I found a great blog called idsgn by way of the New York Times article on the overly discussed Ikea typography change. I refuse to comment on that here (except to say that this was a business decision, not a design decision – changing the font from Futura to Verdana will save buckets of money and not affect sales of their furniture). Ok maybe I did comment on that!
The interview with April Greiman on idsgn is good. She was one of the first designers to use a Mac in 1984, and has an incredibly innovative 3D style (I will post some work below). A graduate of RISD and Basel School of Design, ‘April is also credited with introducing America to New Wave, postmodern design’.
Does it Make Sense?, Greiman’s Design Quarterly, 1986
She also has some interesting thoughts on the way design programs are, well, programmed. The problem may be that programmers are very technically minded and are not creating the ideal interface for creative-minded designers. This brings up a classic case of left brain vs. right brain, and could be holding back progress in design capabilities. Truth be told, web programming does seem rather barbaric. We should have cohesive, user-friendly technology that allows us more freedom with web design. Instead, we are stuck within a framework that does not encourage design innovation.
Greiman explains, ‘It’s just repeating tasks and cut-and-paste and not really thinking. We are sort of subscribing then, to what engineers of the software have thought about this medium of communication. Because, keep in mind, designers like us are not designing the software. We’re not writing code. We’re just using the code.’
Her last words:
Do you have any advice for young designers?
Just make sure you love what you do…
or this would be a pretty crappy way to spend your life!
Greiman’s U.S. Postage stamp celebrating the 19th amendment (left), Poster for the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles (right)