Beyond Typography

Excuse me, officer

I was shown an article in response to my post the other day about the Metropolitan Police anti-terror campaign. The article appeared in the British Journal of Photography. I'm glad to say that a lot of people are alarmed and upset by the tone of the campaign. You can read the article here. I love the spoof advert, there are some more here.

Web design and typography

Business Week have compiled a 10 Commandments of Web Design, complete with an interactive poll and examples for the best and worst designed sites, there are some . I'm pleased to say that this was commandment number 6:

Thou shalt worship at the altar of typography.

At last! If a serious business magazine can recognise that good design and typography is valuable, then the people who read it might spend that extra bit to make their own offerings better.

The Terror of Photography

Well, it had to happen. I'm going to take the plunge and buy a digital camera. I currently use film, be it an SLR for the serious stuff or a trusty Fuji disposable camera which is always in my bag. I have recently been using the camera on my mobile phone (all my pics that appear on this blog were taken using it), but I feel the need to buy a digital point and shoot as both the battery and memory on the phone are crap. I've narrowed it down to two models, the Panasonic Lumix TZ5  and the Canon Powershot G9. I'll let you know what I get.

But taking the odd snapshot in the street can be pretty hairy these days. Today's fear is of a camera-wielding terrorist, whereas yesterday's was of the paedophile and before that it was of criminals "casing the joint" (try taking a photograph in a UK shopping mall and see what happens). There is even a media campaign by the Metropolitan Police asking members of the public to report people taking photographs in the street in case they are terrorists. Even the railway enthusiast is not safe in his pursuit of photographing the object of interest without some official asking what they're up to (as if holding a camera to your eye with finger on the "button" were not enough of a giveaway).

Here is an excellent article putting all this into perspective.

So where does Creative Juice come from?

This "documentary" explains all! 

You should Do it now

Some very good advice here.

Via Debbie Millman, and while you're there, check out the resignation letter from Stewart Butterfield, the co-founder of Flickr.

Love type

I found a fantastic site the other day. It's called I love typography. It has so much information about type. Written by someone who really does love the subject. While you're there, try the rather difficult Font Game. Look at the hall of fame – I'm no.7! Not bad...

Another great blog is by a woman called Mrs Eaves at for the love of type. Inspired by Stefan Sagmeister’s artwork for Lou Reed's album Set The Twilight Reeling, she produced this...

Have a good Friday.

A quick one today as I've got a load of stuff to do before attending day two of an Advanced Flash Course. Yesterday was day one and we covered a lot of ground. I hope to make use of a lot of it.

I downloaded the new Firefox on Tuesday night. Seems slicker than the previous version – although I had to change the browser theme from the default hideous Firelight.

But what is even better is the PicLens add-on from CoolIris and is available for most browsers. When you look at Flickr or YouTube, or search Google, Yahoo, etc, instead of displaying the results as thumbnails on pages, it displays them in a 3D wall (this feature doesn't work in Safari!). Makes searching so much quicker.

Also, Portsmouth is being dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st Century (architecturally speaking, anyway) with the announcement of the new stadium for Portsmouth Football Club. So what? It's been designed by Herzog and de Meuron and looks fantastic. This adds to the already iconic Spinnaker Tower. I hope it gets the required planning permission. Portsmouth had some really nice architecture before being flattened during WW2, or demolished in an attempt to modernise during the 1960s and 70s. One really bold move was to commission the Tricorn Centre, which, when opened won an international design award. The problem was, the local council didn't have the courage of their convictions and the moaners started to knock it until it was voted ugliest building before being torn down to be replaced by an impersonal, identikit shopping mall with no character. The past few years has seen a resurrection of good design in Portsmouth.

And finally, this. Country tourism brands. S'funny how most adopt a "hand-painted" feel...

Food for thought

I had a conversation yesterday about design and the role of the designer and it got me thinking. I've mentioned before that everybody thinks they are a designer (or at least has a view on design). Well, this conversation verged on the "why do we need designers?" The equipment and software available means that anybody can design now. Templates are provided and it's easy.  This is a similar question that's been rumbling on for years about photographers: if cameras are no so smart and can, for example, correct lighting, camera shake, etc., why pay for a photographer to turn up with much the same equipment and take the pictures for you?

Well, if you went to Le Gavroche or The Fat Duck would you expect to cook the food yourself? (And don't get me started on the whole char-bar thing!) No, you'd expect some fantastically cooked and presented food from MIchel Roux Jr. and Heston Blumenthal respectively. The ingredients would be well-sourced and the menu put together in a well-thought out way. I would argue that a decent, professional designer (or photographer) is comparable. We have spent time training and learning, not just in using the tools of the trade – be it the Mac, the software or camera – but the stuff behind it. What the terminology means, composition, colour theory, type/design history, a chance to experiment and generally getting to know the subject inside out. We know what a baseline grid is and how to construct one, we know what kerning rules are. Most of us older ones know what knockout and overprint means. Some of us have even used a type scale.

A designer arrives at a decision through various conscious and subconscious factors. The decision we arrive at is (usually) better informed.

Going back to the chef/restaurant analogy: a design-led solution is like going to one of the restaurants mentioned above; a half-way house, where the client has a template but can vary the content within the framework such as add pics and change the length of copy, is like going to a fast food outlet such as McDonalds; and the final version where no designer is involved is like making a sandwich at home.

The point is, is that if you make a lot of sandwiches and visit fast-food restaurants a lot, you are really going to appreciate the visit to the Michelin-starred restaurant.

The client will also appreciate the higher quality as well.

Walls have ears. And eyes, arms, legs...

While researching yesterday, I found this. Look at the shadows on the ground and the changing sky colour. Should give you an idea of how long it took to do.

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

Is Google Making Us Stupid?

Is the Internet changing the way we think? I think so.

“Our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts.”

Friedrich Nietzsche, 1882.

And this interesting article by futurologist Nicholas Carr explains why.