Wednesday May 7, 2008 / Filed under: Personal Archaeology
Teenaged Me
Drawn had an item the other day about a meme that’s going around: draw yourself as a teenager. I decided to cheat and post a drawing of myself as a teenager that I drew when I was a teenager. I’ve added explanatory notes.
At the time (about 1973) I had this idea to draw a comic that featured me and my friends and teachers. It never got beyond a few sketches.
Looking through the list where the meme started makes me feel very old. People in their early twenties laughing at how dumb they were as teenagers only a few years ago. A few years ago, I was pretty much the same as I am now, but I remember the feeling.
Wednesday March 19, 2008 / Filed under: Personal Archaeology
For Posterity
Would it surprise you to learn that I am a pack rat? When it comes to things like books and printed material about type, this can be a good thing, as it gives me a rich resource library I can tap whenever the need arises (and it frequently does). When it comes to other things, like old computer software, it is a complete waste of time and space.
It’s not hard to see how it happens. When it is new, software is not cheap (it didn’t used to be, anyway). So, even if you are not actively using it, it feels like it still has value. And how can you tell exactly when a piece of software is no longer useful and the chances of ever running it again are nil? It’s easier to just put it on a shelf and forget about it.
Well, time passes and it becomes much easier to see how little it’s worth to you. But then the question becomes: What to do with it all? I couldn’t bear to chuck it all in the trash (it’s a sickness, I know). Surely there must be somebody somewhere who would be happy to take it off my hands? And so there is: Dan’s 20th Century Abandonware (a.k.a., D2CA).
A few weeks ago, I shipped eight cartons of old Mac software to Dan as a donation. Some of it dates back to the first year of the Mac’s existence (Andrew Tobias’ Managing Your Money). Some of it I bought with high hopes, but never really used (Think Pascal). But most of it simply went obsolete (TOPS networking software).
As he promised, Dan posted a formal thank you on his home page—complete with photos and a listing of everything I sent. Now, if I ever feel a pang of regret, I can go to Dan’s site and still see all my old stuff, comforted that it has found a loving home, instead of an existence of guilty, dusty neglect in my basement. My hat (if I had one) is off to Dan for graciously and willingly accepting my donation.
Of course, this was just the stuff I don’t need any more.
Sunday March 26, 2006 / Filed under: Personal Archaeology
Let's Talk Type! (1977)
Just for fun, I’ve decided to share my first published writing on the subject of typography. It appeared in the April 19, 1977, issue of Metropolis, the Weekly Newspaper of Minneapolis. Metropolis unfortunately folded about six months later, but it was an incredible place to work. I may write more about it sometime.
As its production manager, I didn’t get much chance to write, but this was one exception. After four months there, I had a reputation as someone who knew something about type. Metropolis had a page in the back called “Final Draft.” It was a page where anything might appear, from short stories to comics to photo essays. I can’t remember anymore if the editor, Scott Kaufer, asked me to write something or if I suggested it myself. Some of it makes me cringe to read again. Some of it is not quite correct. There are things in it that I wouldn’t necessarily agree with anymore, and I am surprised at how jaded I sound. Keep in mind, though, that I was only 21 years old when I wrote it, and, as everyone knows, a 21-year-old knows all there is to know.
With that I present, digitally remastered, “Let’s Talk Type!”
Avant Garde Gothic (shown above) was a typeface designed by Herb Lubalin in the 60’s for a magazine called Avant Garde. All the other designers wanted to use it because it was so “graphic”. After the magazine folded, it was finally released for general use. According to Herb, only one other designer has used Avant Garde Gothic the way it was intended to be used. I guess that makes sense.
Here’s something that happens all the time. A new typeface appears. First, some big ad agencies start using it. Then more and more people become aware of it, and because of the demand more and more type-setting places start carrying it. Before you know it, it’s the most popular typeface in the country. Then, little by little, people get tired of looking at it and the popularity levels off. Around this time, it is “discovered” by mediocre-to-poor designers who proceed to drive it into the ground through over-use. Take the typeface above. It’s called Souvenir, a French word meaning “to remember”. It’s only a few years old, but many designers are already trying to forget it.
Here’s a strange thing: substituting big lowercase letters for uppercase letters. It was real popular in the 60’s. Designers thought it made words look more “friendly.” Nowadays, when somebody does this they are immediately sent away for treatment.
A simple formula for the lazy designer who wants to be successful: Set everything in Helvetica (above); “flush left, ragged right”; don’t center anything; make sure everything lines up with something else and leave plenty of creative “white space.”
Some lettering artists just don’t know when to stop. Give them a word and they’ll give you a drop-shadowed, outlined, comstocked, shadowboxed, airbrushed, over-embellished, interlocking, pretentious mess that’s so slick you need a pair of vice-grips to keep it from sliding out your hands. This kind of thing is usually used on the covers of boring books trying to become best-sellers.
One of the things that always seems to impress people is the swash. But unless it is done well, it often looks terrible. Beginners usually come up with something like the example above.
One of the things that’s like really weird y’know is like y’know the lettering stuff they do in like underground comic books and stuff like that where they kinda relate like to the reader’s consciousness y’know with like typefaces like Windsor and Cooper y’know like really funky sort of ones like that y’know?
There is a cult that’s been flourishing since the 60’s that is hooked on decorative art of the past, such as Art Nouveau, Art Deco, Art Moderne and so on. The goal is to match, as nearly as possible, the style of a given era. If this is done perfectly, the designer goes into Nostalgic Rapture and becomes a Perfect Then Master.
There are a whole bunch of typefaces, like the one above, that are made up of only circles and straight lines. Nobody knows quite what to use them for, but the type designers keep cranking them out, anyway.
The two words above (“far out”) have been set in two of the thousands of relatively useless typefaces available. Designers design them to please themselves or impress other designers or clients. About the only place they are ever used is in ads for type companies.
One of the most selfish and self-indulgent things a type designer or lettering artist can do is to make words illegible. If you suspect that something you are trying to read has been made unreadable for no apparent reason, don’t read it. It’ll serve them right.
Almost every designer in this country is an ampersand freak. They can’t resist a beautiful ampersand. An ampersand is that strange-looking symbol that comes from the joining of the two letters in the word “et”, the Latin word for “and”. Designers are obsessed with the many variations that are possible. Don’t criticize them for this, though. They would probably come after you with an X-acto knife.
Mark Simonson is this newspaper’s production manager and typologist.
(Originally published in Metropolis, the Weekly Newspaper of Minneapolis, April 19, 1977.)
Tuesday January 24, 2006 / Filed under: Personal Archaeology
Four Things
So, there’s this thing going around blogs where you answer this list of questions, four answers each. I was tagged this morning by John Martz (a.k.a. Robot Johnny). It seems a bit like a chain letter, but I enjoyed reading other people’s answers, so I’ll play along:
Four jobs I’ve had:
- Bag boy, Penny’s Supermarket
- Art director, Minnesota Public Radio and several other places
- Freelance graphic designer and illustrator
- Type designer
Four movies I can watch over and over:
- Blade Runner
- 2001: A Space Odyssey
- The Wrong Trousers
- Time Bandits
Four places I have lived:
- Beloit, Wisconsin
- Osseo, Minnesota
- Minneapolis, Minnesota
- Saint Paul, Minnesota
Four television shows I love to watch:
- Lost
- Monty Python’s Flying Circus
- Futurama
- Doctor Who
Four places I have been on vacation:
- Jamaica
- Montreal
- Lanesborough, Minnesota
- New York City
Four of my favorite dishes:
- Pizza
- Greek salad
- Aloo Mater Paneer
- Bowl of cereal
Four websites I visit daily:
Four places I would rather be right now:
- Asleep in bed (up too late last night)
- New York, 1930, with a camera
- Someplace warm
- A good bookstore or library
Four bloggers I am tagging:
Monday April 11, 2005 / Filed under: Personal Archaeology
Kristian Walker Interview
Kristian Walker interviewed me last Friday for his blog. You can read it here.
Monday September 20, 2004 / Filed under: Personal Archaeology
Mary GrandPré
Last Friday I attended the opening of a show at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design showcasing the work of illustrator Mary GrandPré. I hadn’t seen Mary since the mid-eighties when I was the art director at Minnesota Public Radio and she was at the beginning of her career as an illustrator.
Mary is best known now for illustrating the Scholastic editions of the Harry Potter books. Her success as an illustrator is even greater than I had realized—she also did concept drawings for Antz and character designs for Ice Age.
The illustrations she did for me were always wonderful, and not all that different from the much more refined style she’s known for now. (She did the cover for the first Wireless catalog for me in 1983, shown above.)
She asked me for advice back then about whether she should develop a definite style or try to diversify and do many different styles. I urged diversification. Thank goodness she ignored my advice.
Sunday July 11, 2004 / Filed under: Personal Archaeology
My First 'Computer Font'
This photo shows my first attempt to create type on a computer screen. It is from about 1980.
The computer is that tiny white horizontal shape in the lower left, a Sinclair ZX80, which I bought mail order for $200. It had a 1mhz processor, 1k of memory, and built-in BASIC. The display is an old black and white television (not included). Programs and data were stored on a cheap cassette recorder (also not included).
The “a” image on the screen was created by programming the computer to display several lines of space and “block” characters in a certain order (which I worked out beforehand on graph paper). This is about as basic as a BASIC program can get.
Unfortunately, it took a good share of the computer’s memory just to do this. I didn’t investigate it further.
Update: I remember now. The thing on top of the tv is the cheap cassette recorder I used to store data. Yet more details: The “table” is made from a piece of plywood (which I still have) and a Crumar electric piano stand (which was sold with the piano to a guy who is now in prison for murder). Not that it matters.