Year: 2007

Day 9 of 90

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Hey, remember when your computer had a leetle teeny screen, and all your software used to run slower, and you just couldn’t get as much work done as you do now?

Yeah, so try doing your multifaceted, exciting twenty-first-century job on a 12″ laptop that, despite being totally loaded when you bought it three years ago, is somewhat poky and sluggish when you try to run InDesign and Acrobat Pro and Photoshop and Bridge and Word and Eudora and BBEdit and Linotype Font Explorer and Firefox with at least four windows and sixteen tabs open. It does not make you feel very efficient, let me tell you.
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Designery People, Take Note:

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Ampersand Duck has put up a pithy post about planning a printed publication, which is addressed to “aspiring artists and performers”—e.g., your friends and mine, who’re often asking if we can just help them design this little tiny promotional card or booklet or brochure, and then sticking us with an impossible deadline and budget, as well as worthless art and copy. And here is her story of why she was inspired to write the piece.

Sometimes you might get hit with poorly thought-out projects even at your day job, though of course I’ve never encountered such misfortunes myself.

I recommend that you write your own version of Ms. Duck’s how-to to address your own typical quick-and-dirty undertakings, and keep it handy to give to those talented friends when they inevitably ask you for help.

My last day!

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In the home stretch here, trying to wrap up as much as I can before I leave so that my teammate, H., who’s survived a surprising number of defections, isn’t stuck with a whole lot of stuff that I could have gotten out of the way for her.

I’ve been thinking I should summarize what I’ve learned during my short stint in Big Publishing—and I’ve learned a lot. But it’s hard to put the big-picture stuff into words that don’t sound like a complaint. I don’t have any complaints about working here; just observations. I would have been happy to stay for a couple of years, if something better hadn’t come along. That was, in fact, the plan. But something better came along!

So. Some of what I’ve learned . . .
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Choosing text type

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There’s a nice little article that’s been doing the linky rounds called 15 tips to choose a good text type, by Juan Pablo De Gregorio, a Chilean graphic designer and a typographer. (I saw it most recently at Coudal Partners, who got it from Andy Rutledge.)

I was already thinking about this, as the famed David Moldawer asked me about it a couple of months ago, but I’m not sure I can unravel the selection process very articulately. Most of Señor De Gregorio’s advice has to do with legibility, and that is, indeed, a very big concern. But then how do you choose among the hundreds of typefaces that are quite legible, inoffensive, and suitable for text? Continue reading “Choosing text type” →