Don’t confuse legibility with communication, just because something is legible doesn’t mean it communicates and more importantly doesn’t mean it communicates the right thing.
–David Carson, Helvetica the Documentary Film
A Photo Editor
Former Photography Director Rob Haggart
Comments 4
I love Helvetica. Have you seen Objectified, Hustwit’s latest film?
My favorite quote from that: “I’d rather deal with a tyrant than a committee any day. Committees are there to spread blame, not take chances.”
Tyrants vs Committees
[Reply]
Posted 21 Apr 2009 at 11:52 am ¶I’m sorry, my brain decided to take a break.
The above quote is from Art & Copy, a great film on advertising and admen. Objectified is still great and full of lots of quotable tidbits.
[Reply]
Posted 21 Apr 2009 at 11:54 am ¶My previous life was in the graphic design field so I remember the ’90s being the era of the great “legibility” debate when people like David Carson and his surf livestyle magazine, and then Raygun, as well as Rudy Vanderlands and Zuzanna Licko from Emigre magazine, were breaking the rules and showing people that sometimes communication isn’t about legibility either. They were able to show that a lot of communication is what I call “predictive” in nature. Certain demographics expect a certain communication. Much like tagging and graffiti… it may not seem “legible” to everyone yet someone from an area where a lot of it exists might know exactly what’s being said with it. It’s all about vernacular and semantics and lexicon… the language of language. And photography has a language as well, even without words.
[Reply]
Posted 24 Apr 2009 at 10:51 am ¶I was an art director and designer too, and I always thought Emigre/Ray Gun were cool shit. But in the end I learned that you have to control the words and pictures because the content trumps all those fancy pants designer concerns.
Thank God “Graphic Design” as an art form unto itself simply up and died back in the dot.com era ;-)
[Reply]
Posted 26 Apr 2009 at 11:11 am ¶Trackbacks & Pingbacks 2
[...] A Photo Editor – Don’t Confuse Legibility With Communication [...]
[...] A Photo Editor – Don’t Confuse Legibility With Communication [...]
Post a Comment