Typography Homework 2/23

Journal Four:

From the Incomplete Manifesto I chose:

8. Drift.
Allow yourself to wander aimlessly. Explore adjacencies. Lack judgment. Postpone criticism.

Bruce Mau (born October 25, 1959) is a Canadian designer. Mau is the creative director of Bruce Mau Design, and the founder of the Institute without Boundaries. Mau was born in Sudbury, Ontario. He studied at the Ontario College of Art & Design in Toronto, but left prior to graduation in order to join the Fifty Fingers design group in 1980. He stayed there for two years, before crossing the ocean for a brief sojourn at Pentagram in the UK. Returning to Toronto a year later, he became part of the founding triumvirate of Public Good Design and Communications. Soon after, the opportunity to design Zone 1/2 presented itself and he left to establish his own studio, Bruce Mau Design. Mau remained the design director of Zone Books until 2004, to which he has added duties as co-editor of Swerve Editions, a Zone imprint. From 1991-93, he also served as creative director of I.D. magazine.[edit] From 1996-99 he was the associate cullinan professor at Rice University School of Architecture in Houston. He has also been a thesis advisor at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Architecture, Landscape & Design; artist in residence at California Institute of the Arts; and a visiting scholar at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles. He has lectured widely across North America and Europe, and currently serves on the International Advisory Committee of the Wexner Center in Columbus, Ohio.

In addition, Bruce is an honorary fellow of the Ontario College of Art & Design and a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts. He was awarded the Chrysler Award for Design Innovation in 1998, and the Toronto Arts Award for Architecture and Design in 1999. In 2001 he received an Honorary Doctor of Letters from the Emily Carr University of Art and Design inVancouver.

In 2006, he participated in the Stock Exchange of Visions. He is married to Bisi Williams Mau.

As of 2007, Mau was in residence at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, in the Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Design Objects Department.

I chose the eighth mantra because there are times when I drift. Usually before I go to bed I start thinking of homework that I need to do and that's when I come up with the craziest ideas.. Unfortunately I'm too lazy and tired to get up and scribble that stuff down. So it's lost. Maybe I'll keep a sketchbook by my bed.

Graphic Design Toolkit 2/10

Flash:

Typography Homework 2/7

Journal 3:

I think that the most important three are having a concept, speaking with one visual voice, and do it on purpose or don't do it at all. I think that having a concept is so huge because without a concept, you really have nothing relevant or nothing that makes sense. Speaking with one visual voice makes everything tie together really well, especially with our book covers since we are working in a series. Doing it on purpose is also another matter of relevancy. It makes everything look like it was truly designed and not just thrown together.

I think the three I need to work the most on are communicating and not decorating. But at the same time I feel like I need some decoration since I am going for an ornate 18th century Victorian era look, which is all about decor. I also didn't quite utilize the "one, two, punch!" since I have gone for the more whimsical and romantic look. My books are quite about the action and I wanted my covers to have a feel of flowiness and not surprise. And I also haven't used number 7: If you can do it with less, then do it. This one also follows with the decorating statement. I wanted to utilize the decor of the Victorian era. I think the back covers do better than the front and sides, and I think that once it is folded it will look less busy. As a whole though, it looks like there is a lot more going on.

The three that I didn't really care for were treating the type as an image since, you can't always make an airplane runway out of type. Type is only type when it's friendly isn't always a good one either. Sometimes you need to convey something other than friendliness with type. Squishing and separating is another that I didn't really find a need for or really concentrate on.

Typography Homework 2/4

And refined again:

Click it.

Typography Homework 2/2

Journal 2

Chip Kidd is a writer, editor, and designer. He is well known for his book covers. He has designed over a thousand covers and many of them are very well known. Chip is the associate art director of Knopf. Publishers Weeklydescribed his book jackets as "creepy, striking, sly, smart, unpredictable covers that make readers appreciate books as objects of art as well as literature." Chip also does a lot of comic book art. Chip is important because he is a really innovative designer and he keeps things different, never using the same style for a book. I think this next statement by Chip is ridiculously smart and perceptive:

How is a book cover different from an album or magazine cover?

Hmm. Well, the album cover, for all intents and purposes, it's weird, because it's like the walking dead. They still exist and they still get made, but it's almost like "why?" With everybody buying music online, it's literally been reduced to the size of a postage stamp. For at least 10 years now, the music video has completely replaced the album cover as the key piece of visual iconography connected with a certain album. Magazine covers, by in large, they're just dying to tell you everything. They can't tell you enough. All the smattering all over the front of the magazine. They're just shrieking at you everything inside. Where a book cover, if it's done right, is going to just suggest a sensibility, it's going to be a lot more coy and a lot more discrete.

And here's another quote–which explains that if books are around, so is Chip Kidd.

Will books become obsolete with digital technology?

I love this question because it gives me the chance to reiterate for the umpteenth time: No, the book is not going anywhere. The book is already the most concise piece of technology to deliver what it delivers. When the last "Harry Potter" book came out, kids weren't downloading it. They were lining up at bookstores. People like something they can pop into their bag. People didn't carry their Sgt. Pepper album all over the place—they would go home and listen to it.

John Gall is also a book designer. He has worked with CD albums as well. John is important because he does things differently, and changes the intentions of some things. His design solutions have great plasticity––range, the creation of the illusion of depth, elasticity. Each of his covers are a surprise, and for some covers, they have unexpected elements.

A good point by John Gall about hardback and paperback:

SB: How are the differences among them manifested in your design approach?

Gall: There is definitely more freedom in hardcover design. Hardcover sales are generally review driven, so the cover doesn’t have to come on as strong and, I think, less people buy them on impulse because of their price. They’ll read a review and look for the book. The paperback does not have the fortune of being timed to the review attention, so the cover—we’re talking front list here—has to say something like “Remember me? You were waiting for me to come out in paperback? Remember? I’m the one the New York Times really liked, you know, the one about the guy with narcolepsy who likes the girl in the plaid skirt. …”

Looking at both examples of the covers that each designer has done, I like Chip Kidd's work a little better. I think some of what he said was really insightful, and it gives hope to designers that not everything they do will be digitized and never be made into a hard copy. I always like having a hard copy of my work, and not keeping everything on the computer or put onto a website. It feels less realistic that way. So in a sense, Kidd gives me hope that design work won't be completely lost. John Gall had a good point about how good design really sells a lot of books. I know that when I shop, if a cover is more interesting I'm more inclined to buy that one than a cover that looks like crap. Both seem like highly influential and memorable and timeless book cover designers.

Typography Homework 2/1

3 Bookcovers I think I want to refine and use for my finals!

Agnes Grey - Anne Bronte

Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte