Word and Image. Typographically Speaking

Typography is the art and technique of arranging type. As seen in the image above by a designer named Gcore, Letters can be seen for their form and arranged to create an image. I love this piece because the letters coming out of the gun are arranged to read as a word as well as represent sound. This is a great example of how words and image work together in design. The word/image relationship can be tight or loose depending on the setting and purpose. 

Words have filled thousands of image-less books with colorful stories that need no visual aid to describe to the reader every detail of characters, setting, and plot.  It is easy to see how, with a rich vocabulary, one can use words alone to tell a story. 

A good example where image delivered a message without the aid of word was in 1984 when Larry Hama of Marvel Comics stunned the comic world with the "silent issue" from G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero #21.  The dialogue and exposition-less comic book, entitled "Silent Interlude", is considered by a generation of fans as a definitive classic. Marvel went on in 2001 to announce that all issues released in the month of December would be without dialogue or captions. The images in these comics were strong enough to tell the story, however many of the details of these stories were filled in by the minds of the readers giving the comics much more subjectivity. 

While words and images have proven that they can stand alone, they are definitely stronger when respect is given to the strengths and weaknesses of each. In Scott McCloud's book understanding Comics he describes how there is a balance to the juxtaposition of the word image interplay. Too much of either can alter the flow of the story as a whole.

Dia de los Muertos

Celebrating holidays like Halloween and Day of the Dead this weekend got me to thinking about the afterlife and its relation to the durability of things we produce. What if we had to design for multiple lifetimes? Design would become so much more function driven.  All of a sudden we would be less worried about the way our stuff looked and much more concerned with the physical integrity of the item. Clothing for example would have to become almost completely utilitarian. Most likely made from polyester or some other indestructible material. Our homes would have to be totally sustainable. Agriculture would become soiled with hearty grains that could stand the test of time. I think that so much of our design depends on the finite nature of what ever the subject were designing happens to be.  Along with the deterioration, comes disposal. We throw away stuff that might still be useful but we don't need because of the rule of upgrade. upgrade. upgrade.
Then there is the sudden obsolescence of the things we thought were top of the line when really they were lower middle to bottom of that same line. As designers we should always look at the ways to make durability and sustainability a goal. However I think we owe a debt of gratitude to the ephemeral nature of "things" and "thing design". After all it might be that planned obsolescence is a big reason why we still have jobs.

Bright Idea

 Much of what is mass produced by industrial designers can go unnoticed. The spoon for example may have a different design on the handle but the fundamental shape must stay the same because in this case form fallows function. The light bulb however, is a great example of a mass produced object that can often go unnoticed, that is until you don't have one and aren't able to see where your going. The shape of the light bulb has varied only slightly over the many years since it has been a part of our daily lives and the most iconic shape is that of the typical globe style with an upside down pear shape. This is a case where form does not fallow function and actually has very little to do with it. The components of an incandescent light could be fit into an array of different shapes yet the same one is used and accepted over and over. Along with the rise of florescent bulbs  and their energy saving technology comes shape of their two coils of glass    tubes spiraling together and meeting at a fused point at the top.  The shape is cylindrical and even rectangular. It seems masculine compared to feminine curves of the traditional bulb.  These "bulbs" have been manufactured on a huge scale in this form and until recently it seemed like we had all but forgotten the upside down pear.  But while walking the isles of the local hardware store I saw someone had designed a florescent bulb encased in a incandescent-style bulb housing. Apparently people could not get used to the new shape as easily as the new technology. So while bills have been written to ilegalize the use of incandescent light bulbs all in light (no pun intended) of our efforts to conserve energy and help balance the environmental cost of our lifestyles, humanity may not be willing to give up our ides of what a light bulb should look like.

Interaction of Content and Form

            
             Form interacts closely with content in design. The two are not often seeing independent of each other. In art there are many examples where form can stand alone as a purely aesthetically pleasing piece or content can overshadow form as seeing in the conceptual art of artists such as Tom Friedman.  Modern design is made up of different approaches that work together to make the design successful. The first approach uses formal logic used in the act of form-giving. The second incorporates symbolism and content that is effected by all kinds of factors, culture being one of the biggest and most influential. Lastly is the contextual sense, where we as designers examine the bigger picture such as human object relationships.  These steps to approaching design are not sequential but merely perspectives that need to be looked at in order for the design to achieve its full potential. The function of design depends strongly on the improvement of life through improvement of our everyday objects. This improvement can be visually or functionally as in ease of use and ideally a good design will incorporate both.  According to Dieter Rams, former design director for Braun, good design is innovative, useful, aesthetic, understandable, honest, unobtrusive, long-lived, consistent in every detail, environmentally friendly, and last but not least, as little design as possible. I think he hit the nail on the head.

Think-Look-Do.....repeat

         
  The design process can be defined in many different ways consisting of innumerable steps depending on what you constitute as "step-worthy". I think you could explain the phone call process in either 2 steps: 1) Dial number 2) press send or 10 steps: 1) pick up phone 2) dial first digit in telephone number 3) dial second digit in telephone number etc. etc. etc.  The latter while easier to fallow with perhaps fewer opportunities for foul ups is lengthy and wordy and well, boring.  The design process should be streamlined so as to give the designer guidelines as to how to get their creative juices flowing while allowing plenty of room for them to explore different possible avenues and yes, make some mistakes along the way.
Mistakes after all can lead to better engineering and durability. For example while working on a prototype say you accidentally break a piece and you notice that that particular are absorbs more tension than the others. You can then go back and find a material that is flexible so that that particular piece can move under tension giving the whole design more integrity.  What seemed like an "Oh S#!%" moment can actually save you from having to deal with this problem in the post production stage of the design.  So if we keep our design process to Think, Look, Do , repeat. We can encompass all the other useful steps that go into design.  As long as we never give up on thinking, looking, or doing and we are not afraid to make mistakes we can conquer all the obstacles that come between us and our objective. Who knows, we might stumble upon something even bigger than we ever dreamed of. Alexander Fleming did when he accidentally invented penicillin in 1928.

Think

Look

Do

Talking fonts...

Poster for the 2007 film Helvetica

Some people see a word as a word and a letter as a letter, but those who work in typeface design know that a word can be used in many different ways and communicate different feelings and meanings depending on the typeface that it is written in. In the 2007 film Helvetica named for the typeface designed by the Swiss designer Max Meidinger in 1957, shows how this font alone revolutionized graphic design in the 1960's and became the symbol for modernity and the single most popular typeface still used today.  Quite an accomplishment especially considering the methods and tools Meidinger had to work with. Today we can scroll through our computer's font list and choose whatever looks appropriate. By doing exactly that I want to compare and contrast a few fonts to show the way they affect the words they write.

The phrase I'm going to use is a common one with a loaded meaning, written in four different fonts.     I Love You, I Love You, I Love You, I Love You.  Although the phrase is the same every time, looking at them alongside each other, we can almost determine the different ages, genders, and even intentions of the writers based solely on the fonts. For example the first “I Love You” looks very feminine with its curly ends compared to the more masculine squared off and straight forward font next to it. The third “I Love You” seems very sensual with its deeply italicized cursive like the kind that lovers would exchange, while the last one looks young and fun like the kind a child would write to their mommy or daddy.   The fact that this much information can be assumed using the typeface is HUGE for the world of design. It reinforces one of the core goals of good design which is to communicate a lot with very little effort. We want to use design to express ideas, visions, passions, insights , and messages to our market.  With all the resources that we have to do so, it is good to take a minute to appreciate all the hard work and long hours spent at the drawing board typeface designers spent, and how much easier it makes our job.

Design as conversation

               What is design? What is conversation?  In my effort of capture these elusive terms and hold them down long enough to have a look inside, I have found that they are similar in both function (what they do)  and purpose (why they do it).  Let’s begin with a look at the function of conversation. Conversation is used as a means of sharing information. Weather is it "casual conversation" about the weather, conversation during an interview where you are sharing your strengths and qualifications, or a deep existential conversation where you are using abstract thought to get to the core of what makes us tic. All we are really doing is sharing info. So, why we constantly exchange info?  The answer really depends on the type of conversation and the individual motives of the people engaged in it. For example, Bill is talking to Mary about the strange weather. Bill's purpose is to look smart so Mary will want to go out with him. Mary is engaging in this conversation simply because she feels like silence between two people in an elevator is awkward.  This shows the same conversation has two different purposes working simultaneously.   Now let’s juxtapose this with the function and purpose of design.  According to David Lauer's book Design Basics design functions to organize something visually. This applies to the entire realm of two and three dimensional human production. This too works as a way of sharing info visually rather than using spoken word. In Steve Chambers Math Rules! Poster we see how his design communicates the idea of bringing numbers to life by personifying the numbers in the image of a man. You almost don’t even need the heading to get the message.  Just like the purpose of conversation, design may be driven by many different reasons from aesthetics, to ease of use, to monetary gain depending on the type of design and the people engaged in it.  Because of the fundamental similarities in the nature of design and conversation, we also see the same characteristics of a good conversation are found in good design.  Such characteristics include clarity, so that your audience can understand what you are trying to say.  In conversation this is done with a well-developed vocabulary, in design our vocab. has more to do with expressing ourselves well within a certain medium.   Another key to good conversation/ design is brevity. When a conversation rambles on, the mind shuts off and the eyes start to wander in search of something more interesting. The same happens when a design has so much flare that it overshadows its own point. The eyes of the viewer start wandering around forgetting what it was we were looking at in the first place.  Lastly, I would say that both good design and good conversation must be informed. In other words know what you are talking about before you say it and know your market, medium, and limitations before you design it.