"OK, so it's a funny word . . . but what is publication design, anyway? Publication design is the name for when your body begins to develop and change. During publication design, your body will grow faster than any other time in your life, except for when you were an infant. Back then, your body was growing rapidly and you were learning new things — you'll be doing these things and much more during publication design. Except this time, you won't have diapers or a rattle and you'll have to dress yourself!
It's good to know about the changes that come along with publication design before they happen, and it's really important to remember that everybody goes through it. No matter where you live, whether you're a guy or a girl, or whether you like hip-hop or country music, you will experience the changes that occur during publication design. No two people are exactly alike. But one thing all adults have in common is they made it through publication design."Publication design means different things to different people. Some people believe that publication design as is defined in the example given above. Those people are wrong, because all I did was switch out the word "puberty" with "publication design".
However, there is something of a point to be made here. In a way, publication design IS something that everyone is beginning to go through, in this current age. Publication design used to be exclusive to the elite, the editors, those with the proper technology to produce newspapers, magazines, pamphlets, and naughty photographs. Indeed, it wasn't long ago that the Neanderthals known as "the people" were resorting to desperate measures, such as drawing with charcoal and/or blood to get their fix of imagery that they so desperately needed. Even though the invention of printing allowed commoners (such as yourselves) to purchase publications, it remained a mystery for a very long time how exactly these publications came into existence, and how they were designed. In fact, 95% of the public believed it was either black magic or "intelligent design".
Starting in the 1990's and extending into our current decade, publication design took a nosedive for the worse. With the invention of the computer, the internet, and Microsoft Word, Church groups everywhere rejoiced, and began to cheaply produce and distribute their own hideously designed newsletters, pamphlets, and books. It would have been the end of publication design as we knew it (becoming something closer to publication not-design), had it not been for the innovation that accompanied the introduction of all this new technology. Designers had found new, quick, and incredibly easy ways of publishing the written word. And with it, they disseminated their knowledge and advice to the commoners, so that we all could read things a little bit easier.
And here we are today. Publication design is now a tool that rests in the many, not the few. The ability to alter a few components such as font, size, color, and positioning on blogs, email, Word, and message boards has allowed millions of individuals across the world to become amateur publication designers.
Now that I have given you, the reader, a thorough haranguing about the history of publication design, I would like to give you a few examples, so that you may come to better know this nymph that is known as publication design.
The New Yorker is a magazine I read quite frequently. Their website is a very faithful, and at times more pleasant translation of their printed counterpart. The infamous New Yorker typeface Irvin is utilized throughout the website, and abundant amounts of white space allow the reader breathing room in a traditionally claustrophobic digital environment.
Another website that I have seen pop up on many designers lists of typographically-pleasing websites is a site called A List Apart. Again, the typefaces that are chosen are very legible and eye-pleasing, and large swathes of white space allow for a more comfortable reading.
Next week, a long-winded and completely unnecessary historical background of gouache, and why it is the bane of all existence as we know it.
No comments:
Post a Comment