design for the screen

in the beginning it looked like shit. but was kind of hip because it was new.
so however inept the designer was,a s long as it was on the we bit was cool.
soon some tried to do this shit offline.
and where's online typography and design going now?
well,for a while there was this weird debate about web and screen typography.
kind of like what used to work in print wouldn't work on the screen.
It was true for a bit. the screen resolution was so crude that only the boldest ugliest crap would work anyway.
Thankfully we're back to some basics here.

Good typography is making a come back on the screen.

Old easy to read fonts such as Century Schoolbook just reads beautifully on screen.

Wired looks okay, easy to read, old fashioned type, if youy like. Looks totally modern though.
There are plenty of others going in that direction.

So young designers need to learn history again. I always maintained you need NOT start with knowing your history. I stress
it's better to start doing your own shit for a bit. Out of passion and interest. If the flame is with you after a while you will get curious, wanting to know more, and soon enough you start to get interested in the lineage. The heritage.

In time, we all need to understand and know our and Bodoni, Caslon, Baskerville, Plantin, Morris fuller Benton, Tschichold, Robert Black, Neville Brody, Fred Woodward, and many others, in no particular order, all brilliant designers and most of them type cutters. Ranging from the 16th century to almost modern times (like 20 years ago.)

Is there anything really that different from the old print days?
Well, not really. Not as far as legiblilty goes. No not with modern screens. Other than we might be more used to read more various typefaces as we've been exposed to a significantly greater variety of type than generations before us, which gives the typographer more freedom. What used to be hard to read 20 years ago, is now easier to read. We're trained.
That, however, doesn't give us less responsibility. I'd hate tosee type fall back into the gutter.
Type needs to be beautifully and carefully set and handled to look and read well. Whether it's a brutal no nonsense Railroad Gothic, the ubiquitous Helvetica or a fine Didot.

It is, still, all about good design.
Combined with interesting and intriguing ideas.

However, there's a little thing that is somewhat different on the screen compared to print; a touch that was never used that much in print, and still isn't. The shaded stuff. The graded stuff. The shadowed stuff.
It simply looks cheesy on fiber, but somewhat more modern and dimensional on the screen. Done right, carefully, not overly obvious, it works, like in the example form Apple above.

Well. As usual I was about to say, and said,, Apple gets it right. The design in the pix above, a slice of their site, could have been a page out of a brochure. Besides the careful grading.
It's a fresh and modern feeling web page.

If only all those great old media typographers and designers could embrace their screen, things would start to look fine.
Most sites look like crap.
We need the old media guys and gals to make this great.
tjey may not LIKE the fragmentation of stuff, but it doesn;t mean they don't get it if thew want. it doesn't mean they can't make it loom fantastic.Think if it this way.
You create a great game. Lot's of cool levels. Action, Stuff.
But if you can't get the carachters to look right you still don;'t have a good game.

Bring old schol and new school together. don't shy away form each other.
Old school agencies are too desperate hirting chief new technology officers , when they shoukd instead hir great ecnicians and have them work toegeth with great designers and evetybosy in between.
the chief new technology officer is coming forn the wronf end of the specrrum big fcking mistke if you ask mne. but the big old staid agencies are despreate, so they become dumb. Really dumb.
Goodby might be aqn old estsblished creative shop, but hey, ther are still creativeso they got it.
the Ogilvies of the world didn't. Even if their Toronto office manage to win some wrb accoladesfor the dove viral, for a campign thaqt was in facdt invented old school, by a german team, and then brought out by the london agency, adn of course consequently hi-jacked as the the great achievemnt of the Ny office. I doubt my old boss knew anything about this campaign before it beocme a success story.
I'm sure an honest Steve Hayden, of 1984 Apple fame, would agree, but he won;t because he's now big biz as well. (Love you man, nevertheless.)
Hey, the only guy not afraid to cuss and curse and gripe is George Parker of www.adscam.typepad.com fame
Either he's comfortably economically independent, although I doubt it as he lives in bloody Idaho, or he thinks he will die soon

Howanyfurtherwaymore.

The embarrassing fact is that if you randomly pick 100 sites and 100 magazines, the magazines would win hands down on most very aspect of design and content. Including photography, typography, legibility, navigation, and not least, as said content. (Yes, I know, wired has more or less, more really, of the same content online as offline, but still, their printed magazine works better, besides the fact that they can do some video online as well. But who the fuck needs video if it isn't terrifically great? As my friend George Tannenbaum (www.adaged.blogspot.com) says, nontent is not content.

I'd encourage the old guard to employ their skills to the computer screen.
There's no mystery about it.
Just bloody do it. And hey, all clients out there, don't think it's such a mystery, and don't think you need to be 12 years old to get it.

I guess an old pro like Lee Clow has something of a finger or more in this example of Apple's simple brilliance.
And most everything Apple does.