Comments on: Over Design

By: indi.ca » Scarcity And The Good

indi.ca » Scarcity And The Good — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 14:54:31 +0000

[...] Wars for example. Better CGI does not equal better storytelling. Or Photoshop and modern computing. More fonts and colors does not equal better signs. Or even human food consumption. More money does not ensure a better diet. Sometimes scarcity is [...]

By: Hikkaduwa School of Design 2 « Cerno

Hikkaduwa School of Design 2 « Cerno — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 03:21:12 +0000

[...] types of signage just reminded me of a old post on indi’s site on Sri Lanka graphic design. Posted in Sri Lankan English, Travel South Asia, Travel Sri Lanka, Languages in Sri Lanka, [...]

By: hashir

hashir — Sun, 04 Mar 2007 09:51:07 +0000

haha.. yeah i’ve seen this spoof.. what if microsoft created the iPod!! lol

By: cerno

cerno — Sun, 04 Mar 2007 09:05:23 +0000

This spoof I found on the-benevolent-dictator.blogspot.com has an interesting take on the whole topic. Best seen than told.

By: hashir

hashir — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 18:07:53 +0000

In my point of view Indi makes a point clear which is so damn true.
Just because you know to use Photoshop or any such similar software does not mean that you are a great designer and make brilliant artwork. It’s like this – all of us know how to hold a pen, and almost all of us know how to use to properly and write letters, and with a combination of letters write words, and form sentences and so on. Literally any one reading this comment could do that.. but the ability to write using a pen does not mean that you are a great writer or an author or a poet or anything. It’s just that you know how to use the tool, but you don’t have the artistic idea that an author or a poet would have.

it’s kind of the same thing with graphic design. photoshop, indesign, illustrator, corel draw – all these are just tools. and there are thousands of youngsters in this country who know to use these tools very well. but what they lack is art, and getting the message conveyed through their art work.

if you see many of these rock concert posters or these posters done for Interact Club functions, all these look extremely jumbled and you’d even notice that all most all the effects in photohop used in them. so many clashy colours are used, and allmost all typography rules are kinda “ignored”. as Indi says i think that the “understanding” should be taught properly.

By: deshan

deshan — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 18:37:19 +0000

I find a good way to get lankan designers to cut down on the decoration is to ask ‘em to sketch the entire layout on a napkin. It doesn’t need to be pretty but every component must be represented.

You then ask them to annotate all the steps needs to accomplish the design. By the time they get to the third ‘open image in photoshop, select area for fade, add fade with a tolerance of thirty-two, save image and import into indesign ‘, they soon get the point.

What I find interesting about a design process that places a premium on a high signal to noise ratio is that the designer then gets involved in the best bit about design- communicating. You get to help figure out which bits the of data are even *worth* representing in a design. Often a client can be short-sighted on things like this (cerno’s yellow stars) and if a designer spends his time thinking about the dissemination of ideas rather than number of layers required to get that ‘classy’ metallic look, we’d all be better off.

By: cerno

cerno — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 12:13:42 +0000

This is anecdotal but I think a bulk of design work is driven by trying to squeeze the most amount of stuff on to the page/surface. For the bean counting type white space = wasted money. Not about emphasising the right things to transmit the desired meaning. This from hearing my boss patiently talking clients out of splattering “Call Now!!” in big bright yellow stars all over the page (web and paper).

Its likely that eye clutter on the walls gets instinctively tuned out. The whole process devolves into visual spam at the extreme case – where the quality is pretty low in every way. I remember noticing the pixels on a cheesy bill board in the city – from a moving car.

indi’s spot on about cacophony of elements thing. There’s a similar issue in the 3D (animation) side of things. Too many demos tapes by people unloading particle effects to a techno sound track. Usually at the default settings.

I’m not claiming to be a design genius. Besides the usual insecure self criticism, good design is a sensibility that has to be cultivated by doing. Harder when the clock is ticking.

Got a lot of doing ahead.

By: David Blacker

David Blacker — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 07:17:59 +0000

Another reason that communication gets cluttered is because many graphic designers and art directors don’t understand the concept of division in depth (3D division in a 2D space), or if they do, they don’t know how to achieve it effectively. Obviously, if a poster has to be divided into four equal spaces, there are better waays to do it thaan just quarter it.