davidthedesigner

my pantone past #1

I might be the one that's wrong, of course, but I'm really surprised that designers still specify Pantone colours - because I can't remember the last time that I designed anything for print that wasn't printed in 4-colour process. And Pantones aren't the best way of selecting a colour palette for CMYK printing (though some designers still do, of course).

But for many years my Pantone Color Specifier was a constant companion. It's the one with the perforated sheets of tear-out 'chips' (for attaching to artwork or visuals to illustrate the exact colour choice). My post on Friday has reminded me of this old friend - because it's a real time capsule of the colours that I've used or specified over the years. And so I'd thought I'd share them with you, one sheet at a time - in much the same way that Daniel Eatock might.

things in life that i completely fail to understand #3

Are there really Guardian-reading men out there who are prepared to spend more than £1,000 on a watch on the basis that it's also worn by James Bond?

this week, i have mostly been...

...appreciating pantones 304 to 309 (coated, of course).

it's liza with a zee

Do you have a design dilemma?

If so, you have two choices (or so it seems to me): either you can ask Ben to ask Matt Dent; or you can write to Liza. She's always full of sound advice to the creatively challenged among us. Take Star Designer from Milano, for instance:
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Dear LoveLiza,

I am 43 years old and a very talented designer, my whole family gives me tremendous support and are great admirers of my design work. This gives me the push to send my work every year to national and international competitions, but I never win, why is it that none of the judges see my talent?

Star Designer, Milano
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Dear Mr. Talent,

Why don’t you try getting your mother to be part of the jury, she seems to have the talent of being very convincing. Has she ever considered talent spotting as a profession?

LoveLiza
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Or Trendy from Amsterdam:
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Dear LoveLiza,

I am the 30plus type, hip and trendy graphic designer from Amsterdam. I have designed several typefaces of which some have been published. As of late I seem to encounter a lot of problems with legibility. Everybody presented with my typeface designs complains that they cannot read them. Of course I could change it and make my designs more accessible for the greater public, but I do not want to loose my reputation as a hip and trendy designer. Should I just ignore the criticism?

Trendy, Amsterdam
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Dear 30plus,

May I remind you that illegible typography was hip and trendy 15 years ago.

LoveLiza
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Go on, drop her a line. She'd love to hear from you.

how many lawyers does it take to set a sentence?

I must admit that I wasn't at all sure whether typography for lawyers was serious or not, since it sounds to be on a par with 'bear hunting for vegans'.

But serious it is, and a jolly handy reference as well. If I were teaching design students (which I used to do, but now I don't), then this would be an invaluable tool for explaining the basics of typography.

Bear in mind, though, that it's American (bless them) - so it advocates the horribly ugly use of the em-dash without word spacing.

profundity don't come for free

On the one hand, it's good to be back. On the other, though, it's a struggle. Two weeks with what passes as my brain being in neutral (at least as far as blogging goes) and I'm finding the process of turning random thoughts into meaningful words has all but deserted me.

Kevin (one of my guest bloggers this past two weeks) emailed me some very nice words about his experience '...for me there is this mental block that fluctuates between "blogging is annoying" and "blogging is easy," if that makes any sense. So, to see you blogging day in, day out, no matter your mood, the weather, or outside time constraints, is very impressive. And it appears you still have a lot of fun with it so it doesn't seem that you ever think of it as a job.'

Well, that's true: it's not a job, simply because it doesn't earn me any money. But it is a very important part of who I am as a designer (as opposed to what I do as a designer). I had a discussion with a good friend a while back about why I did it, and what I could do to start generating some income. And she said that I needed to direct it to potential clients: to start writing the things that they want to read about. But that's really not the point, is it? (At least for me it's not.)

Because the reason I do it is to connect with the wider world around me (albeit - maybe - the design world). And that's demonstrated by the team who very kindly stepped in to take over this blog when I was supposedly away. Look: New York, Arnhem and Edinburgh. That's an international mix that's been made possible simply through these daily noodlings in my little corner of the WWW thingy.

And I wanted to say something profound about that, but the words won't come. Because I was reminded about that bigger world that we belong to by two very disparate things.

This is Michael Rosen (and I've written about him before). I came across this lovely observation from Michael on The Guardian website. And that's what it appears to be, doesn't it? Just an observation. But actually it's a poem: and that was brought home to me when I recounted to my wife what Michael was saying. Because my explanation was at least five times as long as that poem. Watch it a second time, and you'll soon appreciate that there's not one single spare word. Clever, that.

But back to the message: and here's another thing.

Shipping containers. They're changing the world around us: as explained on this little BBC video report.

The Box is an ambitious and unique year-long project for BBC News to tell the story of international trade and globalisation by tracking a standard shipping container around the world (or so it says on their web link - you see, two weeks away and I'm reduced to cutting and pasting other people's words).

So there you have have it: david's 'thoughts for tuesday'. And, if you have been, thanks for reading.

how was it for you?

Well, that was fun, wasn't it? Highlights for me were discovering I'm not a hipster (which means the shiny tights will have to go back in the drawer), the road sign in Gent (because I've walked and cycled along Voldersstraat many times, but never noticed that sign), and Gill Sans Peeled. How about you?

And now I'm back. But first of all, I've got a confession to make: I haven't been away at all. It wasn't intentional - all of my holiday decisions are taken at very short notice (life events have taught me never to plan too far in advance). I'd been offered a flat (gratis) on Jersey for the fortnight, but work schedules don't always coincide with when I want to take a break. So I've had my nose to the grindstone instead.

But, having set the whole guest posting thing up, I decided to run with it. Particularly as it had a bit of organisation behind it. Last year I'd asked two or three people to make just a single post. But I hadn't set them up as Typepad authors, so they emailed me their posts and I put them up. And I made a small change to one of them: there was a reference to paying 'an homage', which I altered to read 'a homage', and Ian quite rightly picked me up on that (sorry Ian). So this time around, I decided on absolutely no intervention at all.

And, for me, that's been the interesting bit. Seeing the whole thing take on a life of it's own. I must admit the first two days were difficult - you know, thinking 'I wouldn't have said that', or 'I wouldn't have put it that way'. And that soon gave way to a sense of relief: of not having the (self-imposed) pressure of making at least one post every working day. And then, towards to end of last week, I started finding myself in the position of wanting to post again. I'd come across things that I wanted to talk about or mention.

'hipsters' and the up-and-coming creative generation

(Photo pulled off the Cobrasnake website, I hope he doesn't mind)

Ever since this Adbusters article on 'Hipsters' came out at the end of July, it has been triggering all kinds of discussion/uproar (just check the 74+ pages of comments on the article itself!). Written by Douglas Haddow (who's own blog you can find here), it discusses the idea that:

"We’ve reached a point in our civilization where counterculture has mutated into a self-obsessed aesthetic vacuum. So while hipsterdom is the end product of all prior countercultures, it’s been stripped of its subversion and originality."

Now, I'm not looking to have an in-depth discussion of the highs and lows of 'Hipsterdom'... that's being done many places elsewhere on the web, nor am I necessarily agreeing with the article. What bothers me is how much of it really rings true with the people around me and how many parallels of these 'hipster' characteristics can be drawn with my fellow Art College students.

Having spent the last year at Art College in London, I found things such as American Apparel clothing, spandex leggings and fixed gear bikes to be synonymous with my experience of 'Art School Culture'. So the idea that "the hipster represents the end of Western civilization – a culture so detached and disconnected that it has stopped giving birth to anything new", "left with consuming cool rather that creating it", does not bode well with the fact that future generations of creative thinkers are molding themselves to this 'hipster' ideal.

(Image from here.)

Surely if the way we lead our lives lacks originality, there can't be much hope for the creativity of the work we're going to produce. The suggestion that my generation "are too self-aware to let themselves feel any form of liberation", and are "desperately clinging to anything that feels real, but too afraid to become it ourselves", doesn't exactly allude to designers and artists who will be confident to push creative boundaries.

On the other hand, there are plenty of younger designers around who do just that, yet still lean towards other characteristics of 'hipsters'. (I find myself continually impressed by the work of Kate Moross, for example.)

(Pulled off her website, I hope that's ok too!)

So where does that leave us? As I said before, I don't completely agree or disagree with the article, but I do think it makes some relevant and somewhat worrying points. I myself own an American Apparel jumper... so let's hope that doesn't signal the end anything vaguely original or creative to come! ;)

It is also true that as designers, what personal 'image' we go for, shouldn't matter as much if we're coming up with good ideas and creating great work... But I can't help but think that if we lead our lives as sheep following every latest fad and trend, our work probably won't be going anywhere fast either.

(If you find yourself concerned, you can click here for help working out if you yourself are a 'hipster'.)

The Items We Carry

Items We Carry
Originally uploaded by kevinmccauley

A few days ago I mentioned Naz Hamid's blog. He started a popular group on Flickr called "The Items we Carry" that has exploded to over 1,200 pictures and counting. It's exactly what is sounds like. I thought it was a very clever idea*, so here's my take on it.

*I almost described it as "graphic," something I hear at work all the time. Graphic, the adjective. I stopped myself because it means nothing. Anything is "graphic," it's just like saying "edgy."

this made me smile #60

Finding my way in Gent (Belgium) the following traffic sign made me smile. I find it surprising how simple but beautiful something like this traffic sign sticker can be.

Joost