the good/ bad old days
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- fate_0
Design was barely a "creative" profession until desktop publishing came about. It was more of a Science than an Art. A rote process instead of a creative act.
It's interesting, because it wasn't until everyone had the power to make a shitty flyer...the ability to misuse fonts, to create really awful, horrid design....not until then did their become a wide-scale appreciation for design, and an acceleration of the evolution of design. It wasn't until people saw and made *bad* design en masse, did people see the talent needed to create *good* design, and it slowly became the differentiating factor it is today.
- moveinspace0
Tough to show someone a sentence 30 years ago printed in comic sans. It wasn't invented yet. Your lack of design history is amusing and ignorant.
- fate_0
moveinspace, I commented on my own post a couple minutes ago.
"Please ignore the anachronism of that statement, re: Comic Sans. -fate"
Thanks for being a pedantic little bitch, though! Way to add to the discussion!
- there is really nothing to add fate. you've already proven your ignorance and really added nothing.moveinspace
- and you just admitted above that your statement made no sense. you are clueless.moveinspace
- I don't think you know what an "anachronism" is.fate_
- Corvo20
You seem to forget that, graphically, most of everything that has been done after the 90's by a bunch of hyper-active kids with laptops was done before, in the 70's. By hand.
- johndiggity0
if you were setting type 30+ years ago, you knew what a baseline grid was. i don't think you can argue that is the case today.
- ********0
plus, you're presenting a false binary... no one would deny that in the computer age design and its appreciation has proliferated wildly--but that doesn't mean there wasn't a component of skilled and groundbreaking design prior to that--work most designers still imitate today
- plus I think you're just trolling anyway, and don't even believe what you're saying********
- he's obviously never picked up a design history book ever.moveinspace
- plus I think you're just trolling anyway, and don't even believe what you're saying
- fate_0
Way to miss the point, moveinspace. I'm trying to point out how design was stagnant for so many years until true appreciation of it evolved across the general populace....and you'd rather point out a mistake I made (one I self-corrected before you got around to bitching about it).
Why are you on here again?
- i think you missed the point fate and the question is why are you on here.moveinspace
- johndiggity0
i would argue that the internet, not desktop publishing, is largely responsible for the increased appreciation of a solid design vernacular.
- as evidenced by the threads commenting about gotham narrow on this site.johndiggity
- agree********
- I agree with that, to a degree.fate_
- And video games?Corvo2
- Nadooy0
I would have loved to work pre-digital
I love working with traditional methods,
one of my first assignments in typography was to paint letterforms,
after we kerned them manually, I loved and appreciated the process.
Id just does it automatically, which makes you take it for granted.
learning the craft of doing something -the good old days.
- brains0
I agree with you there john diggity. The fact that it was so much more of a refined craft at a time. A certain amount of prestige came with the title "designer". Nowadays, everyone with a stolen copy of photoshop is a "designer". It's becoming a de-valued profession in a way.
- moveinspace0
fate_ like moveinspace said you really are clueless when you make statements like "Design was just atrocious up until the 90's." and "design was stagnant for so many years until true appreciation of it evolved across the general populace". You obviously have never heard of Caslon, The Reimann School, Adrian Frutiger, Josef Müller-Brockmann, Jan Tschichold, and I could go on and on. johndiggity makes a good point that desktop publishing has killed it somewhat but could design has been around forever. Most new designers are clueless about our history and sadly none of it is appreciated.
- hmmmm when I typed "I" it sent my name instead. %^@$%^%@#$ QBN.moveinspace
- did you mean to sign in with another name?********
- ha I wish I had two names. I'm brave enough to state my opinion. Maybe I am you.moveinspace
- fate_0
There were sans-serifs long before Adrian Frutiger, and long after.
But like I said, you cannot use rare shining examples to excuse or legitimize so much shitty design. There are dozens of designers on QBN who regularly produce good, quality design exceeding the entire handful of examples you might dredge from the last 100 years of design history. Mostly thanks to desktop publishing.
It's like some of you want to think there can never be another Paul Rand, when there's probably one in India right now pumping out designs for LogoWorks with a stolen copy of Illustrator.
- moveinspace0
fate I simply have an issue with your historical perspective and the history of design. There will be another Rand, and another Glaser and so one. History will be written again. This conversation is going nowhere but I appreciate your perspective even though it is limited.
- Horp0
I was trained, aged 15, in a pre-digital studio and had to learn how to hand render copy for copy visuals, how to operate a PMT machine to make artwork, to make halftones, how to build artwork from base boards with a paralell motion using non-repro blue and Rotring line art, how to spec copy for phototypesetting... basically I was trained as an apprentice for five years in all of the crafts that were made redundant by desk top publishing in the space of two years.
Now you don't need any training, you just need two grand cash for an imac and Adobe Creative Suite and you're a designer whether other designers like what you're doing or not.
- Jaline0
First of all, I can't draw using a computer. So...that part wouldn't have changed.
But the rest...doesn't apply to me since I'm a (sort of) web developer.
- Horp0
Fate, Harder does not equal better, but it does mean more satisfaction, and it does mean more work for the those who put the time into getting training, and it does also mean that five crucial years of apprenticeship were tossed in the bin as being utterly fucking useless.
- monospaced0
- now tell me that's not good, fate_monospaced
- design wasn't just a sciencemonospaced
- <Squarely in the modernists rigid, unchanging camp.fate_
- rigid and unchanging? these guys defined good design!monospaced
- Good from a utilitarian point of view!fate_
- what the fuck is design to you, if not that?monospaced
- Design is Communication.fate_
- And Communication is more than being able to read a perfectly sterile left-aligned Sans-serif.fate_
- of course, but this was just one example of good design and communication before computersmonospaced
- DESIGN is no just communication. you only thinking of GRAPHIC DESIGN.akrokdesign
- Horp0
When you are competing with a 17 year old for a contract that's now worth totally fucking peanuts because the client can pick and choose from thousands of potential suppliers for their design requirements, you might realise it was better when you really did have to know your shit to be a designer.
- Corvo20
The only difference I can think of is that now you can be a designer without being a highly skilled draughtsman or knowing entirely the subtleties of the printing process. In that sense, desktop publishing (hurray for "undo" buttons) has simplified a lot of technical pre-press procedures and is obviously responsible for the exponential growth this activity has seen in the last decade.