The New Art Directors Club Logo is Total Dogshit
The '90's called - they want Franklin Gothic Back
No, it isn’t. It’s not that bad, really. Smack dab in the middle of the road, sure. Boring, even? Yes. But this isn’t about the boring, middle-of-the-road choices that were made, or whether it’s better than Paula Scher’s previous logo. This is about how they screwed up the execution.
The r-t letterspacing is, however, total dogshit.
I don’t know why, but everyone seems afraid to properly letterspace the r-t connection. It’s as though there’s a force field keeping them from ever touching. It’s tricky, I’ll admit, but there are at least two strategies for letterspacing a word with a lower case r-t. This dogshit is now a teachable moment. And we’ll all pause to vomit at the term “teachable moment.”
Option 1:
One option is to keep the force field in place. It’s a bad option, but if you are the sort of a person who, like a chaperone at the junior prom, just is not gonna ever have no letters touching, then go with it. All it means is that the overall tracking will be a little wider.
No Touching Allowed
You should treat letterspacing as negative space, not linear spacing between the letterforms themselves. So, if we’re keeping the r-t space (the black line above), we realize how that affects the space between the outer edges of the r and t (the green rectangles above). It’s a difficult area to translate to the other negative spaces in your word, and there’s lots of room for individual interpretation. But it will help pull your mark together into a cohesive design. Unlike the original, which looks like a gap-toothed hillbilly.
A Comparison - Mine on top, original in pink, wider tracking in yellow.
Above, a comparison, with the r-t space used as a guide for the rest of the tracking in the mark. The yellow is mine, the pink, original.
Option 2 – a.k.a. the better option:
This one connects the r and t, and allows for a tighter tracking across the mark.
Tighter is better.
It requires a little drawing and a little finesse, but it works much better. Nontrivially better. Because I do think the tighter tracking in the original is the better way to go. So, don’t be afraid to have the r and the t touch. Even though, if you compared the r in Art with the one in Director, they’d look different, they are similar enough that the difference disappears. The thing about tricks like this is that, generally, people don’t notice the little cheats. They notice that everything works together better, perhaps in ways they can’t articulate, but better.
A Comparison - Mine on top, narrower tracking in yellow, original in pink.
But not to be a total curmudgeon, there is some nice craftsmanship. I’m not sure if they used a different digitization of Franklin than mine, or if it was custom made, but it’s a nice version. I especially like the rounded joins (rather than the angled join shown in the blue circle below) and overall character. Frequently, in a logotype, I’ll sand those edges off, too, because it’s just nicer and adds a little craft to what could otherwise look like just another typed-in word. So, they get some points for the subtleties.
Rounder is often nicer.
BTW, I redrew everything in like, nine seconds (because I’m not getting paid to do it), so, yes, it’s not perfect. (Man oh man, the trolls have made me preëmptively defensive. Thanks, trolls). Anyway.
Oba-meh, Update 2
Originally uploaded by prettyfnmess
Integrity is something I’ve been thinking about lately. Also dignity. And my thought is that these are things that have gone the way of the mimeograph.
Writing the words up there, they even sound quaint, if not stupid and ridiculous in the way that kvetching about the modern world makes you feel like a grumpy, out-of-touch old man (and old people are no good at everything).
There are several threads involved in this (which is how my brain works for better or worse) including:
- that the bar for celebrity has now been lowered to a point that we can be famous for… well I was going to say willingness to embarrass ourselves on camera, but I’m not even sure what this person has done;
- sub rosa shilling for companies via personal essays (now regulated by the FCC and who even remembers that once, product placement in a novel was grounds for much sturm und drang?);
- that we never apologize for anything (“sorry if someone was offended,” and “lapses in judgement” are not apologies);
- and, to get back on topic, Shepard Fairey. But I should keep this simpler and just go with the Fairey thing.
My point with the other things was that integrity seems to boil down to saying “no” to money; to there being some one thing at least that is, at bottom, not for sale. Or some one instance where you will forgo money that you could’ve taken, just because it’s the honorable (another dusty word) or at least fair thing to do. Which all seems like anachronism these days. It’s money and money is good!
Why would anyone ever say no to money? Which is why I’m wondering if dignity and integrity have any place at all in a country that has seemingly eliminated the last vestiges of “society” and now operates purely in an “economy.” But anyway.
So Fairey lied in his court documents and destroyed evidence and his lawyers have now abandoned the case. Which is something I did not expect to happen. He was (imo) hiding behind a mendacious concept of fair use to defend his image theft and the resulting badly-rendered (also popular) poster, although that was to’ve been a matter for the courts.
That he’s a cheesy copycat* is one thing. That he’d go so far to manipulate the case this badly is another thing entirely, and something I never saw coming.
The point about integrity might be something like this: if he had just paid the photographer – forgoing, really, a miniscule percentage of whatever money he’s gotten from the poster (he says none, but he’s said a lot of things that aren’t accurate) none of this would’ve happened and he could continue blithely LiveTracing photos for Nike** and whatnot (why is he called a “street artist” again?). So that’s your economic argument for doing the right thing. Hooray! We still live in an economy.
Here’s a link to the AP’s story (and bear in mind that it’s the AP reporting on a lawsuit against the AP, so, you know).
* Do click that link. Glaser rocks.
** Ugh, that’s so horrible. And it’s in my neighborhood.
Hooray for Football, pt.4
Mike Webster, the longtime Pittsburgh Steeler and one of the greatest players in N.F.L. history, ended his life a recluse, sleeping on the floor of the Pittsburgh Amtrak station. Another former Pittsburgh Steeler, Terry Long, drifted into chaos and killed himself four years ago by drinking antifreeze. Andre Waters, a former defensive back for the Philadelphia Eagles, sank into depression and pleaded with his girlfriend—“I need help, somebody help me”—before shooting himself in the head.
Looks like Gladwell’s getting his ideas* from this blog now. Or maybe I’m just part of the tipping point.
Idle Speculations:
- Gladwell views head injury as implicit in the game of football, and I’m tempted to agree, but I also wonder how much helmets have to do with it. There is research showing that cyclists take more risks when they’re wearing helmets, feeling somewhat more immortal with the protection (anecdotally, I know I sure as shit do – at least until I frighten myself enough to take it easy). Which is not to say that cyclists shouldn’t wear helmets, just that it’s complicated.
Watching Gladwell’s slide show, I wonder how much the head-on attack style comes from having such a convenient battering ram in the form of that hard plastic globe on top. Would there be as much injury if they were wearing the old leather helmets (okay, I just wanted to button up that cool image of the football player – I don’t really think they should go back to leather)?
- That said, do rugby players (unhelmeted) suffer as many head injuries? I do not know. But helmets don’t help them, according to this study.
Originally Uploaded by Creativemonkey
*Except with, you know, reporting and analysis and other stuff beyond my trademark lazy, blank ranting. By which I mean of course he isn’t getting his ideas here. But still. Hooray for football!
Hooray for Football, pt.3
I’d thought this was going to be a one-off rant, but the awesomeness of football is unstoppable.
It’s, of course, “everything that is wrong with America,” as one blogger put it. It kills children. And now it gives you Alzheimer’s.
You might think that’d be enough to doom an activity to the fringe subcultures lurking in the darker corners of craigslist, but add to that the actual experience of watching it (as reported by the fine journalists at Cracked) and it’s kind of amazing that we’d all watch (and love!) something so boring. Yes, it’s violent. We love violence. But other than that, what’s the appeal? That I do not know the answer makes me feel like an alien.
From cracked.com
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.
The Dude is Us
I know they’re gone, but with Cheney’s torture tour it seems less and less like it. And seriously, Cheney has to know that he’s admitted committing war crimes, doesn’t he? He has to. Why else would he be pushing so hard to make his torture decisions seem vital to the continued existence of the United States? Protesting too much would be the phrase, I think.
But anyway, walking around the produce aisle, it struck me that we’re all living in the Coen’s world now – (this is part glib blog post bullshit, but also part of a different rant that movie critics don’t know how to approach their movies – more on that, probably, later, maybe) specifically the Big Lebowski.
Cheney is Walter
- The war fetish, minus actual service; a love of the dark side; ability to obtain human toes on demand).
Donny is Bush
- Out of his element.
And the Dude? We’re all the Dude.
- Exasperated. Reduced to parroting the patriotic sayings (this aggression will not stand). Trying to get on with our lives, but constantly frustrated.
I suppose you could make the argument that Larry (the kid with the homework) is Iraq? Maybe? The big Lebowski, maybe the oil producing nations? I don’t know – it’s not perfect. How about Lebowski’s assistant as the Republican party? Any thoughts? Who are the nihilists? And the Jesus?
Oba-meh Update
So Fairey’s getting sued for the Obama poster. I have to say, I think the AP has a good case. If I believed that he used the photo as a source for an illustration, that would be one thing. And had he done that, it would’ve probably been nothing to get permission from the photographer, if not for the support of the candidate, then for some percentage commission. Which would be just plain fair – photographers gotta eat, too. And even if it is the AP which is suing, it’s good to remember that the AP is paying that photographer for his work (which is how we have the image in the first place – a photographer was getting paid to work).
But Fairey was kind of cheesy about the whole thing: grabbing the shot from Google, Live Tracing it, and then crapping out a poster for sale (remember, this was not a public service). That’s the thing – doing it honorably would not have taken much extra effort on his part. And presumably, Fairey’s making a decent living, so why not hire an illustrator? Why not shoot a percentage deal to the photographer? Think about the flip side – Fairey himself is hired by art directors, and he has been involved on the other side of the copying issue. It seems like he thinks compensating creatives doesn’t apply when it’s him.
I have a feeling he’s going to lose this one. Because while I’d like to think I was out front on this, there was plenty of other damning stuff out there before I got on it.
Another update: This thing is really going crazy. Glaser weighs in here. Heller weighs in here. Even though Heller and Glaser are (for my money) a bit tepid, and there may be some schadenfreude in other critiques, I do think this is bad for the field of graphic design. With his complicity, he’s become a huge public face for design, and now we’re now just another fraud. First it was baseball, then the politicians, the newsmedia. And now we suck, too.
Deadlines
Sorry, no post today (or probably tomorrow). Instead, please enjoy this photo and contemplate the limits of perfection.
Originally uploaded by me.
Oba-meh
Originally uploaded by jca2112
Post-election, I was hoping that this poster would go away and I could keep my carping to myself (and my long-suffering special lady). But lately, Shepard Fairey’s been all over the place, and while I think it’s great that we’re inviting graphic designers into the larger conversation, the downside is that the poster’s back again and so here goes.
I don’t hate it. It’s fine. But there are two major problems that just keep nagging.
The first is simple craftsmanship: it’s just not been drawn. It is more a demonstration of the limits of Adobe Illustrator Live Trace than it is an illustration. The shapes around the mouth, especially, are just horribly weak. It becomes a clip-art version of a WPA poster. Someone versed in anatomy would know how the philtrum is constructed and how the lips curve over each other and would (even if he was tracing it for a photographic likeness) be able to finesse the lines to push the perspective and the reinforce the overall strength of the image. This is what illustrators do that computers can’t (among other things).
Computer: Bad
Just look at the uneven lips, the shapeless shapes around the mouth, the incorrect perspective. It’s kind of exasperating if you get into it. Don’t even get me started on the nose (just look at the comparison! Ugh).
The second is more the fascist style of it. I’m not sure if it was intentional or subliminal, but it’s definitely there. It seems like, after the past eight horrid years, and with a great candidate to get behind, all of us Obama supporters couldn’t wait to shove some of our own fascist imagery down the throats of the other guys. I don’t think that a poster image of fascism is as bad as the more real-life shades of totalitarianism embraced by the neoconservatives of the past two terms. But still. I didn’t like the toothless fascism (they call it “school spirit”) of high school rivalries, or the subtler but slightly less toothless fascism of patriotic displays, and I don’t like fascism here, even though it’s my side that’s doing it.
Also: I am an Obama supporter. And I don’t know much about Fairey’s work, except that I did like the Andre the Giant stuff. But this thing – okay, maybe I do kind of hate it.
Back.
Wow. The holidays are over, and a nephew’s in town, and I’ve got a jillion new things to work on (thankfully) even as the economy begins its death rattle. More scans to come. And thanks for visiting, anonymous internet peeps.
