Michael Bierut Quotes
Not everything is design. But design is about everything. So do yourself a favor: be ready for anything.
No one loves authenticity like a graphic designer. And no one is quite as good at simulating it.
BE PURPOSEFUL AND THOUGHTFUL IN THE CHOICES YOU MAKE WHEN THE OPTIONS ARE NEARLY INFINITE.
If typography is calling attention to itself, it's taking that attention away from what the words are saying.
If you do good work for good clients, it will lead to other good work for other good clients. If you do bad work for bad clients, it will lead to other bad work for other bad clients.
Most processes leave out the stuff no one wants to talk about: magic, intuition and leaps of faith.
Good typography, first, makes words readable. At its best, it does something more: it helps express the animating spirit of the ideas behind the words.
I had a lot of enthusiasms that were very contradictory, I was never very doctrinaire in the type of design I wanted to do.
I'm always conscious of the context, the history, the specific environment of anything that I design and what it is going to be operating within.
I think different designers have different points of view and different strong personalities can influence the way certain cities are perceived.
I think once the artistic world of the type designer merged with the scientific world of the computer programmer, you began to see this crossover.
I actually don't think that brand new logos are worth that much or mean that much in and of themselves. So why not have a class of third graders compete to design your logo?
A good cook can make something amazing out of even the blandest ingredients. Still, you don't want to eat the exact same dish every day.
A lot of times, you design a logo to be timeless, but with something like the Olympics, timelessness is maybe not something you should be going for.
If you look at the Olympic graphics for Mexico or Los Angeles, those programs don't look contemporary by today's eyes but they really look like they are of their place and time.
A simple MS Word document, or a Powerpoint presentation, has its limits, particularly the unpredictability in how the page will actually display. With a PDF, you are locking down all those variables.
If you ask people in the US what logos they like and recognise, they'll name Target or Nike.
I can see how some people get sentimental about how we used to do things in 'the good old days' but in a way I just think they are being nostalgic for the way they were brought up.
Designs that have a whiff of complex impenetrability tends to suggest big, complicated ideas. Academic writing tends to work the same way, I understand.
I'm not an expert in typefaces that serve scientific writing, but I'd guess that's another dozen or two.
People in the UK will say that the design community in the US is much more coherent than other countries. It has no government support at all, so it's really like a grass roots thing.
I've never really acquired any facility for working on the computer, though one day I think I would like to. My generation just barely missed it, which I don't think is a good thing or a bad thing.
Australia seems to strike a balance between big and small. It's big enough to have that diversity, but not so big that it disintegrates into something that is not connected.
I have half a dozen designers who work for me, they 'realise' most of the design work, and I act as the design director and the main point of client contact on each project.
