adrian shaughnessy has written a new book on graphic design, as he himself says ‘not about the correct typefaces to use but more about the soft stuff, dealing with clients’ etc..
here he presents his top ten graphic design paradoxes, i have to say i find myself disagreeing with some of his points, way too facile at times… sure there are plenty of bad designers who blame the client for everything that goes wrong but there really are bad clients adrian… perhaps you’ve never met them…
a website full of must-read book recommendations from graphic designers, not everybody will be interested, i understand… good to see mister sagmeister naming brian eno’s fabulous ‘a year with swollen appendices’ diary, it would be on my list too…
typotheque have placed an interview online with dutch designer ‘rené knip’ the interview is an excerpt form a book entitled 158 answers
…i saw so much in lettering that the whole idea for me is to create a world of images; I do a lot of lettering which is very illustrative. I got out of the world of book typography because it has so many rules for readability; the text needs to be more or less transparent. I use letters like a photographer does a camera: I use them to illustrate emotions…
it turns out that my office neighbour marc andrews is not only a graphic designer but also a social psychologist, he has combined these two areas of interest in a recently published research thesis entitled visual rhetoric on the psychology, semiotics and rhetoric of social communication campaigns, the whole project can be viewed online and downloaded to read later in depth, worth a visit it is too…
it seems to me that this kind of research can provide a context and ratio to the stuff that we as designers seem to know instinctively but are not always aware of in our own work and methods of thinking, plus it looks like i’ll have to call him ‘professor’ from now on…
looked at one way the annual ‘logolounge’ trends 2011 roundup could be seen as a fairly cynical attempt to debunk the myth of originality, or to unmask the imitators… looked at another way it could be seen as proof that graphic design (and identity design in particular) is as susceptible to the whim of the times as any other area of communication
after all if design is the vehicle we use to clarify and define are lives and the world we live in, what’s wrong with that? although admittedly some of those logos chosen to illustrate the case are a bit naff to be honest…
