I haven’t updated for a while — that is because I have had nothing to say. I’m learning a lot at Future Platforms. They recently presented at Over the Air conference, where they demoed OctoBastard (which won best overall prototype in the competition). You can see the presentation slides here, and there’s a great summary of the conference by Mark Ng here.

I can’t talk about projects I’m working on, but I can talk about process. I’ve always loved designing with a computer and the immediacy and power of Adobe CS. Something I’ve found myself doing at FP is actually working on paper. So, while I’ve had mixed feelings about working on paper, I’ve found going back to working out my ideas on paper a huge relief, and very helpful for working out complicated layouts and wireframes.

Designing for an application is also very different from designing a website or a book: both entail rules and styles, but an application has greater functionality and a wider range of options, which need to be accounted for. Oh, and I’d prefer working with paper and pen to Microsoft Visio any day (when it comes to cleaning up wireframes, this part is sadly unavoidable).

Here’s a great article I recently read about sketching wireframes (via Andy Budd). No HCI needed, just HPPI (human-pen-paper interaction):

High-fidelity, computer-generated deliverables can be a perfectly adequate way to present your ideas, but there is something liberating about being able to break out a pen and paper and clearly record creative ideas without the use of a computer.

Can you see what it is?

The hanging comma, like an unfinished sentence, interrupted by the tiny portrait picture. It annoys me every time I see it.

Hi,

Effective in poetry, but bad in graphic design.

Icelandic illustrator/artist/graphic designer Siggi Eggertsson has the most interesting work I’ve seen recently. A “post-modern impressionist”, his work has a maturity beyond his age (24). In 2006, Print Magazine named him as one of the brightest design stars under 30. He already has a formidable client list including Nike, H&M, and Coca Cola, to name a few.

Most interesting to me, his work is underwritten by formal rules and systems, which is more common in graphic design than illustration. I have just asked him if he feels graphic design has influenced his work as an illustrator, but he said that he doesn’t like to categorise his work as “art”, “illustration”, or “graphic design”.

So, I’m going to leave it there, and share a few cool pieces of his work that I particularly like:

Here are three books that I read in the last year and found to be inspiring and valuable additions to my bookshelf.

Adrian Shaughnessy: How to be a graphic designer: without losing your soul
I would say, straight off, that if you’re a graphic designer, you must read this book. Own a copy. Illustrator Siggi Eggertsson said that its awesome design made him suspicious of the quality of the content, but the content is at least as good as its design. It works as a handbook, a resource for inspiration, and gives solid and practical advice. It covers how to set up your own design studio (with helpful diagrams), and how to handle job interviews. Here is a very good interview with Shaughnessy that focuses on his book.

As for the book title, I think it is apt: ‘losing your soul’ (I think it means becoming disillusioned with your craft, which is easy enough to do) is a danger in everything, and in a profession that is primarily preoccupied with surfaces, it’s especially precarious. This book did a great job at inspiring me, and hopefully other designers will find it useful, too.

[Amazon UK: How to Be a Graphic Designer, Without Losing Your Soul]

Robin Kinross: Unjustified texts: perspectives on typography
This happened to be one of the books I picked off the shelf while I was researching for my dissertation, and was a fantastic find. Self-published, and with no less authority (perhaps more?), Kinross’ ‘Unjustified texts’ gathers together 25 years’ worth of writing on the themes of editorial typography, the emergence of graphic design in Britain, and the work of modernist designers.

This is an unusual and smart collection of writings that I’d recommend to designers who are interested in history and culture. The essays also deal with the recognition and definition of graphic design as a profession, and the writings are no less relevant to the current day and even the future.

[Amazon UK: Unjustified Texts: Perspectives on Typography] [Hyphen Press]

Christopher Burke: Paul Renner: the art of typography
Originally Burke’s PhD thesis, Burke converted his ideas into a highly readable and beautifully-designed book. It is the only biography on Paul Renner, the designer of the typeface Futura. Although not as widely used as Helvetica, geometric sans-serif Futura has been prominently (over)used in advertising and across visual culture since its creation in 1927. Burke argues that Futura was a product of the classic German third way: an answer to the conflict of Roman (western) type, and German gothic blackletter. This was highly contentious in Germany in the early twentieth-century. The political and social forces behind the creation of Futura are compelling, and Burke does a fantastic job at revealing them. Here is a longer review of this book at Typebooks.

[Amazon UK: Paul Renner: The Art of Typography]