Time and process

[LewMoxinsghost]

Ok, so these competitions have me wondering: How much time is ideal for you when you are working towards a specific goal? Here at CBR the artists, designers, writers- creators all of us with different backgrounds and education have very many distinct working styles. So, in your ideal world, your heart of hearts, what amount of time is ideal for you to deliver your best work? Would it involve collaboration? With who? Under what circumstances?

While this is the topic of the poll, this space is intended to start a conversation, debates welcome, about your unique process... not really to post artwork or scripts although if you need to refer to something that's cool. And if the options in the poll thread are not to your liking, pick the one that is closest and explain. Everyone is encouraged to explain and discuss- the poll will close in ten days, around the first or second of May.

[howyadoin]

I'd say it depends - at the risk of copping out here - on whether it's a big goal or a little one.

Nice thread idea though, Lew. I love talkin' about the process.

[Hi-Fi]

Well, if I look back at my process during CBRunway, I'd say I take a longer time when I'm completely in love with the challenge. Like the current one. I kept coming back and changing little details and adding stuff and trying new things. And that after spending an afternoon researching. I just didn't want to say goodbye to the character because I was having that much fun.

When the subject isn't very attractive to me, I just do everything in a sit. I want to get it over with it fast. Get it done.

So it depends, I guess. But to deliver my best work, yes, I need some time to do a little research and try different angles and elements.

[bakla]

I'm with Hi-Hi - it really depends. I can whip something out in no time if I don't care, but if I do care, it can take days to even get started, and literally take me years to finish (like with a recently finished portrait). On the other hand, if I find myself totally into something, I'll start and finish it without sleeping in a night. I suppose inspiration is key - you can't rush those damn muses, and sometimes, you just can't shut them out.

[howyadoin]

I suppose inspiration is key - you can't rush those damn muses, and sometimes, you just can't shut them out.Over the years, I've learned to let my subconscious do all the heavy lifting. If an idea's percolating away in my brain, I just check in on it every once in awhile.

[Solaris]

How much time for a specific goal? It depends on the goal. Heh.

For doing pieces in the challenge framework, ideally for me every challenge would be a two-week deadline. I don't want a two-week deadline (except for team challenges, see below)... but for working at a comfortable pace and also dealing with real life stuff, two weeks is a good fit.

I'm going to side-step here for a minute, and talk about the team challenge this week:

The TV show had pairs challenges too, with the same deadlines as their "singles" challenges---but they have different working conditions; mainly, they're all there in one location and workroom, *and* they aren't doing any other work except the challenge (they can't be, if they're all staying at that hotel/apt./whatever). They can work together physically, and sit at the same table to talk.

For us, communication is via the internet, we're in our real lives, with varied schedules and far from each other. Our being able to talk about our stuff, and to pull it together, depends on several mechanical and time factors:

1. Internet access: if your internet or computer or power goes down, and the only place you have been working on your piece is saved in your own pc, you're screwed---and your partner with you---if it's not back up in time to finish/submit.

2. Schedules: people are at work, on business trips, at conventions, on holiday, and/or in wildly different time zones. All these things can not just double, but exponentially increase, the difficulty in communicating, working, and submitting.

3. Real Life: Aside from normal schedule stuff, people often have unusual things happen that take them away from the time they'd planned to be available to confer, or to work on a piece, or whatever.

4. Tech issues: Aside from CBR's hiccups, there are other factors. We don't all work with the same programs, or the same level of technical expertise. That, too, can cause problems---and the 5-day deadline left little time for the pairs to consult with friends in ironing out those issues.

I don't know how the others handled communication, but 'kiss and I kept talking throughout the process, not just on Thursday or till Friday. We managed, even though I had some things that had to get done, and he had to be away from home for most of Saturday and Sunday.

I know that we, and others, managed to get it done. I know there were some conflicts with some folks. This competition had a lot of added stress, because it held the potential for one person's lack of submission to fail both parties, or for mechanical issues between them to mess up the submission.

IMO, there were two aspects to this challenge:

1. Being able to deal with mechanical and time issues, regarding communications and submission.

2. Being able to work cooperatively together, to generate creative ideas and an actual product in a team environment.

I don't think the first aspect should carry as much weight as it did.

For this kind of challenge, I think the focus should be on having the ability to create as a team, even when (at times) personalities cause some friction. It's about sharing the stage, using your mind, your ideas, your gifts and your skills, to create something unique that neither of you would have thought of, or could have created, alone.

All of that can be quite stressful---and/or it can be a lot of fun.

I think all of us felt the stress of knowing not just our own survival, but also our partner's survival, depended on us producing, and producing on time. That in itself rachets up the pressure... definitely far enough that I don't think we need the "we only have five days, and we are having real problems physically communicating with one another" stress on top of it.

Which is why, IMO, for any future team challenges Matt throws our way, I sincerely hope he grants us two weeks (basically 12 days instead of 5). I'd like to see the mechanical issues drop in stress-production (by having more time to work around them), so we can focus most of our stressing on the actual art and what we create.

[Solaris]

Ok, so these competitions have me wondering: How much time is ideal for you when you are working towards a specific goal? Here at CBR the artists, designers, writers- creators all of us with different backgrounds and education have very many distinct working styles. So, in your ideal world, your heart of hearts, what amount of time is ideal for you to deliver your best work? Would it involve collaboration? With who? Under what circumstances?

While this is the topic of the poll, this space is intended to start a conversation, debates welcome, about your unique process... not really to post artwork or scripts although if you need to refer to something that's cool. And if the options in the poll thread are not to your liking, pick the one that is closest and explain. Everyone is encouraged to explain and discuss- the poll will close in ten days, around the first or second of May.


Back to the main topic...

I don't mind that the 5 day deadline puts a lot of pressure on me. You'd asked about *ideal* conditions, and yes, ideally, 2 weeks is better for what I do. But, I don't want two weeks for normal (solo) challenges. I like how the time pressure forces me to produce, to "get 'er done!" :biggrin:

As to my work, there's been a couple of times when it all ticked along and I worked faster than normal. Most of the time, I start researching and drawing on Thursday... and submit sometime on Monday. In between those times, I would estimate I put in about 3-10 hours on the pencil drawing (depends on the pic, and if I'm having difficulty with it), and anywhere from 15 to 40 hours in the computer work. (I'm a stay-at-home mom, and I pull some late nights, too.)

Let's see---this past week for the team challenge, spaghettikiss and I talked design on Thursday, and had the basics for it ironed out by evening, which is when I started my drawing. I finished the drawing and scanned in the pencil around 10pm on Friday night. IIRC I put in around 10-12 hours on this one, because I was having problems drawing some things right. (I go through a lot of erasers, and sometimes even start over.)

By around 1am Friday night (technically Saturday), I'd laid in about 2/3 of the base colors. Saturday morning, the dog woke me up early (he's scared of storms), so I got back on it around 8:30am. I took about 5 hours off Saturday afternoon to do some RL work, got back on around 6pm, and was on and off the computer until around 2am, again working on my part of the piece.

Sunday I actually got to sleep in a little, then worked on it on and off throughout the day and into Sunday evening. By Sunday night, I estimated I had maybe 3-4 hours of work left to do on it---but then on Monday mid-morning I realized I'd forgotten about a certain light source (dual, actually)... and I was going to have to go back and rework nearly everything to account for those two lights, both with light and shadow. Argh.

I worked on it all day Monday until I finished around 7pm. (There were a few breaks in there: getting son up and onto bus, eating lunch, running errand with husband, getting son settled with snacks and stuff to do after school... but other than that, most of the day I was working on my half of the piece.) And yeah, the time crunch at the end meant, as it sometimes does, that some of the "finalized" reworking I'd like to do, I didn't. That's one part of the challenge that's good for me: sometimes I want to work something to death, and at some point you just have to say "finished; done."

In contrast to all the time on the art, the write up took only about fifteen minutes. Heh. We'd already discussed what we wanted it to say, so that part went fast.

Why does it take me all that time to do a piece?

Several reasons:

1. Art skills: other than one drawing class, I'm entirely self-taught. I desperately need to go back to school, to gain the instruction and techniques necessary to improve at a faster rate, and to produce faster. I can't just sit down and draw something and have the perspective, etc. come out right: I have to work, and rework, to get it to the best I can do at my current level. I've improved a lot, but have a long way to go.

2. Tech skills: I'm self-taught with photoshop as well---and I'm not the "1200 page manual" reading type, sigh. I need to take a class in various art software programs, from a user perspective. I've worked out a way to do a whole lot of things... but often, it's a stop-gap kind of way, not the normal way the program is used by a p-shop savvy person. For instance, because of how my pencil scans and coloring go, I nearly always end up doing a lot of mouse drawing. Yes, MOUSE drawing---I don't have an art pad. When a line scanned in spotty or rough or too light, or a color fill left white spots at the edges, I have to go back over it with the paintbrush tool, to get it to look the way I wanted it. I also use the mouse to draw and work in highlights, shadows, etc.

Mouse drawing is slow, painstaking... and a pain in the butt, and I will be fervently glad when I take that class and master the techniques I need to do it right the first time, and have no more mouse drawing.

On the other hand, I'll also be glad when we can get an art pad. I had one of the first Wacom pads to come out... and it performed very poorly. I understand they've improved enormously, with many of them allowing you to draw directly on the screen---so I'm looking forward to getting and learning to use something like that.

In the meantime, I'm a slow, but determined, turtle. LOL.

Why do I do it?

Because I love creating art. It's the one activity, even over writing (which I also love), where I can sit down and work my tail off, get lost in doing it for *hours*---and have it keep pulling me back, no matter how much I've worked already. The time and the work aren't important---it's finishing the piece, getting it as right as I can. And those pieces-in-progress pull me back in, every time I glance at them (even if I'm supposed to be on break)... because when I glance at them again, I suddenly see something I missed before, sit down "for five minutes" to fix it (drawing or on computer), and next thing I know, three more hours have passed.

It's an addiction. :wink:

[DungeonmasterJim]

Project Runway for me was a way to keep working and doing tasks I otherwise might not do with art. I enjoyed it this even though I got bumped. The longest period of time for me was thinking and inspiration. If I had an idea I liked I went with it. I have a sort of standard body pose that I use for Project that was effect and I could bash out a body fairly quickly. Then I would build the costume on that body frame. It would usually take an hour to 90 minutes depending how detailed I got. I don't usually rework stuff too much because I take it more of a second guessing of myself than improving the picture. From hard copy of pen and ink I scan it at 72 dpi knowing it's just going on the web. I then use Photoshop for coloring usually just working with a single layer over the background layer. I'm forgetting the name at the moment but the layer's setting is so that black on the background layer will show through without error. On occassion I would add another color layer for highlights.

I would think the whole prcoess would take around 3 to 4 hours. Research for specific things like the state challenge would take as long as I find that research interesting or get an idea from.

For art I intend to print I usually take more time and care and scan it in at either 300 to 400dpi. This makes everything slower in the coloring as the files are much larger. I also challenge myself a lot more with (usually) sequential pages because they have to be more varied in poses and angles. Sometimes that leads to art blocks for me or I am unable to draw the image in my mind to the quality I desire because of skill limits which really sucks. In that case I have to rework things and that adds more time. Sequential pages or covers take me much longer to do than pin-up's.

DM Jim

[LewMoxinsghost]

I'd say it depends - at the risk of copping out here - on whether it's a big goal or a little one.

Nice thread idea though, Lew. I love talkin' about the process.

Thanks man. Hope this thread taps that vein. Oh, I mean that the goal can be big or small- that is your choosing too. For the sake of the discussion it is your ideal world- whether you thrive on massive projects or quickies, or a variety- completely up to you.

Over the years, I've learned to let my subconscious do all the heavy lifting. If an idea's percolating away in my brain, I just check in on it every once in awhile.

I like how you said that. Well put, and it makes sense too. I mean there is a place for consciousness but looking back for me personally some of my best moments came out when I was least self-conscious about what I was doing. Which is why alcohol is a friend sometimes. Not in the mornings, but just sayin... little joke there. It's like you have to be cognizant and not daydreaming (or drunk) but at the same time not hyper aware of what exactly you're doing.

[howyadoin]

I like how you said that. Well put, and it makes sense too. I mean there is a place for consciousness but looking back for me personally some of my best moments came out when I was least self-conscious about what I was doing. Which is why alcohol is a friend sometimes. Not in the mornings, but just sayin... little joke there. It's like you have to be cognizant and not daydreaming (or drunk) but at the same time not hyper aware of what exactly you're doing.I'd say that's pretty close to the mark. Anything that puts you closer in touch with the subconscious could work that way - to a point, anyhow.

And getting back to what I said earlier, I usually find it helpful to have a loose deadline - or none at all - when it comes to creative problem-solving. Instead of sitting down and trying to brainstorm something out, I'll just do whatever research I think is necessary, and then I try to walk away from the whole thing for a few days. Inevitably the solution will come bubbling up out of my subconscious when I least expect it.

(Generally not all at once, though. I may have the vaguest inkling of the idea, but that's about it. In which case, I've learned not to force it. Often I won't even write anything down at that point - if the idea's worthwhile, it'll resurface. If it doesn't, it wasn't worth pursuing.)



Hopefully that didn't sound too pseudo-mystical.

[howyadoin]

I should also point out that creatively at least, I don't play well with others.

[atoningunifex]

2. Tech skills: I'm self-taught with photoshop as well---and I'm not the "1200 page manual" reading type, sigh. I need to take a class in various art software programs, from a user perspective. I've worked out a way to do a whole lot of things... but often, it's a stop-gap kind of way, not the normal way the program is used by a p-shop savvy person. For instance, because of how my pencil scans and coloring go, I nearly always end up doing a lot of mouse drawing. Yes, MOUSE drawing---I don't have an art pad. When a line scanned in spotty or rough or too light, or a color fill left white spots at the edges, I have to go back over it with the paintbrush tool, to get it to look the way I wanted it. I also use the mouse to draw and work in highlights, shadows, etc.


Solaris-
I'd suggest heading down to your local library and seeing if they have any instruction books for photoshop. I've picked up a lot from books like that. (Alas, I'm not using photoshop at the moment- but that's a long story). The Photoshop for Dummies books aren't too difficult to get through and the Visual QuickGuide series has tons of pictures to show you exactly what to do.

I've also found luck searching deviantart for tutorials on different subjects. I've picked up some swell tips there.

[howyadoin]

Solaris-
I'd suggest heading down to your local library and seeing if they have any instruction books for photoshop. I've picked up a lot from books like that. (Alas, I'm not using photoshop at the moment- but that's a long story). The Photoshop for Dummies books aren't too difficult to get through and the Visual QuickGuide series has tons of pictures to show you exactly what to do.

I've also found luck searching deviantart for tutorials on different subjects. I've picked up some swell tips there.Beyond that, just ask questions. I've been using it on a professional level for 16 years.

[LewMoxinsghost]

Solaris-
I'd suggest heading down to your local library and seeing if they have any instruction books for photoshop. I've picked up a lot from books like that. (Alas, I'm not using photoshop at the moment- but that's a long story). The Photoshop for Dummies books aren't too difficult to get through and the Visual QuickGuide series has tons of pictures to show you exactly what to do.

I've also found luck searching deviantart for tutorials on different subjects. I've picked up some swell tips there.

Sol- I'm still processesing what all you've said... but yeah tutorials and photoshop instruction books are great. There's a balance there somewhere between learning and doing because once you've learned something new it can take years before you fully understand all you can do with it. I've been messing with photoshop off and on for years and I'm still learning what it can do and how to use what it can do effectively. What seems to work for me is to learn just a little bit every few days or so and stick to what I know to get stuff done on time.

There are some pure graphic artists I've met who read the books chapter and verse, do every tutorial and become gee whiz masters but then everything they do looks very professional, but anonymous and not beholden to a particular style. Which I guess is the goal of all professional designers, but not really necessarily a shared goal of professional artists. At my art school there was this sort of clique between the cleanshaven and wholesome snooty looking design students and the unwashed hairy artists. Was this universal? I think it has sort of fragmented and dissolved since the Macintosh relaunch days, but still...anyway I guess it is all in what you want.

[elheffe]

There are some pure graphic artists I've met who read the books chapter and verse, do every tutorial and become gee whiz masters but then everything they do looks very professional, but anonymous and not beholden to a particular style. Which I guess is the goal of all professional designers, but not really necessarily a shared goal of professional artists.

Uh, no 'anonymous' is not any goal for graphic design or any art in general. If you see bland design, it's either the designer isn't up to snuff or the client wanted the look to be that way. Graphic Design is really a service industry, you're at the mercy of your client. He/she is your meal ticket, your car payment. You do you whatever they want. Now, there are times when you can talk a client into a good design, but there are those times where you can't. And that's where the piece suffers.

[mattx110]

I've never seen any of these artists that "become so good they're generic".


This is usually a myth used to justify laziness.

Leonardo might be the most accomplished draughtsman of the last thousand years... Not so "anonymous", though. And he sucked at photoshop. Especially CS3. Although, the tablets at the time, were atrocious. Not like the "27 degrees of sensitivity" they got now.

And I work better the less time I have. 40min to an hour. I'm a bit... compulsive, and it's better to have that approximated looseness that comes with budgeted time, or I wind up ruining more than I fix in revisions. If something takes too much work to rework, then redrawing the whole thing is the way to go, it will usually also save time, and the paper from getting holes in it, although I get lazy and don't sometimes.

[mattx110]

And working alone is sometimes calming, but usually I can't stand it. I like people.

[Dazzler]

I need a long time to do a piece and get it exactly like I want it, and even then, I'm liable to hate it. My biggest obstacle is overcoming the screaming mimis in my brain telling me I suck at everything and just DOING IT. Sometimes, I sit down to draw and, literally, I'm overcome with anxiety about being absolute crap (thanks a lot for that, art school). Sometimes, i sit down and something cool works itself out.

With me, it's hit or miss and I'm my own worst enemy. So, I usually can't have the added pressure of having people nearby watching my process.

--Dazz

[Zeb Oswalt]

Truthfully I do a lot of things at once. I work on my Coin Artist & the Regulators Web comix. Well, doing a rookery Inc at the sight at the moment. Do some Rpging. Lesion to a pod cast. Do some other writing stuff. And if I don't work that day at my day job. I then find refrance. Then one image of who's got to be drawn for their costumes. Then I draw it scan it post it. I've been trying to slow dawn, but I got speedy so I could draw in school. When I finished school I drew em fast on breaks at work. I hate inking though. But, been doingf so withball point pens & a sharpy.since My scaner ian't quite geting the drawing fully. I hate indan Ink. It runs way to much. Never could get the line right. And my tecnical pen would always get cloged even when I wrincesed it as we were told to do. And the pen you dip is even a bigger prob. I respect comic book inkers mainly cause I hate doing it. I some times draw on days I work before going to sleep or before going to work. Mostly I get more done on my off days. Then I work on the writing for my web Comix.


Play with the dogs. And some times play video games. And some times go out. Drawings usually take me 5 minutes. Trying to slow it to 30. I was talking to some people when I was 18 about a comic they were doing (That I could tell was doomed to fail to start with.) Any way one was bragging he took 3 days to do a drawing. I was in shock. He wasted that much time on something. I can see drawing a drawing all day long, but 3 days? Not inking or painting even just the pencils. I try to slow down to ware I take an hour or so on a drawing. Maybe one day a whole day, but to me 3 days is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay to much time for one drawing.

[howyadoin]

Uh, no 'anonymous' is not any goal for graphic design or any art in general.I'd say it kinda applies to typography, though.

[originalJAM]

I hate waiting for anything... give me the deadline-- Yea it's stress, but it will get done... with all due quality!

I hate playin.

JAM,...........................

[elheffe]

I'd say it kinda applies to typography, though.
Oh, I don't know about that.
http://www.modularmedia.com/portfolio/images/typography-tree.gif

http://manufacturedenvironments.com/2007/media/30-04301-PUB%20%20%20LIDA%20Calendar_Page_03%20%20%20x717-thumb.jpg

http://www.core77.com/blog/images/alphatype.jpg

[howyadoin]

Oh, I don't know about that.
http://www.modularmedia.com/portfolio/images/typography-tree.gif

http://manufacturedenvironments.com/2007/media/30-04301-PUB%20%20%20LIDA%20Calendar_Page_03%20%20%20x717-thumb.jpg

http://www.core77.com/blog/images/alphatype.jpgRight, but generally speaking, the best typography is the stuff that's "invisible" to non-designers.

[elheffe]

Right, but generally speaking, the best typography is the stuff that's "invisible" to non-designers.

No, I know what you're saying. Probably the web is the best example of that. You're pretty limited on fonts, and if the designer gets too funny with a weird font the page won't look good or read properly.
That rule certainly applies to comics, too. Not to go off on a rant, but what's really distracting on Marvel books these days are the use of lower case letters. Maybe I'm a traditionalist, but I prefer all caps and when I see lettering otherwise, I get pulled right out of the story. Only a few letterers can pull off mixed case and the use of different fonts, Todd Klein comes to mind.

[LewMoxinsghost]

Uh, no 'anonymous' is not any goal for graphic design or any art in general. If you see bland design, it's either the designer isn't up to snuff or the client wanted the look to be that way. Graphic Design is really a service industry, you're at the mercy of your client. He/she is your meal ticket, your car payment. You do you whatever they want. Now, there are times when you can talk a client into a good design, but there are those times where you can't. And that's where the piece suffers.

Yeah, looking back over my comment I can see how some might have some objections to how I worded that... I remember the quote "good design is invisible" from school and have no idea who said that, and whether or not they needed to be smacked around for saying it or not. Not trying to get out of defending my point of view entirely, because anonymous typography and clip art have their uses.. and you could even argue architecture too. But I do feel like I should modify my statement a little bit.

I think the fact that design-for-hire is a service industry- that's more about what I was getting at. Designers are more like salesmen (I know that is supposed to be "salespeople" but it just doesn't have the same ring to it and I know this statement will probably get me into trouble too) than artists in my admittedly naive generalization. I am arguing that artists' goals are broader in scope because design is incorporated into what they are doing...subjugated... and design is made by a set of rules (perspective, color theory, etc), and don't really have a specific author. Designers may incorporate art into their designs but if they do they usually borrow the concept for the art rather than creating it from scratch as an artist would. There are exceptions... MC Escher was one who really straddled the fence between that sensitivity of difference between concepts(and the very vocal expression of it) -meaning designers- and the discipline of freedom to incorporate it all together as you feel like (artists). His designs were art and his art were designs. Nobody is really 100% one way or the other- and I think the best are flexible enough to go both directions but maybe how people view time in general has something to do with how they identify and express themselves. Maybe not... here's a gratutious Escher Mobius strip for ya:

http://www.worldaffairstalk.com/pictures/data/574/medium/mc-escher-104.jpg

[howyadoin]

No, I know what you're saying. Probably the web is the best example of that.I just meant as an all-around rule of thumb. I know I've been hearing it - and seeing it in action - for close to 20 years now.

(For people who wonder what I'm on about, the idea is that bad typography stands out like a sore thumb, whereas good typography shouldn't stand out to anyone who isn't into typography.)

That rule certainly applies to comics, too. Not to go off on a rant, but what's really distracting on Marvel books these days are the use of lower case letters. Maybe I'm a traditionalist, but I prefer all caps and when I see lettering otherwise, I get pulled right out of the story. Only a few letterers can pull off mixed case and the use of different fonts, Todd Klein comes to mind.I don't really see the problem with upper and lower. It's certainly proven to be easier to read.

[elheffe]

Yeah, looking back over my comment I can see how some might have some objections to how I worded that... I remember the quote "good design is invisible" from school and have no idea who said that, and whether or not they needed to be smacked around for saying it or not. Not trying to get out of defending my point of view entirely, because anonymous typography and clip art have their uses.. and you could even argue architecture too. But I do feel like I should modify my statement a little bit.

I think the fact that design-for-hire is a service industry- that's more about what I was getting at. Designers are more like salesmen (I know that is supposed to be "salespeople" but it just doesn't have the same ring to it and I know this statement will probably get me into trouble too) than artists in my admittedly naive generalization. I am arguing that artists' goals are broader in scope because design is incorporated into what they are doing...subjugated... and design is made by a set of rules (perspective, color theory, etc), and don't really have a specific author.
You may be wording this post wrong, too if you think that fine artists don't follow the same rules as designers. Fine artists use composition, color theory, perspective just the same as the illustrator, or the designer.
Designers may incorporate art into their designs but if they do they usually borrow the concept for the art rather than creating it from scratch as an artist would.
Boy, you couldn't be more wrong saying that. Here's three examples of designers creating their own images for their design.

http://obeygiant.com/images/onemanarmy.jpg
http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e158/mcnail/OMG/apes.jpg
http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e158/mcnail/OMG/93378.jpg

[elheffe]

I just meant as an all-around rule of thumb. I know I've been hearing it - and seeing it in action - for close to 20 years now.

(For people who wonder what I'm on about, the idea is that bad typography stands out like a sore thumb, whereas good typography shouldn't stand out to anyone who isn't into typography.)
I don't know if I agree with that as a rule of thumb. If the design uses only typography as a way to elicit a response then that rule certainly doesn't work.
Also, if no one besides the trained eye notices the font, then why have so many fonts? Why not just use helvetica for everything?

[howyadoin]

I don't know if I agree with that as a rule of thumb. If the design uses only typography as a way to elicit a response then that rule certainly doesn't work.
Also, if no one besides the trained eye notices the font, then why have so many fonts? Why not just use helvetica for everything?Maybe I'm just not explaining it properly.

[LewMoxinsghost]

You may be wording this post wrong, too if you think that fine artists don't follow the same rules as designers. Fine artists use composition, color theory, perspective just the same as the illustrator, or the designer.

Boy, you couldn't be more wrong saying that. Here's three examples of designers creating their own images for their design.

http://obeygiant.com/images/onemanarmy.jpg
http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e158/mcnail/OMG/apes.jpg
http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e158/mcnail/OMG/93378.jpg

I agree fine or conceptual artists, ilustrators, designers share pretty much the same set of rules. My arguement is that the approach to those rules is usually different and unique to the occupation and circumstance, differences being that some rules or sets of rules are followed and obeyed in one context while some are employed and creatively broken and bent in another.

And I did say "there are exceptions"...thanks for the examples though...that first piece is tight- I can't see the last two yet. Am I correct in assuming the majority of professional designers don't use from-scratch elements, fixtures, the majority of the time? This seems to be faddish in nature ... like some decades in history belong more to design being in charge and others belong more to art. Anybody know any good sources for stats like that? Or is my assumption that it is faddish in nature completely off base and there is some set of rules which determine this absolutely?

Trying to make sense of the options, like what decisions match up with what career path.

[LewMoxinsghost]

You may be wording this post wrong, too if you think that fine artists don't follow the same rules as designers. Fine artists use composition, color theory, perspective just the same as the illustrator, or the designer.

Boy, you couldn't be more wrong saying that. Here's three examples of designers creating their own images for their design.

http://obeygiant.com/images/onemanarmy.jpg
http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e158/mcnail/OMG/apes.jpg
http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e158/mcnail/OMG/93378.jpg

I agree fine or conceptual artists, ilustrators, designers share pretty much the same set of rules. My arguement is that the approach to those rules is usually different and unique to the occupation and circumstance, differences being that some rules or sets of rules are followed and obeyed in one context while some are employed and creatively broken and bent in another.

And I did say "there are exceptions"...thanks for the examples though...that first piece is tight- I can't see the last two yet. Am I correct in assuming the majority of professional designers don't use from-scratch elements, fixtures, the majority of the time? This seems to be faddish in nature ... like some decades in history belong more to design being in charge and others belong more to art. Anybody know any good sources for stats like that? Or is my assumption that it is faddish in nature completely off base and there is some set of rules which determine this absolutely?

Trying to make sense of the options, like what decisions match up with what career path.

[howyadoin]

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=%22typography+should+be+invisible%22&btnG=Search&meta=

[Solaris]

I just meant as an all-around rule of thumb. I know I've been hearing it - and seeing it in action - for close to 20 years now.

(For people who wonder what I'm on about, the idea is that bad typography stands out like a sore thumb, whereas good typography shouldn't stand out to anyone who isn't into typography.)




I get what you're saying... good typography feels so right to the eye and the mind that most people don't notice it; bad typography interrupts the flow of the piece/document/poster/whatever, and makes itself noticed.

It's like the difference between putting a mystic wand in Doctor Strange's hand, and putting a flintlock in the same place---if the flintlock gun is there, it better be there for a darn good reason, or the viewers will reject it. (And, regardless, it gets noticed because it doesn't fit what what is known of Dr. Strange.)

If the font clashes with the "feel" and "theme" of the images, and/or the message, it sticks out like a sore thumb---and not in a good way.

[howyadoin]

I get what you're saying... good typography feels so right to the eye and the mind that most people don't notice it; bad typography interrupts the flow of the piece/document/poster/whatever, and makes itself noticed.Bingo.

.