obsessions & anything in between
I will be going to Ipoh for a very close friend’s wedding later. Had to take a day off to attend three wedding ceremonies(!); One in Ipoh and two in Sitiawan. Ah, I’m happy to see him finally settling down. Guess he must have been very nervous at this point of time. I was seriously wondering if he can even have a good night’s rest tonight.
Anyway, he’s the guy standing up in the picture and I’m the skinniest among the four.
Popularity: 11% [?]
As a very young chap sometime ago, one of the first designers that injected a little interest in design is none other than Bob Gill. I bought “Graphic Design as a Second Language” book by chance. It made me drug high looking at it.
Being complimented by Paul Rand as one of Rand’s favourite designer, I’m sure Gill has something that we can learn from. Earning more than the Prime Minister (Harold Macmillan) himself at one point of time, he had a large impact on American graphic design till today, check out Sagmeister’s stuff to find out why! Even-tough he hailed from Brooklyn, NY, he had a lot to do with what we know as Pentagram now, Fletcher/ Forbes/ Gill back then.
On aspect of his work that I admire is always the ability to make a solution simple enough to understand out of a very complex problem. If you want to know why, you have to see some examples of his work. We are always bothered by the fact that we need to make something really neat,strictly grid-based minimalist and elegant looking designs to be called good designers and he comes and say:
” Look, there are no absolutes in design. Any rules or truths that you may have picked up about design, color, typography, balance, etc., are valid only if they help you accomplish what you wish. Otherwise, forget them”
What a very bold statement to say about design eh? The thing about statements like this is that they are definitely confusing and sets a preconception about how work should be done. Me, nonetheless, am a believer in his principles. It’s like saying don’t need all that. Its like saying you don’t need to be a junkie to do good design. Don’t need to learn about Bodoni to make a good design using it. Now, here is where the confusion comes in.
If you want to be a good designer, how much do you really need to know? Are all these things we learn or try to understand so hard applied at the end of the day? Or mere general knowledge?
For decades since the term graphic design exists, designers have been debating on what is good design. We look at the most copied styled designs as ’superb’(with all due respect, I really admire those whose designs have influenced other designers and changed and set design trends around). We also look at carefully crafted designs as good designs. We look at designs that broke the barriers of technology as revolutionary. We look at Sagmeister’s 1999 AIGA talk poster and say this is design at its peak. We look at Meta and admire its use-abilities and label the same. Again, I must stress on my respect towards the names mentioned above, they’re all my hero’s!
Reading from Norman Potters book, ‘What is a Designer?‘, stated in chapter 3, about ‘What is good design?’:
“For the designer, good design is the generous and pertinent response to the full context of a design opportunity, whether large or small, and the quality of the outcome resides in a close and truthful correspondence between from and meaning” ( There are still other definitions and explanations through as well)
This made me think a little, speaking of good design then requires us to also speak of, from the conditions of our time, and our personal views on these. Then again, culture also has a lot to do with design. In advertising, design serves to re-enforce the ideas behind the concepts. Typography likewise, forms language on a spread. The grid forms a systematic way things are arranged and influences the way we read.
About being good, I believe it is always hard to find a fine-line between good and having fun. In certain cases yes, not all. Knowledge is essential but the motivations are always questioned. Questioning simple reasons even like “Why do you use blue instead of yellow?”.
An encounter with an article written by Shawn Wolfe, ‘What’s my motivation?’ (Emigre no. 64) challenged me. Besides our daily routines design jobs, what actually motivated us to take up our after work jobs, or what some call ‘things that are more fun’?
At Figtree we have a list of jobs we do to earn our salary and jobs that come with a more open brief allowing more personal freedom and creativity to be shown through. Sometimes, the amount of time spent on our corporate jobs exceeds the ones we do which allow more creative freedom. It’s pretty frustrating at times but somebodies got to do the job. At times, I work without any motivation just to finish a clean-up job, doesn’t make me lazy but saving creative-energy ( what a term..).
Back to the article, it was an article what questions about our motivation in design. Why do we want to do design mainly and Why we do a particular design in a certain way. Articulate rage.
I would say it’s not just to find pleasure upon a completed job or to pull down a pay check. A rage could be the need or desire to express talent in a useful way, that is loud and smart, and of course with the help of Apple Computers… And some help from some of the best typefaces around blended with experience and skill. On social responsibility maybe? I enjoy the challenge or trying very hard just to layout a spread creatively. Sometimes, it makes me want to bit my tongue but by understanding the longer you work, the better you get might just help you through another day.
I certainly do not take pleasure in long-winded projects, they just tend to make me loose the core idea and message behind the designs. Simple joys in selecting typefaces and upon completion of simple projects are always looked forward too. Be it a clean-up job or an annual report or complex identity system, the assurance that you can find simple rewards you gain from your work, is enough (very personalized) to get you through another day as a designer. Including me.
What is your motivation? Why do you do design? I’m sure its beyond our bad mathematics calculation skills (applies to some).
Popularity: 17% [?]
Yeah. Title says it all. They also won 1 silver and 1 bronze at the show while Y&R bagged 1 bronze and Lowe & Partners 1 Gold. You can view all the winning entries here. Given the fact that McCann won fairly good last year at international and local awards, they might be one of the coolest agencies to work in at this point of time, except for the location maybe.
I don’t know much about advertising and advertising in Malaysia frankly, I just want to laugh at TV commercials that are funny. And I’m always indecisive whether advertising works or not. But I know advertising involves a lot of strategic thinking and marketing. And that there are many advertising geeks out there. And I admire those who can do good ads (maybe you).
Popularity: 12% [?]
Yeah, here’s a link to an online converter software, proudly developed by Vixy.net. If you’re having serious issues dealing with obsessing yourselves with things like saving online articles into PDF’s, download every possible Mp3 you spot or save every JPEG image you adore, this might be of a little help to endorse you a little further. My guess is that these files are not compressed so some files might appear huge.
Popularity: 11% [?]
John Mclaughlin is coming to town! My favourite guitarist is coming to town! He will be playing live at the Putra World Trade Centre, Malaysia on June 13th together with the 4th Dimension featuring Hadrien Feraud (bass), Gary Husband (keyboards) and Mark Mondesir (drums). PWTC’s website has not stated any confirmation on the concert yet.
Sourced from John’s Official Myspace.
Popularity: 15% [?]
I love this song. Available on King Crimson’s 1969 album here. Got any idea on the meaning of the lyrics?
Cat’s foot iron claw
Neuro-surgeons scream for more
At paranoia’s poison door
Twenty first century schizoid man.
Blood rack barbed wire
Polititians’ funeral pyre
Innocents raped with napalm fire
Twenty first century schizoid man.
Death seed blind man’s greed
Poets’ starving children bleed
Nothing he’s got he really needs
Twenty first century schizoid man.
Fripp,Sinfield,McDonald,Lake,Giles
Popularity: 15% [?]
I bought this book for a pretty decent RM184. I thought I would never get a chance to even browse through it. Lucky enough to have a book like this. I don’t mind reading the articles repetitively.
Designers have their own pet ideas about typography for sure. We stick to one idea about it that we have read or heard or maybe taught of from various sources. My typography teacher once had a written test done after every class to ensure we get something out of his lessons. Back then, all I heard of is Arial and Times New Roman, to be set in 12 point, double spacing, with bold headlines. We were told in secondary school the same. Who cares about typography, you don’t need to kern alphabets to pass your papers.
Anyway, this book brings out many perspectives about the issue. Some are in nature, radical while some purists. Separated by thought and interpretation but joint together in the coolest type library in the world.
While reading through, you will find that each FontFont typeface has its own unique identity. A very personalized history behind it. Carved deep in detail by its respective designers. FF Bau for example, is a revival of the Grotesk typeface Schelter Grostek. In creating FF Cocon and FF Balance, Evert Bloemsma stated this really interesting statement:
“Typography is full of traditions, and is therefore a field full of designer pitfalls. Before getting to work, you must be aware of all those conventions passed down to us, otherwise, you won’t succeed in adding something substantial.”
On the other hand, Hans Reichel, a musician by profession, playing regularly in jazz concerts, drew inspiration to name his typeface FF Dax from a Daxophone and had no idea about the fact that his typefaces were back then also digitized to work on a Macintosh. Martin Majoor strongly believes that you have to start from the alphabet ‘a (lower-case)’ when starting to design a typeface and follows a strict discipline of only moving to the italics and bold later on. Ole Schafer broke the record by creating 247 fonts for FF Fago, crafting it on the same baseline regardless of whether it is heavier or thinner in stroke. Amazing!
It also showcases stunning images of how and where FontFont typefaces have been use. Spawning a large collection of its entire type library, almost every FontFont typeface is covered in various sections throughout. Not all typefaces are covered in detail but generally, a handful of selected ones go beyond just the back pages of showcasing them being applied skillfully.
Out-takes were also featured such as both computer and hand sketches. Some were actually drawn of tissue papers or on newspapers. Seria, by Martin Majoor for example was drawn on a napkin.
One funny thing about this book is that “Serious” typefaces were actually referring to typefaces which have more typographic features (oldstyle, ligatures, mostly built on the purpose for book typography, e.g. FF Clifford, FF Nexus by Akira Kobayashi and Martin Majoor respectively). Meanwhile, “Radical” and “Functionalism” were referring to typefaces such as FF Scratch, FF Fudoni, both by Max Kisman. I thought it was genius to use that term next time.
You can read a little more about it here from FontFont’s official website. Or you can get a sneak preview of how it looks like in PDF form here.
Lastly, there are still many interesting facts not mentioned by me here about this book. Go read it if you can. Or buy it. If you have been studying Bringhurst’s ideas (which are awesome), maybe you might want to go less traditional and head other ways.
Oh, I’m so inspired to create my own typeface. Even if I could made one based on my own pet idea’s about the subject, it will be great. Well, I’m just a crappie designer making crappie things.
Popularity: 14% [?]
@ FiFFteen in Goa, 2006 
