Much of the Design today lacks the proper use of type. Designers seem to think a picture tells all by the misuse of type. Many examples adorn our bus stops and billboards today with a style that's only worthy of a drive by. No longer are the days of stop and look.
I couldn't agree more with Jeremy Smith. His article on the demise of the typographer took me back to my days as a junior artist in a Toronto advertising design studio in the late 60s, and reminded me just how much everything has changed - and not always for the better. Now I am working as a design director in a small publishing company on the western edge of Europe. Young, and not-so-young designers have been known to roll their eyes and cast pitying looks in my direction when I lament the lack of typographic training in today's colleges. After all, digital type can be squashed, stretched and otherwise tortured until it fits a given space, so why worry about things like proportion and readability? And is there a designer anywhere who can still do a freehand rendering of Times Roman or Helvetica for a layout? Typography is no longer the realm of the more senior designer, and it shows. There was a lot to be said for galley proofs, the ink still slightly wet as one meticulously did a cut and paste late on a Friday afternoon. In those days you had to know what you were doing because deadlines were tight and there was little tolerance for beginners who carelessly wiped their sleeve across the freshly output proof! Unquestionably, digital design and typesetting has taken a lot of drudgery out of our business, and has opened up all sorts of new, exciting design possibilities. But I wouldn't have missed the opportunities I had in my art college and junior artist days to render a full colour ad in soft pastels, and later in magic markers; to spend hours carefully hand-lettering entire paragraphs in recognisable fonts; to laboriously cut drop out masks for photographs, and so on. While I don't have to do all that anymore, I have found that the work habits learned through those tedious tasks still stand me in good stead - namely patience, attention to detail, maintaining a clean working environment etc. But typography taught me something more - an appreciation for subtle nuances in design and a sense of the printed word as an art form in itself. Unfortunately, that also means that I tend to wince when I open up a book or a magazine and see widows and orphans and little rivers of white space trickling down the page. The pity of it is that with care, even digital typesetting can be done well, but sadly, designers are now more likely to answer to the company accountant who only sees beauty in the 'bottom 'line' - not by the eagle eye of a creative director who has no qualms about tearing up a shoddy pice of work, even if it means staying up all night to do it again. Ironic, isn't it - we have been freed from the time-consuming drudgery of scalpels and rubber cement, but we have less time to spend on producing high quality typography?!
Thanks, Jeremy. You are absolutely on the mark!
Submitted by jane_stark on Tue, 12/17/2002 - 04:22.
I think the subject of this article should have been Drew's father, Andy, and his grandfather. Drew and brother Bill took over Andresen from their dad and rode high on a high-finance wave, driving clients to endless lunches in a vintage Cadillac and living high on the hog. Computers and desktop graphics were on their way into fashion, and in spite of constant warnings that this was the new wave, the boys insisted that advertising and art direction would always be willing to pay for hand-set type or Compugraphics typesetting. This did not turn out to be true, and Andresen Typographics went from fame and fortune and their tentacle in Arizona to a tiny industrial mall location in Santa Monica. This happened very quickly. The Andresen boys reacted as if they had been personally attacked. How dare the world rujin their game? Short-sighted is the term I would use to describe both, and also cavalier and careless. I share the previous commenter's love of typography. Sadly, Drew and Bill Andresen loved the remuneration it brought for a while. Jeremy was an employee at the Melrose shop; he was a highly paid salesman supported by the two wayward sons, not someone who appreciated beautiful typography or design. If anyone really appreciates type as art, go to Europe and see some. Don't be fooled by Jeremy Smith and his ode to Drew Andresen, playboy and bad businessman.
Yeah, so
What's the solution?
'tis so true in the world of design
Much of the Design today lacks the proper use of type. Designers seem to think a picture tells all by the misuse of type. Many examples adorn our bus stops and billboards today with a style that's only worthy of a drive by. No longer are the days of stop and look.
This article should be required reading for all designers!
I couldn't agree more with Jeremy Smith. His article on the demise of the typographer took me back to my days as a junior artist in a Toronto advertising design studio in the late 60s, and reminded me just how much everything has changed - and not always for the better. Now I am working as a design director in a small publishing company on the western edge of Europe. Young, and not-so-young designers have been known to roll their eyes and cast pitying looks in my direction when I lament the lack of typographic training in today's colleges. After all, digital type can be squashed, stretched and otherwise tortured until it fits a given space, so why worry about things like proportion and readability? And is there a designer anywhere who can still do a freehand rendering of Times Roman or Helvetica for a layout? Typography is no longer the realm of the more senior designer, and it shows. There was a lot to be said for galley proofs, the ink still slightly wet as one meticulously did a cut and paste late on a Friday afternoon. In those days you had to know what you were doing because deadlines were tight and there was little tolerance for beginners who carelessly wiped their sleeve across the freshly output proof! Unquestionably, digital design and typesetting has taken a lot of drudgery out of our business, and has opened up all sorts of new, exciting design possibilities. But I wouldn't have missed the opportunities I had in my art college and junior artist days to render a full colour ad in soft pastels, and later in magic markers; to spend hours carefully hand-lettering entire paragraphs in recognisable fonts; to laboriously cut drop out masks for photographs, and so on. While I don't have to do all that anymore, I have found that the work habits learned through those tedious tasks still stand me in good stead - namely patience, attention to detail, maintaining a clean working environment etc. But typography taught me something more - an appreciation for subtle nuances in design and a sense of the printed word as an art form in itself. Unfortunately, that also means that I tend to wince when I open up a book or a magazine and see widows and orphans and little rivers of white space trickling down the page. The pity of it is that with care, even digital typesetting can be done well, but sadly, designers are now more likely to answer to the company accountant who only sees beauty in the 'bottom 'line' - not by the eagle eye of a creative director who has no qualms about tearing up a shoddy pice of work, even if it means staying up all night to do it again. Ironic, isn't it - we have been freed from the time-consuming drudgery of scalpels and rubber cement, but we have less time to spend on producing high quality typography?!
Thanks, Jeremy. You are absolutely on the mark!
Did you forget Drew Andresen's lack of vision about computers?
I think the subject of this article should have been Drew's father, Andy, and his grandfather. Drew and brother Bill took over Andresen from their dad and rode high on a high-finance wave, driving clients to endless lunches in a vintage Cadillac and living high on the hog. Computers and desktop graphics were on their way into fashion, and in spite of constant warnings that this was the new wave, the boys insisted that advertising and art direction would always be willing to pay for hand-set type or Compugraphics typesetting. This did not turn out to be true, and Andresen Typographics went from fame and fortune and their tentacle in Arizona to a tiny industrial mall location in Santa Monica. This happened very quickly. The Andresen boys reacted as if they had been personally attacked. How dare the world rujin their game? Short-sighted is the term I would use to describe both, and also cavalier and careless. I share the previous commenter's love of typography. Sadly, Drew and Bill Andresen loved the remuneration it brought for a while. Jeremy was an employee at the Melrose shop; he was a highly paid salesman supported by the two wayward sons, not someone who appreciated beautiful typography or design. If anyone really appreciates type as art, go to Europe and see some. Don't be fooled by Jeremy Smith and his ode to Drew Andresen, playboy and bad businessman.