Power Corrupts; PowerPoint Corrupts…Pointedly?

Along the lines of the previous post, I was reminded of a couple of spots I read a number of years ago in Wired Magazine, exploring the aesthetic and intellectual ramifications of PowerPoint. Interesting and rather amusing stuff on this subject first from musician/visual artist David Byrne (remember Talking Heads?) and also from Yale professor Edward R. Tufte.

Umberto Eco on the Lost Art of Handwriting

Here is a brief but thoughtful piece from a thoughtful guy on both the causes and the consequences of the decline of the handwritten word. Following are a few condensed observations that this article inspires, and which may be food for some further exploration: The tools we use shape us, for better or for worse, in ways which often escape our awareness. In addition to the obvious forms of liberation which technological innovations bring about, every new technology also tends to impose limitations which are often overlooked in the rush to embrace its benefits. An appropriate balance between pragmatic utility on the one hand and aesthetic integrity on the other is often complicated and tricky—but needful and important nonetheless. Form and content have a much closer relationship than we often tend to acknowledge.

Economics in One Lesson

Economics is one of those topics on which I've intended to get better educated for some time now. The events since the latter half of '08 have definitely bumped that intention up several notches in my list of priorities. The first problem I really had to tackle was figuring out where to start, which is to say, deciding exactly what and whom I should be reading. I knew just enough to determine that pretty much anything from a Keynesian perspective—which, with differences that are in the final analysis inconsequential, has represented the mainstream positions of both the political right and left for the last several generations—was out. Also out was any nonsense coming out of the far left, i.e. socialism or fascism, unfortunately including a number of Christian writers who have adopted these positions and labored to make them somehow compatible with their Faith.

Eventually I found out about the Austrian School Economists, generally liked what I was hearing from that perspective (with important qualifications noted below) and decided to dive in by first tackling Henry Hazlitt's (1894-1993) well lauded primer Economics in One Lesson. Turns out that it was a great choice. Who would have ever thought that a book on economics could be a page turner on par with an Agatha Christie novel? Far from seeming stale or out of date (the volume was first published in 1946 and last updated by the author in 1979), the material is immanently relevant given our current state of affairs, and delightfully readable to boot. I started off underlining what I thought were key sentences from the Prologue and Chapter One, and then gave up when I realized that the whole thing needed underlining! (Just read the first two-and-a-half pages from Chapter One on Amazon and you will see what I'm talking about.)

Hazlitt's thesis statement, for which the book as a whole is simply a cyclical reiteration is as follows:

…the whole of economics can be reduced to a single lesson, and that lesson can be reduced to a single sentence. The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.(p17)

In each chapter of the book, Hazlitt re-illustrates this fundamental principle by applying it to matters such as government subsidies, government attempts at manipulating supply and demand via price fixing, controls on imports and exports (including tariffs), rent controls, minimum wage laws, inflation, and a number of other all too familiar phenomena.

To sum up, I really enjoyed and profited from this book, and plan to read further on this topic from other writers of the Austrian School. That said, I don't want to hold forth a generally glowing review without acknowledging that these guys do have their own blind spots and that those are not insignificant. As a Christian, I am bound to affirm that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of all knowledge and wisdom (Proverbs 1:7; 9:10; 15:33). That includes wisdom and knowledge in the area of economics. Through the mechanism of common grace, I believe that the Austrian Economists are generally right-on in their astute observations of how the economic aspect of the world works and are generally far less deluded than other competing schools of thought on the matter. However, their essentially secular viewpoint does leave them open to certain deceptions and shortcomings, the chief of these being the fundamental assumption that man is basically good and that his greatest problem is not sin but ignorance. In addition, I must also bear witness that true and enduring freedom and liberty—in all their various forms, including economic—are blessings that are only found in Jesus Christ. Any attempts to idolize individual freedom and liberty by abstracting them and attempting to construct a comprehensive worldview around them (e.g. Ayn Rand, a noted favorite of both the Austrian Economists and their Libertarian political chums) is just as much doomed to frustration, failure and wretchedness as any other false ideology.

Confession

Okay, this is a confession inspired by the previous post: I actually take the time to manually insert smart quotes and apostrophes (those would be these “ ” ‘ ’ instead of these " " ' ' , which are given by default) into the HTML code for all the posts on this blog. Isn’t that sad? (Yep, I even got that last one.) That’s one reason why I don’t post more often than I do. Oh and trust me, there’s even more inane stuff that I would fix if my HTML skills were up to the task!

Max Kerning

This walks a rather fine line between humorous and just a bit creepy, but it’s definitely worth checking out. An amusing and well executed caricature of the overly-fussy tendencies to which most graphic designers are prone, to varying degrees of course. :)

Thanks to my ole pal Jay Thatcher for steering me to this.

Typedia

Just found out about this promising typographical resource from some other designer friends. (Gratias, Lord Pinnix, and Kristi too!) And be sure to check out the great article Behind the Typedia Logo Design, by astounding and renowned logo and ambigram creator John Langdon. (Sheesh! Is that enough hyperlinks for such a short post?)

A Gallery of Famous Logo Redesigns

This is pretty interesting. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the original Apple logo before. I agree with most of the writer’s and commentators’ assessments, though I can’t believe they didn’t include the recent AT&T (whoops! I mean, at&t) redesign in the mix.

Colligo, Ergo Designo

I’ve been casually thumbing my way through Instant Graphics, an inspiring look at the creative processes of other designers, particularly those whose work relies heavily upon collage and the appropriation of clip art, found objects, ephemera, etc. One of the recurring themes brought out in this book is how people who are designers also tend to be avid collectors—collectors even (especially?) of things that many other people would deem “junk”.

Many designers and illustrators are explorers and archivists of their immediate environments, scouring the city streets, parks, river banks, gardens, markets, and even their own studios, for objects, textures, and source material…many designers inevitably find themselves becoming collectors and/or curators of certain types of imagery or objects—insects, sports cards, magazine clippings, old catalogs, engravings, or prints. Some develop a fascination with a specific type of image or object—perhaps from an accidental find—and set about actively researching and building collections of them, which, in turn, begin to influence their subsequent work. —p24

Sean Adams, of AdamsMorioka, has the following to say:
“I have never met a designer who is not a closet collector of something. Whether it’s thimbles, Japanese packaging, or rocks, everyone has one collection. Being a collector is just like being a designer; you don’t choose to be a designer, it chooses you.”—p98

As one who can certainly identify with this, I am driven to muse: do we become designers because we are obsessive collectors?…or is the impulse to collect driven by one’s work as a designer?…or is it all a vicious cycle with no beginning or end? I confess to being a collector of books, magazines (most notably National Geographic), newspapers, LP records, old photographs, letters, documents, postcards and correspondences, wine bottles, timepieces, posters, maps, prints, 8mm film and projectors, old shoes, spent rounds of ammunition, currency and coins, fragments of flooring, windows, hardware, masonry and woodwork culled from old buildings and other structures, samples of nature (flowers, leaves, bark, nuts, bones, feathers, dead cicadas, turtle shells, sea shells, and rocks), drawings that my kids have made, nautical and/or astronomical paraphernalia, and anything having to do with trains.

How about you? What collections do you keep? Or perhaps I should ask, what collections keep you?

Bad Type Sighting, 090723

Once again, an elegant script is given “the treatment” in hands that weren’t quite up to the task. Spotted outside Hardee’s in Sequatchie, Tennessee.

Graphiconomics

Strike a blow for tasteful design and sound economic principles all at the same time! The Ludwig von Mises Institute offers some snappy merchandise and apparel, including some items featuring this version of their logo—an attractive typographical arrangement of a font which looks vaguely familiar to me…

The Austrian Economists T-Shirt Collection is quite whimsically subversive as well.

New Logos

A couple of new logo projects to show off:

a suite of logos for LifeWay’s choral music preview subscription clubs…


and another for a surgical practice in Chattanooga, TN.

Case Study: The Advent of Evangelicalism cover

This is a project I completed a few months back, but it has occurred to me that it provides some useful examples of the range of sensibilities and breadth of knowledge that an effective design solution often demands. Starting with the most obvious, a successful designer must of course possess a competent grasp of the principles of visual communication: rhythm, proportion, balance, color, etc. But a truly successful designer is no mere visual arranger; compelling design must accomplish much the same things that a compelling poem must do. The best design trades in currency minted of metaphors, allusions and associations. In fact, though graphic design is usually thought of in strictly visual terms, it can in many respects be said to bridge the gap between the literary and the visual arts since it deals very heavily in both words and imagery. In addition, a reasonably well-rounded knowledge that extends into other spheres and disciplines (science, mathematics, literature, music, history, religion, etc.) often proves a very handy thing for a designer to have. That sounds pretty lofty, and the truth is that (thankfully, in fact) not every job is that demanding—sometimes the basic skills of a decent visual arranger are enough to get you by. But it’s certainly nice to be able to take advantage of the opportunities when the job calls for a bit more thoughtfulness.

Case in point: this project was a redesign of an academic title which originally released in Great Britain.

The book is a scholarly re-examination and assessment of the relationship between the Christian evangelical movement and the Enlightenment, both of which came into their own in the eighteenth century—rather heady stuff, to be sure. (Though I myself admit to having some degree of unprovoked interest in the topic, I suspect that places me on the outer fringes of the bell curve.) The publisher wanted something a bit more, shall we say, “inviting” than the original cover design, in the hopes that someone (other than myself) without a PhD in Theology might be persuaded to pick it up, at least.


I provided three initial designs to the client: one tending toward elegant, the second rather understated or even minimalist, and a third adopting a more edgy and contemporary grunge attitude. The first was the initial favorite until concerns began to be raised that the scope of the material was broader than was suggested by the use of the single period image (of John Wesley). Finding and securing rights to additional images of that kind (along the lines of what was done on the original, British edition) proved to be unfruitful, and so the second concept, the one with the open window, was moved to the number one slot and came out on top at the end.

Now, I can hear some folks muttering that I pulled a fast one over on the client here by throwing together some run-of-the-mill type and a rather blithely irrelevant image, probably blowing a good deal of smoke in the form of trumped-up rationalizations and explanations in the process in an attempt to sell the concept. Actually, not at all. While this concept is the most simply executed of the three on the one hand, it is also the most thoughtfully executed on the other. The open window and the breeze-blown curtain allude to the Evangelical movement as a genuine “breath of fresh air” within the broader context of Christianity and to the Great Awakenings of the period as much-needed revivals and stirrings of God’s Spirit. (The word “spirit” carries the literal meaning of “breath” or “wind” in all the important ancient languages—Hebrew, Greek and Latin—and appropriately, the work of the Holy Spirit in Scripture is often accompanied by wind, e.g. Acts 2.) The image is also carefully cropped such that the muntins of the window at the upper right suggest a cross. As a final stroke, the font used on this cover was given special consideration: it is Baskerville, originally cut by Englishman John Baskerville in the 1750s—a thoroughgoing Enlightenment typeface if ever there was one—and its choice is intended to subtly reinforce the ties to the historical period with which the work is concerned.

Of course, probably fewer than one peruser out of a hundred will correctly identify all of those allusions and associations (particularly the last), but that really isn’t the point. Their sum total lends the sort of synergistic confidence to the design itself which generally speaks affirmingly to the onlooker, whether or not he or she can articulate precisely why, and that is what makes such subtleties an important part of the design process. And at any rate, I at least know they’re there—and now that I’ve spelled out my intentions as the designer after the fact, you do as well.