Typophile - Good typography, interfering designers, or just dumbing down? - Comments

Ha! That’s funny! Does

pattyfab — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 06:53:44 -0700

Ha! That’s funny! Does that mean I’m famous?

I so don’t understand the point of Twitter tho.

Pattyfab, you’ve been

Joe Pemberton — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 23:43:42 -0700

Pattyfab, you’ve been Twitter’d. http://twitter.com/Typophile

Tiffany: Wow, what an

Thomas Phinney — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 18:26:19 -0700

Tiffany: Wow, what an incredibly dumb department head. Based on other stories I’ve heard, I’m suspecting that maybe I know who the friend is, too....

Thomas: Well, that advice for “how to read a book” might make sense for certain types of nonfiction books, but certainly not for novels, and probably not for biographies or histories either.

Cheers,

I like Emigre’s solution

Chipman223 — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 11:28:14 -0700

I like Emigre’s solution to the barcode on their later issues, placing it directly in the middle of the cover (i’ve seen several other publications do this as well). It drew attention to what violator of form it is by making it part of the composition. I guess i’m getting a bit off-topic, but I think it speaks the same for making lemonade when the copywriter/author hands you lemons.

Tiffany, that is exactly why

pattyfab — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 10:02:06 -0700

Tiffany, that is exactly why as an Art Director I took graduate students’ portfolios with a huge grain of salt.

That said, I think that whoever invented the barcode should be placed in a cell and forced to listen to the dial-up modem sound for the rest of his life.

True Story. I have a friend

Miss Tiffany — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 09:07:34 -0700

True Story. I have a friend who was a teacher. This friend assigned a magazine project to her students. Within the guidelines my friend asked that they include the bar code. A few of the students went over this teacher’s head to the department head and complained that the bar code would ruin their design. Who won this battle? The students. The teacher was told to not worry about the bar code. :^/ So basically the students were out a good challenge that would’ve helped them grow.

This is the topic as I have

pattyfab — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 08:42:38 -0700

This is the topic as I have read it: my teacher sucks and I am looking for someone to agree with me.

I read it the way Charles did, and I do think that a teacher who is trying to empower his students to override editors and authors is sending a bunch of kids out into the world that nobody will hire or want to keep on staff long.

I have an innate distrust of anyone who tries to lay down hard and fast design rules irrespective of context.

This is the topic as I have

typosapien — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 22:47:22 -0700

This is the topic as I have read it: my teacher sucks and I am looking for someone to agree with me.

Teacher-bashing is lame, but doing it online is just plain pathetic.

If you want a straight answer for this post, here it is: trust what you know, try different things, and keep at it until you think it looks and feels right for what you are designing. If you do not know if it looks or feels “right” ask the art director—or in your case the professor. They might have the experience and the know-how to help solve the problem.

Now lay that out in inDesign, stuff it in your pipe, and smoke it.

You are right. Long sections

charles_e — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 20:00:35 -0700

You are right. Long sections of text are best set in one line and there is absolutely no need for anybody to sprinkle it with any of those sweeteners like chapters, paragraphs, or sentences! Now, if you will excuse me, I have to get back to unfurling my Harry Potter scroll.

I think if you reread this thread, it might occur to you that the topic is not whether a book should have chapters, section breaks, etc., but whether these are the prerogative of the author & editor, or the designer.

I imagine if you stated mucking around with Rawlings organization of the text, you’d wind up being thrown to the trolls.

typosapien - heh! I never

eeblet — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 19:07:31 -0700

typosapien - heh!

I never abandon books, I just always finish them regardless of their quality (not a great habit), but I recently had to abandon an old paperback cheap edition of a classic novel (uh, can’t remember which one) because the leading and margins were so stingy. A scroll might have been more reader-friendly.

—-
eeblet.com

You are right. Long sections

typosapien — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 18:54:37 -0700

Part of the reason for

Thomas Levine — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 18:22:27 -0700

Part of the reason for reading the books that way is to determine whether to continue.

The first two rounds are quite fast, and you aren’t supposed to get to the last round very often.

I don’t follow How to Read a Book’s recommendations so strictly; normally I read the introduction, summary, conclusion and table of contents and only skim the parts I don’t feel like reading more thoroughly. Part of this is because I rarely read in long sittings; I normally read in breaks between other things.

Also, note that I hardly ever read fiction.

Jeez. I’ll admit is was

charles_e — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 17:31:45 -0700

Jeez. I’ll admit is was back in the dark ages of the 1960s, but when I read books in college, I read them once, and slowly. No music or radio in the background. Yes, there was TV then, but a student couldn’t have a private set. No problem, couldn’t afford one anyway.

Seemed to work.

>How to Read a Book

Gus Winterbottom — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 17:22:25 -0700

>How to Read a Book recommends essentially that books be read in multiple progressively longer and in-depth rounds.

Obviously not to be confused with Pierre Bayard’s How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read.

How to Read a Book

pattyfab — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 17:11:31 -0700

How to Read a Book recommends essentially that books be read in multiple progressively longer and in-depth rounds.

This sounds nuts to me.

Good typography, interfering designers, or just dumbing down?

James Puckett — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 07:14:00 -0700

As a student, something I encounter often is the notion that whenever possible long sections of text should be broken up with lots of invented section breaks. The justification for this is usually something along the lines of “people don’t like to read” or ”nobody wants to look at all that text.” As someone who has always enjoyed thick books with no pictures, I find these notions irritating and even offensive; I feel that the continuous success of mammoth books from popular authors like Stephen King and J.K. Rowling make it pretty clear that people really don’t need someone else chopping reading into smaller chunks.

Is there really a good typographic reason for breaking text up more often than authors and editors might want? Or is this just a tendency of design professors and writers to throw in extra flourishes (and live vicariously through student work)? Or is it all just part of the trend of dumbing down some areas of popular culture?