IntuitiveDesigns

We found this article on the fadtastic site completely compelling. The author, Phil Renaud, did his own study comparing the use of different fonts on his essay papers in comparison to his scores. As a result, Georgia did far better than other fonts, assumed because it’s a serif font, but a little bit different than the typical font that everyone uses, Times New Roman. I would be interesting to see some serious studies done on this and the results, however, it does give a nice clue about how influential typography can be.

Article:
The Secret Lives of Fonts

We just came across this amusing, but somewhat cheeky article from Software is Too Expensive to Build Cheaply entitled If Architects Had To Work Like Web Designers…. Some of the analogies are actually pretty close. One of the more amusing ones:

“Please prepare a complete set of blueprints. It is not necessary at this time to do the real design, since they will be used only for construction bids. Be advised, however, that you will be held accountable for any increase of construction costs as a result of later design changes.”

Worth having a look if you are a web designer for a chuckle.

Wouldn’t it be interesting to know what the order or things is that people look at on your web site. Here is an interesting web usability study noting what people actually look at first, how they read the web site, and the behaviors they have depending on age, type of web site, and other variables. While they say you shouldn’t take the results too seriously, it still makes a very interesting read.

In the web and graphic design industry, there is a huge misunderstanding about what we actually do. In general, the common misconception is that we just make things “pretty” and only do visual work. Beyond graphic is a wonderful site that fights against this common myth by proposing to take the word “graphic” out of graphic design.

So, what is a designer? A designer is a marketing and advertising professional, a planner, a strategist, a communicator, a high-skilled professional, and much more. Our only disappointment with this site is that they don’t actually suggest alternative titles to use instead of “graphic designer”. Maybe that’s for us to choose individually?

We, as designers, must stand up for our rights and use our voice to say that Bad Design Kills! As bad design becomes the norm, especially in the web industry, the perception of the design profession in general goes down. This is bad for everyone. Bad for business, bad for professionals, and bad for customers. So, let’s look forward together to a brighter future in design!