Wednesday 5 January 2022

Chock full of designer typographic whimsy (1/5)





















The book is volume one, published in 1996 and probably future books have the same contents of very little merit. The samples shown are equally from design colleges or professionals, I found it hard to tell the difference and neither groups seem to have taken on board that type conveys a message and needs to be read to put that message across.

So much of the contents, at first sight, give no indication of what they are. A book jacket has certain characteristics that say this is a book jacket, likewise with a poster, CD cover, Annual Report, magazine cover and editorial et cetera. Luckily every piece has a caption that includes 'Work description', otherwise I found it impossible to tell with all this work.

Nearly all the pieces reflect designer whimsy, that is, playing around with display type and columns of text to please the designer rather than thinking of the reader. It looks like design education, at least as far as the contents of this book are concerned, isn't bothered about the reader. 

Thankfully I picked my copy, recently, for next to nothing. I was drawn in by the title and thought it might be interesting, sadly not.

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