In chapter 13 of Becoming a Digital Designer by Stephen Heller and David Womack, they discuss typography and graphic design and how each relate to the new and modern world of digital media. Several interviews that the authors conducted are contained in this chapter as well in order to get a broad sense of these concepts in relation to digital media. The article is quite interesting because it offers several different perspectives on different parts of digital design. It is well-written and full of valuable information, but there are parts that are not so intriguing as well.
The chapter begins with a brief overview of typesetting methods. The authors talk about how once the original wood and metal typesetting methods were created, that these methods remained the same for hundreds of years. It wasn’t until the 1950’s that phototypesetting came to be. Letters were able to be produced one by one, set in place, and glued onto boards to mass produce whatever the publication may have been. But, with the invention of the personal computer came the introduction of digital typesetting and digital type design. Digital typography left phototypesetting in the dust because technologies like high resolution printers allowed typesetting to become a very accessible art. Heller and Womack stress that it was originally skilled craftsman that had always created type, but that the accessibility of such typesetting technologies had rendered old methods obsolete and allowed digital foundries to create “radical new typefaces.” Phototypesetting soon became a thing of the past and the only people who still utilized metal type were type purists.
Heller and Womack also discuss the accessibility of typesetting and type design software in terms of the numerousness of typefaces now available because type design isn’t necessarily a trade of high knowledge and craftsmanship anymore. They state, and I wholeheartedly agree, “Today the average computer is loaded with hundreds of typefaces, but that does not mean that one need use them all. In fact, the abundance of faces is counterproductive.” (290) It really is counterproductive to have so many different typefaces at our disposal sometimes. Using fewer typefaces forces one to become more acquainted with form and the purity of typography and therefore makes it easier to define one’s unique style. It honestly amazes me sometimes that you can do so much with so little. I’m a minimalist of sorts and readability is rather important to me. I’m in no way saying that we should dumb things down, but I generally find more beauty in purity than chaos and complexity.
The first interview is with type designer and illustrator Marian Bantjes. The discussion with Marian focuses a lot on her process and how digital tools have affected the way she works. Marian feels that digital tools like Adobe Illustrator are merely an extension of hand tools like pen/pencil and paper. She usually starts by drawing and once she is happy with her design she takes it to the computer to refine it using vector tools. As far as her style is concerned, she enjoys complexity and she likes to have to look at something for a while to figure out exactly what is going on. Part of the reason for this love of complexity is that Marian is a very focused person and doesn’t like to multitask and skim things. With this in mind, Marian is also very interested in the clean and pure Swiss Modernism. She claims to love grids and very structured pieces because there are more subtle elements of complexity within such works and it’s the minute details that she enjoys when it comes to this type of design.
Though much of Marian’s work is vector based, she also has some really incredible hand drawn illustrations done in pencil and pen. She sometimes does these sorts of illustrations because of the imperfect qualities that a human hand can create. She says that her vector illustrations are often cold feeling because they are so refined, but that the subtleties, textures, and colors of hand rendered work display a warmth that can’t be achieved on the computer. I personally think graphic design is in a really interesting place and it doesn’t necessarily just mean type and illustration on the computer anymore. Graphic design has begun to encompass so much more aesthetically. A good example of someone who has pushed the definition of graphic design is Stefan Sagmeister whose work is very experimental, but highly regarded in the design community.
The second interview features a man named Richard Turtletaub of Richard Turtletaub Design and Illustration out of San Francisco. A couple important things that I got out of the interview were that current software is capable of allowing designers to do anything they can think up and also that it is necessary, at least right now, to shift from conventional illustration/design to a digitally kinetic world to survive in design.
The third interview was with a designer/tool designer name Jonathan Puckey from Amsterdam. This interview was fairly interesting because he not only is a trained graphic designer, but he designs his own tools in design programs because he has experience writing software script. This allows him to do a lot of experimental design work. An important part of this interview was when Puckey talked about how some software companies have begun to design very specific tools which leaves the design itself more up to the programmer than to the designer which is rather negative in his and my opinion.
The final interview was with Emily King who is a curator and critic in London. She is very knowledgeable about design described the last 15 years in type design as the deprofessionalization of type design, which I agree with for the most part. The accessibility of design software has really caused a lot of visual pollution in the world. She continues by discussing the effects non professionals have had on professionals in the design field and has found that a lot of professionals are actually more open to influences such as popular culture for graphic design, more so than they were before at least.
Chapter 13 was enjoyable because it focused on the importance of type in graphic design. I think a large part of being a successful designer is understanding type and type history, so Heller and Womack were dead on with this chapter.
