The Art of Business: Gene Gable on Design Certification, Letterpress Printing, and QuarkXPress Training

Eric J. Adams

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A former publisher of “Publish” magazine and former president of Seybold Seminars, Gene Gable is a veritable font of knowledge about the publishing industry. Here are his answers to reader questions following our Q&A with Gene two weeks ago.

On Corporate Style
Creativepro.com Reader: Having read your interview on Creativepro.com, it would seem that there is on the horizon an incredible reduction for designers, visual thinkers, and the like. With all the new technologies, the traditional skill sets have been weakened, and so I can only see some of that eroding more in the future. What will the designer ten years from now look like, and how many of them will be required? — O.N.

GG: I’d like to think that the value of design will be even greater as information gets increasingly complex and automation takes a larger and larger role in how information is presented.

But I do think designers will have to change. The role of a designer will be more in setting up templates and tags for information instead of final pages. But this is just as important — maybe more important because it requires anticipating how people will use the information in a variety of formats.

Plus, as companies are increasingly concerned with brand image, they have to control all the information they put out, no matter where it comes from or how it is used. This means that documents, from highly complex to the simplest, should be well designed. I have seen many large corporations clamp down recently on even the most basic product information and office communications.

So if you’ve ever been involved in a corporate style manual (which is usually a three-ring binder full of standards that most people in the company ignore), then imagine the electronic version of that residing on a server and “forcing” all documents created in the system to automatically follow company style guidelines. That’s pretty important work and I hope valuable economically to companies that are brand conscious.

But designers do have to start taking a greater interest in the actual content and how people behave with it — more emphasis on information architecture, and less on pure design style.

On QuarkXPress vs. InDesign
CP.com Reader: I can’t help but see the QuarkXPress vs. InDesign issue differently from you. My cronies are nearly all photographers and their expertise has been limited to Photoshop. The few that tried QuarkXPress couldn’t climb the learning curve and consequently did not venture into the design world. With the advent of InDesign many of them tried it again and now are involved in design and layout work with all four feet. As photographers and graphic designers we can offer a turnkey approach to our clients needs. The bigger agencies and design firms have become bloated and filled with middleman charges. That puts us, as photographers, in a unique position to get a bigger chunk of the overall advertising and marketing pie. Now the client calls us and we see the entire project through to completion. — T.M.

GG: I would certainly agree that InDesign is gaining popularity. And I do hope it serves as a catalyst for more creative professionals to take up the craft of page construction. That would be healthy for everyone. And I absolutely agree with you that InDesign is a better entry point for photographers — the consistency with Photoshop is an important feature. And I also agree that a great opportunity exists for photographers (and I think photo labs if they are smart) in expanding services to offer more complete start-to-finish design projects.

But I would like to encourage photographers to strike up partnerships with good graphic designers and pool resources, rather than take on too much of the design process. It is in everyone’s best interest to keep as many of the creative processes separate so as not to confuse buyers into thinking that layout is simply “thrown in” to a photo shoot assignment, or vice versa. More creative professionals should team up with other specialists, much like many medical practices offer a one-stop place to get all your medical care needs met by individual specialists working as a group.

On Design Certification
CP.com Reader: I’m a graphic artist living in Newark, Delaware, and I agree with your statement that creative professionals should undergo some sort of licensing or certification. I would go one further and assign different class licenses for different levels of skill and knowledge. As the most technically minded of the designers in our 12 person studio, it falls on me to configure file sharing, run disk utilities, troubleshoot printing errors, and otherwise keep everything working. I do all of this in addition to coding HTML, doing complicated Photoshop retouching, designing tradeshow booths and POP displays… and in my spare time, I’ve been teaching myself complicated Flash ActionScript and muddling through CSS and XHTML. I have 10 years of experience and a BFA, and I make $40K. Without being able to compare my salary against other SIMILARLY skilled people, I don’t know if I’m being underpaid (or overpaid). I’m not just the average Quark jockey. I don’t mean to boast, but there is a difference… I adapt, learn, and think in addition to creating.

I wouldn’t mind some sort of collaboration between Apple, Adobe, Macromedia, etc., and whether it takes #2 pencils and multiple choice tests, references, peer reviews, I’m in. Give me my Class 10 license so I can drive the big rigs! — K.C.

GG: You’re a great example of what I was talking about. Extra skills should clearly be worth more in the marketplace, but when people hire, pretty much everyone says they’re qualified to do everything. There’s no measure of skill out there. In Canada they have an academic standard that allows designers to carry the title Registered Graphic Designer, or RGD. It’s a start.

But until we have a set of standard metrics (not for creativity but for technical skills) I have one suggestion — try to document the savings you create by keeping systems running, trouble shooting, etc., and use that as ammo when you discuss compensation during a review. If your company had to bring in an expert for some of those services, there would be hard costs associated with them.

On Learning Illustrator
CP.com Reader: I am a 19-year-old designer and over the years the only two programs I work in are Photoshop and Illustrator, which I know like the back of my hand. It was always my understanding that Illustrator was the competitor and alternative to QuarkXPress, though I guess not since the release of InDesign. In your interview you never mentioned Illustrator at all, what’s your opinion on the future of this program? — S.T.

GG: Illustrator is terrific and a fine alternative to QuarkXPress or InDesign, but not really suitable for multiple-page documents (and of course it does many things those programs don’t). I don’t put it in the same category, but it’s fine if you can make it work for the jobs at hand. But for multiple-page publications like books, magazines, brochures, or newspapers, you really have to employ QuarkXPress or InDesign (or FrameMaker or Ventura). And I think you’ll find either pretty easy to learn if you know Illustrator well. In fact, one advantage to InDesign is that it works really well with Illustrator and Photoshop. I’m almost certain, though, that you’ll soon run into the limits of Illustrator, and if you want skills for the job market, I think QuarkXPress knowledge is a requirement.

On Improving Typographic Skills
CP.com Reader: I have been a “Creative Pro” for about six years — having started with cut and paste with wax board — but was never really officially trained in this profession. I just study on my own to improve my skills. Are there books out there or training on typography that you would recommend? — G.D.

GG: The book “The Complete Manual of Typography” by James Felici from Peachpit Press is terrific.

On Switching to InDesign
CP.com Reader: I am teaching a graphic design course at a university and the opportunity has come up to go to InDesign and OSX. I have heard that switching to InDesign is “committing suicide,” and I had one printer tell he would not hire people who knew InDesign. What do you think is the best for my students? — R.L.

GG: I can’t imagine any serious graphic designer or production artists NOT knowing how to use QuarkXPress — it’s a basic requirement for getting a job and will be, in my opinion, for a long time. Quark is well established and any changes from adoption of InDesign will be gradual. Plus, early reports from some operations who have switched from QuarkXPress to InDesign is that cross training wasn’t all that difficult — another vote for starting with XPress.

That said, I do think InDesign is a fine program and Adobe is working very hard to win over converts — they will eventually be successful, and have been already in some larger newspaper operations (but newspapers are a small part of the design job market). As for your printer, he’ll likely come around when enough customers bring in InDesign files.

On Handling Metal Type
CP.com Reader: After almost 35 years in the software business (starting at age 13) I’d like to do something in the “real world,” which so far has included timber framing, but metal-into-paper typesetting has always been alluring to me. How does one get into metal type and traditional letterpress printing? –C.R.

GG: A good site is for the American Amateur Press Association — there are lots of links at this site. As for where to find stuff, eBay is a great resource — lots of type and small presses for sale. Search for “letterpress” or look in the printing equipment category and you’ll see all kinds of stuff float by. You can start with a small Kelsey press that is easy enough to ship — they fit on a tabletop. But be careful — it can get addicting!

On Appreciating the Craft of Printing
CP.com Reader: How does the present-day designer garnish the experience you attribute to working with metal and hand-set type, when the mechanisms are not readily available (unless you want boxes of stuff delivered to your door from eBay)? What exercises or techniques would you suggest? I come from an illustration background but have made great strides as a graphic designer in the past few years; however, I still feel an insecurity with typography and have an urge to bolster my knowledge further. –T.C.

GG: I always thought dry-transfer type was a great learning tool because you had to lay down each letter one after the other and it forces you to think about letter spacing because there was no going back! And most designers had to cut their teeth on dry-transfer type, even though it was a total pain. Let’s be glad we’ve moved on, but I do have some suggestions:

First of all, it’s important to respect the type as designed, so I have a rule that with little exception, I never modify the horizontal or vertical scale of a face. And no artificial small caps or other “forced” modifications!

As for getting more comfortable with the type, one thing I recommend is setting each letter of a large headline in a separate text box, then lining them up one at a time — it’s time consuming, but it forces you to think about each character and how it relates to the next. Setting type should be a linear process — simply adjusting kerning after a word is set is more of a “fix” than a starting point. I also always do a proof step that is just for the type — when I ran a type shop we always had a “kerning” round with no other changes made except type fitting. That way you can concentrate on the type and not spelling or other issues. I knew a type proof reader at a large agency that looked at the type in a mirror so he wouldn’t be distracted by the words — he could just look at how the letters fit together.

There are some good books (see above), but it’s hard to learn how to set good type from a book. I’d say it’s better to find things you like a lot (from high-end companies that use good agencies) and then try and set them yourself — you’ll find in many cases the way the type comes out of Illustrator or XPress is nothing like the finished product you admired. Then work at the spacing until you get it right. Most of the effort in setting good type is in adjusting letter spacing (which most applications make too loose in my mind) and word spacing (which is usually way too wide). I personally follow the rule “tight but not quite touching” and that’s a good place to start.

I think “Rolling Stone” still sets some of the best type out there — you may want to pick up an issue and admire the headlines and try to duplicate them. And it actually helps to buy good fonts from places like The Font Bureau or Hoefler Type, who put more effort into their kerning pairs.

More questions or thoughts on this column or the previous one? Pease use the Vox Box to the left to post your comments.