What software has done to the industry of making things pretty
By daxxter
Technology advances… it always moves forward. It makes our lives easier. Each time software for example, advances; it makes the designer’s job easier, or its supposed to. Take Adobe InDesign, thats software for a designer like myself. Its a tool of my trade. The trouble is that anyone can buy it. So every Tom, Dick and Harriet can download a copy. The problem with every Tom, Dick and Harriet is that they may learn how to use it, but they haven’t a clue about good design.
For designers, software advancement has its downside too. Our deadlines get shorter because we can do things faster. Software companies (like Adobe) have a tendency to rearrange menus or reformulate how to do things, so there’s always a learning curve in new versions.
Ever notice how it seems like suddenly everyone started getting more junk mail? More badly designed paper for the bird cage? That’s because now that every Tom, Dick and Harriet can call themselves a designer, just by virtue of the fact that they own a copy of InDesign.
Owning a copy of InDesign, does not a designer make…
and you can quote me.
Nevermind… I quoted myself.
Guaranteed Tom, Dick and Harriet don’t know anything about good typography either. Kerning is probably not even a concern for them. Take a look at any junk mail you have, and look at any period. Its probably miles away from the character next to it. The same with a “1” character, as in a telephone number. Its even happening in bad web banners.
And speaking of type, look at font design. Everyone knows there are zillions upon zillions of free fonts out there.
Here’s a Google search result for “free font”. 1001 free fonts, 11980 free fonts and on and on.
Most of them designed by people who downloaded a copy of Fontographer, Fontlab Studioor Font Creator and uploaded their creation. Font creation has its own rules to follow and you can bet that Bobby down the street who just uploaded his new handwriting font, didn’t follow them. Any studio or print manager cringes the moment he or she discovers that the font in his job wasn’t from a reputable type foundry. Plus it’s a good bet that the font itself will blow his job right out of his rip and dump the job altogether.
I suppose it would be a good idea if all the places that accepted uploads from Bobby practiced a standard set of font file rules, such as proper kerning tables and font metrics. But how would you police that? Chances are, they wouldn’t consider it if it meant they would have a lower inventory.
Cudos to Bobby for getting his creation out there and someone finding it, but a kick in the pants for costing a studio money to fix it. Now Mr Print Manager has an even tighter deadline and how does he tell his client that the job he was sent had to be ripped apart because of the font that was used?
And then there are the images. This is where things get a little sticky. A few years back the buzzword was “copyright”. When Joe Client goes to a designer and asks him or her to build a brochure, its up to him or her to follow proper rules of image acquisition. That means opening an account with a digital image supplier such as Getty or Comstock and negotiating the rights to use the image, unless its royalty free, which can also have its own licensing criteria.
Images also have to be assigned proper profiles for printing and their densities checked and altered for the right output device. They have to be color-corrected, sharpened and resized. I’ll bet you your first born child these things were never done in your junk mail. I’ll bet it was all corrected at the print house and then billed back to the client.
And then there’s colour, and paper… but you get my point.
Part of this problem stems from the fact that Tom, Dick and Harriet are just plain cheaper. They won’t be charging what a seasoned designer or big studio would charge. So as always, you get what you pay for. A well designed piece that may win an award for its striking design and excellent typography, or bird cage paper.
Good design is not only taught, but learned with experience. Designers learn over time how to design well. They know when something works or doesn’t work. Tom, Dick and Harriet on the other hand are merely concerned with “getting it out,” regardless of whether it follows the rules of good design.
So the next time you get junk mail and it’s looking perfect for the bird cage, just be sure of one thing… it wasn’t designed by me.
What software has done to the industry of making things pretty
By daxxterTechnology advances… it always moves forward. It makes our lives easier. Each time software for example, advances; it makes the designer’s job easier, or its supposed to. Take Adobe InDesign, thats software for a designer like myself. Its a tool of my trade. The trouble is that anyone can buy it. So every Tom, Dick and Harriet can download a copy. The problem with every Tom, Dick and Harriet is that they may learn how to use it, but they haven’t a clue about good design.
For designers, software advancement has its downside too. Our deadlines get shorter because we can do things faster. Software companies (like Adobe) have a tendency to rearrange menus or reformulate how to do things, so there’s always a learning curve in new versions.
Ever notice how it seems like suddenly everyone started getting more junk mail? More badly designed paper for the bird cage? That’s because now that every Tom, Dick and Harriet can call themselves a designer, just by virtue of the fact that they own a copy of InDesign.
Nevermind… I quoted myself.
Guaranteed Tom, Dick and Harriet don’t know anything about good typography either. Kerning is probably not even a concern for them. Take a look at any junk mail you have, and look at any period. Its probably miles away from the character next to it. The same with a “1” character, as in a telephone number. Its even happening in bad web banners.
And speaking of type, look at font design. Everyone knows there are zillions upon zillions of free fonts out there.
Here’s a Google search result for “free font”. 1001 free fonts, 11980 free fonts and on and on.
Most of them designed by people who downloaded a copy of Fontographer, Fontlab Studio or Font Creator and uploaded their creation. Font creation has its own rules to follow and you can bet that Bobby down the street who just uploaded his new handwriting font, didn’t follow them. Any studio or print manager cringes the moment he or she discovers that the font in his job wasn’t from a reputable type foundry. Plus it’s a good bet that the font itself will blow his job right out of his rip and dump the job altogether.
I suppose it would be a good idea if all the places that accepted uploads from Bobby practiced a standard set of font file rules, such as proper kerning tables and font metrics. But how would you police that? Chances are, they wouldn’t consider it if it meant they would have a lower inventory.
Cudos to Bobby for getting his creation out there and someone finding it, but a kick in the pants for costing a studio money to fix it. Now Mr Print Manager has an even tighter deadline and how does he tell his client that the job he was sent had to be ripped apart because of the font that was used?
And then there are the images. This is where things get a little sticky. A few years back the buzzword was “copyright”. When Joe Client goes to a designer and asks him or her to build a brochure, its up to him or her to follow proper rules of image acquisition. That means opening an account with a digital image supplier such as Getty or Comstock and negotiating the rights to use the image, unless its royalty free, which can also have its own licensing criteria.
Images also have to be assigned proper profiles for printing and their densities checked and altered for the right output device. They have to be color-corrected, sharpened and resized. I’ll bet you your first born child these things were never done in your junk mail. I’ll bet it was all corrected at the print house and then billed back to the client.
And then there’s colour, and paper… but you get my point.
Part of this problem stems from the fact that Tom, Dick and Harriet are just plain cheaper. They won’t be charging what a seasoned designer or big studio would charge. So as always, you get what you pay for. A well designed piece that may win an award for its striking design and excellent typography, or bird cage paper.
Good design is not only taught, but learned with experience. Designers learn over time how to design well. They know when something works or doesn’t work. Tom, Dick and Harriet on the other hand are merely concerned with “getting it out,” regardless of whether it follows the rules of good design.
So the next time you get junk mail and it’s looking perfect for the bird cage, just be sure of one thing… it wasn’t designed by me.
Tags: bad design, bad designer, good practises, junk mail, type design
This entry was posted on October 28, 2008 at 2:27 am and is filed under bad design, commentary, observation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.