Citater
The book typographer has the job of erecting a window between the reader inside the room and that landscape which is the author’s words.
Those who rightfully possess a library know that books have not only readable content, but their own palpable atmosphere as well, their own mood, their own visible aura; their typography, binding and cover are their physiognomy, and form a face that warms the heart much like portraits of friends hanging on the wall.
Why would anyone need a library if he doesn’t know what it feels lik to caress a book in the passing?”
It seems to me a book design should be inevitable – a book demands its own shape just as an oak sprouts from an acorn and a pine from a cone.
A book cover is a distillation. It is a haiku of the story.
The book designer’s responsibility is three fold. To the reader, to the publisher and most of all to the author. I want you to look at the author’s book and go: “Wow! I need to read that!”
My graphic design teacher drew a picture of an apple on the blackboard and he wrote the word apple underneath. He covered the apple and said: “You either say this” and he covered up the picture and said: “Or you say this”. Then he removed his hands: “But you don’t do this. Because that is treating your audience as a moron.”
A book designer gives form to content.
The difference between a Designer and Developer, when it comes to design skills, is the difference between shooting a bullet and throwing it.
Design is the conscious effort to impose a meaningful order.
Math is easy. Design is hard.
Typographic style is founded not on any one technology of typesetting or printing, but on the primitive yet subtle craft of writing.
A man who would letterspace lower case would steal sheep, Frederic Goudy liked to say. If this wisdom needs updating, it is chiefly to add that a woman who would letterspace lower case would steal sheep as well
Typography is to literature as musical performance is to composition: an essential act of interpretation, full of endless opportunities for insight or obtuseness.
The designer is a visually literate person, just as an editor is expected by training and inclination to be versed in language and literature, but to call the former an artist by occupation is as absurd as to refer to the latter as a poet.
By all means break the rules, and break them beautifully, deliberately and well.
Typography is the craft of endowing human language with a durable visual form.
A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.
You don’t get harmony if everyone sings the same note.
The urge for good design is the same as the urge to go on living.
Good design is good business.
Design must reflect the practical and aesthetic in business but above all… good design must primarily serve people.
The primary factor is proportions.
A good designer must rely on experience, on precise, logic thinking; and on pedantic exactness. No magic will do.
To design is to communicate clearly by whatever means you can control or master.
In a well-made book, where designer, compositor and printer have all done their jobs, no matter how many thousands of lines and pages they must occupy, the letters are alive. They dance in their seats. Sometimes they rise and dance in the margins and aisles.
Design is a funny word. Some people think design means how it looks. But of course, if you dig deeper, it’s really how it works.
If the reader notices the interior page design of a book – even if he or she likes what they see – I’ve missed, because I distracted them from their reading.
A well-designed text will seem weightless after a time; the initial feel of the book fades away as the mind becomes engrossed in the words.
People think that design is styling. Design is not style. It’s not about giving shape to the shell and not giving a damn about the guts. Good design is a renaissance attitude that combines technology, cognitive science, human need, and beauty to produce something that the world didn’t know it was missing.
If you can’t solve a problem, it’s because you’re playing by the rules.
The grid system is an aid, not a guarantee. It permits a number of possible uses and each designer can look for a solution appropriate to his personal style. But one must learn how to use the grid; it is an art that requires practice.
It took me a few seconds to draw it, but it took me 34 years to learn how to draw it in a few seconds.
he designer is not always right. The researcher is not always wrong. Profit is not always the motive; market research, whatever its outcome, should never be used as a good excuse for bad design – in the same sense that good design should never be used to promote a bad product.
Good design is obvious. Great design is transparent.
Design is a plan for arranging elements in such a way as best to accomplish a particular purpose.
Technology over technique produces emotionless design.
Practice safe design: Use a concept
Simplicity will stand out, while complexity will get lost in the crowd.
Don’t design for everyone. It’s impossible. All you end up doing is designing something that makes everyone unhappy.
Like all forms of design, visual design is about problem solving, not about personal preference or unsupported opinion.
Because every person knows what he likes, every person thinks he is an expert on user interfaces.
Communication that doesn’t take a chance doesn’t stand a chance.
It’s not the paper’s fault that so much shit is printed.
The client may be king, but he’s not the art director.
You can have an art experience in front of a Rembrandt… or in front of a piece of graphic design.
The best ideas come as jokes. Make your thinking as funny as possible.
We can’t just design an item that looks great. We also have to anticipate how it is boxed up, distributed, and shipped, as well as whether or not a seventeen-year-old kid with a summer job can stock it on the store shelf without ruining it.
No one ever discovered anything new by coloring inside the lines.
Clients don’t understand their success is reliant on standing out, not fitting in.
Elegance is not the abundance of simplicity. It is the absence of complexity.
In a badly designed book, the letters mill and stand like starving horses in a field. In a book designed by rote, they sit like stale bread and mutton on the page. In a well-made book, where designer, compositor and printer have all done their jobs, no matter how many thousands of lines and pages, the letters are alive. They dance in their seats. Sometimes they rise and dance in the margins and aisles.
Det er rigtigt, som det er sagt at han (bogtilrettelæggeren) skal være forfatter med forfatteren og læser med læsere.
Content precedes design. Design in the absence of content is not design, it’s decoration
The grid is an integral part of book design. It’s not something that you see. It’s just like underwear: you wear it, but it’s not to be exposed. The grid is the underwear of the book.
There is no design without discipline. There is no discipline without intelligence.
(Bog)tilrettelæggeren behøver ikke at være kunstner, men han skal have et naturligt talent for proportioner, farver o.s.v., kort sagt: for formgivning. Stilsans kan nu engang ikke læres; men ejer man den kan den dyrkes og skærpes.
Design is an opportunity to continue telling the story, not just to sum everything up.
Great design will not sell an inferior product, but it will enable a great product to achieve its maximum potential.
… ethvert typografisk element, der stiller sig mellem forfatter og læser er forfejlet.
What is design? It’s where you stand with a foot in two worlds – the world of technology and the world of people and human purposes – and you try to bring the two together.
The proper study of mankind is the science of design.
Design is everything. Everything!
I like the body. I like to design everything to do with the body.
When I design buildings, I think of the overall composition, much as the parts of a body would fit together. On top of that, I think about how people will approach the building and experience that space.
About half my designs are controlled fantasy, 15 percent are total madness and the rest are bread-and-butter designs.
Good design doesn’t date.
I design for real people. I think of our customers all the time. There is no virtue whatsoever in creating clothing or accessories that are not practical.
The details are the very source of expression in architecture. But we are caught in a vice between art and the bottom line.
Design works if it’s authentic, inspired, and has a clear point of view. It can’t be a collection of input.
A designer is a planner with an aesthetic sense.
Vi skal undersøge baggrunden for den ting,vi har med at gøre og finde ud af det formål, der skal opfyldes. Vi må huske, at det er brugsting vi arbejder med. De skal fungere. Tilrettelæggeren må gennemtænke bogen ud fra fysiske, optiske og psykologiske synspunkter. Bogen har vægt, størrelse, tykkelse og de forskellige materialer har struktur. Bogen er både for hånden og for øjet.
Han (bogtilrettelæggeren) er som pianisten, der klart og ukrukket skal tolke et klaverstykke for et publikum. Det er først og fremmest komponisten, der har krav på at blive hørt og forstået, ikke så meget pianisten, selv om det ofte ser sådan ud.
… forfatterens tanker og forestillinger (skal) overføres til læseren. Og dette må gøres, så intet går tabt. Det er tilrettelæggernes pligt at hjælpe forfatter og læser på samme tid. Han er formidler mellem disse to parter og det kræver ydmyghed.
Tilrettelægningens formål må være at forene bogens dimensioner, typografi, materialer og bind til en helhed, der virker tiltalende og funktionel.
KISS – Keep It Simple Stupid
Fortæl forbrugeren det de gerne vil vide og ikke det du gerne vil have de skal vide
I can’t understand why people are afraid of new ideas. I am afraid of old ones.
Når du skal overbevise et andet menneske må du først og fremmest passe på at finde ham der hvor han er og begynde der.
If I ad asked my customers what they wanted they would’ve said a faster horse.
Det er hånden og ånden der skaber.
Den der lever skjult lever godt > Den der lever skjult bliver nedlagt
I notice things and I get noticed
I keep six honest men
(that taught me all I know)
their names are who and where
and what and when
and how and why
Skønhed er syndig lykke
When everyone is against you, it means that you are absolutely wrong – or absolutely right.
Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.
If you want creative workers, give them enough time to play.
In the modern world of business, it is useless to be a creative, original thinker unless you can also sell what you create.
The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind.
Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.
A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.
Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right.
A camel is a horse designed by a committee.
We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.
If you are going to walk on thin ice, you might as well dance.
It seems that perfection is reached not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away .
Simplicity is the ultimate form of sophistication.
By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.
I never read. I just look at pictures.
An old Indian craftsman carved elephants from timber. When asked how, he’d say “I just cut away the wood that doesn’t look like an elephant
The book designer is an interpreter and a translator.