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The predictions were 100 % correct. The rules and good practices of typography for the presentation for the presentation of written materials had been refined b

The predictions were 100 % correct. The rules and good practices of typography for the presentation for the presentation of written materials had been refined by scribes and printers over 3000 years. Generally, they would be followed, because the barrier to entry would be high, equipment would be expensive to buy and it would take long to learn its proper use. Consequently printed material would be expensive, and the buyer would expect decent presentation for their money. Suddenly, Desktop Publishing as it was called, shows up, and people produce printed materials that looks as if someone hadn't even spent 2 weeks of learning the most basic conventions.

KozmoNau7 8y ago
And that's perfectly fine. Let people play around. If it looks like shit, people will tell them so. Needless adherence to a set of optuse rules stifles the creative spirit.
c3534l 8y ago
Most of those rules were driven by anything but practical concerns. Typography in Europe was dominated by "picket fence" black-letter scripts which emphasized the vertical strokes to the near exclusion of everything else, rendering the script difficult to read even for that subset of the population which read professionally. Newspapers until very recently were horrendous evenly-spaced columns of monotonous walls of text with barely any more formatting than punctuation. Until the modern era, graphic design and to some extent design in general focused on adding more and more minute details, as if the purpose of design was to demonstrate you cared by how much time it must have have taken to produce the thing by hand. The more details, regardless of their function, the more effort it must have taken and thus the more professional it must be. If you ever have the chance to take a history of graphic design course, you'll see it's basically culture driving it with little understanding or theory. It's not really a refinement created through 3000 years of scientific inquiry and we can place our trust in the traditions of skilled artisans who built this system for us. There really isn't a system until maybe around the turn of the century. It's basically just random bullshit and we're only just starting to figure things out more formally.
UncleEntity 8y ago
> Suddenly, Desktop Publishing as it was called, shows up, and people produce printed materials that looks as if someone hadn't even spent 2 weeks of learning the most basic conventions. I shall take this opportunity to remind you of the internet of the '90s...

KozmoNau7 8y ago

And that's perfectly fine. Let people play around. If it looks like shit, people will tell them so. Needless adherence to a set of optuse rules stifles the creative spirit.

c3534l 8y ago

Most of those rules were driven by anything but practical concerns. Typography in Europe was dominated by "picket fence" black-letter scripts which emphasized the vertical strokes to the near exclusion of everything else, rendering the script difficult to read even for that subset of the population which read professionally. Newspapers until very recently were horrendous evenly-spaced columns of monotonous walls of text with barely any more formatting than punctuation. Until the modern era, graphic design and to some extent design in general focused on adding more and more minute details, as if the purpose of design was to demonstrate you cared by how much time it must have have taken to produce the thing by hand. The more details, regardless of their function, the more effort it must have taken and thus the more professional it must be. If you ever have the chance to take a history of graphic design course, you'll see it's basically culture driving it with little understanding or theory. It's not really a refinement created through 3000 years of scientific inquiry and we can place our trust in the traditions of skilled artisans who built this system for us. There really isn't a system until maybe around the turn of the century. It's basically just random bullshit and we're only just starting to figure things out more formally.

UncleEntity 8y ago

> Suddenly, Desktop Publishing as it was called, shows up, and people produce printed materials that looks as if someone hadn't even spent 2 weeks of learning the most basic conventions. I shall take this opportunity to remind you of the internet of the '90s...