It seems like everywhere I turn, I see another argument, blog post, or comment debating the merits/benefits/detriments of the whole flat design movement. There are so many absolutist opinions out there; unwavering, unshakable opinions that “flat will save us” or “flat is the scourge of interface design”. Generalized opinions like these are kind of silly – here’s why.
Archive for the ‘Articles’ Category
Generalizations, Pitchforks, and Flat UI Design
April 15, 2013
Why Typographic Voice Matters to Your Brand
March 14, 2013
A company’s brand is comprised of a huge amount of interactions and elements – and many aren’t totally in the company’s control. One brand element that a company can control, and one that is often overlooked, is the voice of typography/type and how your brand is using it.
What is Typographic Voice?
The voice of typography/type can also be thought of as the personality of the typeface (aka font) that is being used, or how it communicates the message. Two extreme examples, seen below: Comic Sans’ voice is playful and childlike, whereas the voice of Jessica Hische’s Buttermilk is elegant, with a slight touch of whimsy.
While the differences in the example above are obvious, the voice of the two typefaces below aren’t so blatantly obvious.
It’s also important to make the distinction between typography (the design, layout, and arrangement of type) and type itself (the actual font). I’ll be using the two terms somewhat interchangeably here, in order to make a huge topic somewhat digestible, but do understand that both typefaces and typography have voice.
Design or Content First: The Chicken & the Egg
December 10, 2012
Tell me if this sounds familiar. You’re starting a website design project, and the client wants to tackle their own content – or maybe there is an outside copywriter. So as to keep the project moving along, you decide you will just jump into design using lorem ipsum (or perhaps bacon ipsum) before you get the real content; after all, when the content comes in, you can just swap out the placeholder copy with the real copy.
Then the real copy comes in.
All of a sudden, the spot you’ve allotted 150 words for has 500 words, the headline you’ve allotted 100 characters for has 100 words, and so on. Either your design goes to hell, or you end up hacking up copy to make it work in your design. Either or – not the best end result.
Designers: What Are You Actually Selling?
September 24, 2012
Seems like an easy question to answer, doesn’t it? If you’re a designer, you want to sell your design services: perhaps logo design, print design, web design, interface design and so forth.
The reality? Yeah, you should be selling that. But there’s much more that you should be selling. You should be selling comfort, reliability, and likeability along with, or even above, your design competence.
Create What You Wish Existed
June 28, 2012
Last time I wrote, I rambled about the common characteristics of design industry leaders. I talked about how inspiring the last conference I went to was – how it inspired me to want to do more creative things on the side, to make things and share them with people.
Well… I did that. Let me tell you about Work & Turn; maybe it’ll inspire you to get out there and create what you wish existed.
Work & Turn is a side project of ours; something we created with our talented designer/dev friend Kyle Fox. We made Work & Turn in order to deliver workshops & creative sessions in the design, type, and visual art fields to more people . The first one we’re putting on is a typeface design workshop called Crafting Type, which will teach attendees how to design and produce their own font.
(Sidebar: check out the Work & Turn website if you’re a web design nerd who’s into the whole responsive design thing. We had fun designing/building it) Read the whole article >
