AD2 Roanoke » design

Good Typography is Something Everyone Sees but No One Notices

Patrick A. Carrell — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 14:30:31 +0000

No truer statement will you hear today.

Taken from Hyperactivitypography From A to Z, “an activity book for typographers illustrated in a nostalgic vintage style to give it a sweet and childlike look”, it’s the mantra they recommend cutting out and tacking up someplace you’ll see everyday. I’d suggest nothing less.

Click here to flip through the rest of the book, and don’t forget to visit it’s creators, Norway’s Studio 3.

[via Neatorama]

May I suggest a book…

Taryn Anderson — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 22:05:34 +0000

A while back, I needed some inspiration and was looking at design books. It made me wonder if other designers and industry-gurus have book suggestions that have helped them along their graphic design travels.

Here are some suggestions that I received…

How To Be a Graphic Designer Without Not Losing Your Soul – Adrian Shaughnessy http://bit.ly/1s46ko

Things I Have Learned in My Life So Far – Stefan Sagmeister http://bit.ly/pF5xx

100 Habits of Successful Graphic Designers – Josh Berger, Sarah Dougher http://bit.ly/279h8O

Hey Whipple, Squeeze This – Luke Sullivan http://bit.ly/sId7r

And David Ogilvy is so rockin’ awesome that these were suggested several times:

The King of Madison Avenue: David Ogilvy

Ogilvy On Advertising – David Ogilvy http://bit.ly/1eP8v0

Confessions of an Advertising Man – David Ogilvy http://bit.ly/1gjwgN

Also see, David Airey’s blog on his favorite book: http://www.davidairey.com/whats-your-favourite-graphic-design-book

(Sidenote: I apologize to Brad and Patrick, since they responded to my query and unfortunately your answers were lost by a work email change-over. Sorry!)

From the Road: The Perception of Good Design.

Patrick A. Carrell — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 22:24:55 +0000

After landing in Phoenix last night, my traveling companion and I stopped in Scottsdale for some late night mexican food. A necessity after spending half the day on a plane. On the way to Glendale, around to my hotel, we drove through what I now know understand to be “New Scottsdale”, the “ritzy” part of town; lots of new finished construction and that sort of thing. Two and three story buildings full of Neiman Marcuses and Crate & Barelses and trendy places to eat with obscure spanish sounding names, full of slick modern architecture built out of cheap looking materials and painted in dark and neutral colors. All things that make me feel like they are trying so very hard. Too hard, almost.

Why is this new part of town with the new money trying so very hard to emulate what we’ve seen in so many other parts of so many other cities that are perceived as “upscale”? The truth is that this sort of perception works. This is where the marketing and fiduciary statistics works against the creative process. They see a product succeed and want that success for their product, so they mirror the design with hopes of mirroring the success.

Pablo Picaso famously said “Good artist copy. Great artist steal.” I often tell new designers that when they go to look through a magazine or on the web for inspiration to look at what makes the thing they like the thing they like. That is to say, find out what makes that great design great, whether it’s composition, color, the way it works in the space they’re given or even the way you interact with it, and then use that as a lesson to apply in they’re design. You’re not stealing or copying, you’re learning from what works. It’s definitely a step up from just outright “creative theft”.

Jeff Veen gives this 5 minute Ignite presentation that touches on all of this. I enjoyed his parallel between iPhone knock-offs and the “cargo cults” that developed after WWII.

So, if good artist copy and if great artist steal I submit the best artists (and in this case, designers) are the ones worth stealing from.