Aaron Bell » web http://aaronb.net Just another WordPress weblog Mon, 12 Apr 2010 16:30:12 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.5 en hourly 1 Inspiration http://aaronb.net/articles/2009/02/inspiration/ http://aaronb.net/articles/2009/02/inspiration/#comments Fri, 06 Feb 2009 09:33:00 +0000 Aaron http://aaronb.net/?p=123 Of late, I’ve become increasingly interested in experimenting more with typography and grid structures to use in my design. These are two areas that I have long wanted to explore, but haven’t had the opportunity or time to invest. Well, I still don’t have that much time, but I’ve decided to start exploring anyway! That’ll show me. In any case, it is always good to make time for those important things in life.

I’ve started off focusing on Swiss type and grids, since they have been so influential in the development of modern design. One of the first sites I came across that really caught my eye was the blog / portfolio of Wilson Miner. He does so many things right with this design and coding, I may have to borrow elements from it. Of course, he borrowed elements from this poster by Josef Müller–Brockmann. Seeing that poster myself, I started to wonder if there were any other swiss posters that had layouts or grids that I would want to base my own designs off of. This led me to the following sites:

The Grid System is a blog of articles centered around the ubiquitous grid. There are a large number of excellent articles there, so I highly recommend checking it out if you are interested in developing and using grid systems in every day life.

Typographic Posters is a site dedicated to presenting and preserving posters involving typography and graphical elements. To get one’s work on the site, you have to apply especially and show your work to be of a certain level of excellence. However, as a resource for inspiration, it is wonderful. There are tons of different styles and designs from modern designers all around the world. I especially liked the work of Benjamin Lambinet, but I will need to spend more time on the site! I do wish their user interface was a bit better though. Navigating the site via the sidebar proved a chore since with every reload, the scrollbar would reset to the top, regardless of which artist you were currently looking at. Ultimately, I took to just opening artists in new tabs and breaking the experience for the sake of ease-of-use.

Speaking of ease-of-use, I point you now to the Swiss Poster Collection. Run by the Swiss National Library and other prestigious agencies, it aspires to be a searchable collection of swiss typography posters. As with most public / government run sites, the design and UI aren’t particularly well executed, but if you know the name of the person in particular you are researching, it will provide large, high quality images of posters by that person. A bit hit or miss, but could prove useful. I really wanted a “browse” option, but could not find one…

One of the best sites I came across was Swiss Legacy, a blog run by Xavier Encinas, amalgamating new works and content in the tradition of the swiss typographers. I found numerous little gems and interesting links from his blog. One of my favorite was Type Trumps, “playing cards” of different typefaces. I am really fond of physical objects and to have reference cards for typefaces would be rather nice. Such things really help me come to understand better than just seeing it on the computer screen. Another great piece were these business cards made by a company called Hello, out of the UK. The thin layer of green in between the white edges of the card, plus the embossed backside really add character and life to the cards. I can’t imagine what the cost ended up being, but my is the effect nice. Finally, I wanted to bring up this article about Helvetica in the New York Subway system. Many designers have seen the film Helvetica, but it doesn’t really tell the true story of the typefaces used in New York. It is a really interesting read, so I recommend checking it out!

So that concludes my evening’s activities for swiss type exploration. I got some good ideas and will be spending more time in the coming days to see what designs I can come up with!

As a last note, I still really want these shirts, but wow expensive.

]]> http://aaronb.net/articles/2009/02/inspiration/feed/ 3 Typographic Resources http://aaronb.net/articles/2009/02/typographic-resources/ http://aaronb.net/articles/2009/02/typographic-resources/#comments Mon, 02 Feb 2009 04:06:25 +0000 Aaron http://aaronb.net/?p=118 I found a massive resource list of typography links and articles posted by Michael Tuck in reference to his article called 8 Definitive Web Font Stacks (an article that I talked about in a previous post). I haven’t even begun to explore the various resources, but the ones I’ve seen look amazing! Be sure to check them out. The comments for each item are Michael Tuck’s.

]]> http://aaronb.net/articles/2009/02/typographic-resources/feed/ 0 Font Stacks http://aaronb.net/articles/2009/01/font-stacks/ http://aaronb.net/articles/2009/01/font-stacks/#comments Thu, 08 Jan 2009 17:21:49 +0000 Aaron http://aaronb.net/?p=63 I found this very interesting article about the usage and value in what the author calls “Font Stacks.” The term refers to the font-family code in CSS and using fonts that are specific to different Operating Systems prior to the base web safe fonts. For example:

font-family: Frutiger, "Frutiger Linotype", Univers, Calibri, "Gill Sans", "Gill Sans MT", "Myriad Pro", Myriad, "DejaVu Sans Condensed", "Liberation Sans", "Nimbus Sans L", Tahoma, Geneva, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans serif;

Created by Michael Tuck

In this font stack, there is a general order of Windows fonts, Mac fonts, Linux fonts and web safe universal fonts. Within each OS font set, you go from least commonly available to most commonly available. In the case of Windows for this example, Frutiger is the least common and Calibri is the most common (on every Vista machine).

So this seems like a bit of trouble, but what does it gain us? Given restrictions on the web, there are approximately 5 fonts that one can use with security. While they work, wouldn’t it be nice to have more options? Especially when the vast majority of users will be able to use one of the special fonts that you have picked out (he claims upwards on 90% of users).

It all sounds good, but there are still some problems. First off, the fonts aren’t exactly the same. By attempting to use more beautiful fonts, you lose control over the exact look and feel of the site. Furthermore, Vista fonts such as Calibri have a base size much smaller than other fonts. In the example above, you can see that Calibri is significantly smaller. As you can expect this may cause a problem in readability, so perhaps it would be better to avoid such fonts, but the choice is yours. A third issue is that one must increase testing to see what the site looks like on more machines so you can have a sense of how the font stack is affecting the feel. Finally, poor font choices in your stack will result in poor legibility if someone ends up with that particular font choice, so it is crucial that you pick and test!

Overall though, I am fascinated by the concept and plan on experimenting a bit with it myself! As much as I like web fonts for nostalgia, it would be nice to explore different options to develop even better experiences on the web.

]]> http://aaronb.net/articles/2009/01/font-stacks/feed/ 0 Yes / No Gates http://aaronb.net/articles/2009/01/yes-no-gates/ http://aaronb.net/articles/2009/01/yes-no-gates/#comments Tue, 06 Jan 2009 11:09:45 +0000 Aaron http://aaronb.net/?p=36 Occasionally, websites will use the “Yes” and “No” gateway page. The purpose of these is often age related to warn users of content not suitable for younger audiences (eg gametrailers forcing one to enter one’s age or Big Picture requiring you to click “show” in order to see more distressing photographs). The other way these gateway pages is used is to create a connection between the content the user is about to see and the user’s desire to see it.

Of course, since the user decided to navigate to the page in the first place, you can imagine that they are rather interested by the contents of the page, so the very necessity of such gateway pages is questionable, but some folks like ‘em and use ‘em. I figure, if you are going to go it, at least have fun with it, like this page for The Last Remnant (you may have to go through their age gate if you want to see the page):

Yes or No?

Now, it should be pretty clear that if you click “Yes,” you will be taken to the content for which you came to the site, but what happens if you click “No?” Other sites may kick you back to the previous page or redirect to another site altogether, but what does this one do?

And the answer is...

That’s right. Unacceptable. I must say I got a laugh when I saw that since it fits in with the macho brand the game is trying to establish. You Must Wield The Power. You Must Defeat The Evil. You Must Click YES!

I love it.

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