Thought for the day, courtesy of Mothering‘s beloved web director, Cynthia Mosher (discussing the need to create ad space in our newsletters that won’t crowd the existing space reserved for a skyscraper ad): “Would you please see what you can come up with that will fit well and respect the skyscraper?”
O-o-o-o-kay. We’ll get right on that, Cynthia!
Tags: cynthia mosher, MDC newsletter, newsletters, Peggy's Kitchen newsletter, skyscraper, thought for the day, white board, whiteboard, YourPregnancy newsletter
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Typography on the radio! I just heard this on the program To the Best of our Knowledge: an interview with Jonathan Hoefler and Tobias Frere-Jones,* creators of the font known as Gotham.
Whether you know the name or not, you’ve seen the font. It was commissioned by GQ
in 2000 (they were looking for a new signature font—one that was authoritative, modern and manly, of course) and selected by Barack Obama for his campaign materials in the last election.
It’s a bold, clean, geometric font, inspired by NYC signage created back when graphic designers were scarce and building signage was usually done by the architects and engineers who built the building (which explains the feel of 1940s modernism/American “rugged individualism” the font exudes). Geometric, yes, but Frere-Jones says that by allowing the forms to “escape the grid wherever necessary,” they’ve given the design a more friendly feel than most geometric fonts.
The photo collage above is made up of images collected by Hoefler and Frere-Jones for an extensive study of the lettering on buildings in the Big Apple in preparation for the GQ job. To see more, check out the Gotham photo gallery the two designers put together.
And, of course, the second photo is of Barack Obama on the campaign trail, surrounded by type set in a font we can believe in.
*If you’re at all interested in type, you owe it to yourself to spend some time on their website, Typography.com.
Tags: barack obama, Big Apple, campaign, change we can believe in, font, Gotham, Jonathan Hoefler, New York City, radio, to the best of our knowledge, Tobias Frere-Jones, typography
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Reeve’s home for the summer. He’s been cleaning out his room, trying to get rid of old stuff to make the space feel more like his room (as in contemporary and current), less like a shrine to his childhood. He found this in the front of an old book.
I don’t remember his writing this, but am oddly flattered—all these years later. Obviously, he thought of this book as one we read together.
You never know (except, sometimes you do! Sometimes, even 17 years down the road!) what your child notices—and claims . . . The things you do together matter.
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P.S. Killer ampersand, eh?
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Tags: ampersand, belonging, book, label
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When I was working for her (my first real design job* ), my friend and mentor Claudia taught me many things. But the one I probably refer to most often is this:
The definition of perfection changes in relation to the amount of time remaining
before a project is due.
I’ve called on this precept many, many times in this deadline-oriented business of putting out a magazine.
Here’s how it works.
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Claudia: Laura, are you about done with those logos for the [insert client name here] presentation?
Me (hesitantly): Um . . . I have some possibilities here but had hoped to get them in better shape before showing them to anybody.
Claudia: Well, [insert client name here] just called. We’re meeting with them in half an hour. So. . . let me see what you’ve got. [Peruses the logo designs.] . . . Well, would you look at that! . . . These are perfect!
* * * * *
See? Very efficient, practical, provides a needed deadline, allows one to finish up and move on without looking back (too much, anyway). I use this here at the magazine more than I like to admit, allowing a deadline to inform the idea of being finished.
This sliding-scale definition comes in handy in the magazine business, but you might find it helpful in your own life, as well, kind of a variation on the good-enough parent . . .
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Photo: a magnolia blossom I shot in Mississippi last summer. Perfection redefined? (Well, it is perfectly brown!)
*At Claudia Pavel and Associates. (Claudia was Claudia Pavel, and I was Associates.)
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Tags: "good-enough" parent, claudia pavel, doctrine of perfection, perfection
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It’s just that there was so much snow today! And that envelope was just lying there. . .
On the left, Kazimir Malevich‘s “Suprematist Composition: White on White” (1918).
On the right, my “Priority Envelope in More Snow than We Expected Today, When Everyone Else Got to Go Home But I’m Still Here Because I Can’t Seem to Get Anything Done” (2010)
OK. So much for today’s Fun with Art History. Time to put the camera away and get this magazine out the door. . .
Tags: envelope, kazimir malevich, snow, White on White
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No, I’m not spewing epithets over here. C.R.A.P. is the easy-to-remember acronym provided to us by the delightful and brilliant Robin Williams* for the four basic principles of design:
Contrast
Repetition
Alignment
Proximity
To give a brief demonstration of how these work, I’m including here some examples from Robin’s The Non-Designer’s Design Book.**
OK, let’s take these principles one at a time. We’ll talk about proximity first. Take a look at the flyer at the right. Notice how the little bold headers are the same distance from the lines above them and the lines below? Each line or paragraph appears to be a separate item.You can’t tell which headline the text belongs to.
And although there’s white space, it’s scattered all over the place, including places where it shouldn’t be, like between the headlines and the text that follows them. (We say this white space is trapped; and trapped white space visually pushes apart the items it’s trapped by.)
Now, look at this version of the flyer. See how the heads and text that belong together are in proximity with one another, with each head-and-text unit separated by white space above and below?
The contact information has been grouped separately at the bottom of the page, so that the viewer can tell at a glance that it’s important. Proximity is an efficient way to immediately communicate to the viewer what he or she should pay attention to.
The alignment here has been changed from centered to left-aligned, so there’s room to make the picture bigger. This further organizes the text, so that the viewer’s eye knows where to go without any confusion, since all the lines begin at the same left margin. (Text that is centered can be difficult to read in large blocks, since the eye has to scan to find the beginning of each line.)
Let’s see. Repetition. Notice how the bold headers (ending in ellipses) are repeated. The typeface used here is also repeated throughout the flyer, as is the color (black, in this case).
And, finally, contrast. In the flyer at the right, look at how the headline is bigger and bolder and in a typeface that contrasts with the body copy. (This typeface is repeated for “Be a Cowboy” to bring home the message, kind of like a call to action. Repetition.)
The headline type is upper- and lowercase, which also adds contrast. (If you look at a line of text that’s in all caps, you’ll see that the shape it makes is an even rectangle. Using upper- and lowercase gives a line of text more shape.)
The little heads or lead-ins were made bigger to contrast with the text that follows them (but they’re still in the same typeface as the text that follows and still in proximity, so they still look like they belong together.)
The illustration is much bigger and was made lighter so as not to overpower the text.
So, there you have it: C.R.A.P. Granted, I’ve oversimplified here, but this gives a brief idea of how these principles work; to learn more, check out The Non-Designer’s Design Book.
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PS Oh, and you probably don’t need for me to tell you this, but. . . for all you wannabe cowboys out there . . .I’m afraid the flyer is a fake.
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*As I’ve said before, yes, THE Robin Williams (and, no, not the actor)
**Prior to working at Mothering, I had the opportunity to work with Robin on a few projects, including this book. Fabulous, fun, and edifying experience. . .
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Do you quarantine the ugly, or do you scatter the ugly?
—Ad Production Manager Melyssa Holik, a.k.a. Mel, struggling with how to lay out less than aesthetically pleasing ads
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Photo of November leaves on our street. Because it would be cruel—to all concerned—to post examples of that to which Mel was referring. . .
Tags: ad layout, aesthetics, melyssa holik
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The way I see it, white space is kind of like the yard or grounds around a stately home. Sure, you could make do without all that lawn . .
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but why would you want to?
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Photos from istockphoto.com
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Tags: antebellum homes, grounds, white space, yard
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a.k.a., yes, blatant product endorsement.
Apologies for the seemingly commercial nature of this. . . but I really do love this tea. Because it’s not always easy to find, I have tried to switch, to find some other hot beverage I like as much, but, alas, no luck so far.
Bought it originally, long ago, for (why not!) the package design—and the hint of whimsy there. And now the tea is a routine part of my day, try as hard as I might to move on to something else.
I ran out of “my” tea a couple of days ago and went to get more, but my usual supplier was out, so I bought somebody else’s chai blend. And hated it, all perfumey and oily. Not a good way to start a day.
Got home last night to discover that Tim had found, incredibly, a couple of boxes at a different market and brought them home to surprise me. So, this morning, I was really, really happy as I made—and savored (almost like one of those old International Coffee commercials)—my ritual cup of . . . OK, OK, I’ll say it. . . TAZOTM Organic Chai.
Check out their website, for the design and the whimsy, if nothing else.
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Photo shows a favorite mug, made by my nephew Ian
Tags: International Coffee, Tazo organic chai, tea
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You know how there’s this voice in your head that sometimes says things like “GO back into the house right now and put on a slip!” or “SMILE at the grouchy waiter—he’s having a bad day”. . .? That voice of instruction/barometer of appropriateness, your own internal dialogue of “thou shalts” . . . your mom’s voice?*
Well, I hear the mom voice, too, of course. Who doesn’t? But when it comes to design, I hear an altogether different voice: that of Robin Williams. (Yes, THE Robin Williams,** and, no, not the actor!)
I had the good fortune to take a class on typography from Robin in 1997 and have not been the same since. (For lots of reasons, which I’d love to talk about, including the fact that she’s now a very dear friend, but because I’m under deadline and not really supposed to be doing anything but layout, I’ll have to elaborate later.)
One of Robin’s better known maxims regarding design—one that has appeared in her design books—is “Don’t be a wimp.” I hear that one quite often.
But the phrase I hear at least once a day is something Robin said repeatedly in class: “Trust your eyes . . . . You know what you’re doing. Just look!” Many, many times over the past 12 years, that reassuring call to be present and trust myself has helped me over a creative hurdle and on to the next challenge.
OK. As Robin often says, “Anon!” Back to layout!
More about Robin later. . .
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*We included one of Mothering publisher and editor-in-chief Peggy O’Mara’s bits of wisdom along these lines in our 2009 calendar: “The way we talk to our children becomes the inner voice they hear.” (Kind of makes you think twice, doesn’t it?)
**Macintosh computer users around the world practically worship Robin for her witty, easy-to-understand tomes on all things Mac, but she’s also written brilliant books on design, typography, font management, podcasting, web design, and . . . and an in-depth look at a surprising candidate for the authorship of the works of William Shakespeare.
Image scanned from one of Robin’s 50+ books, Beyond the Mac Is Not a Typewriter (1996). Part of what I love about Robin’s books—besides the fun, sassy tone—is the wackiness of the examples she uses. Who knew learning could be such silly fun?
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Tags: apple, calendar, design, mac, macintosh, maxims, Peggy O'Mara, quotation, robin williams, wimp
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