"Centred type is bad enough, but centred images is taking the piss."

As said by Tom, the official hater of centred anything.

Comments

[Daniel Coulbourne]

Tom needs to get over himself
jk

[Steve O]

Heh, do we get to see an example of what was getting him riled?

[Ben]

Steve O - nope.

[Richard]

Damn right Tom. Centering is mostly lazy.

[Tom]

How about the ways blog posts work - which is left - justified text, centered in the page ?

[Richard]

Is there really such a thing as left-justified? Isn't it ranged left, ranged right OR justified? Or centred (if you're lazy)?

[Bruno]

I am no fan of centred text but even less of design dogmas. Just yesterday I was reading one of Schott's Miscellanies and there is lot of very nice and skillfully typeset centred text there.

[Tom]

I don't know - it was always called left justified when I worked in design.

[N Miller]

Perhaps Tom just isn't up to snuff as a typographer and hates things off-handedly as trend dictates. There is nothing bad about centered type just type centered badly and to poor effect. Geofroy Tory, Champ Fleury writer, philosopher and tutor to Claude Garamond probably knows a bit more about type than Tom also knows how and where it should be used as seen in this exquisite example from his letters bible:

http://www.rarebookroom.org/Octavo/tryrgs/LargePhotos/070tryrgs21.jpg

I'd recommend keeping an open mind, and perhaps learning something before dismissing it offhand .

[Tom]

Ha ha ha ha

The comment was actually about a PDF i had to work with where the images were centered and the credit was ranged left.

My dislike of centered type is actually more a dislike of bad type layout in general, a mix of long and short line lengths. It also have a passionate dislike of Justified type, as not enough people tune their H&J's to remove the rivers in the copy.

As far as the link above goes, i would not call that a true example of centered type, it is more a designed layout centered within the page, much like comparing an illuminated letter with a drop cap.

[Ben]

There's be clear that there are two Toms. Tom Lewis-Reynier is a lovely man. He's not a designer. You can see him here: http://russelldavies.typepad.com/planning/2007/09/tom-at-interest.html

The other Tom, where the quote in the post originates from, is one of my partners at TDC and looks like this. http://www.flickr.com/photos/benterrett/513842387/ He is a designer.

[lauren]

i'm glad you cleared that up there, ben, 'cos before i checked the links, i wondered where the hell TomLR had been hiding his h&js and text rivers all this time! especially given that he only managed to deal with images on the blog about a week ago.

[Ben]

Exactly Lauren. Exactly.

He had expert tuition on his images too.

[Tom]

My blog is the best, la la la. It probably gets the most traffic as well, out of all of you - maybe even put together - even including Russell - and maybe even Boing Boing. My blog was in the Observer this weekend, did you see it ?

Thanks for making it so great Ben.

And for the record, Ben's Tom - the proper designery one - is the scruffy one out of both of us.

And he doesn't have a blog that's one of the world's 50 most powerful.

[Tom]

Hey, i'm a sharp dressed kat if you don't mind. Ok, occasionally i let my standards slip, but it's difficult to maintain a coiffured look after cycling to work!

Nope i don't have a blog.

[Richard]

Interestingly, both Toms have centred hair.

[RebeccaWho]

I have a weird hatred of centralised things - not just in design. Im also not a fan of symmetry.