SHAPES AND COLORS
May 9, 2009 8:38 PM Subscribe
Designing about design is like building about architecture.
posted by Faint of Butt at 8:50 PM on May 9, 2009 [7 favorites]
posted by Faint of Butt at 8:50 PM on May 9, 2009 [7 favorites]
how meta by design. so graphic and unfiltered that i can not turn my eyes away.
posted by the aloha at 9:16 PM on May 9, 2009
posted by the aloha at 9:16 PM on May 9, 2009
Some of those were excellent -- presenting the idea in creative but intelligible ways, that enhanced their message. Others made me want to stab pencils in my brain. Or perhaps the brain of the person who "designed" them.
Fortunately, more of the former than the latter, but still...
posted by jacquilynne at 9:22 PM on May 9, 2009
Fortunately, more of the former than the latter, but still...
posted by jacquilynne at 9:22 PM on May 9, 2009
This about sums it up. "Graphic Designer" is about as dirty & fraudulent a professional title these days as "Webmaster" became after 1998.
posted by squalor at 9:27 PM on May 9, 2009 [1 favorite]
posted by squalor at 9:27 PM on May 9, 2009 [1 favorite]
This about sums it up. "Graphic Designer" is about as dirty & fraudulent a professional title these days as "Webmaster" became after 1998.
I'm pretty sure graphic design existed long before web design. But one thing that's different, I think, is that so many people can create things that look good, or great, on a computer screen without ever learning anything about how to get that on to paper. Which I gather used to be an important part of the job.
Anyway, these days anyone can call themselves a designer, and be judged one by everyone with worse taste then them. Since a huge number of people have awful taste, many people can make money in graphic design despite having poor taste themselves. I'm constantly amazed by the crap that gets sold as "graphic design".
posted by delmoi at 10:18 PM on May 9, 2009
I'm pretty sure graphic design existed long before web design. But one thing that's different, I think, is that so many people can create things that look good, or great, on a computer screen without ever learning anything about how to get that on to paper. Which I gather used to be an important part of the job.
Anyway, these days anyone can call themselves a designer, and be judged one by everyone with worse taste then them. Since a huge number of people have awful taste, many people can make money in graphic design despite having poor taste themselves. I'm constantly amazed by the crap that gets sold as "graphic design".
posted by delmoi at 10:18 PM on May 9, 2009
Favoriting this for sure! Perfect for a web designer to get some inspiration
posted by eiro0701 at 10:25 PM on May 9, 2009
posted by eiro0701 at 10:25 PM on May 9, 2009
This would have been so much better if the designer had remembered to close the quotation marks.
posted by Rora at 11:27 PM on May 9, 2009 [1 favorite]
posted by Rora at 11:27 PM on May 9, 2009 [1 favorite]
This would have been so much better if the designer had remembered to close the quotation marks.
I thought you didn't actually need a close quote if your quote is an entire paragraph, but looking around it looks like the rule is you leave them off the inner paragraphs, but you add one on the final paragraph, and that's an obsolete form of quotation anyway -- these days you'd use a blockquote.
posted by delmoi at 11:35 PM on May 9, 2009
I thought you didn't actually need a close quote if your quote is an entire paragraph, but looking around it looks like the rule is you leave them off the inner paragraphs, but you add one on the final paragraph, and that's an obsolete form of quotation anyway -- these days you'd use a blockquote.
posted by delmoi at 11:35 PM on May 9, 2009
Apparently design is filling an entire poster with a single sentence.
posted by pwnguin at 12:31 AM on May 10, 2009 [1 favorite]
posted by pwnguin at 12:31 AM on May 10, 2009 [1 favorite]
Is it just me, or do these various "50 things unique about pants!" lists always seem to contain one or two really nice things, and the rest are crap. Maybe I'm just cynical, but they seem less designed to inspire, and more designed to generate click through revenue on banner ads?
And I don't meant to pick on this one list, because I do think it's a genre wide phenom, but there were a couple of nice things, and the rest just seemed kind of randomly chosen out of a hat of student work.
Bah. Lists.
posted by monkey!knife!fight! at 1:50 AM on May 10, 2009
And I don't meant to pick on this one list, because I do think it's a genre wide phenom, but there were a couple of nice things, and the rest just seemed kind of randomly chosen out of a hat of student work.
Bah. Lists.
posted by monkey!knife!fight! at 1:50 AM on May 10, 2009
Graphic Design is shitting out a list of links to images you "gathered" in a Flickr stream for a competition from over a year ago, taking curatorial credit, and mentioning none of the excellent discussion and story of what brought all that fantastic artwork about. What an asshole.
posted by potch at 2:02 AM on May 10, 2009 [9 favorites]
posted by potch at 2:02 AM on May 10, 2009 [9 favorites]
*clicks potch's comment favorite button numeruous times, fails to add more than 1+*
posted by dabitch at 5:56 AM on May 10, 2009
posted by dabitch at 5:56 AM on May 10, 2009
Often design is just a bunch of wankery and self-congratulation.
posted by autodidact at 5:58 AM on May 10, 2009 [2 favorites]
posted by autodidact at 5:58 AM on May 10, 2009 [2 favorites]
It's like a short, introductory course on graphic design, inspirational.
posted by seabel at 6:54 AM on May 10, 2009
posted by seabel at 6:54 AM on May 10, 2009
I don't even know what 'taste' and 'tasteful' is anymore, but a lot of modern design (and nearly all of these posters) depress the hell out of me. I think my preference is for design that is so close to invisible that you might be coexisting with the designed item for decades and never notice the designed elements of them. I guess a lot of industrial design work would fall into this category.
posted by Ritchie at 6:55 AM on May 10, 2009
posted by Ritchie at 6:55 AM on May 10, 2009
Heh. Pretty much unilaterally, the posters I liked the look of said something interesting, and the ones I thought were ugly said dumb things. I'm impressionable.
posted by roll truck roll at 8:44 AM on May 10, 2009
posted by roll truck roll at 8:44 AM on May 10, 2009
potch:
yargh! Had I known, I would have linked to the Flickr stream and discussion instead. The stream has a ton more posters. blargh, mea maxima culpa.
posted by The Whelk at 8:46 AM on May 10, 2009
yargh! Had I known, I would have linked to the Flickr stream and discussion instead. The stream has a ton more posters. blargh, mea maxima culpa.
posted by The Whelk at 8:46 AM on May 10, 2009
Good design is often transparent, Ritchie. It's much easier to be noticed than to be elegant and functional.
"Design is the sweet frosting on the content cupcake" made me choke a little. No wonder so many websites look like masturbatory nonsense.
posted by rokusan at 10:45 AM on May 10, 2009 [1 favorite]
"Design is the sweet frosting on the content cupcake" made me choke a little. No wonder so many websites look like masturbatory nonsense.
posted by rokusan at 10:45 AM on May 10, 2009 [1 favorite]
irony died so that graphic design could live
posted by doobiedoo at 4:54 PM on May 10, 2009 [1 favorite]
posted by doobiedoo at 4:54 PM on May 10, 2009 [1 favorite]
Potch- it doesn't excuse the blurb up top, but to be fair there's a link to the Flickr pool waaaay down at the end of the post.
'Design is trying to stand out enough from the growing population of douchebags with internet access and a pirated copy of Photoshop CS3 who place some elusive words in overused, stock typeface over a Flickr image of a rooster squeezed through a half-tone filter'
posted by self at 9:48 PM on May 10, 2009 [1 favorite]
'Design is trying to stand out enough from the growing population of douchebags with internet access and a pirated copy of Photoshop CS3 who place some elusive words in overused, stock typeface over a Flickr image of a rooster squeezed through a half-tone filter'
posted by self at 9:48 PM on May 10, 2009 [1 favorite]
Being a Designer Is Forgetting You Need A Copy Writer.
posted by klangklangston at 10:48 PM on May 10, 2009 [3 favorites]
posted by klangklangston at 10:48 PM on May 10, 2009 [3 favorites]
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posted by gimonca at 8:46 PM on May 9, 2009