Michael Bierut—speaking words of wisdom—has a fantastic piece on the rise in criticism from the general public on design, most notably, logo rebrands (we’re looking at you University of California):

Few things in the design world sound as sad as “the client made me do it.” Nor do I argue that the final result shouldn’t be held up to scrutiny. We should be judged by what we make. But perhaps the question in these logo discussions could be more than: could I do better? Perhaps we could also ask: what was the purpose? What was the process? Whose ends were being served? How should we judge success? But we seldom look any deeper than first impressions, wallowing instead in a churning maelstrom of snap judgments. Should we be surprised when the general public jumps right in after us?

This is something I think about a lot and part of me is always saddened when a company returns to their old logo after public outrage (i.e. Tropicana, UC). “Logos inherit meaning,” said Simon Manchipp at this year’s Brand New Conference, “but are born useless.” Like Bierut points out, what would we say if Nike or Target unveiled their beloved logos today? Are we perhaps losing out on new iconic images because our snap judgements tend to fear the new?

(Roman Mars’s excellent podcast 99% Invisible also did an excellent episode on the UC logo, offering another voice of reason in a sea of criticism.)

A few weeks ago Errol Morris asked a question on The New York Times blog, stating he was conducting a survey to determine if people were optimists or pessimists. Turns out the quiz was a cover for a larger experiment he was conducting: do typefaces affect peoples feelings, or more specifically, do certain fonts convey a feeling of truthfulness over others. To do this, a script ran that served the question to the viewer with a different typeface each time, including Times, Georgia, Helvetica, Baskerville, Comic Sans, Trebuchet, and Computer Modern. The result? Baskerville overwhelming conveyed a sense of belief:

Is there a font that promotes, engenders a belief that a sentence is true? Or at least nudges us in that direction? And indeed there is.

It is Baskerville.

I’m fully behind the notion that typefaces affect how people perceive information but I’m not sure one face can represent “truth.” A lot of the tools used by graphic designers – color, scale, shapes, typefaces – affect how a viewer perceives information but the reasons why are largely unknown. Why is blue more calming? Why is a triangle seen as powerful but upside down seen as unstable? Michael Beirut weighs in:

Once upon a time, regular people didn’t even know the names of typefaces. Then, with the invention of the personal computer, people started learning. They had their opinions and they had their favorites. But until now, type was a still matter of taste. Going forward, if someone wants to tell the truth, he or she will know exactly what typeface to use. Of course, the truth is the truth no matter what typeface it’s in. How long before people realize that Baskerville is even more useful if you want to lie?

“The truth is the truth no matter what typeface it’s in.”

Angela Riechers, writing for Imprint, questions the use of nostalgia and skeuomorphic elements in design:

Maybe we pine for outdated mechanical items because featherweight digital objects and applications lack soul. Quickly obsolete (the average lifespan for digital products is 18 months before a new version becomes available), they acquire no patina, remaining devoid of the gentle signs of wear and tear that prove they were used and even loved. The Singer Company’s 160th-anniversary limited-edition sewing machine—made mostly of plastic, with digital components—borrows its look from the company’s iconic cast-iron machines from decades past. There’s no significant downside, looks-wise; the anniversary edition is a lovely homage to the Singer heritage. But consider how many Singers from the early part of last century are still in use today, working flawlessly—then try to imagine this latest version still operational in 2112. Its nostalgic design is tinged with even more sadness than usual; it becomes an unintentional memorial to a vanished age of durable products.

This is an interesting thought. One look at a few of Apple’s iOS apps and you’ll see old desk calendars, spiral bound address books, old school microphones, and leather notebooks. As we transition more and more of our interactions to screens, we design those screens to echo the analog way of doing things. This provides an interesting challenge for designers. We’ve been given the opportunity to develop new modes of interaction, new standards and iconography, new reference points, yet we are largely relying on the past to dictate where we go.

I’m reminded of an old article by Michael Bierut on the design of baseball stadiums, pieces of architecture steeped in tradition and nostalgia but lacking any sort of innovation in recent years:

We all know that baseball fans love their nostalgic ballparks, and I certainly like the human scale and sense of place that the best of these venues provide. But do those values always have to arrive smothered in old fashioned wrappings? Sooner or later someone has to take a risk on something new.

Riechers continues:

Perhaps the problem is that we stopped believing both in a better future and in design’s ability to further it. The thread is broken; terrorists have shoe bombs and bioweapons, and we’ve lost hope in the promises of flying cars and glittering cities hovering in the sky. The world’s climate and environment seem headed on a crash course to ruin. And so we cling to design that relentlessly references days gone by because we know what to expect—the scary challenge of the new has been removed from the equation. We seem to want design to give us the reassurance found in the recognizable.

Design is about movement. It’s about building a new future and a better tomorrow. I long for the past — the easier times, the vintage photos, the classy suits, the sound of a cassette rewinding — just as much as the next person but is this longing preventing us from moving forward, from developing new systems in which to interact?

Felt and Wire has an excellent interview with Michael Bierut on the new logo he designed for Mohawk paper. I love the way Bierut thinks about design and the purposeful approach he takes to his work. I nearly jumped out of my chair in excitement reading his thoughts on Paul Rand’s approach to logo design:

Paul Rand has written quite eloquently about how logos really are vessels for meaning. He says the best thing a designer can do is to listen carefully, and then create a vessel that’s the right shape to hold the meaning that can only be added to over time by the company that it’s representing. If the company does a good job with what their business is and what their enterprise is all about, the goodwill they generate will then accumulate in this vessel that starts empty but eventually is filled up with meaning — meaning that comes from real life and real experience, rather than from the reactions one has just to colors and shapes, which can be so subjective.

“Vessels for meaning.” I think I just found my new favorite design definition.

Terrific essay from Michael Bierut on the parallels between stand up comedy and graphic design:

Ricky Gervais, in a revealing moment, asks, “Don’t you ever think, when we make people have this feeling of laughter, and they pay us money: what if they discover they can do it themselves?” The other comics are rather stunned at this. Seinfeld shouts, “But they can do it themselves!” Gervais, almost glumly asks, “Then why are they paying us?” Louis C.K. answers, “We’re a high octane version of it. We’re pros. They can play touch football, too.” And Seinfeld adds: “But that doesn’t hurt the NFL.” We live at a time when the tools of design are more available than ever before. What client doesn’t have a nephew who knows InDesign, or, better still, a spouse with a newly discovered enthusiasm for Powerpoint? Graphic design: anyone can do it, right? Well, yes. But the professionals still understand what it means to do something well. And that confidence makes its own statement. 

I love that. I’m very interested in the craft of comedy. I’ve been reading a lot about improv and the art of the joke and continually see the parallels between the art forms.

And I especially love this little passage from Bierut’s piece:

Good design, like good comedy, is about surprise. But surprise can’t happen in a vacuum. It needs a context that establishes familiarity. If you respect your audience, you provide that context.

Good design is about surprise. We need to remember that.

Michael Bierut reflects upon the strict rules he followed while working under Massimo Vignelli:

I learned attention to detail. Working with a limited palette of elements leaves a designer nowhere to hide. With so little on the page, what was there had to be perfect. I learned the importance of content. Seeing Massimo design a picture book was a revelation. No tricky layouts, no extraneous elements. Instead, a crisply edited collection of images, perfectly sized, carefully sequenced, and dramatically paced. Nothing there in the final product but the pictures and the story they told.

I learned humility. I was a clever designer who loved to call attention to himself. The monastic life to which I had committed left no room for this. It became my goal, instead, to get out of the way and let the words on the page do the work. Ultimately, I learned about what endures in design. Not impulsiveness and self-indulgence, but clarity and simplicity.

Wonderful.

In honor of the opening of the Vignelli Center for Design Studies at RIT, Design Observer is dedicating the week to all things Massimo and Lella. To kick things off, they posted a great interview with Massimo conducted by Debbie Millman that was originally published in her great book, How To Think Like A Graphic Designer. It’s a great interview and a great insight into one of my design heroes. I always keep his thoughts on elegance and vulgarity in the back of my mind when designing:

Vulgarity is something underneath culture and education. Anything that is not refined. There are manifestations of primitive cultures or ethnic cultures that could be extremely refined and elegant, but don’t belong to our kind of refinery or culture. Culture is the accumulation of at least 10,000. You can really say that intellectual elegance is the by-product of refinement. One of the greatest things about vulgarity is that it tends to continuously disappear.

And then Michael Beirut, who many consider the Vignelli’s protégé and an equally successful designer in his own right, has written a lovely piece on Lella, often the invisible partner in the Vignelli’s working relationship. Massimo has been my favorite designer for years now but up until now, I haven’t read much on Lella: 

I quickly came to understand the relationship between these two brilliant designers. Massimo would tend to play the role of idea generator. Lella served as the critic, editing the ideas and shaping the best ones to fit the solution. Massimo was the dreamer, focusing on the impossible. Lella was ruthlessly practical, never losing sight of the budgets, the deadlines, the politics, the real world. It was Massimo’s worldview that had defined my studies in design school. Lella’s concerns were entirely foreign to me. So I may as well say it right now: I learned an enormous amount from Massimo about how to be a good designer. But I learned how to be a successful designer from Lella.

If these first two posts are any indication of what’s to come, I’m looking forward to the rest the week and extremely excited to see these two designers get the praise they deserve.

Michael Bierut talking about logo design:

I think the best work in the area comes down to what most designers would agree on: the obvious thing, it’s not the actual logo but how it is used. The Nike swash that cost $30 and was designed by a Portland State University art student was probably worth that when she first showed it to them. At that point it had no equity at all. None of the guys commissioning it particularly liked it, they all wanted the Adidas three stripes and they thought that was a good logo. In the meeting she said “these guys don’t want a new logo they want an old logo, the Adidas logo, but they can’t have that”. So finally, because they were guys and they were embarrassed talking about logos, they said screw it, we’ll take ‘example number three’ the one that looks like a check mark. They just built so much messaging around the logo and associated it with a lot of good products as well; then it became a ‘strong’ logo. The logo itself is really nothing, it’s just two curves, and it’s not hard to do.

The entire interview is a great read. You can be sure you’ll always learn something from Mr. Bierut.