Spec work is the Comic Sans of design-project models. Much like the hated typeface, spec work appears to spell death for design as a profession, not to mention contempt for the designer's craft. So last night's AIGA Metro-North panel discussion at the Ossining Public Library, whose purpose was "to explore if, why, and how spec work has a rightful place in the way projects are structured," had an apt title: RESPECT. ]]> http://blogs.graphicdesignforum.com/bkessler/2010/06/post-2.html http://blogs.graphicdesignforum.com/bkessler/2010/06/post-2.html Fri, 25 Jun 2010 12:12:06 -0500

Veer
Veer recently cameup with an imaginative setting for its exclusive Jukebox Collection. Jukebox is the name designer Jason Walcott has chosen for his collection of fonts that evokes "the golden age of sign painters and Madison Avenue. A treasure trove of typographic Americana." For its latest promotion, Veer created a number of faux vintage album covers to show off some of the faces, an example of which is shown above. Click on that image to view all the covers.

It just makes sense that when something is created, whether it be a work of art or a corkscrew, its success will depend to a great extent on the degree to which the creator kept the end user in mind. But how can you anticipate with any certainty just how people will react to your latest poster design, website or application, to bring things closer to home? An updated version of the bravely-named Universal Principles of Design proposes to help you do just that.

We realize we are the only industry that can sell an expensive product without working out all the bugs; that's because you can't test-drive a car without tires, brush your teeth without bristles in your toothbrush, or use a nail without a point so it's understandable a sale would not result without working out those bugs. But, in fact, offering a free trial gives us the advantage; thirty days is just long enough to enjoy all the good things we've built into the stuff but not nearly long enough to locate all the bugs. The fact that we don't know where all the bugs are in our product in no way makes us liable. In fact, once you open that cellophane, you own it because there are no returns. Now, you may think this is unfair; and to this sentiment, we say with great empathy and complete and utter understanding, tough cookies.

Last week I took a look at the web font offerings of FontShop, Monotype and other commercial suppliers. I indicated at the time that while it was great to finally be able to use quality fonts on a website, the current metered pricing model might cause some designers to hesitate. Several of the vendors offer free trials of various kinds, providing a good way to experiment with the viability of web fonts. But I've since come across a site providing some decent free ones, which could provide a more flexible environment for your tests, since you can host them on your own server. For client work, you'll naturally want to employ top-quality, commercial fonts. But for use in personal projects, these might form a good starting point for building your collection of free web fonts.

Goodbye Verdana. Take a hike, Arial. After suffering through a decade and a half of purgatory, website designers are now finally free to take advantage of the typographic riches of those creating print publications. Bring on the dancing girls! Let the festivities commence! Or has a new nightmare only begun?

An accomplished designer, author and teacher of symbolism and logo design at the University of New Mexico, Maggie Macnab believes that at some point designers lost their way. They became disconnected with nature and increasingly were less able to understand its patterns, which for so long formed the basis of how humanity grasped the fundamental mechanisms of existence.

The immensely popular website People of Walmart is easily as enjoyable as a screenful of LOLcats, in addition to being many times more meaningful. The amazing array of common freakery on display calls one's attention to a part of America that is ignored by mainstream media, sneered at by sophisticates, and pandered to by politicians.