Summer haiku

I’ve become a little bit entranced with haikus over the past week. So much so that I had a go at writing one myself. Here it is in all its 5/7/5 glory.

Warm night air which cloaks
and softens sounds: muffled laughs;
Birdsong; passing cars.

Rain

[Image: Rain by Alix Land (that’s me)]

The obvious goodness that rain brings – drinking water, watering crops, filling rivers and supporting wildlife – distracts from the other qualities it has too.

Whilst living in London I have felt a definite disconnect or lack of something. One of the reasons for my malaise is lack of exposure to nature; specifically the rain. So much so that when I do glimpse a lush forest or stormy hillside, it feels as if I’m quenching a thirst. Rain brings another goodness that isn’t to do with physical health; it brings a goodness that gives health to your mind. 

In the 18 months I’ve lived in London, it has barely rained at all. I can remember speaking with a friend who said if it didn’t rain for more than a few days, it began to affect their feelings. I’ve begun to recognise this too. As a creative person you are incredibly affected by your surroundings, and that lack of rain contributed to a lack of something else within me.

Just think about what the senses experience when they are exposed to rain:

The smell that wafts up the nostrils when rain hits dry concrete. The hushed white noise with which rain on a roof comforts your ears. The taste of a stray drop on your outstretched tongue. Seeing the sight that humans naturally crave for, gushing running water tumbling down streets and over stones, drip dropping into puddles, and the ‘fairies’ which dance just above the concrete in a heavy downpour. The feel of rain on your face and in your hair. The nostalgia even, and memories that come back to you of sitting inside as a child, longing to go outside and play. 

As the rain has returned with gusto this past month it has washed away my malaise.

The other day on my way home, it started to pour. Instead of dashing for cover, I stayed out in the open and walked slowly home feeling the rush of rain down my face and neck and my clothes become soaked through.

It’s raining, but no longer within me.

Some thoughts about film

I want to see films of bleak environments like desolate Iceland and harsh Russian tundra.
I want to see films about change and class and discontent.

I want to see more films about space. There aren’t enough.

I want to see films with colour palettes of faded browns, deep turquoises, semolina yellows,
   And subtle tones of grey.
I want to see films in different languages, un-subtitled, because they only make sense in their native tongue.

I want to see films that make me uncomfortable,
   And angry,
   And those that make me think about them for weeks afterwards.

I want to see films that make me see differently,
   And ones that show me I’m not alone in my thoughts.
I want to see films with dialogue so natural it’s perfect,
   And quiet films … with minutes between lines.

I want to see films with characters I loathe, and then fall in love with.

I want to see my future favourite ever film – but not just yet.
I want to see films that instil in me the urge to make films…

I want to see the film I keep thinking about making, but doesn’t yet exist.

On columns in InDesign

Once you have set up your grid in InDesign, there are two choices for setting columns of text using the grid as a guide: manually with text running across multiple text frames (option A) and automatically with the ‘number of columns’ tool (option B). I suppose there’s no right way to do this, but it was interesting to see which options people used when I asked the question on twitter. Of the responses I got, seven people used option A; four, option B; and one person switched between the two depending on the situation. Now I know that’s not very scientific but I’d just like to explain my reasoning for using option A.

I use manual text columns for two reasons. Firstly, it was the way that I was taught at university by highly experienced tutors, and secondly, it gives you as typesetter, greater control over text layout. Sometimes a layout calls for text placing that isn’t simply three columns of text at equal height, as seen in this example:

[Image credit: Monocle Magazine on Australian Edge]

As above, the layout may work best with shorter, ‘leader’ columns, in order to help the viewer’s eye flow through the passage of text. In this case option A is far more helpful, allowing complete control over text column height, without ‘cheating’ and creating white space with line breaks. It quickly enables text to be moved around quite flexibly. It helps variation to be achieved throughout spreads – essential for a pleasant reading experience. Perhaps most importantly it gives the designer the feeling of having complete control over the text. Interestingly, option A gave me slightly neater ragged lines, although was slightly longer.

The case in which I might use the automatic column tool, is when setting small pieces of supplementary text – for example a ‘chef’s tip’ side-note in a cookery book. The particular instance in which it might be useful is the ‘balance columns’ tool, which, as it suggests, makes the columns throughout that text frame a more harmonious height suitable for a small amount of text (F).

Examples C and E show unbalanced text in both manual text frame columns (C) and automatic columns (E). Now making the text column heights harmonious is far easier using automatic columns (as in example F) because example D involves fussy tweaking of column sizes.

Which option do you use, and why?

Women in graphic design: Nat Hunter

[Image credit: Gerhard Kassner]

I recently had the pleasure of meeting Nat Hunter, co-founder of Airside and currently a Creative Director at Tokyo Digital and Co-Director of Design at the RSA.

It was just before Nat was elected part of the executive committee at D&AD that I wrote my first women in graphic design post. After seeing that Nat was one of only three female candidates out of 16 people in the Executive Elections, I got in touch and asked her for her views on the subject.

I wondered if Nat had ever suffered setbacks because of her gender. She thinks she was lucky having grown up in the ’70s where girls were brought up to believe they could go into more or less any career. She did however, recall a story from Japan; the culture is such that a three-person team with no hierarchy was not acceptable. When Nat was put forward as ‘boss’ she wasn’t accepted (being a woman) and Alex Maclean had to take on this role instead.

On the subject of whether we should encourage more prospective female designers into the industry, Nat advises women in design to reach out to other women and girls interested in design if they can. She’s personally taken on school students for work experience, not only to engage them at a younger age, but to keep their later career choices open and to not limit them to gender-specific roles.

Nat maintains that women can be apologetic for themselves, whereas successful men have opinions and egos, and aren’t afraid to put them across. She stresses the importance of women being assertive with their opinions.

Nat also had a lot to say about sustainability, and her side project Three Trees* (@TTDMAF) clearly shows her dedication to this area. Three Trees is a team of three women including Sophie Thomas (of thomas.matthews) and Caroline Clark (from Lovely as a Tree). They are devoted to encouraging sustainability in the design industry with resources, links and ideas freely available and tailored sustainability masterclasses for design studios.

Nat’s assertion that sustainability needs to become the done thing rather than being a selling point – was perfectly embodied in the latest D&AD annual design she oversaw. The team cut 1kg off the weight of the publication making a dramatic CO₂ saving of 80%, but only stated this in modest type rather than shouting about it, in an attempt to make it more the norm. Nat says that if there was only one thing Three Trees was successful at, it was to make D&AD greener, a great legacy for a female-led team.

My sentiments were echoed by Nat, in that women don’t want to make a huge thing about gender inequality in design, for fear of being branded as radically feminist – we just want to be considered good design people.

The most important thing I took away from our meeting was that it matters to have both men and women on design teams; Nat suggested that Apple have a good mixture of both in theirs and it’s maybe why they’re so successful.

Nat Hunter is giving a Designers Breakfasts talk, Where are the Women? at the Design Museum on Tuesday 20th March.

* [update: Three Trees is now closed but Sophie Thomas and Nat Hunter are now sharing the role of Director of Design at The RSA and concentrating on sustainability projects there.]

With each Apple product I’ve purchased, a couple of these stickers have always been included. I’ve never really known what to do with mine and so they just stay in their packaging. I’m suspicious that they’re just free advertising for Apple who intend the consumer to use them to spread the somewhat cult status of Apple products.

What do you do with yours?

Part of a (nearly) daily lettering project which I may or may not publish later in the year.

Type and copyright

This question may leave me sounding distinctly amateurish, but I think it is more important I get the legalities right with the following issue and perhaps find an answer for others who aren’t sure either, than worry about highlighting a gap in my knowledge. My question is as follows.

What are the legalities of creating a hand drawn typeface by tracing an existing one, for example Helvetica, for a one off usage in a brand identity?

I have bought the font package of said typeface, but am I crossing a line if I recreate it by tracing over it with ink, scanning it and creating vectors from the scan?

Johnson Banks did a similar thing with their Save The Children bespoke display face, which was created by children colouring in outlines of Gill Sans. They document the process here which ends up with this very unique form of lettering:

[Image credit: Johnson Banks]

Johnson Banks don’t clarify if there were any legal issues in their post however.

The idea is that I use my version of a particular typeface alongside the regular typeface as a display face, to achieve some variety throughout the brand. I’d really appreciate any answers or points you may like to make, and perhaps we can clarify the issue for others too.

Stop SOPA

█████████████████████████████████████████████████. ███████████████████████████████████. ████████████. ████████████ http://americancensorship.org █████████.

Without doubt these are my favourite books; the most intelligent and imaginative books I’ve ever read.

His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman (via oneormorewords)

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This is version 2.3 – published on 2nd May.

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