Sweating the details

The Ministry of Type highlights a small but significant feature on the UI of the Xerox Star, a computer with an early GUI: precise positioning of icons on a dithered background in order to avoid rough edges.

It may be subtle, but it’s the kind of thing that reduces the overall apparent quality of your work, the stuff that marks out your work as being standard (read: mediocre) or exceptional. If you feel you shouldn’t get precious about such things, perhaps graphic design isn’t your thing.

• design
• xeroxstar