra activities strengthened his overall tennis performance. I think that the cross-training approach can be applied to many other aspects of our lives.

In graphic design, I think that it is of great benefit for an individual to have broad areas of interest. It makes a person be more rounded. It also helps one have a greater perspective. It helps creativity. I read the paper daily, watch the TV news daily, explore multiple genres of music, and also have several hobbies that lie outside of design and advertising. Sort of like "cross-living".

A few years ago, my good friend, Gordon, who is a famous photographer, invited me to go fishing in a wooden boat he had built. Gordon has actually built quite a few wooden boats of varying types and sizes. I was quite impressed and became interested in building one myself. My dad, who has passed away, was always making things, designing things, and building things. He was an engineer, mechanic and craftsman. I take after him in certain ways more than do my siblings, so I was confident that building a wooden boat was something I could do. Like design, there is a "layout" which is like the building plans or blueprint, and there are the methods of construction, which are like the principles of graphic design. With Gordon's help I decided on a particular boat plan called the San Juan Dory. It is a 16' flat-bottomed skiff.

However, first I had to go through a kind of "test". Gordon told me I had to build a set of 4 sawhorses, specifically for the boat project. I had some store-bought sawhorses, but I was informed that they would not be adequate for the project. He gave me a little printout of a "plan" for the sawhorses. Little did I know that this was the beginning of my practicing and training for the boat building project. The plan for the sawhorses is shown at the left. It was especially difficult because the legs, for instance, didn't have a single right angle anywhere. I guess I passed the test. I was deemed worthy of Gordon's time. He helped me tremendously in early stages of reading the plans, making a list of the wood needed to get started, and lofting the plans onto some very large paper at full size.

Right now I am at least 3 years into the boat project. I did have an extended period of inactivity, but in the last half year I've managed to make a great deal of progress. It has been very rewarding to see the construction develop. The original design, through the boat plans, is coming to life. I've learned things and developed skills that I never thought I had in me.

In the weeks to come, I will post installments of my boat building project on this blog.

New Edgar Degas Effect Photoshop tutorial

2011-11-08T09:51:00.004-05:00

Click here for: New Edgar Degas Effect Photoshop tutorial

This is a re-post of a post on my Teaching Portfolio site.

The King Is Dead, Long Live The King

2011-10-06T19:09:00.009-04:00

When I was taking a series of graduate courses in instructional technology at USF several years ago, I had occasion to use variant of the quote, "the king is dead, long live the king", in a project. My professor asked me what it meant. I was a little surprised that he asked but I told him that it was traditional in England to use that phrase upon the death of one king and the rise of his successor to the throne.
Now we have the passing of a king of sorts, Steve Jobs. His importance is demonstrated by the extensive coverage the media has given to his passing. The entire world was affected by him. A whole generation grew up with the technology he inspired. His legacy is the culture of creativity, innovation, and invention. That is the new "king". The king is dead, long live the king.

My first Apple wasn't really mine. Back in 1982, my wife and I decided to get an Apple IIc for our then five year-old daughter. We bought it at an Apple store. Yes, they had them back then. As primitive as we may consider it now, the Apple IIc was so very cool. It made other personal computers look like they were made by the company that designs Russian dumpsters. So my daughter, and the rest of my family got a jump start into the world of computers because of that early birthday gift.

But that taste of the digital age was to sustain me until 1991 when the agency I worked at converted the art department to computers. We all got Mac Quadra 700s. Oh, how I loved that Quadra. It is the Mac I learned on. 25 mhz processor speed. 4 mb of ram. 160 mb hard drive. Wow! It is amazing we were able to do anything on it. When I left the agency in 1996 I coveted that computer. I wanted to take it with me, however hopelessly outdated it was. At the agency my monitor was a 19" black and white, that's right, monochrome, CRT display. I was able to make a deal it for some freelance work. Happy was I.

Though I wanted a "tower", I settled for a desktop Mac PowerPC 7500. Never had a problem with it. Nice thing about it was it could run two monitors, so I got a Sony 15" color. So, with the big BW monitor and the beautiful Sony, I was in heaven.

Then, hardware became secondary to system software and graphic software upgrades. I was eventually forced to move to a bigger, better computer. I made the mistake of buying a refurbished Mac 9500 tower. Finally I had that really big computer that had all that room inside for extra cards and stuff. Yes, I did put extras inside. Installed them myself. I even upgraded the processor chip at one point. It was everything I always wanted until it broke. One day the hard drive crashed and needed to be replaced. I backed up files on Zip disks. I still have a box full of them. So all was not lost, but everything on the hard drive had to be recreated. That was probably my biggest disaster with a Mac. Don't get me wrong. That computer served me well for a number of years. It was a workhorse until it broke and served me well after the repair.

When I began teaching at the Academy, I once again coveted a newer Mac. The sleek, silver and clear plexiglass PowerMac G4s were in all the classrooms. I wanted one so bad. I struggled along with my old "beige" tower for a while. Eventually I bought a new G4 and a cinema display. Got it on MacMall with a payment plan. As always, the technology changes over time and I was forced to upgrade once again about three years ago. For some reason I always had this idea that I had to have a "tower" because I was a professional and I needed a really large computer. Not so I realized. I bought an iMac G5. It is so simple, so elegant. It has a giant screen and is very fast. One of the nicest things is that I can do multiple tasks. I can have a dozen powerful programs all running at the same time. And listen to iTunes.

So I am an Apple and Mac aficionado through and through. To say that they have always been a step ahead of PCs is an understatement. Most people out there know Apple through their iPods and iPhones. I know the system software and the computers. I'm forced to work on a PC and with Window OS from time to time. I know my way around. Windows has always copied the Mac OS, so it's no big deal. Macs are beautifully designed, refined, and most importantly, innovative. I hope that Apple will never stop making computers. The wild popularity of their other products have overshadowed the computer side of the business, at least in the press.

Steve Jobs influence can be seen in the Apple products from the very beginning with the IIc I bought, to the iPod that changed the music industry. The king is dead. But his legacy lives on. Long live the king.

No Good Deed Goes Unrewarded

2011-09-29T11:22:00.017-04:00

I wanted to share a little about my experiences with pro bono work. I have been truly privileged to have been able to work on many worthy causes throughout my career. When you have a profession that lets you do work that you really enjoy, it just seems the right thing to do. You know, to give back. There are people out there who could never afford certain professional services. Sometimes those who are in the most need, have the least access.

It started way back in Atlanta, sometime during my stint at Davison's. Someone had a connection to a gala fundraising event that was to take place at the Fox Theater. The Fox was one of those classic, majestic theaters in need of restoration and preservation. Davison's marketing director threw the production department a bone. The three of us who were all fresh out of school, slaving away in our first paste-up jobs, tackled the assignment. We divided up the work between us. There was an illustration to be done and then, a poster and an invitation. The Fox got some good work done pro bono and we got some printed pieces for our portfolios.

I've always just had a hard time saying no. Skip ahead to a few years ago. My sister-in-law was doing some projects with the Homeless Emergency Project, HEP. They wanted a new logo. They are a faith-based organization and insisted on having an "angel" or "angel wings" somehow worked into the design. I took them through the design process, showing them numerous possible solutions. And upon their insistence, I did some with a "wing" or "angel" element. For some reason the drive to a final logo stopped cold. I didn't hear from them for a couple of months and then I got the word that they wanted to move forward on a design that was my original first choice. Good things sometimes come to those who think all is lost. What they ended up with is a logo that is one of the best designs I've ever done.

Months later HEP wanted to have a large graphical timeline designed for their new 5000 square foot dining hall. I got the call. This time there was an actual budget. No huge dollars, but some money to make it worth my while.

Not all pro bono work is for charities help the homeless or raise money for a cancer cure. Sometimes the organization is simply non-profit. I was approached to design a logo for a documentary film, "Celebrate The Bungalow". It was a collaborative effort that involved a teacher and students from the school where I teach. While I didn't receive a fee for the logo, the Historic Hyde Park Neighborhood Association, HHPNA, later paid me to design a display case exhibit for the Tampa Bay History Center in downtown Tampa.

The association, HHPNA, later awarded me the job of designing a new logo for them. Subsequently, more paying jobs have come from them. But these are the rare exceptions. There have been countless projects for pro bono clients over the years that never led to anything other than the satisfying feeling of having helped a cause.

Networking and making connections can help business. You don't want to be known as the guy who works for free, but on the other hand, if I have the time I'll always at least consider a pro bono solicitation. Recently I've become involved in a cooperative group of creatives who are actively seeking pro bono projects. This is "heavyweight" creative talent. Major players. I participate and contribute my creative time when I can. We are in the process of finalizing a our website, so we haven't gone "public" yet. Still, we've already worked on several projects. I'll write about the group in a future post.

One very important thing in doing pro bono work, is that while there is no monetary compensation, the work itself has great value. You are doing working at your chosen profession that you love. I don't want anyone to get the wrong impression from the experiences that I've told about here. I have never accepted a pro bono project with the expectation of getting some compensation at a later date. Choose your clients carefully. They must appreciate the creative work and recognize the of what you are doing for them. Thankfully, this is usually the case. And doing the work is its own reward.

My friend, Keith

2011-08-15T08:57:00.017-04:00

I had gotten out of touch with Keith in the last 5 or 6 years. I regret that, but it happens. People make new connections. Take new jobs. Get married. It happens. You can't go back and undo things.

We met in 1979, at a Tampa ad agency where I took a job. CCM, Corporate Communications & Marketing was a small agency with some very big clients including Jim Walter Corporation, Celotex, and Shands Hospital. I came in as an art director. Keith had just transitioned to part-time so that he would have more time to pursue freelance illustration work. Keith considered himself an illustrator first and a designer second. The agency's clients just didn't have enough illustration work to keep Keith busy. Although I always thought that Keith was a very good designer, he always concentrated on illustration. Over the years, we collaborated on many projects. When I look through my portfolio and also through several boxes of archived samples I've kept, I see Keith's illustrations everywhere. He was very talented, prolific, and versatile.

After a stint in the Navy, Keith graduated from the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale. By the time we ran into each other at CCM, Keith had developed a distinctive style, regardless of whether he was working in airbrush, pen and ink, or pencil. But when the agency was thick into the crushing deadline of an annual report, Keith was quite adept at handling the triangles, t-squares, rapidographs, markers, and x-actos that traditional design, layout, and production required. Keith and I worked in the trenches on many projects at CCM in the early 80s. We were part of the very last generation that used those non-digital tools of the trade.

Keith eventually left CCM to pursue his freelance illustration career. We remained close friends. We played soccer in a men's indoor league for a couple of seasons and over the years, we went to many Rowdies soccer games. We also had similar musical interests and attended a number of concerts. After I left CCM in 1983, I began freelancing for myself, working out of a studio in my home. After a while, Keith and I, along with Joe Petralia and one other designer, decided to rent studio space in a Dale Mabry office building in mid-town. We ended up establishing, for a period of time, what would become a gathering place and networking hub for Tampa Bay freelance designers and artists. The local chapter of the Graphic Artist Guild was born in that suite of studios.

Although we each had our separate businesses and clients, we all collaborated and worked with each other on various projects for about eight years. But over time, one by one, this group of artists went their separate ways. Joe left to be a founding partner in Peak Barr Petralia Beity, a Tampa ad agency. Keith and I were the last ones left. The office space became too much to handle. I was offered a job by an agency for which I had been freelancing, so we closed down the space. Keith set up a studio at his home.

That was probably when we started to lose touch. I divorced and remarried. Keith explored some business ventures unrelated to design and illustration. A number of years went by and then sometime around 2003 or so, Keith and I met in Tampa to attend a Lightning game. I learned that he had been through a bout with colon cancer. He seemed different. Older, thinner, and maybe a bit more mellow. After the game we had a couple of drinks at Four Green Fields, the Irish pub. We had a good time that night and got caught up with what had been going on in our lives, but I never saw him again after that.

I never had any "best friends" when I was growing up. As an adult, all of the meaningful friendships that I've had, have been made through working relationships. Keith was one of those. I'll always remember him as a very good friend. A long-time, close friend from whom I grew apart. I learned a few weeks ago that Keith passed away in 2009. The cancer had returned and ultimately, his heart gave out.

Technology Sparks Teaching

2011-08-09T10:28:00.009-04:00

The following is the third in a series of excerpts from my recent book, "I Believe In Concept, a teacher's portfolio". I'll post sections of the book in this blog periodically. You can visit the online version at www.ronroman.com/teachingportfolio.

By 1996, I had left the agency world once again to freelance. The Internet and the World Wide Web was spreading like wildfire. Everywhere you went, people in the business were talking about websites. Eager to explore new directions and opportunities, I began to teach myself web page coding with HTML. I created and posted numerous sites in the next few years. My own studio website went through many incarnations. As I would learn new techniques and methods, I would just redesign it. As a freelance designer, I was out and about on a weekly basis. I handed out my card, which proudly included my studio’s URL, whenever I had a chance.

My interest and capabilities in website design became known among my clients which at the time, included advertising agencies. I was quite surprised when one day when I was asked to design a website for the agency, Peak Barr Petralia Biety (now Peak Biety). I began to get referrals from other agencies and to direct clients. I was a classically-trained, advertising agency art director who knew web design. That was a rarity. Most people doing web design were technicians or engineers.

But as I was getting work designing sites, a curious thing happened. I began to get requests to train designers and art directors to do web design. This was the beginning of my teaching career. I still got my hourly rate, and all I was doing was sitting next to someone, in front a computer, telling them what to do. It may be quite a leap to go from that, to standing in front of classroom of students but that is exactly what happened. I saw a classified ad for a job opening. It was for “chairperson of the graphic design department” at Florida Metropolitan University. I was intrigued. I called, not to apply for that job, but just to see if they had any teaching positions available. They did. I interviewed, and was given one class to teach as an adjunct professor.

After FMU, I started teaching at the International Academy of Design and Technology, and most recently at the Art Institute, both in Tampa.

The Agency Years

2011-08-02T14:15:00.000-04:00

The following is the second in a series of excerpts from my recent book, "I Believe In Concept, a teacher's portfolio". I'll post sections of the book in this blog periodically. You can visit the online version at www.ronroman.com/teachingportfolio.

After a couple years at Plan Services, I finally got the position I wanted. In 1979, I became an art director at a real ad agency. CCM, Corporate Communications and Marketing, was a small agency run by Mark Cohen. Clients included TECO, Shands Hospital, Celotex, Jim Walter Corporation (Walter Industries), Bay Cadillac, Pembroke Pines Hospital, U.S. Lend Lease, Allstate Homes, The Don Cesar, U.S. Health Corporation, and Thermacore. Mark introduced me to the finer points of grid systems. In addition to traditional advertising work, we knocked out five to six annual reports every year. That’s a lot of work. The agency grew tremendously while I was there, even getting into some big-budget television production. We won more than our share of Addy Awards. My name became know in the Tampa Bay advertising community. Seeking more creative freedom, I left the agency, where I’d worked for four years, and began my first lengthy stint at freelancing.

For the longest time, I thought that one day, later in life I would teach. It wasn’t a real plan, just a thought. I am by nature, an introverted person. I don’t have an outgoing personality. Initiating a conversation with people I don’t know, has always been difficult for me. So, the problem was that getting in front of a classroom full of students didn’t seem like something that I could, or would ever do.

The catalyst for my entry into the world of teaching was the digital age. In the years following the introduction of the first Macintosh I would hear about this or that advertising agency that was getting into computers. By the beginning of the 90s, I was very anxious about the changes that were taking place in the graphic world. Computers had been integrated into the business side of agencies for quite a few years, but now the Mac was changing the creative side as well. Could I do it? Was I capable of completely transforming the way I had practiced my profession for many years?

One of my freelance clients was an agency that offered me a full-time position. The client list at Altman Meder Lawrence Hill included Johnson & Johnson Medical, GTE TSI, Goodbuy Sportswear, Home Shopping Network, Speedling, and Munters. The agency wanted me to come aboard as senior art director and be involved in the conversion of their art department to Macs.

Two trainers came into our offices and worked individually with the art department staff. The one-on-one teaching was very effective and I was impressed with how quickly we transformed our work product from markers and rubber cement, to pixels and bits. I had been out of college and out of the learning environment for many years but I took to these new technologies very well. I also ended up helping others in the art department as I progressed.

The very first digitally produced job to come out of the art department was a direct mail package for GTE TSI’s annual conference. My trainer and I worked in Quark. She helped me set up some very complicated paragraph style sheets for the project. It was intense, grueling, and awesome. It didn’t hurt that my trainer was very patient and very knowledgeable. I learned so much, so fast. I learned by doing. Watching, listening, and doing. I saw that teaching was a very powerful thing.

(Next: “Technology Sparks Teaching”)

Introduction (from the book, "i believe in concept")

2011-07-26T18:13:00.007-04:00

The following is an excerpt from my recent book, "I Believe In Concept, a teacher's portfolio". I'll post sections of the book in this blog periodically. You can visit the online version at www.ronroman.com/teachingportfolio.

I loved art in high school. In fact it was my favorite class. The problem was that if I wanted to go to college, my father insisted on my pursuing a profession that made money. And art was not it. So, I had an idea that I might be interested in architecture. It was a respected profession and technical enough to satisfy him. I thought there might be just enough creativity in it to keep me interested. I was wrong. In hindsight, I probably shouldn’t have started out with an idea to pursue a career to make someone else happy.

In 1970, I began my major in architecture at the University of Florida. I had much difficulty with the more mathematical, technical and scientific aspects of the curriculum. I knew I had to make a change, but I didn’t know to what. Most of my classes were in the building that housed the college of architecture and fine arts. I was well familiar with the work that the fine arts program produced. But one day, as I was walking down a hallway, I noticed some other work displayed on the wall. The work was carefully crafted. I was much “tighter” than the typical drawings or paintings of the fine art students. And, it had type. I noticed graphic design for the first time. After visiting some of the classrooms, I decided that this was something I wanted to do. As I began the curriculum, I had a new fresh outlook on life. Graphic design was a little bit like art in that it had some creativity and expressiveness. But it was also a little bit like architecture in that there were specific problems that had to be solved. There was structure.

After graduating, I moved to Atlanta with my new wife and spent three summer months searching for a job. Just as our savings were about to run out, she landed a teaching job, and I got a job a Davison’s, a department store chain. I was a paste-up artist in the advertising department. There were three of us, all recent graduates. Also working with us on production was an older woman who ran the large copy camera. I worked there for two years, during which I was promoted to layout artist. At Davison’s I learned a lot about newspaper advertising. Ads would go through the process of layout, mechanical, and then, we would see them printed in the newspaper a couple of days later. We saw what worked, and what didn’t work.

My real goal was to work in an ad agency or design studio. Because that wasn’t happening in Atlanta, we decided to move to the Tampa Bay area. My first significant job there was as art director for an in-house advertising department for Plan Services (now HealthPlan Services). They were brokers for group insurance plans. The department used direct mail for most of its promotions. We also designed and printed brochures so that meant an education in the process of printing, other than newspaper.

(next: "The Agency Years")

Pantone Colors for 2011

2011-03-11T08:56:00.005-05:00

Every year Pantone, announces the top ten color choices. These colors will be found throughout the fashion and design industries around the world. Ever wonder why a woman can buy a skirt of a particular color, and then go across town, to a completely different store, and find a handbag in the same exact color? It is not an accident. Communication arts magazine has a little article in their March/April issue on the topic. The study of color is often neglected by beginning designers. However, it is one of the most powerful tools a designer has AND compared to a stock photo, or a commissioned illustration, it costs nothing to use.

"85% of shoppers cite color as a primary reason for why they buy a particular product." – KISSmetrics, blog.kissmetrics.com

(source: Communication Arts, March/April 2011)

My, myself, and I

2011-03-06T11:20:00.001-05:00

In a design course I teach, the students are tasked with designing a 32-page booklet that showcases the work of a term's graduating class. In a class of 8 to 14 students, they start by creating a design for the cover only. There can be only one chosen, cover design. Whatever that design has in terms of style, typeface, color palette, etc., is what we go forward with in the design of the rest of the book. All the students must build, expand, and relate to that chosen design. A new competition begins for the design of the subsequent pages. Everything must flow and go together.

I had a student who ignored the style, color, typeface choice, and just about everything else about the winning cover design. In a critique of the interior page designs, I pointed out that his work had virtually nothing to do with the cover design. His designs used different, unrelated colors. He said liked his new "royal purple" better. He also admitted to the class that he really liked gradients, so his new designs had gradient backgrounds behind everything. It was ugly, both his designs, and the atmosphere in the room.

"Design isn't fine art," is something I've said to students repeatedly in my teaching career. Designers don't just do anything they want. A fine artist has the luxury to just go with whatever they want to do. Designers create for a purpose. Designers solve problems.

We don't work in a vacuum. Sometimes we work on projects that have components that have already been created. Sometimes we are given a "style guide" or a corporate standards manual to follow. My problem student later set about revising his designs. He took the criticism to heart and when I came around to see what he was working on, I saw him going in a new direction. He had taken the design concepts and feeling of the cover design and applied them to his new work. It was actually some of his better work. I asked him what happened and he said that he had been stubborn. He said he had to give up on the personal directions in which he originally wanted to go. It took him a while but a light went off in his head. He suddenly realized what he was really supposed to do.

Sometimes design isn't always about the next great creative concept. Sometimes is it simply solving a problem by providing something that is needed. It's not always "me, me, me". Objectivity is a very valuable mindset to turn on when needed.

Proof that advertising works.

2011-02-04T09:29:00.007-05:00

The station wagon has been re-branded.
In a time when all men and most soccer moms wouldn't be caught dead driving a station wagon, that category is exactly what comprised 20% of all new vehicles sold last year.(1) The "Crossover" vehicle, or CUV, is everywhere, in case you didn't notice.

True SUVs were based on an actual truck chassis. They had huge knobby tires, 4-wheel drive, and giant roof racks. You could slog through muddy backwoods trails on the weekend, and then drive the family to church on Sunday. People liked the utility of the true SUV. You could carry a lot of stuff, kids, etc. The problem is that they were big and heavy. And they guzzled gas. Another thing that didn't make much sense about the true SUV was the fact that 99% of them never left the comfort of a paved highway.

The CUV is lighter, more fuel-efficient, and still has the utility of the SUV or more truthfully, the station wagon. Now, many car makers have tried to refer to the traditional station wagon as the "5-door" model. But that didn't work nearly as well as making a clean break, from a marketing point of view. This isn't a station wagon, it a CUV. I love advertising.

These CUVs are nothing more than regular sedan chassis with a higher, boxier body. The definition of a station wagon is you take a regular 4-door sedan and instead of a trunk, you continue the roofline to the rear bumper and then put in a tailgate or hatchback. CUVs are station wagons people! Wake up America! You're being sold a bill of goods.

1 Edmonds.com
Source: Huston Chronicle

Money, Ego, Taste

2011-01-25T09:00:00.001-05:00

The business of graphic design and advertising is a lot like most other businesses in that it is greatly dependent on relationships. There are really only three factors that affect the success or failure of any designer/client relationship: money, ego, and taste.

Money
Money makes the world go 'round. We work for money. We need to set a price and be paid that price to be successful. As we build years of experience, we are able to command higher and higher fees. This assumes that the caliber of your design also rises. So at some point the work that an experienced professional produces has an implied value. This value is determined through many factors. There are market prices. There are surveys done by several trade publications and organizations. Ultimately, every designer or art director establishes his hourly rate, which is the basis for all estimating.

Most clients are concerned with knowing how much everything is going to cost. With others, I've reached a place of familiarity where costs are taken for granted and not talked about. But regardless of that, it is much more important that a client values what they are paying for. This is the enlightened client, the informed client. They understand that design can't be free and they aren't resentful about paying for it. They acknowledge that design has a value, and that it is something that they need. However, just because a client has a lot of money, that doesn't make them enlightened or informed. They simply have cash to spare. It is better to have a client who is scrapping by to make ends meet and values design, than to have a wealthy one who thinks design is frivolous and over-priced. Just because they drive a Mercedes doesn't mean they value design and want to pay for it.

As a designer, I greatly value the enlightened client. The worst situation to be in is where the client thinks he's paying too much, and you don't think you're getting enough. That is the point when the prospects for a good working relationship are not good. One of the jobs of the designer is to work at enlightening the people we work with. We must communicate the value of design.

Ego
The self-image a person has of himself is something we refer to as ego. I try not to look at it as a stumbling block in a client-designer relationship, but it is always there. Ego must be dealt with. Many clients I've had who were self-made successes, were very reluctant to pay someone else for ideas. They are the success. They are the person who made something out of nothing. They are the one who is risking a fortune. Dealing with the owner of a business can be very tricky. Some like to be very hands-on and micro-manage every single marketing problem.

A completely different situation is when you are working with someone who is detached from ownership of the business. This could be what is known as advertising consultant, a third party. This person puts together a creative team and then deals with the client. Another situation would be where your contact is perhaps a marketing director. They don't own the company. Their interests and motives come from a different perspective. Still, egos are very much involved. So, while each of these circumstances may have different dynamics, there is still a universal approach to handling the problem of the ego.

When trying to sell design or advertising, the best way to deal with people is to get them involved on a creative level. If the person feels that they are contributing to the process, it is much more likely that their ego will be stroked. This is a very simple idea and the best way to do this is to offer choices. In this business climate of tiny budgets a designer may be reluctant to over-invest in hours toward a design, but we have to do what is necessary. If a client sees a progression of thought, they are more likely to nod their head and come along with you. Paul Rand once famously told a client that if they wanted to consider "other" designs, they should consult other designers. He offered "the" solution to the client's design problem. While most consider Paul Rand to be the most influential American designer of the 20th century, this arrogant approach to the designer-client relationship wouldn't work for most of us.

There is more than one solution to a design problem. Develop multiple concepts, prepare multiple layouts, and present your client with options. Present strategies and "reasons why." Talk them through it. Get them involved.

Taste
I tell the students who travel through my design classes that they must work on developing their personal design aesthetic. Not everyone can do this. There are economical, social, and cultural factors that work together to forge a person's design aesthetic. What do we like? What looks good to us? What are we drawn to? I tell my students that the level to which they raise this design aesthetic will determine where they will end up in the working world. If they focus on graffiti, t-shirt art, and tattoos, because that's what looks "cool" to them, they will severely limit their options in the job market. This may border on snobbery and elitism. But, I won't apologize for trying to encourage my students to a high level of sophistication.

We will come in contact with clients who do not share our design aesthetic. Whether it is a magazine offering free design with advertising space, or a company who is completely satisfied with a template website offered by a hosting company, there will be many instances when a designers worth is not appreciated. As a designer achieves success, he also gains a level of respect and validation. We gravitate toward clients who appreciate us. We don't do well with clients who don't.

Conclusion
Money, ego, and taste. To deal with these three factors, we need to establish a level of trust in our working relationships. When a client puts his trust in a designer, he releases a certain measure of his own ego, he agreeably parts with some of his money, and he also accepts and acknowledges the taste choices that the designer has made. When a client trusts you, they feel they are getting their money's worth. They appreciate your contribution to their business.

Processing the New Year

2011-01-11T09:00:00.000-05:00

Here are some thoughts from my perspective as a freelance art director/designer, and also teacher of design, working in the Tampa Bay market.

The Economy and Unemployment
Those that pooh-pooh concern over the burgeoning national debt are putting their heads in the sand. Now they are talking about raising the debt ceiling. That's like calling the credit card company and asking them to raise the limit on a credit card when we already have a balance that we may never pay back. I don't see spending being cut, and I don't see the deficit going down. I don't see anyone in either political party having the guts to do what needs to be done. It may only happen after another crash. You know what they say about someone having to hit rock-bottom before they turn their life around.

As much as they would like to take credit for creating jobs, our leaders in government can't create real jobs. They can create temporary jobs like the recent census workers, but that's about it. President Obama recently admitted that he realized too late that "there is no such thing as shovel-ready projects," in a recent interview with New York Times reporter Peter Baker, (NYTimes 10/12/2010). It is curious how the media will cover something as frivolous as an upcoming royal wedding with day-after-day reports, but virtually ignore this revelation. So throwing billions (or trillions) of dollars out there in a so-called stimulus really isn't working. At best, the government can help to create a "climate" that encourages innovation and enterprise. This is not done by printing money. Just get the hell out of the way.

My wife is the office manager for a small company. Last year, she placed an ad in the St. Pete Times for a salaried sales position. She got zero responses. Where are the unemployed? I have first-hand knowledge of two people who admitted that their unemployment checks discouraged them from looking for work. I'm not making light of being out of work. It sucks. Can we do something else besides just handing people money? There has to be a better way.

Design and Advertising
Gregg Greenberg recently interviewed John Shelton, CEO of Strata Software regarding the outlook for advertising in 2011. He said that 2011 will probably be more like 2009, not as "good" as 2010. It is a non-political year, so there will not be millions spent on campaigns. Shelton says that traditional network TV is down, but cable is up, so overall, TV is fairly flat as far as growth goes. Print continues its decline, of course. And the real area of growth is digital. That means web, cellphones, smartphones, and now the larger iPad-type devices are the really hot growth area for advertising.

What's going to happen?
Many companies are in a wait-and-see mode to a large degree regarding hiring and expansion. This is due to the fact that there is a lot of uncertainty in the market. Complicating this is the fact that much of the stimulus money that was given to banks to "free up" lending to business, was never loaned out. A lot of people think that there are two more "bubbles" that are about to burst. One is the student loan bubble. Student loan debt already eclipses credit card debt in the U.S. according to a report in USA TODAY. There has been debate on the idea of tying tuition rates to prospective future salaries that a student might expect to earn in a given field of study. This measure may stop a student from accumulating a debt they can't pay off. It may also block the only path many have to higher education. One argument is that admissions representatives (recruiters) oversell and over-promise in order to make sales. I think that ultimately much of the responsibility rests on the student.

The other bubble is commercial real estate. In an article in the Market Oracle, Mark Shedlock writes,

"between 2010 and 2014, about $1.4 trillion in commercial real estate loans will reach the end of their terms. Nearly half are at present 'underwater' – that is, the borrower owes more than the underlying property is currently worth."

He sees 2011 as the year for the largest losses. A wave of commercial mortgage defaults could once again devastate the economy.

Advice to students
Try to keep that student loan balance down as low as possible. While you're in college, apply yourself to your schoolwork as never before. You have to make the most out of the money you're racking up in loans. After graduating, one student will get a job putting together ads for a coupon book. Another will get a job working on a branding and identity program for a new start-up enterprise. The difference between those two graduates will not be their grade-point average, age, race, personality, or economic status. It will be the level of professionalism, taste, creativity, and design excellence in their portfolios. Work hard.

What to do?
We just have to keep moving forward. Politically, we have to elect people who show the same kind of financial restraint that we are supposed to have in our personal affairs. In the advertising world, there are many ad agencies that have closed shop. Others that had 20 or so people on staff now have just a handful. I know of and have worked with, a good few ad executives that used to run small to medium shops, who now operate "virtual" agencies. This is not a recent development. This sort of change has been happening for the last 15 years at least. Many ad executives, art directors, designers, and writers who worked in agencies for years, are now working in-house for former clients. In business, we've got to avoid situations that may be doomed to fail. You have to be smart and not let ego get in the way. Last year a new sushi/pacific fusion restaurant opened in my small town of Oldsmar. It was very exclusive and high-priced. Wrong product, wrong place, and the wrong time. It lasted three months. Although my wife and I love sushi, we went there once and never returned. It was literally three minutes from our house.

Network and reconnect with former contacts. Like any business arena, in design and advertising it is often "who you know." 2011 is a good year for art directors and designers to join a professional organization like the AIGA. Never before has there been such a need for the benefits of design to be preached to the business world. That is what AIGA does.

In spite of the current business climate, I'm investing in technology, upgrading to CS5 in all programs. I've also began getting into CMS, content management systems, for web design. CMS seems like the trend that is taking hold. I'm also trying to be pro-active with my clients. Suggest things. Don't just wait for them to hand you something. Be a positive source of ideas and inspiration for them. I think that this is also good advice, even if you are on staff somewhere. Make yourself invaluable. It is a good way to keep your job and keep working.

Street Art in Bogota

2010-12-05T08:12:00.015-05:00

I have never been a big fan of graffiti. As a teacher of design, I have had many students who are. I've looked at it as a renegade form of expression, without purpose or discipline. My wife and I just came back from a week trip to Bogota, Colombia, and I can say that I now have a new appreciation for the art form. I was especially impressed by the sheer scale of some of the work. I apologize for some of the photography. Most pictures were taken from a moving vehicle.

Prince of Thieves

2010-09-15T20:00:00.009-04:00

In a college course called Advanced Image Manipulation, I recently had to give a lecture on Ethics and Legal Issues. My research led me into reading up on topics such as "Fair Use" and "Copyrights". It also led me to the work of Richard Prince, the "prince of thieves".

Prince was born in 1949, in the Panama Canal zone. He first started creating "art" in the 70s. His tactic of re-photographing photographs was something he did from the very beginning. It is not surprising that someone working in the world of fine art is using images created by others. The collage method that has been around for over a hundred years and has used "found" images from the very beginning. Andy Warhol simply copied the design of a can of Campbell's soup and made it into a painting. He became kind of famous. Artists everywhere use "references" to create new images. Artists traditionally copy other artist's work.

Prince's "Nurse" series at least had some involvement by the artist. He took pulp romance novel covers, scanned them, and had them printed on canvas. Then he added his own acrylic paint touches. Changing something done my someone else, to make it your own is sanctioned under certain areas of the fair use statutes.

But this is about something more than altering an image or using an image for a reference. Richard Prince is in a class by himself. But he couldn't have done it by himself. He needed the art world to enable and endorse him. No less than New York's Guggenheim and Whitney museums have exhibited his work. Even worse, Prince set a record in 2005 when one of those Marlboro photos sold for $1,200,000. It set a record for the most money ever paid for a single photograph. The only problem is that he didn't take the original photo. And to make it worse, he didn't alter or change it in any way. All he did was to re-photograph it and make a really large print. Subsequently, a second "Marlboro Man" ad photo sold for $3.2 million. No photographer before Prince had ever sold a photo for that much. Not one.

Successful commercial photographer, Jim Krantz, was quite surprised when he happened to be touring the Guggenheim and saw one of his photos being passed off as someone's own art. But not just passed off. Rather much more than that. This theft was being lauded and granted a showing at one of the most famous of art museums. Krantz has said that Prince's work is already out there, so what's the point of doing anything now? He's also said that he thinks Prince is protected by the Fair Use laws. Well, I'm not a lawyer, but I'd be just a little more concerned than Krantz seems to be. Krantz has shot for many Fortune 500 companies and has probably done quite well for himself. But success is no reason to be complacent about outright theft.

The bottom line is that the Marlboro photos were not changed or altered in any way. And that is coming from Krantz himself. He created the original photos. He would know. I'm not an art critic, but anyone who says that a Prince re-photograph is valued art has some serious problems with understanding what creativity is all about.

Sources:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/06/arts/design/06prin.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/how-did-richard-prince-produce-the-most-expensive-photograph-ever-850589.html

http://nymag.com/nymetro/arts/art/11815/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Prince

Top 10 Mistakes by Design Students

2010-08-26T08:08:00.007-04:00

I came across this list that I compiled when I first started teaching design almost ten years ago. I'm reissuing it with very few changes.

Here are my TOP 10 Student Mistakes:

1. Distorting type, photos, logos, and other graphics when working in InDesign.

2. Not understanding the size, margins, or orientation of a document.

3. Over-using gradients, or just using them at all.

4. Putting body text on top of photos (students refer to this as a "watermark").

5. Using Apple Chancery, Comic Sans, Papyrus, scripts,
“default” fonts and other poor choices.

6. Putting strokes, drop shadows, glows, or "type on a path"
on text.

7. Doing final design in Photoshop or Illustrator.

8. Putting the logo at the top of an ad and
making it real big.

9. Printing with graphics “unlinked” or missing.

10. Making color choices in a design based on
what you see on the computer monitor.
(get a Pantone book)

Foundations of Design: Part 5, Post-Modernism

2010-08-03T08:30:00.001-04:00

Modernism was a shift in cultural movements sparked by vast changes to society in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was at this time that the Western world was becoming fully industrialized, and certain groups of people felt the traditional forms of art, architecture, literature, religion, and societal structure were shackled by historicism. Modernism was a break with the past and a search for new forms of expression. The Arts and Crafts movement (1880-1910) came about as a reaction to the poor quality and design of the mass-produced goods of the Industrial Revolution. It's founder, John Ruskin, wrote that art and labor could be unified and provide a new social order, while improving the quality of life.

In architecture, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1986-1969) was a leading figure in the modern movement. This former director of the Bauhaus created the modernist steel and glass skyscrapers that influenced designers for decades. In the U.S., architect Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959), continued in the spirit of the Arts and Crafts movement in putting emphasis on the "interior space" of buildings, not the facade. Function took supremacy over form. Wright's approach was however, divergent from van der Rohe in pursuing organic solutions in design. The "Four" in Scotland, the Vienna Secession artists, and Peter Behrens in Germany, also pursued functional simplicity and a rectilinear approach to design.

Ultimately, Constructivism (1919-1934, Russia), De Stijl (1917-1934, The Netherlands), and the Bauhaus (1919-1934, Germany) provided the necessary background for the Swiss to develop the modern typographic grid and the ensuing International Typographic Style. Enter Josef Muller-Brockmann, Jan Tschichold, Emil Ruder, Massimo Vignelli and others, and the ITS became a worldwide phenomenon.

But as all things go through cycles, some in the design world felt that they reached a plateau. Post-Modernism was a reaction to the impersonal "glass box" structures in architecture and the rigid, objective grid systems in graphic design. Even within the International Typographic Style movement, younger designers began to explore the possibilities of more expressive, playful, and experimental design.

ITS adherents, Siegfried Odermatt and Rosemarie Tissi (both Swiss) were among the first to experiment beyond the cold, strict structure of the grid, (mid-1960s).

New Wave typography (mid-1970s), as practiced by Wolfgang Weingart, was as much an expansion of ITS as it was a breakaway.

The Memphis (Italy) and Sans Francisco "schools" (late 1970s, early 1980s) were also populated by former practitioners of the ITS.

Other designers went in even more diverse directions. Reinventing of historical models was the basis for much of what is called Retro design.

Paula Scher invoked inspiration of Constructivist typography and Charles S. Anderson's designs copied motifs from sources as diverse as bubble gum wrappers and coarsely drawn clip art.

The Structural vs the Intuitive

Modernism signaled the steady progression of design toward a rational, objective, and functional system. It had the result of helping clients understand and accept design. The International Typographic Style, while being the culmination of the modern movement in graphic design, had a split personality. It was at the same time both a symbol of technology and creativity. An examination of history reveals an underlying relationship between the orderly and the chaotic. Possibly no better example of this relationship can be found than with that of Kurt Schwitters. Timothy Samara writes in his book, Making and Breaking the Grid:

"Schwitters is one of several designers in the 20th century who helped assimilate and institutionalize non-rational approaches, particularly typography, alongside those being pursued by rational structuralists." (p. 113)

At the same time Schwitters was creating Dadaist collages for advertising and marketing messages, he collaborated on structured design with El Lissitsky (Russian Constructivist) and Theo Van Doesburg (De Stijl founder).

Conclusion

In my experience as a teacher of design, I've found that some students perceive the grid as a restrictive, old-school, structural device. It is an affront to their free-spirit creativity. They purposely resist it, or simply don't comprehend it. A large part of the responsibility for that situation falls on me. But many do embrace it. There are those students who were unaware of it. They hadn't been exposed to the typographic grid. When I demonstrate it and have them go through exercises in class, I can sometimes see a light bulb turn on over their head. That's the way it was with me 30 years ago. It is a tool, not a straightjacket.

I find the progression of design through history fascinating. Especially the major turning points such as the beginning of the 20th century when the Arts and Crafts movement and Art Nouveau demonstrated that new exciting forms could be created. Both signaled a break from artists and designers relying on historical models. And then there was the search in Russia, the Netherlands, and Germany for universal visual laws of structure, harmony, and order, in the aftermath of World War I. As the period we know as modernism in graphic design matured with the establishment of the International Typographic Style after World War II, we then see designers almost immediately, not rejecting ITS, but moving on to new and evolving forms of expression.

(Note: This concludes the 5 part series, "Foundations of Design". I strongly encourage those interested to do further research on such figures as Piet Zwart, Kurt Schwitters, El Lissitsky, and many other long-forgotten design pioneers whose work was so influential. This is what makes design a profession, and not a trade.)

Sources:
Meggs, Philip B., (2006). History of Graphic Design.
Samara, Timothy, (2002). Making and Breaking the Grid.
http://www.answers.com/topic/modernism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modernism
http://gds.parkland.edu/gds/!lectures/history/1975/postmodern.html
http://www.cmgww.com/historic/flw/bio.html
http://www.deconet.com/designer/790/Ludwig_Mies_van_der_Rohe?gclid=CND-06Hx1qICFYZi2god1xO7yA#

Foundations of Design: Part 4, The Grid Applied

2010-06-28T12:40:00.002-04:00

David Carson once famously said that he didn't follow the "rules" of design because he didn't know that there were any. In the documentary film, Helvetica, Carson says that he later found out that there was "this group who spent a lot of time organizing things and getting some kind of system going, and they saw me as coming in and throwing that out the window". Carson was referring to design principles and probably, specifically the International Typographic Style. To be fair, the audience for his design in the earlier part of his career was served well by his efforts. Transworld Skateboarding, Beach Culture, and Ray Gun magazines certainly had demographics that would have repelled anything stodgy or staid. Carson's experimental typography "made sense" to him, to put it in his words. At the beginning of the 90's, the transformation of all graphic design to the desktop computer also had the effect of putting complete control of design into the individual designer's hands. Designers who mastered the software could now do just about anything they wanted and Carson's influence was pervasive.

Also interviewed in Helvetica, Rick Poynor said that by the end of the grunge period, "typography was broken, with all rules cast aside, laying in a twisted heap". By the end of the 90's there was nowhere for design to go. "Grunge" design had little real applications or future. As has happened many times throughout history, artists and designers looked back to previous periods. Designers realized that working solely with intuition can be very risky business. That is not to say that intuition isn't used. Of course it is. It's just that we can't all design RayGun magazine.

The typographic grid is a useful tool. But there are times when it can be helpful and times when it can get in the way. I feel a student's good working knowledge of the grid is essential if they are to be a well-rounded designer. Imagine an architect working without any measuring devices, just putting things together by "eye". The novice may have disdain for something that may appear so restrictive. I think it is just helpful to have as many tools in your toolbox as possible. It gives you more options.

To understand the typographic grid it is important to understand some of the basic building blocks of typography. This is what is referred to as typographic syntax. Just as syntax is the study of how words are put together to say things, typographic syntax is the study of how the parts of a typographic design are put together into a cohesive whole. There are four parts. The first is the LETTER, the individual character. Every letter in the alphabet is unique, has its own form and design. Second is the WORD. A word, being a combination of letters, also has a distinct shape but also, as a sign, carries meaning. A word can represent an idea. Third is the LINE. Words are joined together to create sentences, but in a typographic sense they are a particular typeface a particular size, and extend over a particular horizontal length. And lastly, we have the fourth element, COLUMN and MARGIN. Now we are putting type into a two-dimensional space, where we are concerned with spatial relationships between elements, closeness to the edge of the design, etc.

The simplest grid, which many people use, is just a simple affair with margins on all sides and the page split vertically into a number of columns. The modern typographic grid takes that a step further, dividing the page horizontally also. The number of columns and rows will vary with the designers's preference and the inherent complexity of the project. The more subdivisions you have, the more possibilities there are in the design.

One of the most famous examples of grid design is Massimo Vignelli's "unigrid". In 1977 Vignelli got the assignment of designing a system for the literature of the nation's 400 national parks. The system Vignelli put into place has lasted over 30 years and still looks clean, fresh, and above all else, functional.

The UNIGRID

André Jute writes in his Grids, the Structure of Graphic Design, "The designer should regard grids as an aid to readiblility, recognition, and understanding, never as a strait-jacket. If either the text or art refuse to fit the grid, then the grid is not working. Do not force the material – redesign the grid."

In a layout class I have my students experiment with a simple grid. They have to create variations of a layout using a main visual, a block of text, and some larger type, like a headline. Below are some examples using a poem by William Blake. The exercise is designed to use the grid as an aid in proportion,sizing, and placement.

The following are some examples of grid-based design:

Posters by Josef Müller-Brockmann

Jacqueline Casey, director of the MIT design services office, adopted grid-based design philosophy for all printed material for the university, in the early 60's.

Early Swiss grid design...
Swiss Air pamphlet - designer: Kurt Wirth and Paul Beer c1950s

Next: Part 5, Current Trends

Sources:
Meggs, Philip B., (2006). History of Graphic Design.
Müller-Brockmann, Josef (1981). Grid Systems.
Jute, André, (1996). Grids, The Structure of Graphic Design.
Hustwit, Gary, (2007). Helvetica.

Foundations of Design: Part 3, The Grid

2010-06-21T09:02:00.008-04:00

I never heard about the typographic grid during my years as UF. Though I went through the advertising design curriculum, I don't recall any specific instruction or background on the subject. It wasn't until my first job in the advertising department of Davison's (now Macy's) in Atlanta, that a fellow production artist talked about the grid. Emily was a big proponent of the typographic grid and the International Typographic Style (Swiss Design). I wouldn't have admitted it back then but she was a better designer than I was in those days.

But still, I had no instruction or training in this grid thing. Emily had a chance to implement some of her knowledge when she was promoted to layout artist and began working on complex, multi-page catalogs. How I envied her. But my interests were more advertising oriented. I wanted to be an agency art director, not a traditional graphic designer. I was about concepts, ideas, and strategies. She was about clean, functional grid design. I told myself that, anyway.

So, it wasn't until my first real agency job in Tampa that the grid came back into my design world. The head of the agency, Mark, was my first real mentor. He was the first person to not just point out my deficiencies, but to also show me a better way to approach design. Mark explained the grid in a way I had not know before. For the first time I realized that it could be a real aid in organizing information. I also came to see that the grid didn't have to be obvious.

Mark's agency did a ton of work. We cranked out four to five annual reports every year besides all the other work in the shop. Some of our clients included Jim Walter Corporation, Celotex, Shands Hospital, and TECO. It wasn't typical ad agency type of work. Being able to design and produce that many annual reports required discipline, proficiency, and of course, the typographic grid. At first I assisted Mark, learning his methods. Then, I designed my first annual report. Sketching, thumbnails, pagination, and working up full-sized layouts.

Mark gave be several books from the agency library to read. I remember a couple were by Josef Müller-Brockmann. The design was so refreshing, so clean and pure. Being exposed to this style of design was a revelation. As Michael Bierut put it in the movie, Helvetica, it was like a glass of ice water to someone going through a desert. It finally started to make sense to me. The typographic grid was not a restrictive inhibitor of creativity, but a massively helpful tool. The secret lied in how it was applied.

During the middle ages, the scritori (art director/editor) and the copisti (letterer) functioned as graphic designers of illuminated manuscripts. They set up formats, establishing columns, margins, etc. In fact, a particular manuscript, the Douce Apocalypse (1265 A.D.), had such an evolved design that it was used as a model for printed books that would follow in the fifteenth century. Gutenburg in his first printed work, the 42-line Bible, used the Golden Section to work out the proportions of a simple two-column grid that was both elegant and beautiful. While Johann Gutenberg's invention of movable typography was a major communications advance, it did bring with it severe restrictions. The mechanical process of locking up movable type into rectangular forms tended to take design innovation out of the hands of the manuscript artists. Real typographic innovation remained "locked-up" in these printer's forms for the next 400 years.

In the early part of the twentieth century, movements like Constructivism and De Stijl, were exploring objective and functional typography. Pioneers like El Lissitzky, Lazlo Moholy-Nagy, and Jan Tschichold were breaking free of the historicism that influenced all of design. Bauhaus designers advocated asymmetric, geometric construction and objective design. Jan Tschichold's book, Die Neue Typographie (The New Typography), formulated many of these modernist ideas and was a world-wide influence. But still we had no formal grid.

Printed examples of design using a typographic grid with not just vertical divisions, but also horizontal divisions, started appearing in the mid to late 1940's. It was Josef Müller-Brockmann's The Graphic Artist and his Design Problems, published in 1961, that included the first, brief, published account of the grid system. During the next twenty years Müller-Brockmann and many other Swiss designers would design, teach and publish articles regarding the typographic grid. In 1981 Müller-Brockmann finally published his Grid Systems book which presented the modern typographic grid in explanation, demonstration, and application.

Next: Part 4, The Grid Applied

Sources:
Meggs, Philip B., (2006). History of Graphic Design.
Müller-Brockmann, Josef (1981). Grid Systems.
Jute, André, (1996). Grids, The Structure of Graphic Design.

Foundations of Design: Part 2 -- The Rule of Thirds

2010-06-14T12:30:00.003-04:00

Somewhere in their academic career design students will hear something about the Rule of Thirds. Through the years architects, painters, sculptors, and designers have set forth certain principles or rules of design. I have found that students can be somewhat resistant to being instructed on rules. Especially when the rule that has the word "RULE" in it. How can free-flowing creativity be constrained by rules? A human preference for balance and proportion is not something that can be denied. So, what I propose is that it is not something that you have to do, but rather something that exists and occurs, whether you like it or not. The earliest known reference to the Rule of Thirds is in a 1797 illustrated book by J. T. Smith. The rule was used as a guide for proportioning in painting. In more modern times, the rule is almost always thought of as a photographer's guide for positioning, framing, and cropping compositions. But the rule has broader use than just photography. There are very practical applications of the rule to graphic design.

The Rule of Thirds is really quite simple compared to Part 1's Golden Section. The rule or principle states that a two-dimensional composition can be divided into thirds, both vertically and horizontally, creating nine divisions. Not only important are the "cells" created but also the intersections. The designer, photographer, or artist can use this framework as a guide in placement, cropping, and framing the composition.

Adherents to this principle claim that compositions that take these divisions and intersections into account, are more interesting and dynamic. Likewise, a composition that has the point of interest simply centered, or has something like a horizon line dividing the vertical space equally in half, is static and boring. Consider this example...

The main point of interest, the statue, is not placed in the center of the composition. It is placed roughly, along one of the "thirds" divisions. The paved foreground takes up about a third of the bottom part of the composition.

Choice of a horizon placement can be critical in a composition. Consider the two photos below. The one on the left uses a rough "thirds" placement. The one on the right simply divides the composition in half.

Apart from major divisions of space such as horizon lines, we can consider the size and placement of figures or objects in the composition. Below are two versions of a composition which differ only by the size of the figure against the ground. The interaction of figure/ground changes with size.

In two more examples below, with the size unchanged, the placement creates two distinctly different layouts.
In the exercises below (and one at the top of this post), typography students were instructed to divide an 11" x 17" sized layout into thirds, vertically and horizontally. They were given a headline and some body text. They were not allowed to use any pictorial images. They were asked to use the divisions as an guide, or inspiration for their compositions. The idea here was to have the students see these "thirds" divisions and see how their layouts would be affected

So we have this fairly simple principle called the Rule of Thirds. Once you understand that when things are divided evenly in half, or when a object in a composition is perfectly centered, the tendency is for the composition to be static. If you keep in mind these spatial relationships in compositions, it will eventually become instinctual as you develop as a designer.

And then, at risk of contradicting myself, all rules can be broken from time to time. There very well could be a situation where you need to place something dead center, for effect.

NEXT: Foundations of Design: Part 3 -- The Typographic Grid

Sources:
digicamhelp.com
en.wikipedia.org
conca.co.za

Foundations of Design - Part 1, the Math and Science

2010-06-07T09:26:00.002-04:00

This is the first in a series of posts that will attempt to provide some background on the subject of graphic design. I feel that the more we study the history, the theories, the principles and reasons why designers do what they do, the more we will elevate graphic design as a profession.

When I was taking art history at UF many years ago, a professor covered the topic of the Golden Section. I specifically remember him lecturing about this "most perfect" system of proportions. He taught that many artists of the Renaissance used the proportion to guide their work. My own teaching career began much, much later. And coincidentally I've had to teach about the Golden Section. Also known as Golden Mean, Divine Proportion, Golden Rectangle, among other names. The proportion can be simply explained. It is a ratio= 1:1.618 and is also demonstrated by the diagram below, where the ratio of the total length of the line, the AB segment, and the AC segment, is equal to the ratio of the AC segment to the CB segment. Construction of a Golden Section Rectangle is also fairly simple. If we start with a perfect square and bisect the bottom side. Draw a line from that mid-point of the side to the upper right corner, and then inscribe an arc down to a line extended from the square's bottom side. When you enclose the result in a new rectangle, you have a rectangle with Golden Section proportions.

The earliest traces of the Golden Section go back to Stonehenge, which was built around 2500 BC. Research carried out by Oxford University landscape archeologist, Anthony Johnson, indicates that the builders of Stonehenge had a knowledge of geometry that rivaled Pythagoras, the Greek "father of numbers". But Pythagoras didn't come along until 2000 years after Stonehenge. The builders of Stonehenge used the Golden Section system of proportions to layout not only the iconic monument we all are familiar with, but also much simpler monuments created hundreds of years earlier. In the fifth century BC, the Greeks left behind much more evidence of their own interest in the Golden Section through their writings, art, and architecture. The Parthenon in Athens was designed with its overall facade and many of its architectural details and divisions in compliance with the Golden Section.

Much later, during the Renaissance (14th to 17th centuries AD), the system of proportions was used by artists and architects including, Leonardo Da Vinci. Click here to visit a web page where you can interactively discover Golden Section divisions in the Mona Lisa. In 1202 AD, Leonardo of Pisa, also know as Fibonacci, introduced a sequence of numbers to Europe. It is believed that the origins of the sequence go back as far as 200 BC, India. The sequence is arrived at by simply starting with zero and adding one, to produce a third number, also one. Then, adding the second and third numbers together to get a fourth number, and so on. Any two numbers in the sequence, added together, produce the next number in the sequence.

0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144.....

What does this have to do with the Golden Section? As the numbers go higher in the sequence, the ratio between any two in sequence start to match the Golden Section ratio.

8/5 = 1.60000
55/34 = 1.61764
610/377 = 1.61803

Consider this Golden Section subdivided block that contains characteristics of the Fibonacci sequence...
The ratio that occurs in the construction of a Golden Section rectangle and in the Fibonnaci sequence can also be found in certain growth patterns. Just one of many examples found in nature is the sunflower. If you look at the spirals of seed in the center of a sunflower (below), you'll see that there are actually two sets of spirals that go in opposite directions. 21 spirals going one way, and 34 spirals going in the opposite direction.

The numbers 34 and 21 are just two numbers in the Fibonacci sequence and their ratio, 1.619, is very close to the Golden Section ratio. Other examples are the chambered nautilus shell, the pine cone, and pineapples. Although there are exceptions, the number of petals on any given flower are usually a Fibonacci number. For example the lily and iris have 3, buttercup has 5, delphinium has 8, corn marigold has 13, pytethrum has 34, and most daisies have 34, 55 or 89 petals. The proportion is also found on the human body. For instance, the length of your forearm to the length of your hand, is the Golden Section ratio. Click here for more information about Fibonacci sequence numbers found in nature.

Renaissance master Albrecht Dürer felt that a knowledge of geometry was very important:

“And since geometry is the right foundation of all painting, I have decided to teach its rudiments and principles to all youngsters eager for art”

In the book, The Geometry of Art and Life, Tatila Ghyka, said of the famous architect Le Corbusier, that he rediscovered the usefulness of the Golden Section as a regulating theme and the eternal value of proportions in structural elements. One of the most ardent proponents of the International Typographic Style of the mid-20th century, Josef Müller-Brockmann, created graphic designs using constructed geometric elements with planned rhythms and repetitions. In his book, The Graphic Artist and His Design Problems, he wrote,

"the proportions of the formal elements and their intermediate spaces are almost always related to certain numerical progressions".

Like it or not, this ratio or proportion is out there. It has been know by man for thousands of years. It exists in nature with or without our being aware of it. While it may be true that many artists and designers have worked their whole careers without a single thought given to it, through the centuries, great masters and innovators have acknowledged and studied the Golden Section. Some of the most timeless and classic works of art and design have been created with a full, working knowledge of the proportion.

NEXT: Foundations of Design -- Part 2, The Rule of Thirds

Sources:
Geometry of Design, by Kimberlly Elam (ISBN/ISSN: 1568982496)
The Geometry of Art and Life, by Tatila Ghyka
The Graphic Artist and His Design Problems, by Josef Müller-Brockmann
http://www.gogeometry.com/wonder_world/golden_rectangle_stonehenge.html
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/FibonacciNumber.html
http://www.maths.surrey.ac.uk/hosted-sites/R.Knott/Fibonacci/fibBio.html
http://www.popmath.org.uk/rpamaths/rpampages/sunflower.html
http://jwilson.coe.uga.edu/emat6680/parveen/fib_nature.htm

Bad Design

2010-06-04T08:00:00.003-04:00

One of the constant challenges I face as a teacher of design, is inspiring, guiding, correcting, and criticizing the design student. While I have certainly showed students a better way to do something, I have been reluctant to give them a specific solution outright. Mostly, I prefer to set them in a direction by giving them examples of possibilities that they are not considering. We teachers lecture on principles, guidelines and theory. Then we expect the student to absorb, comprehend, assimilate and ultimately apply this knowledge to a design project.

The frustration is that it doesn't always work that way. One of my biggest faults as a teacher is that I expect students to "get it." The problem is that "getting it" is easier said than done. A student must develop his own design aesthetic. In this sense, the word aesthetic is a noun, meaning "a theory or a set of beliefs of what is aesthetically sound." The student must determine in his own mind, what is good and what is bad. Teachers can judge, criticize and grade, but if the student doesn't begin to understand and apply certain principles and develop his own cultivated aesthetic, the results may not be what the teacher and the school will want to show anyone.

Students are influenced by many things other than what they are taught in the classroom. There is a great deal of bad design out there in the world. In this year of 2010, I still have students who are impressed with "grunge" design. You know, that style that David Carson made popular. That was twenty years ago. Carson's tenure at Transworld Skateboarding began in 1983. Many design students don't actually look at design until they are in design school. Then, anything that they haven't seen before is new to them. Distressed type, grungy type, and dirty type eventually get "discovered" by students cruising the free fonts sites. And the first time some students discover gradients and other special effects, it's as if they've found the Holy Grail. In recent years, graffiti and tattoo design have crossed over into popular t-shirt fashion. It's everywhere, along with Illustrator and Photoshop brushes. Skulls and hearts with swords piercing them. And "blackletter" or "Old English" typefaces. This is the design that is out there in the world around us. It is part of our culture, whether we like it or not.

Low-cost, fast turn-around Internet printers have caused a proliferation of nightclub flyers. These are great examples of design done badly. We usually see dozens of "effects" applied to the type design. Glow, distortion, drop shadow, stroke – just about anything is used to make the type exciting. And usually without any design principles whatsoever. The vast entertainment industry is tremendously influential in popular culture. It affects how we view design. But the levels of sophistication in that industry parallel our own field of design. There are hacks in every industry. Just because an entertainer, such as a rapper, is a multi-millionaire, doesn't mean they have a refined sense of style. Along the same line of reasoning, a CEO of a multi-million dollar corporation isn't necessarily savvy about advertising or design. They very well may have a horrible logo and run tacky, uncreative advertising. No amount of money validates bad design. There's no accounting for taste.

In the documentary film Helvetica, Massimo Vignelli said, "the life of a designer is a life of fight. Fight against the ugliness. Just as a doctor fights against disease. For us, the visual disease is what we have around, and what we try to do is to cure it somehow, with design." This is a colorful and frank summary of the struggle that a designer faces in the world. Just as I struggle to enlighten young student designers, I also struggle to bring clients along and get them up to speed in my vision for their project. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Design is really complicated. It really isn't so easy either. Experienced designers can take for granted what they do. As a professional working designer and a teacher of design, I've struggled with that. Because of teaching, I have had to stop and really examine my design process. Things that I took for granted after so many years are now dissected and pulled apart, revealing how we get from point A to point B. Only then am I able to provide some insight to the method or process.

How a student develops his or her design aesthetic has a lot to do with where they might end up in the working world. Do you want to work at Val-Pak putting together coupons? Or maybe at a sign shop making vehicle wraps? No. Most students I've encountered tell me they want to work at an advertising agency. They really don't know what that means, but that's what they've been told along their way to design school. Graduates who've been in my classes, who ended up being hired by agencies or by well-known design firms, have always been the very best students. Those who have been hired to good positions in the field have invariably had a well-developed design aesthetic.

The key to becoming a good designer is the well-developed design aesthetic. Some students are drawn inexplicably, to good design. The see it, they like it, and they learn to emulate it. Other students are in a fog, tossed to and fro in a sea of visual disease, as Vignelli calls it. We try to steer them toward a cure. It doesn't happen easily and it doesn't happen by itself.

What one designer can do with technology.

2010-05-10T08:25:00.007-04:00

What designers are being asked to do and also what they are able to do in the 21st century, is nothing short of amazing. Just a few short years ago, who would have thought that a graphic designer would be able to shoot video, record sound, edit that sound and video on a modestly priced home computer, and then, publish it for the world to see?

RFI, Rags For Industry, is one of my clients. They are a Clearwater, Florida, supplier of recycled textiles. Businesses they service include the automotive, manufacturing, and cleaning industries. Last year I created a video that demonstrates one of their best selling products. The video is posted on YouTube and embedded on the RFI website.

The product is called the BLUE HUCK, or BLUE HUCK TOWEL. One of the most popular cleaning rags, the BLUE HUCK is made from recycled hospital cloth.

I shot the footage with my Nikon D90 (35mm SLR that shoots video), made some "camera cards" in Photoshop, added some stock music from iMovie, and then edited the whole thing, also in iMovie. The client loved it!

See the video on YouTube, click here...

Homage or Ripoff?

2010-04-18T07:27:00.005-04:00

A rebus uses a pictogram to represent a syllabic sound. Ancient writing systems employed the rebus to create words or parts of words that otherwise would have been difficult to represent with just a pictogram. I spotted a rebus being used in a "sign-off" for a Lenscrafters TV spot. Having taught a design history course for the last three years, I immediately recalled both Paul Rand's 1981 design for IBM and also Milton Glaser's 1977 logo for New York City tourism.

So, did the designer of the Lenscrafter's graphic borrow from Paul Rand and/or Milton Glaser?

Nike's unfortunate ad

2010-04-12T09:00:00.000-04:00

Nike stood by their leading endorser through his scandal. Now, they are running a tasteless tv spot that has a recording of his father in what appears to be some kind of confrontation. Tiger doesn't look too happy. Nike shows itself to be the consummate corporate whore. Cross any boundary, stoop to any level, sell your soul. All in the name of preserving the almighty "brand". Ironically, Tiger's father is an adulterer himself. The idea of the father lecturing or confronting his son seems ridiculous on its face.

I was going to put a list of links to some parodies of the Nike spot that have shown up on YouTube. Because there are so many, just go view them yourself. Keywords: Tiger, Nike.

You'll see what I mean. The parodies sort of affirm that the spot was not a good idea in the first place. You have to give Nike credit though. They are trying to salvage and rehabilitate their huge investment. This recent Nike ad may be a misfire. Not to worry, they'll try again. In the end Nike probably got more media exposure from the reaction to the commercial than what they actually spent on running it. I could quote P.T. Barnum here ...

Seeing Phil Mickelson win the Masters yesterday is an interesting contrast to Tiger's situation. There's Phil, with wife and children all around, hugging and crying.

"America's Answer! Production"

2010-03-31T08:00:00.001-04:00

I love WIRED magazine. I think it has some of the most interesting articles out there. The thing about WIRED is that they combine innovative design and graphics, with very fresh coverage of just about anything connected with technology. There seems to be no topic they avoid with the possible exceptions of politics and gossip.

When I got my February 2010 issue, I noticed something very familiar about the cover. The "hand on the wrench" immediately brought to mind Jean Carlu's famous poster from 1941. Do you think this was the inspiration for Wired's cover? There is certainly nothing wrong with paying homage to an icon of poster design. It would just be nice if they acknowledged it.

Response to article: "We Don't Need Designers Anymore."

2010-03-20T18:11:00.004-04:00

This blog post is in response to a link I received on Facebook...

"We Don't Need You To Design Anymore." - article

To say that designers aren't needed anymore is to say that we no longer need creativity. A Youtube video of someone picking their nose may have a hundred thousand hits. Does that mean that filmmakers and videographers don't need to go to school to learn the craft? Millions of people watch "The Biggest Loser" but that doesn't make it quality entertainment. H.L. Mencken once said, "No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public."

The article makes valid points about functionality. It is true that websites don't have to cost a lot of money. Technology has put powerful tools into the hands of amateurs. For a couple of thousand dollars, you can by a computer that is exactly the same as the one that a seasoned graphic designer uses. For a little bit more money, you can buy software that is the same as what is used to produce Hollywood movies. There used to be gap that was measured in many millions of dollars. That gap has become insignificant.

Certainly some website are simple, even ugly by design standards, but they work on some level. They serve a purpose. They fill a niche. Craigslist.org is an excellent example. It is wildly successful. But, it has a brilliant concept and it has amazing functionality. It doesn't prove that design isn't needed. It proves that CONCEPT is king. What designers have to do is specialize in CONCEPT, not flash. That is the only thing that will keep them in business.

Free Collage: Illustrate A Phrase

2010-03-12T09:18:00.023-05:00

Collage Part 2:
The second collage my typography students did had different guidelines. This time they did not have to work within a "grid", but still within a confined dimension, 5" x 5", and also using only "found" type. Their assignment was to illustrate a phrase, lyric, motto, saying, poem, etc. Some are more straightforward than others. Some are like a puzzle that you have to figure out. Again, working with their hands, using x-acto knives, gluesticks, and scissors. It was suggested that they fill up the area completely.

Kerstin Lockhart

Stephanie McDonald

Tiffany Patterson

Amy Chytka

Elliot Bunche

Michael Bloemsma

Kristena Turner

Ericson Brandy

Laura Norville

Max Valignette

Sharone Somada

Vincent Testa

Damara Mckoy

Andrew Rebennack

Brittany O'Donnell

Rhonda Hoornsta

Melissa Lang

Jessica Dengler

Grid Collage: Working With Your Hands

2010-03-04T17:16:00.011-05:00

The Typography class I am teaching is not supposed to get heavily into the computer for at least the first several weeks. That means the students have to work with their hands. They explore letterforms by sketching, tracing, and assembling collages of "found" type. This is the first of three posts that show some of the work. The assignment here was to use magazines and newspapers and create a design that in some way conformed to a grid of nine 2 inch squares.

Here are some recent student efforts...

Vincent Testa

Tiffany Patterson

Damara Mckoy

Amy Chytka

Melissa Lang

Andrew Rebennack

Next week: Free Collage

Choosing Fonts: The Horror of AVATAR

2010-01-19T08:14:00.009-05:00

I'll be the first to admit it, I am a typeface snob. As we know, typefaces, or rather "fonts", as they are commonly referred to in our culture, come in thousands of forms. Amateurs and students of design often make poor choices when faced with font selection. The reason for this is the lack of a developed aesthetic. And that's okay. Amatuers or non-professionals aren't expected to have a sophisticated sense of design. Students, on the other hand, are expected to develop one. I've watched hundreds of students progress through the design curriculum in ten years of teaching. It is nice to see that many of the students who make it through to a BFA, seem to have an epiphany at some point during their time in school. The explanation is that they've been exposed to good design, they've suffered through criticism of their work, and they've studied the profession. And then, at some point, a light bulb goes off.

So what exactly makes a font a "poor choice"? Why do professional designers deem some fonts as inferior? It is not so much that I and other designers dislike certain inferior fonts. We simply don't use them. They don't exist for us. The problem begins when others choose them and actually like them. That's what drives us crazy. It is typical for beginning students and amateurs to "look for a font that is creative." I've had students tell me that fonts like Helvetica and Garamond are "boring". Students spend a great deal of time on "free font" web sites, looking the the perfect font for a project. Amateurs or non-designers frequently choose Papyrus or Comic Sans when putting together a flyer or party invitation. I believe that the reason people drift toward these fonts is that they look different. They look different from the default fonts: Times Roman and Arial. This difference is viewed in a positive way. And in reality, the only reason that any non-designer out there has the ability to even choose a font is because of technology. Note to non-designers: Times Roman and Arial are okay to use, really.

But let's get to what is perhaps the world-record, greatest selection of a bad font in the history of the world. We have to search no farther than one of the most extravagant and glorious uses of technology: the current billion-dollar blockbuster, Avatar. James Cameron invented a new kind of camera technology, had a botanist consult on alien vegetation, and even had an entire language created for the blue creatures to speak. But when it came to the movie's logo, he went right to Papyrus. That's right, the scourge of the design world, Papyrus. Preeminent calligrapher and former consultant to Cameron, Tim Girvin, even contacted Cameron to work on the titling. But in the end, Cameron and the other powers-that-be just took the primitive-looking Papyrus and tweaked it slightly. Then, add a Photoshop effect, and voilà!

The question of stealing.

2009-12-16T20:35:00.003-05:00

The following was written for a response to a question posted on the LinkedIn Group, "Communication Arts".

The question was "Do you agree with the quote, "all artists borrow, great artists steal".

No artists and designers truly work in a vacuum. We are all influenced by the world around us, including all the design, art, and advertising we see. Some we like and are affected by it. And probably there's a lot more that we don't like. Our design education, critiques and constructive comments all help develop our carefully crafted aesthetic. Our design sensibilities are also guided by designs that we see in award shows and annuals. The collective design culture recognizes certain design to be superior, or better. That design tends to make more money for the designers. We are influenced by that process.

One of the greatest skills that a designer can develop is to see design solutions, and then understand their fundamentals. And then finally, tackling his own project with these new ideas and forms of expression.

Stealing isn't stealing. Plagiarism, now that's stealing.

Heavy Lifting

2009-12-14T17:32:00.008-05:00

I've seen job postings asking for someone to run a marketing department with "knowledge of all the major design programs for web and print, including Flash", but with no mention of the "thinking" part. In the business world there is a great deal of emphasis on skill and technology in regards to graphic design. Don't get me wrong. I'm all about technology. Years ago, I learned HTML and designed my first web pages in code. Now it's Dreamweaver, CSS and Javascript.

I completely understand that we designers are expected to do more than we used to. Never before in the history of design have we had to have so much technical knowledge, and also have so much expensive equipment and software. At the same time, we have virtual complete control over the final product.

The problem is that clients sometimes neglect the substance and put too much emphasis on the sizzle. Today more than ever, advertising has to be on target, on message, on strategy, and better than everyone else. Investing in marketing and advertising is critical for a company's success. Some businesses are cutting budgets. Everyone wants more, for less. At the end of the day, someone has to do the heavy lifting. The real creative work. Design doesn't come out of the end of an Illustrator brush. A Flash effect isn't a concept. Style without substance, glitter without game, just isn't going to cut it in this economy. The inclination is to take shortcuts. Do it cheaper, get a freebee, do it yourself.

Young designers and art directors coming up through the ranks should take note of one important fact. The big money usually goes to those who have the big ideas. Art directors who have been trained in "concept" have the most potential. In the advertising and design business, those who can handle the heavy lifting of strategy, message, and concept, have a huge advantage.

Great Clients, Great Designers

2009-10-16T09:51:00.004-04:00

In this economy I would imagine that designers everywhere are concerned with finding and keeping clients. Designers with long careers typically have a good deal of business come their way by referral. I've recently had a spate of potential clients come my way. One by one, we parted ways with nothing accomplished and nothing gained. Since I had really wanted some new business, I reviewed and evaluated the events to see if I went wrong somewhere. It always came down to the same thing. Not a good "fit". There wasn't a meeting of the minds. So many times a client's perception of the design process doesn't match reality. Any given business deserves good design and advertising. Good designers spend years cultivating their design aesthetic. But clients don't do the same. And why should they? They need to be concerned with the best way to build a widget, or create the perfect business plan, or whatever.

I was recently asked, "what is the perfect client?" I answered simply that it was someone who was familiar with my work, liked what I do, and chose me to solve their problem. Now, I'm not naive, and know it can be much more complicated than that. The bottom line is that good clients appreciate good design and want it. But that same "good" client who knows good design must also be a person who trusts the expertise of others. This is a person who is self-assured and willing to delegate with confidence.

In a 1993 interview regarding the design of the NEXT logo, Steve Jobs, the famous founder of Apple, was asked about the process and working relationship he had with Paul Rand. In this fascinating bit of video we get an insight into the working relationship of a great client and a great designer. Jobs had left Apple where he had quite a famous run, starting the company and developing the Macintosh. The logo, product design, graphics and advertising all won numerous awards. He was used to and expected the very best design work. Rand, on the other hand, was considered the greatest and most influential designer of the 20th century. This of course was very late in the career of Rand. Jobs tells of asking Rand for some "options" when he presents logos for NEXT. He says Rand just tells him, "I'm going to solve your problem, if you want an option, you can get one from another designer."

Not everything can be so "storybook" as their relationship. But I think that in this 21st century designers need to cultivate the client-designer relationship. We can build that kind of trusting, familiarity that provides a good environment for good work and good solutions to client's problems. The enlightened client knows that he needs design and knows it has a value. A great client is an advocate of great design. They are out there. There are also new clients out there who we can work with, cultivate a relationship with, and build trust. This are the qualities that the designer needs in the design process. Be inclusive, instructive, gracious, but most of all, be principled. See the interview....

Those cheap CD fonts... F*%#@!!!!!!

2009-08-20T15:00:00.003-04:00

I've looked, but I can't backtrack to find out how or who referred me to this video, but it is very relevant to typography and design. It is also extremely funny if you know the subject, jargon, and are a designer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDiDATbIG-o

Touching Design

2009-08-12T18:47:00.023-04:00

The only thing most designers touch any more is a keyboard. Working with your hands is getting to be, more and more, a lost art. While it is encouraging to see many up-and-coming young designers sketching in their sketchbooks,I sometimes worry that certain techniques and methods of design will eventually be practiced only in the backroom of a workshop in Chicopee, MA.

I am a member of the last generation of graphic designers that was trained in markers, rapidograph pens, phototype, and paste-ups. But after making the transition to computers in 1992, I readily embraced the technology. Then later, it was HTML and websites. Now I spend days coding CSS to give web pages the same "crafted" look that print design has.

So it's kind of funny that in the last year or so, I've become interested in fooling around with a design and printing technology that goes back 559 years. I suppose it had something to do with the fact that I have been teaching a history of design class. But regardless of that, I think it has more to do with a need to get away from the cold, impersonal digital world once in a while.

Letterpress received a huge boost of publicity when a complete letterpress printing studio was donated to a 12 year-old, Aariel Dore, on the show "Extreme Home Makeover". It is interesting that there are a fair number of people who are still practicing the craft of letterpress printing. Many of the companies produce invitations, especially for weddings. Some of the work is absolutely amazing. Most people these days only see digital design work printed on inkjet or laser printers. What a shame. I know that many companies don't even send there print work to real outside printers anymore. So how interesting it is to see a real letterpress printed piece. The paper is often quite unique, having texture, pattern and thickness you don't get with today's slick coated, varnished work. The type is pressed into the paper, giving it a dimensional feel.

Some links to check out...

Dick and Jane Letterpress

Studio On Fire

Briar Press, a great resource

M and H Type, oldest metal type foundry left in U.S.

Go To The Head Of The Class

2009-08-05T19:39:00.006-04:00

I teach a couple of classes at a local design school (college). I noticed that students generally pick a seat on the first day and then don't move around from week to week. They literally choose the same seat for the whole ten-week term. Now I completely understand that some don't want to sit right up front for various reasons. Self-conscious, don't want to be seen as a suck-up, don't want to be singled out, or don't want to be called on or otherwise embarassed. I get that, really. But I have observed a direct correlation between those who pick a back row seat and those who are poor students. Never has it been proved more convincingly than in one of my classes this term.

The classroom has 20 desks and the class has 10 students. So, there are a lot of choices for seating. Here is the breakdown for the recent midterm exam grades for the ten students:
Front row-- 99%
Second row-- 99%
Third row-- 76%, 92% and 100%
Fourth row-- 82%, 77% and 84%
Fifth and last row-- 53% and 63%

From the data I'm presenting here, you can see that middle row is definitely a volatile area, but overall there is a certain trend. I swear I am not making this up.

The Polish Poster

2009-05-15T13:37:00.022-04:00

In September of 1980, the Solidarity movement was founded in the shipyards of Gdansk, Poland. It was the first time a non-communist trade union was formed in a communist country. Lech Wałęsa and others led a non-violent fight against the communist repression. Almost ten years later, the government was forced to negotiate with the union and later elections brought about the forming of a Solidarity-led coalition government. I watched, with the rest of the world, as the first cookie of the Soviet Union crumbled. I felt proud.

I remembered the logo. Jerzey Janiszewski created the design pictured here. The grafitti-style lettering serves to distance the movement from the establishment government. The letters symbolize people standing together, solidly.

My mother was the daughter of Polish immigrants. My father left Poland shortly before the Nazis invaded. Having a strong affinity for all things Polish, I was quite thrilled when my wife and I visited the country several years ago. Walking the streets of Warsaw and Łódź, I was amazed at the proliferation of poster imagery. Everywhere we went, I saw posters for concerts, plays, protests, causes, issues, and festivals.

Beginning with the period right after World War II, the Polish Union of Artists, with the support of the major art universities, set rigorous standards that set the stage for a tradition of amazing imagery, creativity and technical proficiency. The result can be seen in a poster design legacy that few other countries can match. According to Phillip B. Meggs in Megg's History of Graphic Design, the Polish poster is a phenomenon that really has no peer.

One particular sight we saw in our trip, was a "walking" poster. Three men dressed in green jumpsuits were walking the streets, holding a banner. The graphics were also posted in the traditional way on walls and kiosks.

The Brutal Truth

2009-04-22T17:06:00.005-04:00

After graduating from UF in 1975, I took my graphic design portfolio to the big city of Atlanta to start my career. My new wife and I packed up everything we had and rented a little apartment on the north side of town. We spent three long summer months looking for jobs while nervously watching the bank account. Interviewing for me was brutal. The shy and withdrawn artist type didn't play well in the big city. I tried to hit all of the big agencies, not realizing that my portfolio was extremely lacking. Some creative directors and art directors wouldn't even see you. Just drop off the portfolio, and pick it up the next day. Often there would be no comment at all, and no personal contact. And those were places where there was an opening.

I'll never forget one particular interview I had at a graphic design firm. It was a respected, award-winning shop known throughout the south. Tom, the creative director, was very gracious in seeing me. On the phone he said they weren't looking, but were always interested in meeting new illustrators and designers.

The studio was in an old brick building with all the requisite antique toys, and other cool things lying about. Tom was very friendly and easy to talk to. He might have made one semi-committal comment about one piece, out of the fifteen or so in my book. Wished me good luck and that was that.

The wife managed to snag a teaching position at a special education school. I was lucky to finally land a paste-up job in the advertising department of Davison's, a large department store chain. During the next year I set about working on my portfolio. I was very aware that it simply wasn't good enough. I sought freelance work on the side and jumped on any chance to work on design at Davison's. I submitted a breakthrough creative idea for a full-page ad. Davison's was having a grand opening for a new branch. The ad was the announcement. The art director loved my concept and I ended up with an amazing addition to my portfolio. It was a wonderful thing to get published.

It had been over a year since I interviewed with the creative director, Tom. Armed with some new additions to the book, I called on him again. I was sure that he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from hiring me this time. The second interview went better than the first. I felt more knowledgeable and comfortable in just making small talk. After all, I’d been working for a while. He did like my new full-page ad. But then, finally he said, at what was to be the closing moments of the interview, that he wanted to tell me something. He said it was because I had made the effort to call on him a second time. He pointed to the new showpiece of my book. He said that when I had ten pieces like that one, I might be considered for a position at a firm like his. I felt validated and crushed at the same time. It was a very strange moment.

I became even more motivated. I went back to work at Davison’s and was eventually promoted to layout artist. I also landed a gig designing covers for a community tabloid, Common Cents (for no money). I did a few freelance jobs for the Atlanta office of Young & Rubicam. And I never stopped working on the portfolio.

Starting A Fire

2009-03-30T14:49:00.002-04:00

We sit down with the sketchbook and try to make a new design. Maybe it’s a logo or a poster or coming up with the name for a new company. It’s making something from nothing. For a graphic designer, it’s the hardest thing we do. Setting out to create something is kind of like starting a fire: a number of conditions have to be just right. In going about the business of graphic design, certainly a creative enterprise, it’s essential to have certain conditions just right. When your trying to start a fire it’s good to have dry conditions, dry stuff. When your trying to start a creative fire, I believe it helps a lot to have lots of “new” around you. New stuff is essential. And here’s the thing. It doesn’t have to actually be new, just new to you.

You don’t get new stuff from the 3” screen of a Nintendo DS playing hours of Tokyo Beatdown. That was only new to you for about five minutes. That is an example of an activity that doesn’t provide new stuff, and doesn’t help creativity. Inspiration can come from many places. In fact, it always comes from many places. Experiences, trips, encounters, challenges, and environments are all things that provide a background for inspiration. They can help creativity. Think of your mind as a library. In that library you have only James Patterson novels. Nothing else. No magazines, no newspapers, no history books. All of your resources are confined to that one author’s work. Try starting a creative fire with that. The point is, we need a broad base to work with.

One day, the proverbial blank canvas or page will be facing you. The next great creative idea is not already in your head, just waiting to come out. The next great creative idea is a product of those experiences, trips, encounters, challenges, and environments. It has to be cultivated and grown. A problem will present itself, the blank canvas. Your job is to solve it. Your mind will take a little from here and a little from there, and try putting little bits of information together in combinations and permutations. What resources will your mind pull from? The well-stocked library looks like a good idea right about now.

The person who has an open mind, a discovering mind, has a better chance. I understand this all may sound very simplistic and obvious, but the truth is, people can get lazy and comfortable in their lives. A graphic designer can’t afford to be lazy when it comes to creativity. You have to proactively work at it. For a designer, creativity must be cultivated.

Plagiarism

2009-03-19T09:45:00.001-04:00

We are raising, wait... we may have already raised a generation who consider anything on the web to be fair game. Maybe it's the business climate that has been brewing for the last twenty or so years, where the bottom line has become the single most important goal. Maybe it's the ease at which music, photos, software and writings can be distributed on the web. Remember Napster? As a teacher at a design school, I have contact with many 18, 19, and 20 somethings. The pervasive attitude is that if you can get something for free, that's better than paying for it.

The problem is that someone is out there creating things, making things. Some people create and make things for a living. When you use a photo or piece of music that doesn't belong to you, it is just like breaking into someone's home. When one of my students copied some information from a web site and pasted it into a word processing program, and then, with no citing of any source, tried to hand the paper in, I failed him. I guess they figure "why spend the time and effort to write something yourself, when you can find something on the web that is already written, and then just copy and paste it"? This practice became so rampant that I stopped assigning papers and powerpoints.

My design school has a web site with a couple of blogs. One is personal, insightful, and original. The other is amazingly encyclopedic. I noticed that the blog author posts every week or so with a lengthy entry. His blogs are about all manner of things concerning design. I was truly impressed, being a designer myself. But something didn't seem quite right. I copied a couple of paragraphs of his blog and in a quick Google search, discovered that the entire content was shamelessly lifted from someone else's blog. There was no citing of the source or even that it came from somewhere else. Searching further,I discovered that virtually all of the entries were "written" the same way. It's especially funny that several of the posts are written in the first person! Is this okay? Is this what we've come to?