Ann van Poperingen’s Blog

Clever Typeface Sample

written September 10th, 2009 · 0 comments

I had to smile when I found this type sample in my email inbox from Font Shop. This American Life rocks!

Ikea Ikea Ikea. Yesterday, my mom brought my attention to the chatter that is going on about Ikea’s typeface change, from Futura to Verdana. She heard about it on NPR. Honestly, I just received the new catalog last week and I flipped through it so fast that I didn’t notice the change. But when I went back and looked at it, I did notice the change, and it stood out so very blatantly.

Futura is one of the most beautiful typefaces ever created and so visually pleasing because of its geometry and symmetry. Ikea has built its identity around this typeface, which reflects the kind of design sensibilities Ikea has in its modern, sleek and simple products. At first glance the catalog set in Verdana looks cheap and totally ordinary. Futura has the ability to stand alone (see first image below) on the page, beautifully, without any frills. A page with text set in Verdana just doesn’t do it for me. The only thing that saves the layouts from completely bombing is that Ikea has good graphic designers. If you are good enough you can typeset any ol’ font.

Take a look. The images are every other old design, new design. The first image is from an old catalog.

Good Typography

written September 3rd, 2009 · 0 comments

I have been bitching a lot lately about bad typography, and I mean baaaaaad typography, so I decided to share a few layouts that make my heart sing. Well, they definitely make my heart pitter patter a little faster. I don’t think I will write individual commentary, instead I will just say up front that I like these layouts for how they treat the page, how they respect the text and are creative with the placement without killing a good idea. I really like when a designer creates a relationship between the heading and the body text and when they incorporate the photographs so that they don’t have that slapped on or “oops I almost forgot these” look. It’s all about respect for the content! Enjoy:)

Bad Typography Part 4

written August 19th, 2009 · 1 comment

So to finish off what I started earlier…we can begin with this little boo boo. read more…

divider Posted in Graphic Design, Typography

Bad Typography Part 3

written August 19th, 2009 · 1 comment

Typography! I am back to rant and rave:)

Actually I’d like to begin with a quote that made me think about these blogs posts about typography that I have been writing lately. “Everyone’s a judge and everyone’s the accused” Nancy Updike said on This American Life afew weeks ago. And it sums up my endeavors here quite well. It is easy for me to take a look at a magazine and see right away what I would change about the design and it is quite another thing to avoid those mistakes before or while you are creating something. So I can easily critque and I can easily be the critiqued. Which is a good thing! What would we do without a good hard critique once in a while? It is so important to take a step back every once and a while and look hard at what you are working on and judge. read more…

divider Posted in Graphic Design, Typography

Bad Typography Part 2

written June 19th, 2009 · 0 comments

When I read fashion magazines, one of the things that always seems to bug me is when an article discusses specific work of an artist or designer, but they don’t show a coordinating image, so those who are not in the know are totally clueless as to what the author is referring to. Even worse is when there are photographs to refer to, but there are no credits indicating what is what, and it leaves the reader with no idea of whose clothes are being shown! (Honestly, I have not seen this that often, but was shocked to find it in a really well designed fashion magazine.)

Here is what I came across. read more…

divider Posted in Graphic Design, Typography

Bad Typography

written April 18th, 2009 · 0 comments

I don’t know about you, but I go crazy when I see bad typography, especially in established magazines and ones that I greatly admire! Most of the mistakes I see are so obvious to me and seem so careless, that it is just plain aggravating! How could a good designer miss some of these mistakes? (At least I assume there are educated or knowledgeable designers working at such magazines — but I could be wrong.) I don’t think these mistakes are done on purpose as a deliberate design choice either. When the leading is so tight that the text becomes a blob of letters that no one wants to read or it looks messy, it doesn’t look creative or trendy, it looks amateurish!

I was taught that when you want to push the boundaries of traditional design (such as using unconventional leading or other forms of spacing) you have to do it so that it looks deliberate, not like it is a mistake. And this is what I feel I find quite often . . . mistakes, or poor design judgment (I can’t say, I don’t know the designers). I do not want to insult any of the magazines that I have scanned for this entry, because many exhibit incredible design sometimes or have since changed their design(er). I am just pointing out what bugs me as a designer when I read magazines and how easily these mistakes can be avoided to look 100 times more professional!

Take a look… read more…

divider Posted in Graphic Design, Typography

Tauba Auerbach

written March 4th, 2009 · 0 comments

I remember a few years back when I first saw one of these Tauba Auerbach works in a magazine…..I was so excited by it. It was typography and fine art combined in a way I had never seen before. It’s the kind of image that stuns you and you want to study it and just soak it in. This series inspires me until this day and I would like to create something like this myself, something done with so much diligence, graphic quality and historical reference, but alas, I have not come across the right idea yet. I wonder how she came up with these images.

Tauba Auerbach Letter F