Category: Design

Picky, picky

India4 Comments

Dunwell Sushi sign

Yesterday afternoon, I ran into a fellow designer who was chatting on the street with a friend who works in the kitchen at a high-end restaurant known for its sushi. As I walked up, my friend informed me that the chef had just popped the “So, do you pick the fonts?” question, and the chef continued a little defensively, upon being informed that I, too, use those crazy font things, “Well, I have a couple of friends who’re designers, and some of them are really picky about fonts.”

In typical slow-witted form, not until today did I think of the proper response, which would have been to say that I’d heard that there are some sushi chefs who are really picky about fish.

(Photo by unsure shot / Karen. Some rights reserved.)

Excuse me—which way is the art at?

India10 Comments

And speaking of directing art, tell me your trade secrets!

  • Where do you go to find free or nonspendy photographs?
  • How do you get ideas for photographs to illustrate stories that are, let’s say, totally and completely nonvisual? Are there tricks you use when you’re wholly uninspired?
  • How do you find that photo that you know exists but that’s just refusing to come up, no matter what keywords you use to search for it?
  • Where do you go to find illustrators?
  • How much guidance do you give to illustrators—to what extent do you just let them do their arty thing?
  • Do you generally deal with agencies or go directly to the artists?

We’ve mostly been using Creative Commons–licensed Flickr images, Associated Press photos, Photofest, Mary Evans Picture Library (which doesn’t seem to work with Firefox on the Mac—grrr), cheap stock places like iStockPhoto, behemoths such as Corbis and Getty, and specialty archives such as USHMM. I’ve recently started trawling through the listings at PhotoServe, but I haven’t yet used anything from any of the agencies I found there. I’d also somehow never heard of the mega-agency Jupiter until last week.

We haven’t hired any illustrators yet, but we’d love to. Some illustration agencies I’ve been looking at are CIA and Riley. Also, the DrawMo! del.icio.us dump. Any advice or recommendations are welcome (the only illustrations I’ve ever commissioned in the past are maps for fantasy books; I’m not sure that’s the look we want).

Heeeeelp meeeeeee!

What does an “art director” do?

India10 Comments

Beats me. I’ve never worked with one in my life, but now this is my job title, so I’m trying to figure it out. What do you think it means?

My job so far seems to break down as follows:

  • 60 percent art wrangling, for print and Web. This includes photo research, chasing down permissions, cleaning up and sizing art, making more-or-less templated graphic doo-dads, and assembling stuff into online galleries.
  • 30 percent layout, which is to say, picking up templates (or tracing PDFs, when files aren’t handy) made by someone else, for stuff like invitations, postcards, business cards, and a sixteen-page semiannual magazine. There’s a single house font family and a very narrow house color palette, so very little “design” enters the equation. Print production and distribution management for same.
  • 10 percent Web, um, review. We’re in the final weeks of a relaunch, so we’re looking at a lot of new page designs. I’m neither designing nor managing; just mostly trying to help with quality control.

I’ve done this kind of work in the past, mixed in different proportions, under titles like “program associate” or “program director” or “webmaster” or “managing editor.” It’s not like my title matters to me—I’m going to do the work that needs to be done, regardless—but I do suspect that other people have expectations of what an AD does or knows how to do, and I have no idea how my skills and experience relate to those expectations.

Have you ever been or worked with an art director? What does the title mean to you?

Designery People, Take Note:

India2 Comments

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!

India11 Comments

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 . . .
Continue reading “My last day!” →

Choosing text type

India24 Comments

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” →

The Visual Display of Temporal Information

India7 Comments

I’m not very good with calendars. I used to get an engagement calendar each year but would write what had happened rather than what was supposed to happen. Now I use MacJournal for that. Then for a while the Palm Pilot calendar worked for me, beeping me to my appointments as long as I remembered to keep live batteries in it. I fell out of the habit of carrying a PDA, though, and at present I’m kept in line by Entourage at work, since I have to use it for e-mail anyway, and Google Calendar for personal dates. The only paper calendar in my life comes free from my college each year. I dutifully post it on the fridge and try to remember to turn the page every four weeks, give or take. I never write on it, as doing so would be a sure way of making me miss the event in question.

So the calendar whose corner is shown below, which the friendly and obviously brilliant W. Bradford Paley was giving away yesterday at a soiree I was lucky enough to attend, will be no more useless to me than most. I hope to find a wall for it in my new office.

W. Bradford Paley's calendar

I may even write something on it occasionally (very small, very neatly) and upload a photo of it, thus defaced, to the calendar’s discussion forum. Continue reading “The Visual Display of Temporal Information” →