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On Sat, Oct 19, 2013 at 1:45 AM, vernon adams <v...@newtypography.co.uk>wrote: > Interesting thoughts (as usual) Eric. Thanks. > > I think you are right about 'quality as paramount' being a just a > 'strategy'. It explains why some designers may consider themselves (and > present themeselves) as a purveyor of quality, and yet not necessarily > provide such paramount levels of quality in their own products. And > anyway, i'm not sure that the technical quality we are discussing here is > really as big a selling point as people think. We live in far more > interesting times than that. > > If you are only really offering technical quality, then you are maybe > pitching your products on the wrong side of todays curve. Just like, it's > not possible to sell music just on the fact that the artist is a virtuoso, > or that the music was recoded at highest definition. Virtuosity and high > definition alone, cannot compete against amateurs and / or lo-fi that > contains more slippery qualities such as soul, excitement, rhythm, emotion, > freedom... and the list goes on… In the days before the Music Industry > evaporated, the idea that you did not need technical expertise at any stage > in the music business to succesfully distribute music to users and > listeners, would have been viewed as idiotic. Technology has now made that > idiotic idea a very normal way for people to make, distribute, use and > listen to music. On top of that, despite the askew claims of a few like > David Byrne, the creativity, choice and variety, of music available to > everyone now is enormous, compared to the days when the Music Industry was > the big gatekeeper of what we could listen to. The same has started > happening with type design, just as it has done / will do with many other > commercial sectors. > > What i would say to also bear in mind is that as more and more > 'non-experts' and 'amateurs' join the ranks of the design world, then even > the designer-as-the-target-client changes for the type industry. The user > swarm is very quickly filling the design industries too. I think i see > evidence that the creative and design comminities are generally moving more > away from finding meaning in the 'quality as paramount' strategy, and more > towards finding paramount meaning in any stuff that really keeps them the > right side of the creative curve. And it's not due to a lowering of > standards or non-education, it's the opposite; people are maybe becoming > more sophisticated, fine-tuned, and discriminating in their tastes as they > become exposed to more and more alternative narratives of what is 'good' > and what is 'bad'. > > -vernon > > > > On 18 Oct 2013, at 01:57, Eric Schrijver <e...@authoritism.net> wrote: > > > I went to the ATypI, and it was an interesting experience. What I found > remarkable, is the pervasive idea that graphic designers know nothing about > type. A well known Dutch designer explained me: ‘nowadays, there is only > one way designers can really intervene in a font, and that is by changing > the spacing (tracking, leading). And when I look at contemporary magazines, > I see they manage to mess that up! Imagine what will happen if one allows > them more possibilities.’ > > > > Type design is a funny business. The ATypI style type design thinking, > is to conceive of the type designer as an artist, who creates a finished > work. Except, they have the misfortune, that compared to other artistic > fields, this work can only exist if it is re-used. And it will be re-used > by people who are deemed to be incompetent—the artist is misunderstood! > > > > It is kind of like going to a conference of stock photographers. They > all claim magazine editors know nothing about photography. They keep > cropping! > > > > As a graphic designer, as Raphaël rightly points out, this is of course > a frustrating argument. The typographic community claims designers do not > know ‘quality’, whereas we might simply not always be interested in their > sense of quality. There are design jobs in which you need a clean, evenly > spaced, well balanced typeface, and their might be a job for which you need > something more rough, immediate and unpolished. > > > > And because both kinds of design aesthetic continue to exist in modern > design, traditional type design skills will stay valuable. Except, like > Vernon says, type designers need to understand that a top down model where > they push a selected, curated set of typefaces on the world does not exist > (and has never existed, not since the internet at least), and that they can > not really get away with being so elitist as to postulate that no-one > understands type. > > > > Cheers, > > Eric > > > > PS The concept of ‘quality’ as paramount, is of course, a strategy— > Ricardo Lafuente is onto something when he borrows Fred Smeijers’ > terminology, to describe type designers efforts to separate type designers > into “true” type designers and mere font tweakers [1]. I wrote some more > about the economic reasoning traditionalist conception of type on my blog > [2]. > > > > [1] > http://ospublish.constantvzw.org/blog/typo/appropriation-and-type-before-and-today > > [2] > http://i.liketightpants.net/and/no-one-starts-from-scratch-type-design-and-the-logic-of-the-fork > >