the design observer newsletter design history, book reviews, exhibition news and more volume 1 issue 14 november 14
design history
retro design
User Friendly Paul Rand by Steven Heller
pg2
Whirlwinds, Snowdrops, and Big Bangs: Vintage Fireworks by John Foster
pg3
P
aul Rand did not coin the term “user friendly.” He would have hated such trendy jargon. Yet he did, arguably, introduce the “friendly” concept, creating the first friendly computer-user packages that paved the way for human-centric digital age products. Rand probably would say my assertion was “for the birds”, but consider the following. continued on page 2
ex h i b i t i o n n e w s
typography
Posters by Hans Hillmann for Jean-Luc Godard’s Films
On Web Typography: Smart Quotes
by Rick Poynor
by Jason Santa Maria
pg4
pg5
Published by The Design Observer Group Contributors: Steven Heller, John Foster, Jessica Helfand, Rick Poynor, Jason Santa Maria designobserver.com
The Design Observer • Volume 1 Issue 14 • November 2014
PAGE 1
design history
User Friendly Paul Rand B Y S T EVEN HELLER
continued from page 1
Decades before Apple introduced its Newtonian-inspired rainbow-colored logo, Rand helped develop IBM’s populist aura through commercial packages for Selectric typewriter starter packs, ink ribbons and type balls that were vibrantly festooned with multi-colored stripes, pastel confetti and abstract flower blooms. Not your run-of-the-mill identity for a serious business machine manufacturer, these cheerfully designed boxes were gifts intended for IBM’s consumers from a company whose historic edict — “Good Design is Good Business” — continues to resonate. “Ideally, beauty and utility are mutually generative,” Rand wrote in his first monograph, Thoughts on Design (1947), which is being republished this week by Chronicle Books. It was an ideal made real at IBM, which enabled him to inject his Klee-Matisse-Picasso-inspired graphic good vibrations into IBM’s product line. Rand’s zealous belief in the power of wit and play was an outgrowth of a childhood passion for comics, which in turn fed his impish side. “I always steered towards toward humorous things,” Rand once told me. “People who don’t have a sense of humor really have serious problems.” Despite Rand’s often misinterpreted dogmatic adherence to a Modernist credo — the so-called “rightness of form” — and his total commitment to “Design is a way of life,” he had an incredible sense of humor. Moreover, he believed that design had transformative powers that in part, through wit, could positively appeal to the masses while also serving the client. “To design is to transform prose into poetry,” he wrote in Design Form and Chaos. Designing with joy was his means, resulting in a better relationship with the consumer.
The Design Observer • Volume 1 Issue 14 • November 2014
PAGE 2
retro design
Whirlwinds, Snowdrops, and Big Bangs: Vintage Fireworks Labels B Y JO H N F O STER
I n t h e U n i t e d S t a t e s , fireworks are synonymous with the celebration of our independence. All across America, where fireworks are legal, brightly colored tents spring up on the outskirts of town announcing the coming of the July 4th holiday weekend. But when I was a boy, growing up in Winston-Salem, NC in the 50s and 60s, fireworks were contraband of the highest order. It was against the law to buy them in the state and you were definitely breaking the law to light one in the city. If you got caught, you were told that it would go on your “permanent record” for the rest of your natural life. College was out and the State Penitentiary in Raleigh was most likely next. Parents obviously forbade us to have any, so owning even a single firecracker — much less a lot of them — gave a kid real street cred.
“i remember once going to a friend’s house to see his secret stash of fireworks” I remember once going to a friend’s house to see his secret stash of fireworks. It was awe inspiring: cherry bombs and M80s were the highest, most sought after item, and he had a bag full of them. In those days, the street value of an M80 might go for $2 bucks on the black market — a hefty sum when a 12 oz. Coke could be had for a mere 12 cents. To own one, you just might have to part with a prized baseball card — or, God forbid, your precious, tattered copy of Playboy magazine. Yes, we were boys and fireworks were the things of adventure. To me, they still are.
The Design Observer • Volume 1 Issue 14 • November 2014
PAGE 3
ex h i b i t i o n n e w s
Posters by Hans Hillmann for Jean-Luc Godard’s Films B Y R I C K POY N O R
A t t h e K e m i s t r y G a l l e r y in London there is a rare opportunity (until September 27) to see film posters by the German graphic designer Hans Hillmann, who died in May. While many of these modernist designs will be familiar to those who know the history of German design, they are not well known in the English-speaking world. The exhibition, curated by Isabel Stevens, production editor of Sight & Sound magazine, is Hillmann’s first in the UK. The twenty-seven posters at Kemistry represent classics of world cinema such as Robert Bresson’s Pickpocket, Kenji Mizoguchi’s Ugetsu Monogatari, and Jacques Rivette’s Paris Belongs to Us. The films’ importance has helped to ensure an unusual amount of press attention for the show.
Masculin Feminin,1967 (released 1966). On show at Kemistry Gallery.
The Design Observer • Volume 1 Issue 14 • November 2014
PAGE 4
typography
On Web Typography: Smart Quotes WORDS BY JASON SANTA MARIA
Proper quotation marks are often overlooked, but it’s important to know the difference. Curly quotes, usually called smart quotes, commonly look like filled-in 6s and 9s. Straight quotes, often called dumb quotes, are usually straight and vertical (FIG 1). Curly quotes are the correct punctuation for quoted text and dialogue. Dumb quotes are called as such because they are not only incorrect, but are also an instant sign of sloppy typography.
U s e o f i m p r o p e r q u o t a t i o n marks shows a designer who either hasn’t learned the right way to signify quoted text, or didn’t spend enough time looking for a font with full punctuation support. Punctuation is a system. That’s why proper quotation marks and apostrophes look like they’re part of the same family as commas, periods, colons, semicolons, and more, whereas straight quotes don’t. Straight quotes stem from the time of typewriters when keyboard real estate was at a premium, so reducing open and closing quotes to one key was economical. Unfortunately, this same choice of economy was copied to the computer keyboard and proliferated in the days of desktop publishing. Unless the software you’re using corrects them, the default result when typing a
quotation mark from your keyboard may be straight quotes. On the web, due to lazy implementations or force of habit, we’re still plagued with dumb quotes. Luckily, it’s easier than ever to get proper quotes and apostrophes on your web pages, by either using the raw characters and specifying UTF-8 encoding or using HTML entities. Better still, use one of the many CMS plugins out there to automatically convert dumb quotes to proper quotation marks. Any of those methods is better than resorting to a claw-handed key combination to type them out. I made a single-serving site called Smart Quotes for Smart People to show how easy it can be. For more info on quotes and dashes, check out Jessica Hische’s excellent site Quotes and Accents.
The Design Observer • Volume 1 Issue 14 • November 2014
PAGE 5