THINGS I FIND ON THE WEB
This is a part of Michael Bierut‘s speech at the 99% Behance Conference.
Digging into the 86 notebooks he’s kept over the course of his career, Bierut walks us through 5 projects – from original conception to final execution – extracting a handful of simple lessons (e.g. the problem contains the solution; don’t avoid the obvious) at the foundation of brilliant design solutions. (via)
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NY Times: Michael Bierut on design before computers and how everything has changed since their introduction.
Something that has always fascinated me, I’ve said over and over, how designers use to get by without computers and did EVERYTHING by hand. All those amazing Saul Bass posters I posted, all by hand. Basically anything before the 80′s was done by hand first. The technical skills all these old designers have is amazing. I am lazy in their eyes by using the computer as a tool. It does hinder the process like Bierut mentions in the article. We skip lots of steps and go straight to the computer due to the time allowed for design now (everything is always due ASAP). Because we do that, I think there is definitely a lack of thought put into design now.
It was messy. What we did was a craft, like making a perfect pineapple upside-down cake. Even for an experienced designer, doing simple things demanded methodical, even surgical, procedures.
If a client wanted a revision, it generally took overnight. If the client was in a different time zone, it might take days. Mistakes were costly and occasionally dangerous: many a designer my age has at least one scar as a souvenir of a late-night slip-up with an X-Acto knife. Being a good designer was one thing. Attaining the physical mastery to execute a complex design was another.
Now it took a long time, for designers using the computer, to get really good at it. Anyone looking at a design annual from the 80′s can see that. The funny thing is, in the past few years, designers have been trying to fake that old design handmade look. It doesn’t look so polished and pristine, there is character to it. To my knowledge any designer starting out still has to take a typography class and learn how to draw type by hand. This is a painstaking precise skill that I really think should always be apart of any designers schooling. One word would take a week to be perfect. And it really still wouldn’t be perfect. You really appreciate and admire design after that class, if only we had that kind of time in the business world still.
(credit: Kottke)
