Noisy Decent Graphics

If you only read one thing this weekend

Make sure you read these comments by Bruno Maag. If you like type, you'll find it fascinating.

"Let's get a little bit of history right. Arial was designed in the Monotype drawing offices, for Microsoft, in the late 80s"

"I am also no friend of Helvetica. In fact, I would love to see this typeface banned from use for a while. Just so designers can see that there is typographic pond life beyond."

"I'd happily give up my day job and wash plates if the rest of the world adopted Univers as the font to be used."

Read, learn and enjoy. You don't get this quality of typographic discussion everywhere.

Hullo

If you've arrived here via Delicious or Kottke, welcome. Have a seat and let me show you around.

This is how we do things around here. We talk about design, most of the time graphic design and little else. You really ought to check out some of the stuff about Britain's Greatest Graphic Designer (RIP), a layman's explanation of kerning and this post grandiosely titled The Future Of Graphic Design. No humility around here.

Over here you can find out why the number 10 at Downing Street is wonky and  if you're a student there's some stuff which may or may not be useful. Should you be so inclined you can contact me here.

Comments, comments, comments. We all love comments. You can be rude, obtuse, you can even plug your own enterprises, anything goes in the comments section. So type away.

There you go. Enjoy.

Two brilliant pieces of graphic design

Two brilliant pieces of graphic design from the Khoi and the gang at the New York Times.

I've been meaning to link to the first one for a while. It's called Faces Of The Dead. Each member of the US Services who has died in Iraq is represented by a pixel sized square. When you click on a square, and therefore a name, the pixels form that person's face.

It's very well done, sensitive, interesting and a powerful way of representing some powerful statistics that we normally just see as lists or numbers. It's graphic design at it's best.

The second one from the same people is a pictorial representation of the key words used in all Bush's State Of The Union addresses. You can highlight keywords and see how often he mentioned that each year. You can pick obvious key words like Iraq or Terror or you can search for more obscure terms - like design, which he said 3 times in 2003. Again it's very well done. Sensitive, powerful and elegant.

What I like about both of these, but particularly the last one, is how they take important, dry information and make it accessible and interesting to a wide audience. The design helps the comprehension of the information rather than hindering it.

And it's exactly the sort of thing newspapers ought to be doing online.

Identity 2.0

Another thing I've had kicking around for ages and forgotten to write about.

It's a video of a presentation by a chap called Dick Hardt which he terms Identity 2.0. Don't let that put you off.


It's all about the concept of digital identity. It's really good. Clever. A refreshing presentation style. As it says on the blurb, "I watched it twice, and greatly enjoyed it both times.". 

All those in favour say "aye"

Dearest Tom,

Saying "What's wrong with Arial aesthetically?" is a bit like comparing Greta Garbo to Jodie Marsh.

Helvetica can be expensive and if you don't have it installed on your PC then, for you, Arial will probably suffice. But just look at the way the glyph's finish on these a's.

This is Arial.

This is Helvetica.

Oooh, isn't that lovely? They didn't make a film about Arial did they?

Although desktop printers don't use the same sort of screen as a Heidelberg they don't print solid colour. Only a screen print can do that. Deskdrop printers still measure in a dpi system but it's a little different. Macus will elaborate.

And lastly, seeing as you've opened Pandora's box, all those in favour of Helvetica say "aye" below.

UPDATE: Bruno provides some historical clarity here. A must read.

"The first mobile device that I know of to use the typeface Helvetica throughout"

"It’s the first mobile device that I know of, and certainly the most elegant, to use the typeface Helvetica throughout its interface.

Everyone knows I’m a huge Helvetica fan, and you could sell me almost any device that uses the typeface, in part because there are no devices that do. But there’s a reason that this particular usage seems to signal something more to me."

What the ever excellent Khoi Vinh thinks about the use of Helvetica in a UI.

A Face Lift On The Familiar

I've had this bookmarked for absolutely ages and not done anything about it. Time to rectify that.

I have no idea where or when I found this but it's probably from Tony Spaeth's brilliant Identityworks website. The website is an amazing catalogue of all the major rebrands of the last 9 years, with a slight American bias.

Anyway, I'm linking to this article from the New York Times which crits the before and after of Kodak, Amtrak and UPS rebrands as well as others.

I'd love to post the article here, but the NYT have a scary looking copyright policy. So I wimped out, hence the blur.

This is the new That

Brilliant and lovely. Taken from thediagram.com with many thanks. Via Design Observer. If you follow thediagram.com link you can see a much bigger version.

Is this graphic design?

(Before we get started let me restate that this is a blog about graphic design. I make no case for or against the political issues pictured below. There are plenty of political blogs and if you're interested in that sort of thing you could do worse than start here. OK. Pantones to the ready.)

Take a look at this. Is it graphic design?

It's a poster, it's been thought about, it's been considered. Not as obviously 'designed' as Lennon's anti-war posters but that type still fills that space on purpose. The colour has been used to highlight the message. The big text shows awareness that the poster will be read from a distance. All these posters are communicating a message. All of them have been created to get across a clear message to a clear target audience. So, in effect, it's been designed, right?

Except it's not design. It's art. Have a look at this picture.

At the weekend I went to see Mark Wallinger's exhibition State Britain.

For those of you who don't know the back story goes something like this. Way back in July 2001 Brian Haw began a protest in Parliament Square, London. Bang outside the entrance to the Houses of Parliament. He was protesting against the economic sanctions in Iraq.

Obviously, given the events of the rest of 2001 Brian's protest grew and grew. And so did his site along the edge of Parliament Square. It's hard to capture in a photograph but the protest ended up looking something like this.

Better, more comprehensive, pictures here. 

On 23 May 2006, following the passing by Parliament of the ‘Serious Organised Crime and Police Act’ all 'unauthorised' demonstrations within a one kilometre radius of Parliament Square were banned. Shortly afterwards the police raided Brain's protest and took all the posters down bar a short 6ft area.

It so happens that the one kilometre radius bisects Tate Britain (bisects it a little too perfectly for my cynical eye) hence Wallingers recreation of Haw's protest and hence the title State Britain. Each one of the posters (which were destroyed by the Police) were recreated in Wallinger's studio and are now on display in the Tate Britain. So that's art, then?

But a minute ago we thought it was graphic design, didn't we. So is it both? At least we can agree it's a protest, right? What if Charles Saatchi buys it for £1 million, what is it then?

And what about the target audience we talked about earlier. Are they still the same people the posters were intentionally created for? From a visual point of view the posters look better against the lush green grass and historic stone of Parliament Square. The protest had an organic, scrap book feel to it that added to the vernacular of the weathered posters.

I was very quickly stopped from taking pictures by the security guards in the gallery. Why? An art exhibit that charges the police with curtailing freedom of speech but you can't take pictures of it. Does anyone else find that odd? I can take pictures to my hearts content in the Design Museum.

I left with more questions than answers, which is maybe the point of art, but I'm sure these weren't the questions that Wallinger, Haw or the creators of the banners had in mind.

What do you think?

"Excuse me mate, can I speak to Dali?"

Popped down to the Dali museum the other day. Don't bother it's rubbish.

I saw this sign which made me laugh quite a bit.

Finished

From this to this.

 

A little work for a Friday

Seeing as it's Friday. Seeing as we've just uploaded this. Seeing as this blog is about graphic design. Seeing as it features a bit of Dolly.

Here's some work. Enjoy.

"We need to support it. We need to buy it. We need to tell the companies that we appreciate it."

Interesting post about how "good design is spreading" from Danny at Beyond Madison Avenue.

Something for the Planners

My desk, right now

 

Helvetica Café

(Picture taken by Tobias Frere-Jones and borrowed from Helvetica Film Blog, usual stuff applies)

Apparently there is a café in Melbourne called Helvetica. Nice eh? Taken from the brand new blog of the notorious film.

"There's a lot that could go wrong"

"many of the more revolutionary design aspects of the iPhone are—in hindsight—quite simple, provoking the much sought after 'Why didn't I think of that?' envy"

"For me, the iPhone is a Phone 2.0"

"That has to be very troubling to the competition because it's going to take them years to develop similar technical sophistication"

Find out what designers make of the iPhone in Business Week.

Laser cutting machine

Here's a cool thing. It's a laser cutting machine.

Laser cutting is like die cutting but more accurate, for the delicate cut. This particular machine belongs to Marcus and his buddies over at Peschke Druck.

Laser cutting is still pretty new technology, Marcus informs me there are only 3 of the machine shown above in existence. I first heard of it when Creative Review did a laser cut cover back in 2004 (I think it was a pinky colour and I think it was the peer review thing they do). We used laser cutting for these letterheads in 2005.

Die cutting just couldn't cut that fine.

One draw back of laser cutting is that the laser leaves a teeny weeny brown burn mark around the cut edge. Personally I think that looks cool, but I can understand if others don't.

But forget all that, just take a look at that video. Most of the machinery around graphic design just isn't very sexy. That machine is. Enjoy, my fellow designers, enjoy.

Books you should buy because they have nice covers

You should buy some of these books. Because they have nice covers.

The series is called Great Ideas and Penguin say, "Throughout history, some books have changed the world... now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization, and helped make us who we are."

Forget all that rubbish, they have lovely covers.

A really nice uncoated stock, lovely rich blues and reds and some cracking debossing. They feel nice in the hand. Designed by David Pearson and Phil Baines and some others.

(There's a more serious article about these babies over at the International Herald Tribune written by my friend and yours Alice Rawsthorn.)

What I see when I listen

If you asked me what my favourite band was, I would pause and then reply, The Beatles, Massive Attack and Oasis.

If pushed I'd say Oasis just top it. Why? It's a cliché but it's because their melodies coincided perfectly with a period of my life. I was there, if you like.

I can remember exactly where I was when I heard my first Oasis song. I was sat in the back of a mate's brother's car heading down the pub on a Friday night. Whatever (It's Good To Be Free) was playing. I loved the song and that was followed by an evening down the pub listening to Oasis songs on the Juker.

I can remember exactly where I was when I bought What's The Story (Morning Glory). Our receptionist at college had just rushed out to buy the album for her son. I hadn't realised that the album was out and I promptly rushed down to Our Price and purchased the CD.

But more importantly, I can remember what I first saw when I heard What's The Story (Morning Glory). That weekend after the album was released I took a train to see a friend in Nottingham. I listened to a tape I'd made of the album for the whole journey. There and back. Over and over. And so therefore, for me, What's The Story (Morning Glory) will always, always, look like this.


(Picture taken from Waddie with huge thanks, usual stuff applies)

I'm deadly serious. That's like a screenshot from my brain's PVR. That typical British rainy Saturday. The way the view is slightly blurred because of movement and also because of scratches on the glass. The mixture of green and brown tinged with grey that you only get in Britain.

When I was 13 I went on a school skiing trip. The weekend before the trip my cousin gave me a copy of U2 's Rattle and Hum on tape. I had been given a Walkman for my birthday. The trip was mostly by coach through the long winding roads of the Italian Alps.

And so, for me, Rattle and Hum will forever look like this.

(Picture taken from ngvirtz with huge thanks, usual stuff applies)

Always black and white, which is probably something to do with Phil Joanou's wonderful imagery. That cold, clear light you get in the mountains. Crisp shapes. Moody landscapes.

All those mental snapshots took place when I was listening to the music concerned. But this one is a little different.

In the summer of 2005 I spent two weeks in LA. It was about 3 weeks before the Coldplay album launched. LA was covered in billboards for X&Y. Everywhere you looked, Chris Martin and the other 3. I think they recorded some of it in LA too. Either way every time I listen to X&Y all I see is this.

(Picture taken from aggleton with huge thanks, usual stuff applies)

That lovely orange streaked with tail-light sunset that LA does so well. The long straight lines. Lines everywhere, not a curve in sight. The glow of constant traffic.

Does that make sense? Does it ring any bells? Does anyone else experience this? Is it because I'm a visual person (and have the disease)?

What does everyone else see when they listen?