kottke.org posts about design
In the NY Times, Michael Bierut talks about the differences in graphic design when he started work in the early 80s and now. In a word: computers.
Still, I wonder if we haven’t lost something in the process: the deliberation that comes with a slower pace, the attention to detail required when mistakes can’t be undone with the click of a mouse. Younger designers hearing me talk this way react as if I’m getting sentimental about the days when we all used to churn our own butter.
Steven Heller asks why Tropicana redesigned the packaging for their orange juice.
What could Arnell, the agency that did the deed, have been thinking? It’s one thing to change the logo; it’s another to abandon the mnemonic orange with the straw in it. As package imagery goes, it was pretty smart, and decidedly memorable.
He goes on to call the redesign “a big tactical mistake”. I’m a Tropicana drinker and I think the new packaging sucks. It’s impossible to figure out at a glance which juice is which because all the packages look the same, aside from some thin lines at the very top. Horrible.
As promised, the redesign of this site started last week is still in motion. I’ve just made a bunch of small tweaks that should make the site more readable for some readers.
- Fonts. In response to a number of font issues (many reports of Whitney acting up, the larger type looking like absolute crap on Windows), I’ve changed how the stylesheets work. Sadly, that means no more lovely Whitney. :( Mac users will see Myriad Pro Regular backed up by Helvetica and Arial while PC users will see Arial (at a different font-size). In each case, the type is slightly smaller than it was previously. I’m frustrated that these changes need to be made…the state of typography on the web is still horrible.
- Blue zoom border. Oh, it’s staying, but it’ll work a bit differently. The blue sides will still appear on the screen at all times but the top and bottom bars will scroll with the content. I liked the omnipresent border, but the new scheme will fix the problems with hidden anchor links and hidden in-page search results and allow for more of the screen to be used for reading/scanning. It breaks on short pages (see: the 404 page) and still doesn’t work quite right on the iPhone, but those are problems for another day.
- Icons. Updated the favicon and the icon on the iPhone to match the new look/feel.
- Misc. Rounded off the corners on the red title box. Increased the space between the sidebar and the main content column.
Thanks to everyone who offered their suggestions and critiques of the new design, especially those who took the time to send in screenshots of the problems they were having. Feedback is always appreciated.
The design of kottke.org has been mostly the same since 2000…a garish yellow/green bar across the top and small black text on a white background everywhere else. (See the progression of designs since 1998.) People absolutely hated that color when I first introduced it1, but it stuck around — mostly out of laziness — and that pukey yellow became the most visible brand element of the site.
Two days ago, I refreshed the design of the site and, as you may have noticed, no more yellow/green. The other big changes are: bigger text set in a new font, a blue “zoom” border around the page, and the addition of titles to the short posts.
(A brief nuts and bolts interlude… For most of you, the site will look like this. If you’ve got Myriad Pro on your machine — it comes free with Acrobat Reader and Adobe CS — it’ll look like this…this is the “intended” look. And if you’re a fancypants designer with Whitney installed, you’ll get this rarified view, which I did mostly for me. On IE6, the site will be legible and usable but somewhat unstyled. If you’re not seeing something that looks like one of the above screenshots — if the text is in all caps, for instance — please drop me a line with a link to a screenshot and your browser information. Thanks!)
The blue “zoom” border is the biggest visual change, and it’s an homage to what is still my favorite kottke.org design, the yellow zoom from 1999. I like that kottke.org is one of the few weblogs out there that can reach back almost ten years for a past design element; the site has history. In a way, that border is saying “kottke.org has been around for ten years and it’s gonna be around for twenty more”. At least that’s how I think about it.
I’ve already gotten lots of feedback from readers, mostly via Twitter and email. There were a few technical issues that I’ve hopefully ironed out — e.g. it should work better on the iPhone now — and a couple which might take a bit longer, like the border messing with the page-at-a-time scrolling method. Some people like the changes, but mostly people don’t like the new design, really dislike the blue, and generally want the old site back. This is exactly the reaction I expected, and it’s heartening to learn that the old design struck such a chord with people. All I’m asking is that you give it a little time.
My suspicion is that as you get used to it, the new text size won’t seem so weird and that blue border will likely disappear into the background of your attention, just as that hideous yellow/green did. A month from now, your conscious mind won’t even see the blue — chalk it up to something akin to banner blindness…brand blindness maybe? — but your subconscious will register it and you’ll just know where you are, safe and sound right here at good ol’ kottke.org. And if that doesn’t work, we’ll tweak and move some things around. Design is a process, not a result, and we’ll get it to a good place eventually, even if it takes twenty years.
[1] I wish I had access to my email from back then…everyone hated it and wanted the old design back. Before landing on the yellow/green color, I tried the golden yellow from the previous design, a blue very much like the blue in the current border, and then red. I think each color was live on the site for a few days and my intention was to just keep switching it around. But then I got bored and just left the yellow/green. Gold star to anyone who remembers that short phase of the site. ↩
Pretty Loaded is an online museum of Flash preloaders. The site itself uses a Flash preloader and, oops, the universe just exploded. I could watch this all day.
The Book Cover Archive is a new site dedicated to the “appreciation and categorization of excellence in book cover design”. They just launched but the site already includes 800 covers.
The Danziger Projects gallery in New York is running an exhibition called Can & Did, a collection of art, graphics, and photography from the Obama campaign. The opening party is on Inauguration night (Jan 20) and it runs through the end of February. All details in the press release.
A Canadian pig farmer came up with an interesting solution for herding pigs. Instead of using heavy wooden “chase boards” to guide the pigs, she used a length of fabric of the same color, allowing a single person to do a job once done by many.
The trailer for Objectified, a new documentary film about industrial design by Gary Hustwit, who also made Helvetica.
A beautiful heart-shaped map of the NYC subway system is among the several such maps done by a pair of Korean graphic designers calling themselves Zero Per Zero.
A portable map version is available for sale, but the shipping cost from Korea to the US is a bit steep.
Some design heavies — Paula Scher and Gary Hustwit among them — choose their design highlights of 2008.
The best conceived, designed, and expressed total idea, ever: Barack Obama’s entire campaign, each and every part of it, including Barack Obama.
Two designs I found interesting were the Surface Table (made of carbon fiber, it’s only 2mm thick for a 13-foot-long table!) and Boudicca Wode Perfume, which sprays on blue and fades to transparent over time. (via quips)
The NY Times has posted their annual Year in Ideas collection for 2008, packaged this year in an “interactive feature”, which is Esperanto for “no permalinks”. A favorite so far in paging through is Tokujin Yoshioka’s Venus Natural Crystal Chair, a piece of furniture grown in mineral water.
Update: Permalinks are a go. I repeat, permalinks are a go. Here’s the one for the crystal chair. (thx, everyone)
Great two-part video interview with Sol Sender about designing the logo for the Obama campaign. Includes some early design sketches and other designs that made it to the final phase. (via quips)
The challenge: create a fictitious book cover using an image from the Life magazine photo archive. Aside from the first few created in a rush, some of these are pretty good.
In 1960, just before the widespread release of push-button phones, AT&T tested a number of button configurations to see which ones offered the greatest speed and least confusion. The number pattern based on the numbers’ positions on the incumbent rotary dial did well but the company decided to go with the now-familiar 3x3+1 configuration instead.
Eat me daily rounds up a recent AIGA event about food. The most interesting tidbit came from Matteo Bologna’s speech. Bologna designs restaurants, most notably for Keith McNally (Pastis, Balthazar, Morandi, Schillers, etc.).
Really fascinating was what he and McNally did for Pastis — it doesn’t actually have a visual brand. McNally wanted the restaurant to look like it had been in the neighborhood for years, so Bologna constructed this narrative of a family that had maintained the restaurant for a century, and each generation some element gets updated or redesigned, but without going for consistency or even style. The result is completely different-looking signage, awnings, menus, wine lists, checks… everything uses a different palette, type set, but its essential Frenchiness ties everything together. It’s an anti-brand.
The name of the restaurant is thus a play on pastiche in addition to being named after the French aperitif. (via eater)
Designer Peter Saville — you know, iconic Joy Division album cover, Factory Records, etc. — talks about his process a little bit in this video interview.
Learning and filing, learning and filing. Sounds familiar, yeah? (thx, paul)
Chris Pullman was the VP of Design at WGBH in Boston for 35 years.
Viewers of PBS will recognize Pullman’s work in the opening title sequences of “Masterpiece Theatre” and “Antiques Roadshow” and the WGBH animated on-air signature, which is used at the end of every program produced by the public broadcaster.
Pullman recently retired and shared ten lessons he’s learned over the years.
2 Work with people you like and respect.
Birds of a feather flock together. That is a natural thing. Most of the people here at WGBH are here (or certainly stay here) because of our mission. Certainly, my long tenure has been largely because of the people in this room with whom I’ve shared such personal and heart-warming recollections of our time together. Since April, when I first announced my intention to leave WGBH, the private expression of these feelings has been so gratifying, both personally and professionally, that I recently suggested that maybe we should institute the policy of encouraging individuals to make periodic “mock retirement” announcements, with the goal of releasing more regularly the flow of kind remarks for the nourishment of the individual, since we are otherwise so reticent to praise or encourage others in our busy, self-centered daily lives.
The Book Design Review lists their favorite book covers for 2008. Go forth and drool.
Results of the 2008 Muji Award design competition. Winning entries include a drinking straw made from straw, a garbage bag that stands up by itself (no can needed), and a stapler that gets that staple in the corner of the page every time. (thx, dj jacobs)
Steven Heller spoke with the designer Sol Sender about his iconic Obama “O” logo.
Well, the “O” was the identity for the Obama ‘08 campaign and the campaign is over. That doesn’t mean that the mark will be forgotten; I think the memorabilia from this campaign will have a long shelf life and will stand as a visible symbol of pride for people who supported the candidate and for those who see it as a representation of a watershed moment for our country. As far as having another life, I can’t say. Perhaps the 2012 campaign will hark back to it in some way.
Sender’s web site has a bit more info on the development of the Obama brand.
Ecommr is a collection of interface and design elements from ecommerce sites. I wish there were a bit more context around each screenshot (e.g. which interface element is the focus and what’s novel about it) but it’s a good start.
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