Blog Archives

The book typographer has the job of erecting a window
Weimar
Weimer-republikken
Chris Ware
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!”
Good design is obvious. Great design is transparent.
Joe Sparano
He drew a picture of an apple on the blackboard and he wrote the word apple underneath. Lesson 1. Listen up. And he covered the apple and said: “You either say this” and he covered up the picture and said: “Or you say this”. 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.
(Bog)tilrettelæggeren behøver ikke at være kunstner, men han skal have et naturligt talent for proportioner, farver o.s.v., kort sagt:...
Erik Ellegaard Frederiksen
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.
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: ...
Chip Kidd
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.
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...
Massimo Vignelli
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.
By all means break the rules, and break them beautifully, deliberately and well.
Robert Bringhurst
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.
Elegance is not the abundance of simplicity. It is the absence of complexity.
Alex White
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.