Zombie Mall

I’m jammed with deadlines this week, so I probably won’t get to more Fortune until next week. In the meantime, here’s a zombie mall I found, outside Sacramento. Click the photo to go to a slideshow.

Troubling Signs at the State Capitol

Difficult though it may be to believe, I really don’t want this web journal to be only a catalog of failure. But this is just ridiculous.

Bad Lieutenant (Governor)

It may seem like I’m picking on a sign guy who’s just trying to do his job, but what irks me is that doing this correctly only takes about 3% more effort than doing it in the above ridiculously horrible way. I mean (warning, huge digression forthcoming), you have to wonder how it got to be so bad (and I’m not even going to start wondering why they chose Times – a typeface designed specifically for newsprint –  for signage, and moreover for the one place where, if they absolutely had to use a serif, they could’ve gone with the otherwise terribly overused Trajan, which is seen almost exclusively in print). If you think it’s a government job and has no accountability (the Socialist angle), then of course there’s no reason to care about the quality. Similarly, if you think that that 3% of extra effort is 3% that is not specifically earning more money (the Capitalist angle), then there’s of course no reason to care either. So why should anyone care? I’m not sure I know why – just that, for whatever reason, I do (end of huge digression).

But the funny part, to type dorks, is that it’s not even consistently bad (see the green E’s). And, even stranger, is that he got the N’s right, and I’ve made that mistake my damn self. Any way you look at it, it’s a conundrum.

A. As it is; B. Corrected spacing and orientation; C. Comparison

Okay, no more critiques for awhile, I hope. After the 4th, it’s back to good ol’ Fortune. Have a great holiday.

Responding to the Response

Note: I don’t mean for this to look like a point-by-point rebuttal, because that always seems kind of needlessly aggressive to me. But I’m including Mr. Knowles’s text and my reactions together as a convenience so readers don’t have to jump back and forth between posts.

First off, I thought the response was kind of fascinating. Commenter Martin beat me to it, so I can’t claim originality, but I would like to expand on this peek behind the curtain of the design agency process. And I do appreciate Mr. Knowles’s candor, even though I find almost everything he has to say distressing in one way or another (click here if you missed the original post or Jeff Knowles’s complete reply). Okay, here’s the reply to the reply -

As with a lot of design when it gets in the public domain people can only see the tip of the iceberg, and thats all that can be reviewed and commented on, you don’t see the 80/90% of blood sweat and tears and frustration.

This probably isn’t discussed much in design education, but you bring up an interesting point. The nature of design is that the result is of course very public, and only the result is public – nobody knows about Goudy’s life in the way they know about Picasso’s – but that’s the way it works. You talk about the frustrations as though the audience should care – frankly, we shouldn’t. Regardless of how difficult the client is, the viewer isn’t supposed to think of the frustrations; in fact, if we do, the design has failed (i.e. the charge is to communicate, in this case, a movie in the voice of the client; if instead what has been communicated is frustration, the job hasn’t been done).

Michael next informed us, and asked us to research, New Deal and WPA and sent WPA posters he liked, in particular the San Francisco world fair poster (which I think was even after the WPA, its at that point we designed the custom font, seen as he wanted to see stuff that evening, we had 5 hours. Michael liked the font, so we proceeded, next he wanted to see a more compressed version, deadline – one hour to redesign and e-mail new title cards so Michael could view it on screen in the Avid that afternoon.

Michael next informed us, and asked us to research, New Deal and WPA and sent WPA posters he liked, in particular the San Francisco world fair poster (which I think was even after the WPA, its at that point we designed the custom font, seen as he wanted to see stuff that evening, we had 5 hours. Michael liked the font, so we proceeded, next he wanted to see a more compressed version, deadline – one hour to redesign and e-mail new title cards so Michael could view it on screen in the Avid that afternoon.

Definitely an enemy of the public

This is another fascinating peek behind the door of a big time design studio. And another element that isn’t discussed too often: how much control should the client have? What is the balance between doing what the client says he wants, and providing the client with the best possible solution? Think of it this way: suppose Mr. Mann had said, “I just gotta have this in Comic Sans.” Presumably (hopefully) the designer could’ve persuaded him otherwise. The idea that Mr. Mann should know anything about design and lettering just because he is successful in a totally unrelated field is as unrealistic as me assuming I could direct a something as good as “Heat” just because I’m a graphic designer.

This is a tough thing to tell the guy who signs the checks, and we’ve all had our successes and failures. But still. Being a designer is not a matter of doing what the client says they want – they often don’t know what they want, or don’t know why they’re saying what they’re saying they want. Ideally, at this point in the process, design is education and research and lobbying and cajoling (especially when you’re trying to convince a client not to faceplant his bad idea all over every bus and billboard in LA).

The rest of Mr. Knowles’s paragraph is mostly excuses about fast deadlines. My response is, again, that’s the nature of the work. I have personally never had a leisurely deadline. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose – that’s true for all of us – but you can’t blame the deadline.

In terms of the posters, and even the new cover for the original book, we didn’t design them, we saw them at the same time as the rest of the public, they just used what ever bits we had sent for the titles, thus we didn’t apply drop shadows or textures, or use Impact or what ever it is, where they didn’t have the New Deal typeface.

This sort of sums up my take on the whole of this project. It wasn’t mismanaged so much as it wasn’t managed at all. The client wasn’t managed – starting with managing his expectations, managing the deadlines, and managing the concept; and after the design was approved, its implementation wasn’t managed at all either. I know that there are a million variables in any deal, but if you couldn’t have gotten the poster gig, it would’ve made sense to put together a criteria for the posters, etc. To blame the key art people is nearly as bad as blaming the deadlines. If your company is supposed to be leading the design, then you have to lead.

Again, I appreciate Mr. Knowles’s reply, and I think it’s an instructive look inside a design agency and at the sausage making aspects of the whole process. But in the end, none of what was said mitigates the failure of this lettering. I just hope Mann’s production company didn’t pay too much for this thing. They got a bad design, with a bad rationale, and bad advice.

Dogshit – The Rebuttal

I received a lengthy response to the original post from Jeff Knowles of Research Studios and it seems only fair to give him the same space I used for the original rant. I even included an image so it looks just like a blog post. Take it away, Jeff –

Thanks for the critique David. As they say, everyone is entitled to their opinion, the font has gone down very well, but nice to see its made a big enough reaction to make someone research and write a piece on it.

Originally Uploaded by English Photos

As with a lot of design when it gets in the public domain people can only see the tip of the iceberg, and thats all that can be reviewed and commented on, you don’t see the 80/90% of blood sweat and tears and frustration.

First off, the Typeface is called “New Deal” from the economic program started in the depression in 1933. To give a bit of background, Michael Mann, the director, was very involved in the process, he reviewed and commented on everything single thing. Reason for using Neville, Michael Mann is a fan of his work, thats why we also did some of his previous films, Heat and The Insider. We had a few days to come up with ideas, Michael’s first reference was the London Underground font – Johnston, yes we were puzzled too, and I hope this sheds light on the processes we were instantly involved with. We worked on Johnston, and also offered a multitude of other typefaces which were relevant, and yes we even showed Kabel. Michael next informed us, and asked us to research, New Deal and WPA and sent WPA posters he liked, in particular the San Francisco world fair poster (which I think was even after the WPA, its at that point we designed the custom font, seen as he wanted to see stuff that evening, we had 5 hours. Michael liked the font, so we proceeded, next he wanted to see a more compressed version, deadline – one hour to redesign and e-mail new title cards so Michael could view it on screen in the Avid that afternoon. Next day, next change, a lighter version of the new compressed font, deadline – 20mins for redesign and new title cards. From first round of designs to final custom font their were probably 300 options, the director just wanted to see things, not be questioned, reasoned with or convinced of something, he just wanted to see things and make a decision, he had a million things on the film to deal with, the film is his baby not ours, we have to respect the client.

In terms of the posters, and even the new cover for the original book, we didn’t design them, we saw them at the same time as the rest of the public, they just used what ever bits we had sent for the titles, thus we didn’t apply drop shadows or textures, or use Impact or what ever it is, where they didn’t have the New Deal typeface. We would of loved to design all the applications and make a real tight consistent job, but it never works like that. i.e. the UK posters are different to the US ones, and the titles are different again.

If we had been designing a in house personal project for a WPA/New Deal typeface it would of been completely different, but it wasn’t a personal project, it was a client project with tight deadlines, calls at home from my sleep at 3am to get me out of bed to make changes right there and then etc etc, i.e. there are far more variables behinds the scenes to all projects, and the success of outcomes aren’t always whether it looks nice or cool.

J

The New ‘Public Enemies’ Lettering is Total Dogshit*

How bad is this lettering?

Judging by the placement, his schlong is also named Johnny Depp.

So bad that even my (long suffering but usually not terribly visually-attuned) gf mentioned it even before I could launch into my own usual spittle-flecked rant. She asked how something like this happens in the world of the commercial arts, especially at that kind of supposedly A-list level. My guess was that it was probably some crap-ass key art flunky trying to make a “font” and failing in a horrible and computery bad way, but getting it through because nobody involved in the production has any visual sense. As usual, my assumption was totally wrong. I make a lot of wrong assumptions, which is bad, but I’d feel worse if  the reality weren’t even crappier than my presuppositions.

In this instance, a “real” design studio did the crappiness. Which is worse because they should’ve known better. A flunky’s overreaching ignorance is one thing. A design studio’s badly miscalculated “ideas” (or stupidity or arrogance or laziness, it’s difficult to tell what, exactly, is going on here) are entirely another. Let’s see where it all went wrong.

According to this board, someone who seems to be from Brody’s studio (but who knows – it’s the Internet after all) claimed that it was inspired by WPA posters. How bad is this lettering? So bad that the fact that Dillinger was dead and gone before the inception of the WPA isn’t the worst thing about it. But let me say that again: Dillinger: 1903-1934. WPA: 1935-1943. So, okay, whatever websurfing that passes for research at Brody’s studio wasn’t as diligent as we could’ve hoped – one year, give or take, isn’t really a big deal, and I’m not usually one to let a few pesky facts get in the way of a good design. However, it’s just not a good design, and even if we give ‘em a looser timeline, the WPA thing still doesn’t make any sense, for a number of reasons.

1. The WPA style was not the result of some populist tipping point  toward modernist poster design. It was headed by a Bauhaus alum who made it, by virtue of his place at the top of the bureaucracy that ran it, the house style of America’s experiment in socialism. From the Library of Congress:

The New York poster division was headed by Richard Floethe, a German-born internationally known industrial designer who was educated in the fundamentals of the aesthetic movement known as the Bauhaus… In an essay written in the 1930s…Floethe wrote, “…the government unwittingly launched a movement to improve the commercial poster and raise it to a true art form.”

Though personally, I would question just how “unwitting” it actually was. And Dillinger was a popular/populist story (like Bonnie & Clyde, etc.), so using a centralized government-issue aesthetic makes no sense.

2. But even if it did, the execution completely sells out the idea (such as it is). WPA posters were hand lettered and mechanically separated, which, by and large, meant that they were printed in solid colors. Odd or quirky though that hand lettered typography was, it looks good silkscreened flat on real WPA posters, where up there it’s jarring, what with the ridiculous fades and crazy picture behind it.

No gradient fades.

3. Another note on execution: it’s obviously done on a computer. WPA lettering was rough, warm, and imperfect – actually done by hand. The cruddy weights and awkward forms in the PE poster look, in the clean vector lines of a computer, only like mistakes, not the charming analog error that they should (by the way Kabel would’ve been just fine – that’s the one on the far right, and is consistent with the era).
4. One more note on execution: the WPA posters were lettered. The letters themselves may have been quirky, but they were designed to work together as a specific word on the poster. Brody and Co. made a typeface and just typed it in. This is in no way similar to the process of drawing the letters on a WPA poster would’ve been.

5. And anyway, it has no relevance to the Dillinger story. People would’ve heard about it from newspapers, magazines, newsreels, and radio. Not posters (especially not posters that’d yet to’ve been implemented).

Here is a total of 15 minutes worth of research that would’ve afforded the designers a quirky, unique mix of lettering, but actually made some little bit of graphic and conceptual sense. Fifteen minutes, I guess, that the actual designers didn’t invest. Clockwise from upper right: a magazine, 1930; a hand painted sign, 1933; Dillinger’s wanted poster; a newspaper, 1935; .

Not that hard, really.

What have we learned? I don’t know – I’ve never been a big fan of Brody’s stuff (some of it was novel a couple decades ago, but nothing has ever blown me away). Does it even matter? I think so – it cost the studio whole shitloads of money (millions in media, at least) to put this in front of my eyes every time I turn around, and it was a phoned-in solution (at best). You have to wonder why they went with Brody, when there are plenty of American designers with a much better sense of our own history and, certainly, of typography (Brody, regardless of how much you like or dislike his work, has always sucked at typefaces – he may have justifications for the clunkiness of them, but that don’t mean they ain’t clunky).

Maybe we’ve learned to do our goddamned research, especially when we’re getting paid a significant amount of money. Crapping out something like that and calling it WPA for no good reason is not research, it’s not design, and it’s not even cool to look at. It’s just dumb and wrong.

Oh wait, I know what we’ve learned! It’s not always a shitty client that makes for shitty design. Sometimes designers just end up making bad, boring, crap graphic work. Maybe we’ve learned that just because we call ourselves designers, that doesn’t mean we’re necessarily very good at, like, doing design.

* I actually don’t care as much as you might think by the tenor of that more-or-less bullshit bloggy attention-grabbing headline. If I really got as angry as that every time I saw stupid and lame design inexplicably backed by millions in media buys, I’d be dead of eleven heart attacks and seventeen aneurysms by now.

Oh the hilarity.

Barack Obama, you see, is not white. Isn't that hilarious?

This whole thing is embarrassing to me for several reasons. Oddly enough, not so much for the racism, if only because the idea that there isn’t what I think of as “country club racism” – where white people, feeling insulated from the larger culture are just as retrograde idiotic as ever – is just naïve. Enough bad press and even those morons can figure out that they should keep their spook jokes to between beers on their restricted back nine.

It’s somehow more embarrassing to me that we elect people who are both so blinkered as to harbor ideas as ludicrous as racism; that these people aren’t pumping gas in some rural backwater, but somehow convinced a plurality of their fellow citizens to vote for them. And that they haven’t the wit to examine those ludicrous ideas, but rather feel completely justified and comfortable making, really, the world’s lamest joke. Did they giggle at this? Did they think it was cute and funny? That’s the other thing, I suppose – how degraded is our sense of humor, how low are our standards? And what is more, if you are an idiot who really did think the “Historical Keepsake” was funny, at least have the nuts to stand up and admit it. Behind closed doors, you people obviously think that taking offense at something like that is PC weakness, given the tenor of the “apologies.” But, come on! If you think Obama is unqualified or laughable because of the color of his skin, come out of the closet. Let us all know. Cut the PC blather of apologizing “if someone took offense,” stand up and say, yes, of course, you are just about about as big an idiot as it is possible to be in believing (really? I almost can’t believe that people actually believe it) that skin color makes some kind of difference. We already know you’re a moron. At least you could admit it.

More Death

I dig the speedy scriptalic Casket there. But what is it about capitalists that makes ‘em such a ripe target for death-related ads? I wonder.

Ingot Armed Iron

According to the ad “Today there are at least eighty-five different things that a funeral director may be asked to do.” What  those eighty-five things are, exactly, is left to the imagination.

What about the facts?

 

Couldn’t find much info on NCC, but there’s more than you’d ever want to know about the industry over at the Casket and Funeral Supply Association’s website.

We Now Return You to Your Regularly Scheduled Typography

Apart from the horrible spacing, I love them gigantic dots on the script i. And the Ludlum kind of rocks.

The below appeared as a single line of text, stacked here for enlargement. Having just done a script o, I have to wonder what the guy was thinking in having such an open (and kind of bad) o here. Curious.

And they ain’t kidding about that Pioneers bit – Bessemer steel has only been around since 1855. Still around, too. Merged, but only once (I think).

Good for GM, Good for the Country?

I wanted to mark their passing but I couldn’t find a straight up GM ad in my Fortune, so this will have to do. 

GM Only

I might have to add another category to the companies from 1934: the dead, the agglomerated, and now, the government-owned. I’m not anti-government in any way, but I just can’t help but think that we’re headed to Trabant-style centrally planned Fiatillacs.  

By the way, Fisher is now reduced to making one model of transit bus. Which is just depressing in a way. From Harley Earl to this. Yippee.

 

A bus.

 

 

Again, I don’t blame the engineers or the designers. I blame the marketers. I wish an actual journalist would dig up the marketing reports that foisted such crappy cars through the hierarchies of GM and out the other end. I have a funny feeling a lot of innovation never made it past the tracing paper stage because of those reports. But that’s just me (and yes, I’m sure there was some macroeconomic shit flying around too, but I’m a designer not an economist, so).

Off Topic: In Praise of the Difficult

Rudder

It’s Warhol’s world, and we’re just living in it.

Lately I get the feeling that everything is kitsch, which is maybe the inevitable result of a mature capitalist economy (or past mature, considering that we’re arguably witnessing its collapse). I mean, the worth of just about everything has been reduced to a singularity: that of its monetary worth as measured by sales. If it doesn’t sell, it must suck; if it isn’t already popular, how can it be worth my time? 

This is sort of reflected (in a way – this is tenuous, I know) in Internet culture. Everything is faster, to be skimmed, grasped, perhaps commented on, and forgotten. But in no way contemplated. Capitalism has compressed all values into a singularity; the Internet compresses our attention into tiny digestible bites (which is something else I don’t understand – say you’ve come up with and promoted a successful meme. Then what? What is it for? You get two million hits (more accurate to say “glances”) but they are hits of dubious, if any, worth. Okay, end digression.

But my main point is that, everything salable is, essentially, kitsch, if you buy the argument (and I do) that kitsch reassures us of the things we already know. And art tells things we don’t. In a way (and this is just to button up that opening sentence), Warhol slowed us down to tell us something we, in fact, didn’t already know. He was showing us the what and how of kitsch (and the occasional art that resides within it). But ever since then, we’ve been steadily abandoning his kind of thoughtful irony, and art, and just jumping in to a great boring pool of familiar soup. Shit, even irony is its own kitsch now – a shorthand for a set of shared and unchallenged aesthetic values.

I’ve been jolted out of this recently (and I’m as susceptible as everyone else – fuck, life’s hard, why complicate things further?) by a play and a record. The play was a Brecht joint, and, man was it difficult. Brecht himself is difficult, his messages were open-ended and oblique, and the guy has a logorrhea that would make Dostoevsky plotz. But in the end, that very difficulty was a kind of refreshing jolt. My mind is so used to being lulled, that actually having to dope out the threads of this monster (and I still can’t say I like it – but that was part of the small marvel) felt genuinely, surprising, invigorating.

More invigorating, I’m sure than this overlong post. So I’ll wrap it up –  

The other difficult (although much less difficult) thing is the new record by a killer band called Rudder. I hesitate to call it jazz because jazz is unpopular and therefore generally perceived as worthless. But if you want some music that will tell you things you don’t already know, that will take you in directions you didn’t realize existed, check it out. The difference between this and the Brecht, though, is that I love this record. And it’s still just as invigorating and rewarding. Great reviews at the Boston Post, on Jambase, and on a cool site that I didn’t know existed until just now (though the reviewer moonlights for the LA Times),

Take an (abbreviated) listen here.