HTML5 for Web Designers
Photo of HTML5 for Web Designers taken from the designer’s website, Jason Santa Maria
I recently read Jeremy Keith’s HTML5 for Web Designers and loved it. It is a great overview of the up and coming web standard. The light, concise tone achieved through Keith’s witty brevity and Jason Santa Maria’s pitch perfect design almost make you forget that the subject is of weighty importance for anyone involved in the web design field. HTML5 is the manifestation of the recent push towards web standards, but instead of dumbing down the markup language for the benefit of the disparate qualities of today’s browsers, many advanced features previously found only in Javascript have been brought inline.
8 Faces, First Impressions
8 Faces is a new project headed by Elliot Jay Stocks, which contains interviews with typographers who create or use type in compelling ways. The first run of 1000 copies sold out in a matter of hours but anyone can do what I did and buy a PDF version. The magazine is planned for bi-annual release and will be a regular addition to my bookshelf, digitally in this case.
The design of the 8 Faces is definitely great, clean layout with wonderful full color photographs. The content is where I had the greatest surprise. The interviews with these luminaries of the field are not that different from what you might find online but isolated in a magazine rather than in series of blog posts with ads and other distractions running along the side really make a difference. I can’t say much more than it really is a pleasure to sit down and read through the PDF on the iPad, and in a way that I have not achieved online. I highly recommend anyone interested in the design field or typography generally to do the same. 8 Faces does a much superior job than the regular industry publications, I’m looking at you Print and HOW, at tickling the inspiration center in my designer brainer.
Why I’m Excited About the iPad
I’ve been getting more excited about the iPad as its launch date draws near. As an Apple Fanboy I paid close attention on Keynote day and watched all the live coverage blogs to find out all the details. Continue Reading…
The New Basics
I recently finished reading a new book I received for my birthday a few weeks ago, Graphic Design: The New Basics by Ellen Lupton and Jennifer Cole Phillips. What a great read! As its title expresses this book is focused on the basic principles that designers use every day. Each chapter focuses on one principle, such as pattern, transparency, point/line/plane, and layers. Using examples from professionals as well as many student projects from MICA, including one from my friend Meghana Khandekar, the book illustrates how these established elements of design are used in contemporary design practice. I really enjoyed how the book featured media that I frankly did not know much about in its examples. The book showcased several design pieces that were created using computer code, usually using the open source Java program Processing. The New Basics takes the model of teaching teaching design by principle and practice from the Bauhaus updates the principles to reflect current design practice. If I were taking a Design Basics class again I would definitely want this book at my side.
Graphic Design Theory: Grid
In Helen Armstrong’s Graphic Design Theory Karl Gerstner’s Design Programmes and Josef Müller-Brockmann’s Grid and Design Philosophy essays represent an effort to codify design practice. The designers discuss using considered systems in order to solve the problems in their projects.
Graphic Design Theory: The Crystal Goblet
The next essay in Helen Armstrong’s Graphic Design Theory is The Crystal Goblet, or Why Printing Should be Invisible by Beatrice Warde. Ms Warde was an eminent mind in the printing industry from the 1930s through 50s. The Crystal Goblet is often referred to in typographic circles for its thesis that encourages the humble use of typography to serve the text instead of vanity.
Graphic Design Theory: The New Typography
The fifth essay in Helen Armstrong’s Graphic Design Theory is an excerpt from Jan Tschichold’s The New Typography.¹ Jan Tschichold was a German typographer who rose to prominence in the 1920s and would be instrumental in shaping the printed page that we say today.
Graphic Design Theory: Our Book
The third essay in Karen Armstrong’s Graphic Design Theory is El Lissitzky‘s Our Book. El Lissitzky was a Russian deeply invested in the Soviet cause. He served as an ambassador for the Russian avant-garde in Germany in the 20s, sending Constructivism’s geometric abstraction throughout Europe. In his essay he discusses book arts in depth and the dissolution of thought-communication forms.
Graphic Design Theory: Initial Manifestos
Karen Armstrong’s Graphic Design Theory starts off with an analysis of the Avant-Garde movements at the beginning of the twentieth century that set the course that graphic design would follow. The initial entries are manifestos that spoke to the changing influences in the modern world and redefined an artist’s place in it, Manifesto of Futurism by F.T. Marinetti (1909)¹ and Who We Are: Manifesto of the Constructivist Group by Aleksandr Rodchenko, Varvara Stepanova, & Aleksei Gan (1922)². They are both written in verse form, which is harder to understand than a regular prose essay in some ways while easier in others.
Graphic Design Theory: A Class of One
I love design. I also love history. Luckily there’s this thing called design history. Throughout the progression of design different theories have surfaced, sometimes reinforcing one another and sometimes in direct opposition to established ideas. It’s always good to review the different movements and ideas in a the field so I decided to through myself a refresher course. I will be reading a collection of essays in Helen Armstrong’s Graphic Design Theory. After reading each essay I will be posting my thoughts about it here on the blog. So stay tuned.