A discomfort born from the process of pulling together ideas and memories in an effort to produce something new, something which is so far superior to the culmination of its parts. Something that will inspire and excite.

But I know what we all know, through experience we know it – we will probably fail. That if we are to push beyond our limitations or try anything new, to fail is to be considered almost inevitable, almost guaranteed, promised by the creative process, promised by our beautiful foolishness.

But this beautiful foolishness is what we need to give ourselves permission to make mistakes, again and again and again. It reminds us to embrace this fool-hearted mentality, aiming for results that teeter on a blade-thin edge, with an equal chance of falling towards either success or failure. We should repeat so that we get better at this balancing act, so that we learn to embrace failure as a viable outcome, even while we do our best to lean towards success, with no fear or hope for either, knowing that any feet misplaced are small lessons in how to walk true.

This beautiful foolishness is what helps us to ignore our ego and give us happiness in declaring, with pride, “I don’t know the answer”, with a quick follow up of “but I’m going to find out.” It allows us to not only ask puzzling questions, but to try and answer them ourselves.

It hurts and is hard. I often grow hungry once I start answering questions, when I try to make. I get thirsty, too. And bored and tired. I doubt everything I know and feel. I wonder about the TV, about what else I could do, about hitting refresh on the multiple sites I have open. Just a little refresh, just a little update, that’s all I need baby, that’s all I need – just a small update to see me through.

A small update.

A small distraction.

A small moment of intellectual and creative numbness.

It hurts to say no to those impulses, and when it does, it’s resistance at its most blatant.

But those who go forward in the face of this pain and fear and resistance, who aren’t afraid to fail, who ignore the need to know who just tweeted what, to ignore the numbers that grow, who attach no worry to missing any of it, those who are brave enough to ignore their long lists of things to do and do the one thing they must, to create, are the most beautiful of fools.

We are incredibly lucky to have them.

And luckier still to have the opportunity to be amongst them.

If you were kind enough to read my last article, Starting., as well as this one, you’ll probably notice a common theme – the struggle to start making something. The simple reason is that’s where I am at the moment. But rather than pretend to have all the answers to any creative riddle like some, maybe most, bloggers seem to, I thought I’d just be honest and bring you along this journey with me. Hopefully you aren’t going through the same problems I am, but if you are, I hope we can figure it out together.

I find myself tickled with delight when talk of a newly published design book trickles through. So, to indulge in this little addiction of mine, I thought I’d share some of the more interesting books relating to design and general creative thinking with you every month or so. I haven’t read any of the following (unless otherwise noted), and can’t completely vouch for their quality other than what I find in the publisher’s descriptions, the author’s past work, and, let’s be honest here, the cover. Plus a little gut instinct.

Writing and Research for Graphic Designers: A Designer’s Manual to Strategic Communication and Presentation

Steven Heller

Hardcover // 176 pages // ISBN: 9781592538041

From the Publisher

For designers, wwriting and research skills are more necessary than ever before, from the basic business compositions to critical writing. In this competitive climate, designers are routinely called upon to make words about the images and designs they create for clients. Writing about design is not just “trade” writing, but should be accessible to everyone with an interest in design. This book is a complete, introductory guide to various forms of research and writing in design—and how they explain visuals and can be visualized. These pages address communication on various levels and to all audiences:

• Designers to Designers
• Designers to Clients
• Designers to the Design-literate
• Designers to the Design-agnostic

Being able to express the issues and concerns of the design practice demands facts, data, and research. With Writing and Research for Graphic Designers, you’ll learn how to turn information into a valuable asset — one of the key talents of the design researcher.

Alex’s Thoughts

I’m fairly sure Steven Heller writes, co-writers or curates more books each year than most people read. I could go on and on about Heller’s genius and how lucky we are to all be alive at the same time so we can enjoy is prodigious output year after year. I could wax poetic of the joy his books give me, and thousands of others. I could go on and on about brilliant his biography of Paul Rand is, or how Iron Fists: Branding the 20th Century Totalitarian State was that book I just had to have. But I won’t. Instead I’ll keep it simple:

When Steven Heller writes about design writing, you listen.

Sitting in the dark room, part of an audience of a hundred or so other designers, I was starting to notice a pattern that permeated the process of those who took to the stage. They all researched, often an incredible amount. It seemed as though they were spending as much time researching as I was designing. This was a small revelation to me – it was when the importance of research genuinely illuminated that dulled part of how I went about my work. In collecting information, understanding the problem at hand, the audience who will use the solution I developed, the client and their past products and materials, much of our work is done. The answer starts to become obvious, becoming easier to defend in the face of questioning clients. Best of all, it allows us to focus on the aesthetic expression of our concepts, as we know the concepts are strong. And, if we’re lucky, means that we can execute the solution in such a way that we can simply let it do all the work. All we have to do is keep quiet, letting our researched solution take centre stage.

I’m really excited about this one and cannot wait to get my hands on it.

Grab it on Amazon.com here.

Popular Lies About Graphic Design

Craig Ward

Paperback // 160 pages // ISBN: 8415391358

From the Publisher

Multi award-winning designer, typographer and TED speaker, Craig Ward, presents his first self-authored book – Popular Lies About Graphic Design. An attempt to debunk the various misconceptions, half truths and, in some cases, outright lies which permeate the industry of design.

Lovingly designed and written both passionately and irreverently, Ward pulls from his ten years of experience to tackle lighter subjects such as design fetishists, Helvetica’s neutrality and urgent briefs, alongside discussions on more worthy topics such as the validity of design education, the supposed death of print, client relationships and pitch planning. In addition, the book features contributions and insights from more than a dozen other established practitioners such as Milton Glaser, Stefan Sagmeister, Christoph Niemann and David Carson making it a must for students, recent graduates and seasoned practitioners alike.

Alex’s Thoughts

I think we all have this idea of what the industry would be like before we entered it, and perhaps for the first couple of years that we’re working, we take any little hint that we could be right about our preconceptions and magnify it about a hundred fold. How often is this at the cost of reality? I know I’ve wasted a considerable amount of time unravelling the ideas I’ve had that proved utterly wrong, time which could have been better spent moving forward, rather than catching up.

A book like this is a good reminder of how seriously we often take ourselves, and how strongly we stand behind nonsensical arguments, seemingly for the sake of having an argument to stand behind. It’s an easy habit to fall into – when we argue over the rules of our craft as if they were laws, we inflate their importance. Which is handy, so that when someone questions something we’ve done, we can point at our laws and, you know, scoff at them, because, like, they just don’t get, that what we’re doing, is totally, like, art, man, and, you know, they can’t be right, because, heh, they don’t know the rules.

Ward bring his exceptional skills to the internals, and it’s no surprise that each title page is well considered and executed experiments in type, each with a heady dose of wit and craftsmanship. It serves as a great reminder of not only how clever one can be with just typography, but how much can be communicated with a single color. I can’t recommend spending some time looking through his folio enough.

Grab it on Amazon.com here.

Scripts: Elegant Lettering from Design’s Golden Age

Steven Heller & Louise Fili

Paperback // 352 pages // ISBN: 0500290393

From the Publisher

Seen in everything from wedding invitations and birth announcements to IOUs, menus, and diplomas, script typefaces impart elegance and sophistication to a broad variety of texts. Scripts never go out of style, and the hundreds of inventive examples here are sure to inspire today’s designers. Derived from handwriting, these are typefaces that are stylized to suggest, imply, or symbolize certain traits linked to writing. Their fundamental characteristic is that all the letters, more or less, touch those before and after. Drawn from the Golden Age of scripts, from the nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century, this is the first compilation of popular, rare, and forgotten scripts from the United States, Germany, France, England, and Italy. Featuring examples from a vast spectrum of sources—advertisements, street signs, type-specimen books, and personal letters—this book is a delightful and invaluable trove of longoverlooked material. 275 illustrations, 254 in color.

Alex’s Thoughts

I sat quietly, rudely ignoring our dinner guests, flicking through the pages. My sleeping mouth woken only briefly in fits of “oh, wow” and “that’s beautiful.” A friend had lent me her copy of this wonderful book, the second entry from Steven Heller in this months Designer’s Shelf, and I was simply blown away.

Quickly moving through a brief four page introduction, we are thrown into hundreds of pages of full-bleed images of some of the most beautiful lettering I have ever seen. Covering the countries mentioned in the Publisher’s description above, each getting their own short introduction, the range of the work is considerable, from type specimens to store-front signs. If you’re a designer, you’ll find this tome amazing. If you’re a letter, it’ll be inspiring, and if you’re the general public, you’ll probably wonder why on earth people get so excited about letters, then find a page that grabs you and embarrassingly sigh “ah, now I get it.”

And, you know, when Louis Fili says “hey, you should look at this”, why on Earth wouldn’t you do so?

Grab it on Amazon.com here.

Little Book of Lettering

Emily Gregory

Hardcover // 192 pages // ISBN: 1452112029

From the Publisher

Typography is always one of the designer’s first considerations when it comes to making a statement, and in recent years the world of lettering and type has exploded in an unprecedented wave of creative discovery. Contemporary artists, typesetters, and designers of all kinds are exploring new horizons in illustrated and hand-drawn lettering, digitally rendered lettering, and 3D lettering. This collection—large in scope but petite in size—surveys the recent lettering renaissance, showcasing a diverse range of talent in gorgeous, eye-catching examples and profiling today’s innovators. In a stunning little package that expertly combines a handmade feel with a modern aesthetic, this is the ultimate inspirational collection of contemporary lettering for design buffs and type enthusiasts alike.

Alex’s Thoughts

After a look at historical scripts, it felt right to show off a book of contemporary lettering.

In the last few years, lettering has taken off in a big, beautiful way. I wonder if it’s born from the marriage of technological advancements and the slick corners and shiny surfaces it brings, and our seemingly inherit urge for the unique and natural. Lettering has always been the latter – something beautiful and crafted, using the skeleton of letters we can all draw, but presenting them in a wholly unique way. I’d venture to say that while this is a little book, it’s massive in its appeal.

Grab it on Amazon.com here.

The Anatomy of Type: A Graphic Guide to 100 Typefaces

Stephen Coles

Hardcover // 256 pages // ISBN: 0062203126

From the Publisher

A visual treat for anyone who loves fonts and typographic design.

The Anatomy of Type explores one hundred traditional and modern typefaces in loving detail, with a full spread devoted to each entry. The full character set from each typeface is shown, and the best letters for identification are enlarged and annotated, revealing key features, anatomical details, and the finer, often-overlooked elements of type design. Containing in-depth information on everything from the designer and foundry, the year of release, and the different weights and styles available, The Anatomy of Type is more than a reference guide to the intricacies of typeface design. It is a visual send-up of some of the world’s most beloved typefaces, beautifully displayed in vibrant color.

Alex’s Thoughts

I’m embarrassingly addicted to Quora, and I think Stephen is a big reason why. He manages to answer what seems like every interesting typography related question that is thrown up, and the depth of his knowledge is astounding. This isn’t anything new, of course. Stephen has been educating us in all things type through Typographica and Fonts In Use. When I read that Stephen was releasing a book of his own, one which would help use develop our skills in type identification and appreciation of the craft, I got the kind of excited I normally only get when one of my favorite musicians announces a new album.

Thanks to the new life typography is experiencing via new technologies, droves of designers are starting to work with letters in ways they never have. While it might be normal for those who have worked in print to spend a considerable amount of time with different type families in a matter of a week or less, for web designers, this hasn’t been the case for longer than a couple of years. The information Coles gives us here is what this new group of type-loving designers need.

It’s worth noting that there are two editions – The Anatomy of Type which was released to the US market, and The Geometry of Type, released to the UK market. Why the difference? I’m not entirely sure.

Grab it on Amazon.com here.

The Elements of Typographic Style:
Version 4.0: 20th Anniversary Edition

Robert Bringhurst

Hardcover // 352 pages // ISBN: 088179211X

From the Publisher

Renowned typographer and poet Robert Bringhurst brings clarity to the art of typography with this masterful style guide. Combining the practical, theoretical, and historical, this edition is completely updated, with a thorough revision and updating of the longest chapter, “Prowling the Specimen Books,” and many other small but important updates based on things that are continually changing in the field.

Alex’s Thoughts

Bringhurst’s Bible is a wonderful thing. But you know this, don’t you? You probably own a copy, maybe more than one. One question that feels awkward to ask, and even challenging to answer, is – is it still as deserving of its reverence. There’s no talk of webfonts, or the (not so) new mediums in which type is used. It might take some effort to explain it’s importance.

Elements has a place in the hearts of many (most?) of us, having paved the path into the beautiful gardens typography offers while we were students, either formal or not. While trying to justify why I should buy this new edition, in hardcover, I, without realising it, said “it’s probably the most important design book I own, I feel like I should buy the hardcover edition.”

It’s perhaps the book I’ve recommended to green designers more than any other, and I will continue to do so. It gives a grounding and understanding of typography, but at this point, it must come with the caveat that it isn’t modern practices that you’ll learn, but timeless fundamentals, ones which adapt to medium, even if at times clumsily or by force.

If you don’t own a copy, get this version, but know what you’re getting into – this is a book for those who care about crafting a page of any medium, not just a page of pixels.

If you do own a copy, then we both know why you might consider purchasing this new edition. Not for what’s been added (arguably not much). But because of what it is, and what it means.

There’s a great review by Maurice Meilleur at Typographica. Which is where I pinched all the above images from. Thanks Maurice!

Grab it on Amazon.com here.

Phew, where there it is! The first For the Designer’s Shelf! Let me know what you think – was there too many words, not enough words? Did you not care about the publisher’s description, my thoughts? Not enough books, too many books? Let me know, I’d love to hear what you have to say!

But most of all, I’d love to hear if there are any books in here that caught your eye?

It was nothing more than the wind. Back to the hard part. Back to starting.

Sitting in my armchair, iPad in lap, book in hand, I was searching in vain for some sort of inspiration, some sort of motivation, a distraction from distraction. My heart wishes to write, but my head is filled with molasses, and no matter how I crane my neck, the gunk barely moves, never drips from my ears, never emptying the resistance from my skull.

Inspired by another, I once wrote that a pro always shows up. No matter how weary their bones, or broken their spirit, a pro always shows up.

But I’ve failed to do so.

I’ve sat, lazy and stupid, regurgitating any excuse I could find to not write, thinking they would hold over the muse for just long enough, that, surely, she wouldn’t leave me. I’m starting to get worried that I was very wrong.

Virgins Writing About Sex

Writing about creativity that isn’t honest is boring. Talking about a lack of creativity and inspiration while you’re feeling creative and inspired is akin to virgins writing about sex. It’s hard to remember the feeling of hopelessness that being uninspired inspires when you’ve got the creative energy to fight an army.

So let me be honest: I’m scared and feeling uninspired.

I’m scared I can’t do this. Even though I’ve been scared before and gotten through it, this time I’m scared that I’ll simply break. I’m scared that this is the time things are just too hard. I’m scared that I will always find an excuse to not do what I know I must. I’m scared that the creative habit I’m earnestly grasping at eludes me.

All That Noise

There’s always a movie to watch, a song to hear, a book to read that will inspire in us great fires of motivation and power. There’s always that thick goo in the skull that needs to be broken through, and we will always say that the best tools are ones outside of ourselves. They can’t possibly be things that we can do because the problem is in us, right?

This noise, and whatever negative thoughts are floating around, don’t go anywhere – there’s always thick oceans to fish in. We can easily fool ourselves into thinking that it’s ok to not be making because we’re getting ready to do something fantastic, we’re getting motivated! We’re just looking for that fish!

These have been the excuses that I’ve built and reinforced with my own arrogance and boundless stupidity by overly intellectualizing the problems I want to solve. This is something in which I’ve always put so much pride – I always want to prepare as best I can before starting. It’s what a professional would do, isn’t it?

I put so much effort into this, that thing which I’ve always called motivation, filling it with cheap, flimsy inspirations, or desperate ideals of what could be and what will be once I start. But motivation has proven itself to be rather fruitless – I’ve always had motivation to make, but I’ve so rarely done so.

The One Thing That Counts

Through the years of stopping-and-starting creative projects, and a library’s worth of reading and planning, including a boundless list of motivations to get started, I’ve realised there’s just one thing that truly counts.

Starting.

I’m scared. But I’m starting. I’m starting small, I’m starting weak, I’m starting fearful. But I’m starting honestly. I’m starting because I know momentum trumps motivation.

Right now I’m going to start by hitting publish.

With her went all the colors of my world.

The world had never been as bright as when I held my daughter. With Samarah in my arms, her head in the crook of my elbow, her knee in my palm, the world was so flushed with color. All the shapes and sounds receded. Everything slipped from the room, and I knew only her. Her chest expanding and contracting as her small lungs tasted oxygen, her face moving slightly, arms bopping softly, feet kicking gently. It was the most thoroughly comfortable I have ever been. For these hours, the sadness was banished to its cold corner. We knew what was to happen—the silent, frozen frenzy of the doctors had dragged a shadow over the delivery room—but in these moments, all that fell away. All that mattered was that she was in my arms, and I was desperately and completely in love.

I held perfection. Radiant, beautiful perfection.

Oh, how little I knew of beauty before that day. I discovered, too, through the essence of her, what complete inspiration feels like. I learned what being at one with your partner is like as you embrace your child.

As I sat in the brightness of it all, in the sheer brilliance of her, I felt a happiness I’d never known. What color was floating through? Yellow seems too dull and orange too empty, pink too soft, even an enveloping white too shallow. The most vivid color falls flat. The colors flowing from her were indescribably rich.

I fell asleep that night a father, proud of my wife for being a mother. Proud of this child for being our daughter, for all the beauty and uniqueness and love that she embodied, for each breath she had taken, for each beat of her heart. Each and every beat. We fell asleep exhausted and emptied.

Samarah was gone.

“Ever had it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.”
— Khalil Gibran

Before she was born, I had been moving, over the last several years, to a deeper place in my work, past the considerations of surface detail. I had found much joy in notions pertaining to the bridging and transference of ideas between two minds through a piece of design and how chemical reactions are evoked, adrenalin is pumped, and happiness experienced through our arrangements of pigments and pixels. Perceiving that these pigments and pixels are nothing but the representation of ideas was most intoxicating.

Our internal responses to creative works and how readily we translate them for use in our language and lives is a subject that I found endlessly fascinating. The most obvious element is color; we use it to describe our moods. Do our eyes flash with red when we’re angry? Does a heart contract and turn green with envy? When we’re down, does our blood turn cold, washed with a bluish tint? What about when weʼre being creative? What color pulses from us then?

But now—with so much already taken from me—when these intellectual questions and my creative energy slipped quietly into their own coma, I barely noticed.

I remembered colors and their workings; I understood them intellectually. I understood design. But the cord linking emotion and idea had been severed. The well of inspiration into which I’d routinely flung myself—that place of shapes and textures, ideas and questions—had been emptied. No bottom of mud or dirt, nor even dust or grit or grime. Empty.

I woodenly remembered everything, but knew none of it. I was resigned to the idea that I was no longer a designer by thought, no longer a problem solver or communicator. I hollowly resolved to carry on. I will simply be a designer by practice, I thought. I’ll go to work, do what I’m asked without consideration of whether it’s right or wrong. I know the software, that’s all I need. In the evenings I’ll forget of my work and consider it no more. I’ll read of it none, look at it less. It’s just a job, it’ll do, it’ll pay bills. No one will visit my site; it will just expire. Those dreams of mine were silly anyway. Who cares of my ideas? Tasteless and pithless. Bone without marrow.

I was only here to help my wife breathe again. Nothing outside of her mattered anymore.

Shadows of pale gray, icy white, a sallow yellow.

The sadness engulfed me. I sought happiness in old safe havens. They failed to push through the sickening thickness of it all. I avoided Twitter, ignored email. Sleep, an old companion turned foe, was a relentless, heavy drug, and I was listlessly forgetting to eat.

We yearned for distraction, no matter how fleeting, expensive, or superficial. Our mantra was a cheerless whatever we want. Want an iPad? Get an iPad. Want a book? Get a book. Want to rent a few movies? Get fourteen.

The television was turned on and stayed as such for weeks. On it, I found a small diversion by witnessing the making of things—any sort of thing. I thought this interest was sparked by my love of process, of seeing how something comes together. Reflection offered another thought: perhaps I needed to see that things were still being made.

We sensed no healing. Perhaps, though, distraction provided time for some hidden work to happen.

Grays smudged with barren greens. Flakes of rust, or a bland beige.

The whatever I want attitude carried over well to the content I consumed. I had for years avoided so much while focusing on design. Now, I wanted to break through any artificial constraints I had shortsightedly constructed during my studies.

I mostly read, eating hundreds of pages at a time, tasting the words, feeling their texture in my teeth, on my tongue, not moving from my seat, fully absorbing language etched into page. I wanted to be walled in by books and find escape. A safe room made impenetrable to things I did not want to feel. Yet, line by line, I was slowly revived; like a man waking after a long sleep, I was ravenous, starved for content. Only rarely did I waver in my conviction to finish the current so that the next could be experienced. Words made me savor humanity’s ability to find pride of purpose, happiness and energy, insight and thought. Somewhere along the way, I giggled for the first time. I cried and ached too—familiar pursuits of late—but when I did so, it was for the stories of others, not just my own.

I drank in everything I’d ever had a desire to explore, devouring the details that gave form to former inklings. I knew that the strength of stars is immense but not that their gravitational weight could alter the relativity of time. Engulfing myself in ideas about government and the building of nations, astronomy and physics, the struggles of the creatives, the questioning of normality, the lives of the great and the life of the mind, I wanted to know it all.

We spent much time with friends, creative friends, who had become family. One day my wife smiled. It made me drunk.

My own creativity was hidden, distant, still. Yet one day I think I saw a little blip of blue.

It happened quietly and slowly. First I just wanted to look.

I tentatively stepped back into the comfort of illustration and photography. It was not long before graphic art walked into the room. Then design. Not the Swiss or modernist, minimalist, sparest and barest work I’d normally enjoy. Design with embellishment and a little life on its sleeve—the kind often found in good editorial. I became a design voyeur, still wanting to observe from a distance. I didn’t want to dissect and understand. I had no need to question, define or break apart, to talk about or act.

I imagined I was merely continuing my tender yet determinedly carefree search for whatever I want. But with an almost terrifyingly uncomfortable sense that, once again, I’d lost control of my self, my world, I was struck one day by the realization that a sort of pattern was shaping my path. Was it merely coincidence, or was it my subconscious taking the reins because it knew how to repair some of the damage? All of my lists of interests, all those things I decided to investigate after years of neglect, even the order in which I approached them—or they approached me—seemed deliberate. I discovered that I was traveling through—in a matter of months, not years— all the topics I enjoyed while growing up that had led me to design.

I became aware that this interest in a universe of subjects was funneling me toward the same endpoint at which I’d arrived before: design. But nuances born of my loss, small changes in my path, were ushering me to a destination that was, indeed, design, but design that was continually fed by and embracing much more of the mind, the heart, the things learned by cultures and people—galaxies, spices, rushing rivers, rhythms. An endpoint full and limitless, not narrow, that might make me a wholehearted designer who was better than he had been. But this is saying more than I really knew at that moment. At that moment it was the softest impression, the slightest sensation of light.

Throughout my life, I consider the books that sit untouched on my shelf, bought but not read. Some sit for years before I pull them down and crack the glue. I purchase them sensing the value within. But when they appear at my doorstep, and I leaf through the pages, I see that I’m not yet prepared to glean their secrets or even know where in the rows of text to search.

They keep their place, as I devour books either side, until one day I’m able to read one treatise the way it’s meant to be read. A day when I’ve learned what I must, so I may gain deeper insight than I would have when the parcel of books first arrived. As with good wine or coffee, one must develop a palate before knowing what hints of blueberries and light acidity with tastes of chocolate actually mean.

So, one by one, and day by day, I slid them from their dwelling places.

And day by day, no longer were my eyes a constant sting, nor was the pain inescapable. I’d look at my wife, the only reason I was able to reach this point, and see a smile, or more rarely, a fleeting laugh.

Soft greens and sepias, the quietest of yellows and gentlest of blues. Warm whites and creams.

I want to understand the world into which my daughter was born.

As I explore other fields, I bring new elements from each that I then weave through my creative work. As each idea finds its context in what I make, I realize that this marriage of seemingly disparate ideas is often how original and intriguing new ones are born. The language of graphic design is a collage of its own history and concepts pasted together with stolen and borrowed tongues, syllables collected to express ourselves and our ideas with words that we don’t have.

On the web, we’ve passively stood by as the profession and role of graphic design has been splintered into areas of specialization until the life blood has been sapped, and principles have become lifeless facts, limply memorized. It has been pigeonholed and marginalized when, in truth, it is the overarching language of our communication. This new diversity of my studies not only invigorates me, it is a transfusion resuscitating the living thing that is graphic design. I take snippets of language, and they become part of my design’s native tongue. Whether from history or art or comedy or film or science, they will help lend contrast and expose me to new ways of solving problems, expressing answers, and thus speaking to the world.

Design is artfully realized communication. Style alone is merely an elegant fool, an eloquent speaker of meaningless words, perfectly pronouncing broken sentences.

Artists, designers, filmmakers, writers, and others have noted throughout the centuries that our work is replete with the homage, the remix, the redesign, the intentional or subconscious appropriation, the impact of all that surrounds us or that we unearth in our days. Then why not cast our intellectual and experiential nets wide—and wider still? If the design process coalesces these influences to provide novel solutions, then it’s only logical to look outside of design as much as possible. The richness of our studies takes our ability to communicate to an entirely new level where we can speak in multileveled ways, reaching the minds, the hearts of those who look and experience.

We are not simply stylists or specialists but expert practitioners who can translate an organization’s abstract concept into a meaningful message that evokes the desired response. It’s curiosity, then, that makes for the magnificent creative.

So yes, I want to know of many things.

Reds and blacks and whites, so clean, so sharp. Vibrant blues and rich greens. Yellow, what a wonderful color.

My daughter was born and loved, then lost in a measure of hours. Not days or weeks or months or years. Just hours. Sixty minutes multiplied so very few times.

A life measured in hours spotlights how we use the relative abundance of time most of us receive and how well we earn our keep. I’m driven not merely to try, but to honestly earn each tick of the clock, each pulse of my heart that I have been allotted.

And so, more and more, I think of quality: the quality of my life, of what’s left of it, of how I choose to spend my time. I want to do the kind of work that somehow matters, that isn’t just a trade or a job but is based on that hard-won body of knowledge and principles that is part of who I am.

Not all of us have a choice, all of the time, to avoid that lesser kind of work, that kind that we aren’t proud of but that we produce solely, sometimes soullessly, for a paycheck. We must be vigilant lest we be branded by it, and not only feel our reputation sliding downward but also grow to loathe this part of ourselves that generates work that is quickly forgotten by us, our clients, the audience. In these times, we’re fortunate to have any kind of work. But if daylight brings only going through the motions and never diving too deep, relying on superficiality and being just good enough, then weekends or nights will be our only chance for work that fulfills us, takes us forward, flexes our creative muscles.

This sense of being a wholehearted, wholeminded designer that I discovered in my journey back, is something I now carry from job to job, as 9-to-5s pay my way through the 5-to-9s—those projects I stay up so late to labor through, or rise so early to beat the sun. How odd that as I sacrifice myself to do them, they feel like an indulgence, a gift, or reward.

When we work on a project that is ours, that has its genesis in that internal library curated from what we absorbed every minute, every hour of our lives—then there is potential for the expression of thoughts that can change us and the thoughts and lives of others.

I now know that it is through love and passion and happiness that anything of worth is brought into being. A fulfilled and accomplished life of good relationships and craftsmanship is how I will earn my keep. To do any less with my time, time which my daughter goes without, is a wretched, unthinkable thing.

Creativity has, at its core, thoughts of the future, of something lasting. I live, now, hoping to create so that the world can taste a bit of the beauty plucked from the universe as she faded from our arms.

I’m here to catch the slightest whisper of the colors my daughter showed me—the ones I lost that day.

Time does not heal all wounds. Each sunrise picks away at any scab that starts to form. But through the journey of my days, the path now lit not just by losing Samarah but by knowing her, the anemic grays and jaundiced yellows of dawn are slowly transmuting to the colors of life.

Tendrils of tender green at the horizon, fingers of indigos and violets above, majestic swirls of rose and gold and pulsing crimson, soaring across the cerulean blue.

This has been truest when it comes to Retinart. If you look through the archives it becomes quite clear that I work productively for a month or two, then lie dormant for several – there’s no real outcome to aim for, so I burn out.

A few weeks ago, as I was retreating to the warmth of my bed, I felt the exhaustion of the day swarming in my shoulders. “Hmmm” I muttered, “I have to stop with the Hard Work and just start working.” It was an odd thing to have flutter through my mind, but it was the closing of the day so I brushed the thought off.

The following days found the notion continually snake through my thoughts. Deciding to explore it further, I realised this was something I’ve always done, happily dedicating great effort to Hard Work.

I thought of it as something like this:

Hard Work

Hard work is a large task worked through until exhaustion, normally starting as a simple project made more complicated than necessary in an effort to justify time spent and prove something. It generally involves a mad rush to the finish line with little exploration or evolution. Like hacking away for hours with a blunt axe, wood is cut but you’re exhausted and the stump is anything but clean.

Working Hard

Working Hard can be deceptive – it looks as if less progress is made as fewer decisions might be acted upon or the output is perceived as being simple. It’s because big steps are broken down into little ones, contemplated and worked through carefully, ensuring each is worth pursuing, casting many aside. The end result is developed as the work is being done, rather than deciding on a very specific end result and then back-filling the blanks. But most of all, no attempt is made to get everything done in an unsustainable manner – only that worth doing is done, as it needs to be done. I’m sure you see where this one is going – it’s like sharpening the blade for an hour before splitting the air and wood in one smooth swing.

Hard Work is Easy

People often get the two confused or consider them interchangeable, resulting in Hard Work being used as a substitute to working hard. Hard Work is easier than working hard. Hard work is the tedium we instill in a project in the hope that something fantastic will appear if we just keep going and going and going and going and going and going, making it more complex to hide a simple nature. It’s easier because it’s a lot of simple or silly ideas executed in the hope that one of them, or a combination of them, will turn into something great. It’s what we think of as the safe road, employing brawn over brain.

It’s a tenet worth being able to notice in oneself. The immature designer will fill their page with as much as they can, hoping to make up for the lack of weight within their idea with an abundance of it in their execution. The experienced designer will know this isn’t how one finds a solution.

It’s one of those traits we refine more and more as we work, doing so naturally as we learn how to better communicate. But what if we were to continually look at how our processes and how we think about our work? What if we continually try to understand in which camp our decisions and choices truly lie – in the camp of Hard Work where the cabins are made of excess and wasted time, grandiose endeavors filled with trinkets and tacky furniture that holds no purpose, or in the neighbouring Camp Working Hard, where only sleeping bags sit on the floor of the earth below a roof of stars?

Three Months of Talking Without
Saying Anything

Why content dried up a couple of months ago.

When Retinart was relaunched on the first of July, I had written three months worth of content as a safety net. It was a lot of Hard Work, but having a number to aim for suited me well – I like Hard Work.

Once I launched I decided to spend some time marketing. After all, I had my safety net. Articles would be published and I would talk about them.

But my safety net got smaller and eventually the site began to bleed out, losing colour and strength. Wheezing on, forcing out soft breaths as new content was published fortnightly instead of twice-weekly, then monthly, then… then nothing. For months Retinart lay with death standing over head, just visible in diminished sight. I thought the Hard Work would be of benefit, but in the end it just burnt me out, leaving me with an inability to string a couple of simple words together.

The usual fun that accompanies writing had spun out. Instead of working through the joy, I turned it into a chore and saw my hard work deflate under its own weight.

After a few weeks of soft gasps, I found the strength to write again, a little each day, making it part of a routine.

In a variety of subjects did I drown myself, hoping to once again grip my hand on a joyful word swimming past. After reading and thinking and reading some more I found myself in the middle of a school of the little wonders. Before long I felt compelled to once again catch them before they went off into the mist, so I began to write out of a sheer lustful joy, raising the nets to see what I had caught. I had stopped making the work so hard and everything started to flow. Writing was fun and I was being productive. I was ready to breath life back into the site a word at a time with no number or specific goal in mind.

Writing for the Smashing Magazine Book

Why I didn’t start writing for Retinart, in spite of this energy.

One of the reasons I was happy to take on the challenge of contributing to the second Smashing Magazine book was because of how well I had been doing with writing before hand. I was much quicker, had refined my process and was excited to partner with Matt Ward of EchoEnduring to write the chapter.

I thought of what was at hand and made a catastrophic decision: this was a lot of Hard Work. I put it off for weeks.

I did this to myself – Vitaly and Matt were amazing to work with and never put any pressure on me.As the stench of the deadline grew, I wrote the first three quarters in what I can only remember as a haze. All I did was write. Every morning I would stumble from bed at 5:30 to write for three hours before work, at which morning and lunch breaks allowed me time to write and edit. Once I left the office and arrived home at around 5:30, I would continue to write until 11.

This happened everyday for a month.

I kept this up for the first three quarters of the job, which I sent off hoping to ignore the last quarter as I had run over my word count as it was.

Then we got the email back from Vitaly and he liked what we had done – he asked if I could still do the last quarter on typography. Vitaly is far too nice a guy to say no to, so what could I possible say? “Sure.”

Deciding this wouldn’t destroy me (or my marriage), I changed my approach.

Forgetting the deadline, I took it easy and just simply got to work. I gently engulfed all the words and ideas and philosophies I could, making notes and asking questions as I went. I allowed myself to enjoy the process, working hard as I scribbled notes, worked through ideas and explored what I had before me, but now allowing any of it to turn into Hard Work.

In the end it was (I believe; but you’d probably have to ask Vitaly or Matt) the best writing I’ve done to date. I investigated interesting ideas, wrote with happiness and enjoyed every part of the process.

Best of all, by working hard instead of succumbing to Hard Work, it only took three days.

Retinart Was Hacked.

Retinart was hit by the PharmaHack but no matter how many online guides I ran through, I was never able to vanquish it. After about a week of trying, Google still thought I sold small pills that make small things big things.

The hunt began to make me anxious. The little eyes had to be somewhere in the jungle of my server but no matter how desperately I searched them out in the darkness, the two burning embers weren’t to be found.

A few people suggested I talk to @snipey. Working through my site like a machine, Alison was able to figure out what was going on and why it was proving so problematic to fix. Turns out that it’s not a good idea to have old WordPress installations on your server, even if they’re in different folders, using a different database.

It’s through one of these old ones that the sneaky bastard snuck in. What’s worse is even after cleaning out all the infected and questionable files on the server, there was still an issue with Google — it was referencing cached version of the site that were served up by a plugin now removed.

In my previous mindset and potentially even in this case, my thought would be to hunt through the files once again and hope to find the zombie that was causing all my issues. More Hard Work.

“Let’s nuke the server and start over” was Alison’s suggestion.

Within an hour of starting, my entire server was cleaned out and replaced by a bullet proof WordPress Installation that only brought with it two or three minor design bugs that I was able to introduce to the heel of my boot in less than thirty minutes.

It took 90 minutes to solve my problem when someone decided to work hard on it. If I had approached it as Hard Work, I’d probably still be dealing with it, weeks later.

And the new design changes?

With the site cleaned I had the opportunity to look at my plugins and decide if having them on the site was worth the potential vulnerabilities.

I had been wanting to tweak the design for some time and saw this as an opportunity to do so. I was sick of Hard Work so decided to simply work instead.

This is an idea I think is well worth exploring – what kind of visual elements that we add to a design introduce a sliver of Hard Work for the audience in how the design works? I culled anything I didn’t think was needed, anything that caused a visual or philosophical crumb of Hard Work to creep into the design was removed. I had grown so sick of having an aggressive design that was built around the usual notions of what a blog should look like.

But more on that process soon.

One Big Jump

Very few things require the kind of mammoth Hard Work we tend to aspire to. Rather than trying to make the best website in the whole entire world, why not just make a website and work at it, everyday, with quality and dedication in mind? If you aim for making it the greatest in the world, then you’ll work towards a goal that disallows growth and evolution, based on an assumption made before you started.

For me the curse of Hard Work comes from who I am – I love to work hard. I love putting in a great deal of effort. But I’ve grown so tired of that effort being wasted, running in circles rather than forward.

I’m sure it stems from an insecurity – instead of being comfortable developing a grand idea, which is too hard to come by, I instead find comfort in distilling grand effort. So why not just try and hide the average idea I do have in as much fancy clothing as possible, hoping no one will realise how poor of spirit it truly is?

The work we do is only as hard as we allow it to be. We have built up a notion of being the hero, the soldier with no fear. Hard work? What of it! Ha ha ha! We aspire to be the heroes of comics and culture, rather than the heroes of life, thinking a building of effort and outcome can’t simply be climbed a step at a time but leaped in one grandiose—oof, whoosh—powerful jump !

The problem is we star gaze at the real life heroes and think we see them doing this – effortlessly bounding up buildings. What we often ignore is the amount of time spent working hard – laboriously contributing to that which gave them the ability to know how to navigate the steps with great skill at great speed.

We just see them on the roof and think “oh, they must have jumped.”

It’s not that I don’t love you, I do, really. You make me happy. Honestly. Crazy happy.

But I just can’t review you. I’m sorry. Yes, yes, we had some good times, you showed me some wild things. But no, I can’t. No… really, no, that’s enough, pick your self up! Have some self-respect!

Ok … yes … ok, I know, I know — you’re right. Alright, just a quick little one, ok?

A few of my favorite books

Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to a few of my favorite books. For one reason or another, I’m (probably) not going to review these in great detail like I normally would; instead I’m only giving each a couple hundred words in place of a thousand.

In a sense, what they suffer from is that I love them too much — in other words, objectivity is being thrown to the heap. But biases-schmiases, I do very much want to share these books with you.

It’s not how good you are, it’s how good you want to be

and Whatever you think, think the opposite.

Paul Arden • Buy On Amazon.com • CR Tribute to Paul Arden

It’s Not How Good You Are… was originally an impulse counter-buy. I had a quick flick through it and wanted to get something to read on the train home one night after studying, and this ended up being it. It was a great purchase — Paul Arden is a genius, you see.

Some-what feeling like a self-help book, but without the weird “you’re a winner just how you are!” kind of vibe, this little one is packed with one liners that curb the way you think about being wrong, trying new things, getting fired, taking the blame and what wealth can be found in sharing ideas with others, rather than hording them to your self, all while encouraging hard work. Phew, a lot for a little book.

It’s a super-easy read that is great to enjoy in the two minute patches you have spare throughout your day. For some its the kind of advice that seems a bit like schtick, but for others (me included) it’s a reminder that to get to where we want to be just requires some creative thinking, guts, hard work and determination.

A few years later I was so happy to stumble over his other two books, one of which is shown here. Whatever You Think didn’t quite hit the spot the same way his first did, but none the less, it’s spine has taken quite a beating.

History of the Poster

Josef Muller-Brockmann • Buy On Amazon.com

Josef Muller-Brockmann. Enough said, right?

While this is primarily imagery, the words written, and pages designed, by Muller-Brockmann are wonderful, even if brief, as we’re guided through the history of the poster from one of history’s greatest design thinkers.

Written in three languages, it’s broken into different expressions, including the illustrative poster, the objective-informative poster, the constructive poster, the experimental poster and briefly, the series poster. While the text is somewhat less than I’d prefer, when you are lucky enough to read some of Muller-Brockmann’s words, you won’t be disappointed — clearly an aficionado of the poster, knowledge is easily shared in only a few paragraphs.

The images are astoundingly beautiful and the use of gold ink doesn’t go unnoticed as a few posters really shine and bounce from the page. The scope of work, style and production methods covered is quite remarkable as you flick through, skipping past woodcuts, offsets, silkscreens, lithographs, lino-cutsm and many more.

This is one you sit on the edge of your desk and open to a new page every day, to be warmly welcomed when you sit to work.

A Smile In The Mind

Berryl McAlhone & David Stuart • Buy On Amazon.com

Generally I find most graphic designers to be incredibly intelligent. It’s also often the case that with intelligence, comes wit. A Smile In The Mind is about those moments when intelligence and wit are expressed through graphic design.

Almost surprisingly this one has a lot more than just pretty pictures that give you a chuckle. It’s split up into five sections, each with a dozen or two chapters and cover topics such as The Case For Wit (chapters covering What Wit Is, What Wit Can Do, Answers Objections, etc), Different Types of Wit (Ambiguity, Homage, Taking it Literally, etc), Items That Use Wit (Posters, Packaging, Annual Reports, etc), Business That Use Wit (Photography, Education, The Law, etc) and Witty Designers — How I Got The Idea (Saul Bass, Michael Bierut, Milton Glaser, Paul Rand, etc).

To say the least, it’s comprehensive.

To say a little more; it’s beautifully designed, well written and wonderfully interesting. This will help you start to think about how you can apply those ‘ha!’ moments to your own work. Even better, it helps give you the language and evidence to help sell those ideas to your client — it’s not just about little jokes for the sake of little jokes!

This is actually one that is so wonderful that as I was flicking through it to write this little mini-review, I decided that I’ll write a larger one — so keep an eye out!

Things I Have Learned In My Life So Far

Stefan Sagmeister • Buy on Amazon.com •

Review at CR

If you’ve been following the online design world for about two years you’ll remember this one.

This is a book that captures Sagmeister perfectly — intriguing, different and often times amusingly quirky, this is a book that you truly interact with.

Even if I never opened a single page, I love that the book isn’t completely bound and that you can shuffle the signatures around to modify how the cover looks. All the signatures slide into a case, the front of which is printed with Sagmeister’s face as well as a mass of rivers cut out, allowing the front of the ‘book’ to change appearence depending on what signature is inserted where.

For those unaware, this is a collection of one-liners that Sagmesiter spelled out using various elements, from clothing to sausages and digital spider webs. They’re original, to say the least, and always make me smile and are as charming as most of the designer’s work often is.

Originally coming from a list he wrote in his diary, we are offered a glimpse into the mind of a living legend of design. We are then shown through each booklet—each phrase, each series of photos of that phrase—what such an intriguing person would do if they had a year off.

Type: The Secret History of Letters

Simon Loxley • Buy at Amazon.com • Review at Eye Magazine

While this is one I had intended to review in long-format, I ended up reading it in chunks spanning about a year as other things in my life kept coming up.

In short, Loxley covers the history of typography in a way that very few would.

The stories he tell are like, well, stories. His words don’t read like they’re coated with a fine film of dust as dates and names are spat out, one after the other. They’re entertaining, funny, quirky and interesting. You don’t read this book because you need to learn about type history; you read this book because you want to be entertained while reading about a topic you love.

Of course, the worry with this is you can’t be sure what’s perfectly true, what’s somewhat referenced and what is creative whim. For the true typographer, it’s might be a little frustrating as there isn’t much written about the philosophical or technical components of typography. But to a designer who could surely use more education in type history, this is a fantastic and enjoyable start.

From angry master/apprentice relationships to love triangles, foundries uprises and down-falls, men in bizarre clothing and eccentric manner as well as type legends being made, what’s covered is unexpected and marvelously satisfying.

For now …

Phew! Quite an article we’ve gotten through so far, isn’t it? But it’s not over yet!

…

… ok, it’s over for now. I thought it’d be worth giving you all a little breather for now, I’m sure there’s a limit to how many books you can happily read about in a single sitting.

So next week I’ll put up the second half, made up of the bottom row of books in the image at the top, online! It’s got some doozies, including one from one of my favorite designers (there’s four options! Perhaps if someone can guess who it’ll be, I might send them a cookie!).

Practise with intention and thought and careless abandon.

Learn theory but realise that it doesn’t help you become a better designer, merely a more knowledgeable one. All the theory in the world won’t make a page more interesting to look at unless you understand how to marry the theory with aesthetic.

Aesthetic is the craft of our profession. I’ve heard some designers say that aesthetic is like the bastard child of design, it’s there but it shouldn’t matter as long as the functionality is solid or the design serves its purpose as a communicative artifact.

These designers are idiots.

Aesthetic matters more than anything else. Our profession is largely built on craft and gut feeling and knowledge that can be learned but rarely taught. This makes some uncomfortable as it suggests that any ol’ creative hipster could walk into our studios and do what we do. But like I said, designers who think this are idiots. We are not part of an industry done by rote, nor willy-nilly mark-making.

The aesthetic implementation of a blanket of theory which wraps warmly around content should be our chief concern as we move from project to project. It’s the only way we’ll win awards or praise or recognition or, the only one really worth going for, gratification, through our work.

There’s a reason why we look at pretty people and want to be with them. They’re nice to look at. There’s a reason why so much of the creative output we see in design is shallow, pretty shells that hold no quarter against scrutiny – because it works and does so easily. It still gets attention and any functional mistakes made are forgiven because of how it makes us feel.

It’s the reason why the pretty girl can get out of a speeding ticket. Is it fair? No. Is it right? No. Is it the way things are, absolutely. And good on the pretty girl for knowing how to use her aesthetic to her benefit.

Aesthetic matters more than theory

Retrospect will prove a purely aesthetic piece to be worthless, but today it’s all that matters. If we wish for our work to stand strong and tall and for years to come, then we have to understand how to give it immediate appropriateness (modern aesthetic) so it is noticed in the first place and long lasting charm (base aesthetic, which is often instilled through theory) so that it is remembered.

To better understand how aesthetic works we have to understand how it is produced. No amount of reading or listening or studying will help us in this endeavor nearly as much as actually making pretty marks will. The only way for us to learn how to make such marks is to make as many of them as we possibly we can.

Make a million marks and hold them up against the marks of others. Compare and learn and see the difference. Think about the marks you’re making and how the one scratched against the paper now, can be made better than the one made previously. Experiment and make the strangest of marks just to see if something wonderful can be found in them. Deliberately make the wrong marks to see if you can make them right.

While practising we will naturally implement any theory that has been sewed in our minds using our marks as troughs into which the seeds can be planted. The theory will break through the surface all by its self, as long as we give it a little warmth and a little food.

Read a book and theory is learned. Go through process and it’ll be implemented. But aesthetic is only learned through practise. Lots and lots and lots of practise.

Now go create.

What pleased Gill so much was the Title Card for CBS sitcom Private Secretary, “because the result looks so inevitable and easy.”

He was 23 when he received this job and it served as the moment his career went into overdrive. Not only did it win him his (first) ADC medal and saw his name grow to demand more respect (he would joke it was the year that he finally got an answering service for his office), but it taught him something monumental.

Private Secretary was special because it helped him realise that a design can only be taken so far by an aesthetically driven solution.

“I stopped trying to ram my aesthetic prejudices down their throats. Why should clients have my tastes? … I talked to them about solutions and ideas instead of design.”

It is because of this attitude towards “inevitable” solutions that Gill’s clients thought so fondly of him. He was giving them tailored work that was concept driven and so well considered that he was able to effectively describe them over the phone.

He started to consider what the solution should be first, worrying about appearance second.

Not long after Private Secretary he began teaching at the School of Visual Arts, where he would encourage students to talk “about their solutions before they put them on the wall … Students began thinking of original ideas, rather than trying to impress [the class and Gill] with the latest graphic tricks.”

Gill’s 1981 Forget all the rules about graphic design. Including the ones in this book seats us comfortably in that classroom.

A marvelous classroom

Not only a documentary of a few good ideas about design, Forget all the rules … also gives us a sneak peek at the mindset Gill employed throughout his impressive career.

Our tour is guided through the rich logic that helped propel Gill to great heights and garner respect from his peers, clients and readers of design history. A logic that is lacking for many designers. A logic essential should one wish to do original work. A logic we are privileged to see wielded by a master.

A logic easy to talk of, implement and use to deliver powerful results:

If the problem a client gives us isn’t worth solving, then redefine it so it is.

Redefine problems so they are worth solving

Typographic tastes sweeten and sour over the years, considered fundamental and benign is illustration and photography from one decade to the next, and moving from redundant to intoxicating is how style shifts year to year. But there is one element of design that never, ever fails to tingle senses and delight minds – the good idea.

That is what can be found in this book before anything else – a clever solution that springs from the problem will always stay fresh.

A clever solution doesn’t need to use the crutches that style and empty aesthetic provide. Private Secretary is a great example – the typeface is as appropriate as can be, the concept has a legitimate source and it is visually perfect — you aren’t distracted from the problem plagued text of the secretary. The spice is added because it’s witty and has personality.

Make the problem interesting and you’ll be planting the seed of a good solution in habitable soil. The plant that bursts through the earth will grow far higher than one planted in uninspiring dirt.

Lessons Worth Learning

While a few images are scattered throughout this article to illustrate the (worthy of aspiration) genius of Bob Gill, I wanted to offer a little more.

Introducing each chapter are a few short paragraphs explaining the philosophy behind each collection that follows. These introductions show us varying lenses under which the original problems can be placed so that we might see something different when redefining them.

Obviously I can’t cover everything Gill does without running a blade over moral issues concerning plagiarism. Without going into great depth, I thought I would do what all of us do when we read such advice – put our own spin on it and apply it to concepts we already have. What follows are my interpretations of Gill’s ideas.

The problem is the problem.

Our creative expressions are the culmination of all those we’ve witnessed. Sometimes we rely on this too heavily rather than finding ideas within the client’s problem and content. We echo ideas of ideas of ideas of ideas.

To truly design something new we need to throw away our creative and stylistic laurel-resting ideals, forgetting about the solutions to other problems and instead focus on the one before us.

But what is often the case with problems is that they’re, well, problematic. A client will come to us with an idea they have and think all they need is an answer they’ve half-provided visualized.

Unfortunately it is common for the client to present us with the wrong problem to solve. They don’t phrase the question right. Perhaps they’re too close to it (forests, trees and all that), perhaps they’re not bright enough or they’re too smart, perhaps they don’t even have a problem.

So before we can find a beautiful, new, unique solution that’s buried in the problem we are facing, we might need to rewrite it so there is opportunity to to pull from it something interesting.

Interesting words need boring graphics.

A stupid designer grows intoxicated on their own greatness and self-worth.

Gill gives an example I could not top so won’t try; “We cure cancer for free.”

There is one design solution for this. White background, big, black, heavy as a whale text, left aligned. Want to go out on a limb? Center it (but don’t).

Think first. Then draw.

Research, research, research, research, research.

Then think visually – draw and sketch, draw and sketch and write and draw and sketch and write and draw. Pages of thumbnails. Pages of notes. Pages of research. Pages and pages and pages written and drawn until your wrists ignite.

With all these marks, why not try different things? Use different pens and pencils and crayons and brushes and markers. Different colours, widths, textures, sizes. We don’t think monotonously, so why draw like we do?

Then, after it’s formed in your mind, and you’ve put those thoughts onto paper, boot up the Mac.

Jump into the digital too quickly and we will start to produce work that feels like it belongs to the digital world. We’ll do what we’re comfortable doing and seeing, what we’ve seen come from the box of light a million times. Even worse, we might just rely on the trickery digital tools of design often encourage.

Stealing is good.

Should you find yourself in the situation where you are using the artwork of another—be they a photographer, illustrator or typographer—it is your honorable duty to respect their work.

Much like the designer who should shut-up in the second point above, Interesting words need boring graphics, interesting artwork needs boring design.

If you’ve found imagery or a typeface that ignites a fire in your soul, then it demands of you to allow it to do so unto others. Just let it sit there with no distraction, waiting quietly for its prey.

If you’re going to steal the beauty of another image, then don’t drop it while hauling it into your van.

Boring words need interesting graphics.

Most people suck at writing copy for advertising and marketing. Including advertisers and marketers.

If you have to deal with the usual dribble, then chances are your design will need to pick up the weight – but again, the foolish designer will race ahead as giddy as a gerbil! Just because the words are boring does not mean that they should be hidden behind your design.

The boring words still need to be read, that’s why your design exists. With boring words, it is up to us to strike up the balance in which the design brings attention and lends interest to the dull words, while not getting in their way.

Less is more.

Much power can be pulled from a design when it quietly and gently pulls together two opposing elements and has them sing the same tune. Aim to say more with less.

I could have written more, but….

More is more.

A sentiment I first stumbled over in Paul Arden’s fantastic It’s not how good you are, it’s how good you want to be – if you’re going to make something big, make it REALLY big.

If you want the headings to be much bigger than the body copy, then make them 10 times bigger, if you want your website to be bright and colourful, make it overly bright and sickeningly colourful. If you want your photo to be funny, make sure it’s hilariously funny. Don’t settle for elegant typography, aim for royal-family wedding typography.

The point is that a little different isn’t often noticeable – things don’t often hit extremes in real life, but in the world where we are the makers, why not push things to the edge blow them the hell up?

“I was only following orders.”

If the job passed by your desk, it’s your fault it’s ugly. The client only makes suggestions, you have every right to tell them their suggestion isn’t a good one, explaining to them why and offering a suitable alternative.

“The client made me do it” doesn’t mean anything when the job is finished and in the hands of the public.

Change the original problem so what they hold isn’t embarrassing.

One of the most important books on design

While other books might be more valuable in many regards (Bringhurst’s The Elements of Typographic Style and Meggs’ History of Graphic Design for example), the unavoidable take-away Gill gives us stands alone:

Original and interesting solutions grown from the client’s problem are what make graphic design move from appropriate to good.

The body of a good idea won’t be completely obscured by the clothing of aesthetics that we drape over it. While the clothes may need to be appealing for the idea to be noticed in the first place, the body will still be beautiful even when the clothing becomes tacky as the sands of time are sprinkled over them. Good ideas last.

It’s evident with the work scattered throughout this article. I know there are some readers who would have closed this article upon realising the artwork is, most likely, older than they are. I understand why this would turn them off, even if I don’t think it’s a good attitude to have.

But if you spent a moment to see the beauty of the idea that is hidden below the (conceivably) tacky clothing, you’ll see the true value of the design. The benefit of which is more than just timeless design.

A good idea shines through stylistic preferences the audience may hold.

If the design you produce relies on visuals to appeal to the audience alone, then, by default, you are unappealing to a large proportion. But if a good idea, one born from the problem, is the body of your design, then people won’t need to rely on aesthetics to find interest and consider the design and message worth remembering.

While the edition of Forget all the rules about graphic design. Including the ones in this book. that we looked at today is no longer current, it can still be quite easily found and is absolutely worth the (very little) cost. The original hardcover (with a slightly different name) can be found on Amazon and AbeBooks, as well as the softcover version, also on Amazon and AbeBooks.

In 2006 it was re-released in a smaller format and has some updates done throughout (design and some of the pieces included) – Unspecial Effects for Graphic Designers.

And the marks that make up those words? Mostly never thought about. This can also be said of the question mark, the exclamation point, quote marks and the beautiful, beautiful ligature. Turns out their history is pretty interesting.

In September 08 I wrote an article on a small collection of typographic marks that had interesting histories, weren’t often seen in use or were often abused in their applications. It was a lot of fun and I wanted to give it another go.

But rather than have a look at a few of the lesser-known marks we use like I did with the previous article, I thought I’d go for the exact opposite — have a look at a couple of marks we all know about and use.

The Question Mark

Latin for question, quaestiō may be where the origin of the Question Mark can be found.

Whenever our Latin writing friends wanted to indicate a question or query, they would add quaestiō to the end of the sentence.

Lacking a sense of elegance, and not to mention taking up quite a bit of space, quaestiō was abbreviated to QO. This worked wonders for the scribes as their jobs became a little easier and they could produce texts quicker and have more space to work with.

But for some, QO seemed like a word with missing letters. To counter this, the O would be placed beneath the Q, rather than next to it — a clever little move that turned QO from an abbreviated word, to a glyph unto its self.

Being that this was now a sort of symbol that was always drawn by hand, the evolution of it to the question mark we know today is fairly evident (and pretty damn cool).

This evolution feels like a worthy explanation — but is it fact? Maybe not. The question mark has–excuse me for this–many questions around it and this is just the nicest solution for me.

The other thoughts on the question mark’s origin range from an evolution of the semicolon (which is used in Greek to indicate a question mark, but looks to have come into popular use well after the question mark did), the cats tail as it curls when it’s curious and the notion of it being a lightning strike mark that slowly evolved … even though it was only seen for a brief period of time then fell out of use.

A note on the Exclamation Point

Following on the heels of the Question Mark, the Exclamation point helps to lend some legitimacy to the history outlined above.

It is loosely accepted that the exclamation point come from the abbreviation of the Latin io, meaning joy.

From this, and most likely with the same conservation of space in mind, the evolution is the same as that with quaestiō — the i was written above the o, and it eventually evolved into the note of admiration that it is today.

Quote Marks & Blockquotes

Early in it’s life, the quotation mark would appear a little haphazardly and overly used, often being set in a different typeface to that of the main copy.

Traditionally, when a blockquote was part of a text, the entire paragraph would be italicized to indicate speech. But when our curly little marks came into popular use, the italicized lines were done away with, and instead, we were given long quotes with quotation marks at the start of every line.

Clearly cumbersome and visually redundant, it was the printers of the sixteenth century who decided to do away with their excessive use.

But something interesting occurred — rather than set the text and marks flush left with the margin of the rest of the text, the typesetters decided to leave the indentation in place for long quotes.

This indent became standard practice and is still seen today in large blockquotes set in print and online.

I can’t help but wonder if this is where the idea of hanging bullets, numbers and quote marks in the margins began? Is it possible that typesetters began to shuffle the text so it was aligned with the rest of the body, but left the quote marks to hang to the side? With bullets following?

The ligature

The little secret that only a select few knew of — something hidden under the surface or so many bodies of text, but only found by those seeking out the detail. A little bit of cherished elegance is the ligature.

There are a few combinations of letters that become too unsightly and unbalanced when brought together. The craft that has gone into their making seems to all but disappear completely.

To correct this, we have ligatures, in which two letters are joined together to go from heinous to beautiful.

It is often suggested that this begun when Gutenberg had his letters cut for his Bible in an effort to save time (one piece of metal being easier to set than two) and space (again, one being better than two).

And to an extent, this is true. But his type was designed to mimic that of the scribes as faithfully as possible. Combining two letters to be one (or three, or four) was common with the handwriting among scribes to help the hand glide across the paper with speed, and had been for as long as man has made marks which had linguistic meaning.

It was also an aesthetic necessity for Gutenberg to use ligatures, lest he have gaps in his words where one could visually tighten the text. The (wonderful) texture of his two columns may have become tattered and mechanical.

So perhaps the ligature might have been first cast by Gutenberg but I’m not sure he should be considered any more responsible for their existence than he is for any other letter or mark he printed, he merely solidified it in typographic history.

Just for funsies

I ended the previous Typographic Marks Unknown article mentioning that one can get by just fine without knowing how such little glyphs came to be or their history.

I could say the same here.

It might not be information that will make or break a potential graphic designer, but knowing such little nuances of our history and our profession, helps us become a little better at it. Understanding how language and typography evolves helps us understand where it may be going and how to communicate to those around us.

I foolishly thought of history as dusty facts and faded images. And only the foolish child thinks history doesn’t matter, that it’s irrelevant and inessential to growth.

I browsed Meggs’ History of Graphic Design sparingly, reading not much more than the captions.

Then a few designers kept catching my eye, so it was more reading — but no longer mere captions, but the illustrious body copy that Meggs gives us in search of understanding. Then it was everything I could get my hands on.

And something fantastic started to happen — I was becoming a better designer, producing work with greater reason, stronger justification and refined meaning.

Graphic Design History Gives Us Theory

History is of as much importance as theory — they should be married in the classroom and honeymoon in the studio.

“Eyes and brains have worked the same way over generations … the environment changes but the principles of visual communication survive. History helps us understand these principles.” – Principles Before Style: Questions in Design History by Richard Hollis

To truly understand and use a piece of theory properly, we need to know why it became worth knowing — in what conditions was it first developed and used, why was it successful and what was its original purpose and audience? Without this knowledge, how could we use it effectively?

Many of our ideas are well established — concerning the relationships between image and text, or colour and balance, or texture and contrast, and countless more can all be mixed in infinite possibilities — and knowing of how (and why) these ideas were developed helps us use them today. Knowing the context in which they were originally born help us see similar contexts today that the theory can perfectly be matched to.

Rather than simply borrowing style, ideas about layout can be learned and expanded upon. We can see what ideas worked and what didn’t, allowing us to skip previous mistakes and forge forward, treading on new ground in familiar shoes.

“Graphic designers should be literate in graphic design history.
Being able to design well is not always enough. Knowing the roots
of design is necessary to avoid reinvention, no less inadvertent plagiarism.”
~

Steven Heller — Introduction to Graphic Design History

Graphic Design History Gives Us A Discerning Eye

That is, an eye that can look at a piece of work today and know if it’ll hold up in two or three years. As people who have to produce artifacts that last this length or more, this is an immensely powerful trait for us to own.

This discerning eye is developed through realisation. We can look at the work of the modernists and say “Impossible! This work is too current to be 60 years old!” Or there is David Carson, a person whom many have strong opinions of (at either end of the positive/negative spectrum) whose work appears to be utterly chaotic and an insult to the audience.

The curious thing is that his wild design had philosophical elements in common with the clean and open pages of the modernists — both were primarily concerned with the interaction between the audience and the content. Their aesthetic sensibilities are worlds apart, but history allows us to find a common ground upon which they stand. And somehow this fadish design still has a charm to it over a decade later.

History also helps us see what won’t work. Flick through the history books and you’ll find little blips of style and expression. Work that is clearly tacky but was, at a time, considered funky and cool and great. History helps us realise what kind of funky exists only for a moment.Again, let’s think of Carson’s work and the absurd amount of deranged devoted followers it spawned.

This kind of historical education can help us understand what we are looking at and what people may think of it in years to come. It helps us notice the fad from the timeless.

Graphic Design History Gives Us An Understanding

We can see connections made, how one moment lead to the next, how style and ideas evolved and what influence social environments played.

It isn’t enough to look at Modernism and simply say “oh, they were sick of ornament”, this isn’t an understanding! This is a childish assumption. What we are able to do is throw Meggs’ to the couch and jump on Wikipedia and learn about Facism, Nazism, Germanic and European tradition, the role Blackletter played, the state of Europe at the time and on and on and on.

Then with this new knowledge in tow, we can better understand why certain decisions about cleanliness and simple, unclouded communication was strived for.

“For after all, a poster does more than simply
supply information on the goods it advertises;
it also reveals a society’s state of mind”
~

Armin Hofmann

Take the following:

The childish designer will be satisfied with the caption that goes with it:

Armin Hofmann, poster for the Basel theater production of Giselle, 1959. An organic, kinetic, and soft photographic image contrasts intensely with geometric, static, and hard-edged typographic shapes.

Not awful nor poorly written. But not enough! No hunger for knowledge can be quenched by this, and good designers are hungry!

Instead, let’s jump back a page or two and see what Meggs has to say about Hofmann in the body of the text:

As time passed, he evolved a design philosophy based on the elemental graphic-form language of point, line, and plane, replacing traditional pictorial ideas with a modernist aesthetic. In his work … Hofmann continues to seek a dynamic harmony, where all the parts of a design are unified. He sees the relationship of contrasting elements in the means of invigorating visual design. These contrasts include light to dark, curved lines to straight lines, form to counterform, soft to hard, and dynamic to static, with resolution achieved when the designer brings the total into an absolute harmony.

Hah! Isn’t that wonderful?! In one paragraph we have learned more about the philosophy of Armin Hofmann and his work than that small little caption could have taught us, even if we had read it a thousand times! We see that what Hofmann pieced together wasn’t just because it was nice or pretty or whatever, it was part of a larger philosophy! What’s more, it gives an idea of how you can develop your own philosophy to explore.

Now consider a few more pieces of his with the above in mind — don’t they shine much brighter?

A little more reading leads us to understand that this philosophy, mixed with others from the area, evolved and became known internationally as Swiss design. These ideas were pushed forwarded by the publication New Graphic Design (1959), edited by, amongst others, Josef Muller-Brockmann.

Had I decided to read only the caption, I would have learned little and forgotten it in moments. But having dug deeper I found so much more! I found connections and the birth of a world-changing movement! What a thread to find! And these threads are almost infinite as we dive deeper and deeper.

Up To Us

History can often be an awfully boring topic to subject ourselves to. It is not that fault of events happened, but those who speak of them.

The Secret History of Letters by Simon Loxley is a fantastic example and a must-read. A list of names, dates and images does not an interesting history make. But it isn’t always the case — some writers make it exciting, interesting and entertaining.

Though the truth is, it is often up to us to find interest in history. So pick at a loose end in which you find interest and tug and tear and pull at it until you have thread that runs through decades of ideas and beauty from which you can learn volumes — witness how our profession evolves.

“… if we understand the past, we will be better able to continue
a culture legacy of beautiful form and effective communication.
If we ignore this legacy, we run the risk of becoming buried in a
mindless morass of a commercialism whose mole-like vision
ignores human values and needs as it burrows forward into darkness..”
~

Philip B. Meggs

Don’t think of history as a collection of dry facts, but as the greatest teacher one could hope for.