Just Simple

Due to the huge amount of work I have this week I’m unable to do a proper post. However I have found some interesting examples of cities interpreted through type.

Penguin books have adopted this idea in a small ad campaign shown here.

Also there is a flickr set from insect54 that displays some of the work of Herbert Spencer’s “Pioneers of Type”. One book worth getting if you love type. One day I will display my own collection of design books.

Link to the set can be seen here:

Although I keep an analogue journal for the things that inspire me I thought I would share some of the items I have been collecting lately. I’ve been collecting little golden books you can find at the supermarket for a couple of dollars. Obvisously I’m not the target market for little golden books by look at them it’s obvisous who is. I’m impressed at the simplicity of the characters in the books which allow children to copy easily.

Recently I have also been influenced by vintage or retro illustrations which could explain why I’m beginning to like little golden books.

Some of the recent ones I have found:

During the holidays I picked up some typography books since typography isn’t my strength in design. I prefer to learn from a mixture of books and websites with anything I do.

For coding I have a selection of books I find useful, however when they don’t have the information I need I can look it up on a website I have bookmarked. I find this way much more useful in my learning then just looking it up on google. My main problem with google is trying to sift through the information. Most times I am able to find the information I need however most of the times I can just look it up in a book and save half the time.

I decided to pick up a few books on typography, layout, line and colour to try and strenghten my knowledge in these areas and hopefully to apply it to future projects.

Here are a few books that I picked up:

“The Typographical Experiment: Radical Innovation in contemporary type design” Teal Triggs.

I actually found this book fairly interesting. It shows waht other graphic designers around the world have done with type. Type has always been the bedrock of graphics. Type in other words is the most important thing to consider when designing. Something I have learnt over the last project. Type can be used in so many ways to convey what you would like the user to feel. There are so many things that can be done with type and while it’s one of the most basic things to work with it can be one of the hardest.

I’ve come to the conclusion you could do a masters degree on type, colour, line and form and still have a lot to learn.

“Typographical systems – Rules for organising type” Kimberly Elam

I picked this book last week and found it quite useful. It explains the grids used in type. Much like used in interface design. It’s actually quite a good read and I regret not picking it up earlier in the year. However late is better than never.

“Making and breaking the grid” Timothy Samras

I am waiting for this book in the mail at the moment. I felt that it would be a nice contrast to the typography systems book.