Day 6 Research and Notes

Critique Notes

So for homework we had to take our two safe fonts: Frutiger and Garamond and combine them with Display fonts. For those of you who dont know what display fonts are, they are fonts made to look interesting not really serving a readibility purpose. everything on dafonts.com is a display font.

This is one of the studies I made using a display font called Electric toaster and Frutiger.

Some of the general critique notes where mostly about simplifying the message when using display fonts due to their complexity. Its kind of like taking something complicated like calculus and adding something even more complicated to it, like doing it in space. They just dont really work well together. When using a display face you have to simplify the composition.

Some questions that the critique brought up were:

Is it going to get cut off?

Can you read it?

How is it functioning?

Is it working as Art or Communication?

is it doing it right?

Personal Thoughts

We had alot of philosophizing going around in the class while we were talking about the work. Dorian kept talking about Prejudice and how designers shouldn't be prejudiced when designing. There are certain fonts out there that normally make designers cringe in disgust but what is that really? Is that a disgusting font or is it a font that has served an incorrect purpose. Almost everyone hates Comic Sans as a font. Why? is it because its disgustingly terrible? probably not. It's probably because it has been used so much by the common folk (by this I mean non designers ie. Wizards and Muggles.) and in circumstances where it isnt appropriate.

Every font has a use and designers shouldnt hate a font just to hate it. Its something very elementary to be doing.

The next thing that went around was having your work destroyed. How are you supposed to feel? How do you deal with it? Are you supposed to get offended or not at all?

There is a happy medium you are supposed to be in. Personally I think that if you get offended by someone critiquing your work/destroying it, only means that you are attached to it in a sentimental way and thus are not looking at it through clear eyes. Jeff Schwartz was my image and color teacher my freshman year and he taught me to "kill the baby". yes Kill it. If you dont kill it, then you cant move on with your work and life. The only way to advance yourself is to kill it. 

Now where does that become incorrect? Well I think that if you have no feelings surging through you when someone tears your work apart then you havent invested yourself in it and have failed as a designer. You need to find the happy medium.