The Ink Spot

Emilie

01:32

@Mᴏɴᴋᴇʏ the RIGHT desk is how mine looks like after I clean it up O_o

A J

@Emilie If this is a clean desk, then what is a desk with a mesw for you? ;P

Emilie

02:11

@AJ an organizing surface for piles/pyramids :D

Meta Graphic Design

13:46

0

Q: Are questions about installation or modifications of tools on topic?

Is this question well suited for GD.SE? How to avoid installing or remove unused libraries and assets in Adobe applications? Is there a way to install Adobe applications like Photoshop and Illustrator (either CC or Elements) so that it copies only the files needed to create or edit grap...

discussion

Emilie

14:37

Throwing this out there for discussion, do we have a stance on "check my kerning" questions? Are they useful to others? Do we want these?

Mᴏɴᴋᴇʏ

14:47

@Emilie yes Yes and YES. One of my favorite questions I answered was:

27

Q: My Xylophone is off key; Understanding this kerning

I was playing a kerning game where the goal is to see if you can kern a word by eye and then compare your kerning with that of the designer. I was doing... ok. Until I got to: I kerned is as such: Not perfect, but not horrible. The 'correct' kerning was: A comparison; blue being the 'corr...

typography lettering kerning

Emilie

@Mᴏɴᴋᴇʏ That one has some good answers that are applicable to other scenarios

Mᴏɴᴋᴇʏ

in case I'm not on later congrats to our new mod.

Emilie

I guess an analogy could be made with font ID, if someone walked you through how they IDed the font (with detail, not just how they uploaded the image to What the Font), it would be interesting

Mᴏɴᴋᴇʏ

15:01

going to start asking a few questions on pop-up books so I started with this one but I feel like it could be a better question so any one feel free to modify it.

@Wrzlprmft so they only wanted to hire a developer of the software =P

looks like I'm going to be procrastinating today.

Emilie

I used to give a pop-up project if you're looking for mechanics

I've got a really good book somewhere, I'll fetch the title

Mᴏɴᴋᴇʏ

save it, hoping to make about five questions revovling around it while I design a book.

Emilie

Well I might not have time to answer :) Someone else can use it if they want goodreads.com/book/show/…

Mᴏɴᴋᴇʏ

@Emilie based on the pub year I might be able to find that at my used book store

Emilie

Yep, it's dated but oooh so useful

He goes through 10 big categories of mechanisms

+ mechanical considerations for each and templates

I redid templates in Illustrator, got those somewhere

Also generic advice for the kind of paper to use

Mᴏɴᴋᴇʏ

15:11

IF I could get a hold of the publisher and if its out of copyright I can convert it to a repo on Github and release it

lol, knew I'd get a downvote.

Emilie

The issue is that the book might be cut up if you get it used, check if the templates are actually there before buying :)

I can relate, random DVs are effectively killing my desire to answer today :)

Mᴏɴᴋᴇʏ

@Emilie agreed. hater gonna hate =P

guess I'll go to work and spend my day on SO.

have to solve a branch issue for a repo

Emilie

I figure you already know what a paper engineer is, but feel free to hit me with any Q on pop-ups. I haven't done a lot myself but I've troubleshoot 40 pop-ups student projects so I've got some experience under my belt x)

Back to thesis for me! Looking forward to election results later!

Mᴏɴᴋᴇʏ

@Emilie I do, for some reason I try to make questions that do not fall into software because the site seems to be so Adobe dedicated. I even thought about Sketch questions but continue downvotes like that just put a sour note to my effort so I move my efforts elsewhere.

Emilie

@Mᴏɴᴋᴇʏ I know, I've tried the same in the past and stopped for similar reasons (+ closing)

Wolff

15:25

@Mᴏɴᴋᴇʏ I hear you. There are too many Adobe specific questions. I too use Adobe's products all the time, but how to use the programs is not so interesting to me anymore - I'll find a way. I'm more interested in what to make and why.

Emilie

@Wolff I don't do this but you can use filters to remove some of the noise

e.g. ignoring tags, favoriting tags, and custom filters

Wolff

Yeah well it's hard to tell where a good question can come from. Sometimes people think that they are asking a technical program specific question, but it turns out that their troubles are more general than they knew.

Emilie

@Wolff When people know how to define their problem, they can often solve their problem :)

Wolff

True - when it comes to graphic design at least :-)

Emilie

What I'm seeing in class with new students is they often can't really even articulate a question

they have no vocabulary to resort to

so it's just like "How do I fix this? (pointing on screen)"

Wolff

15:40

I can imagine. I started kind of late in graphic design when I was 27. At my school there where 16 year old kids. I could tell that everything was just one big blur for them. Everything melted together because they had little experience with anything.

Emilie

oh yea, I get some older ones sometimes, if they switched from another program... but the ones coming straight from high school are just holding on for dear life lol

the idea that there are multiple good answers and that one should explore a few to find the better ones is especially often resisted

I think that's one of the most beautiful lessons design has to offer

(for life in general too, that is)

Wolff

And you have to be patient. Accept to learn one piece of the jigsaw at a time without being able to see the big picture.

Must be increasingly harder to teach young people because of their increasing disconnection with the physical world?

Emilie

16:36

@Wolff Well they're still sitting in a classroom lol But do you mean the fact they are wired to their mobiles or that they are less engaged with physical print (e.g. books)?

Ryan

18:21

@Emilie you didn't need to delete it. Im just trying to figure out what to include. The scope currently is basically "Lets list every book on Graphic Design"

I doubt that was your intent

I'm also only one person. Everyone else may have understood and enjoyed it

For what its worth I like the idea of creating a community wiki on theory. Just think we need more than a list of books

Perhaps using this as a framework and changing it to community wiki would be better? graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/questions/31/…

Emilie

@Ryan It was a community wiki.

Ryan

@Emilie look I seem to have offended you. Im sorry if thats the case.

I'm really just trying to understand what you are or were after. Do you want us to list every book written on design theory from the beginning of time to 1980?

Emilie

Might undelete it later but I was doing it for the community, not for me.

@Ryan I started with a shorter time span because up to early 80s seemed workable. It's not like I expect it will take 5 minutes

Ryan

18:40

But why are you selecting those books? Or is the idea for us to list every book eventually?

Emilie

@Ryan they're major theoretical works. I had included to list a blurb for each person at first so that it would be even more thorough but figured it might be too much right now

Ryan

@Emilie okay I think just editing to say "Major theoretical works with some description" would be a lot better :)

From a technical standpoint I'm also not sure if people need to edit your answer, if its wiki they should be able to just add additional answers kinda like... (one sec I closed the tab)

1

Q: Resources on web design aesthetic

I am looking for online resources (no books please) that provide general rules and guidelines for web graphic design. I am pretty good at scripting (as far as HTML, JavaScript, and PHP are concerned), but have a serious lack of design skills. I need to know what looks good, and why. It is import...

adobe-photoshop website-design design-principles resource-recommendations

Emilie

Well how do you decide what a major theoretical work is? Adding it to the title doesn't really change anything

Ryan

0

A: What are some good resources for learning calligraphy?

I learned from a bloke from my local church when I was about 10, he was a monk and was really good scribe - I then helped to produce signs and stuff for the church fete, I guess this started my love of typography.

Emilie

@Ryan well you need 100 rep to edit a wiki but that doesn't keep lower rep users from giving other answers which can be merged later

Ryan

18:48

@Emilie I don't think you need 100 rep to answer though

@Emilie And you're correct. Maybe instead it should just be "What theoretical books on graphic design would you recommend?"

pretty sure that falls in the wiki guidelines and would limit it to books that... well that people actually recommend

Emilie

@Ryan recommend for what? It's still super broad

Ryan

you can limit it more but i don't believe it needs to be even more refined than that

if you want it to be on typography or composition or color or something you can include that

but im pretty sure for a community wiki it would be perfectly acceptable like that

we also have

71

Q: What is the single most influential book every designer should read?

What is the single most influential book every designer should read?

resource-recommendations

not sure if that already does answer your question or give you a place to add your own book suggestions to

Emilie

The idea was also to help each other discover stuff. I figured if it grew enough, it could be separated more by time period or topic (but then you end up with overlap for some authors so that's not great)

That last Q is specific to each person and their current context, I expect that would get hammered in no time nowadays

Ryan

not if its set to community wiki

Emilie

Note also how the comments and the fact each answer creates a new section makes it really long to scroll through. There's no way to tell if there are repeated works

Ryan

18:54

well maybe? who knows. but i think it would be alright

thats true. definitely a flaw in the system or that setup anyways

which reminds me - did MIcrosoft OneNote work for you? Or any of the Note apps?

Emilie

Did you see it was set as a Community wiki when you left your comments?

Just so that I can better frame what was said

Ryan

yes

hey pretty soon we can get @PieBie or Mr Online to weigh in!

Emilie

Well I had mentioned the idea weeks ago and only got some support from Piebie and the rest was crickets :P

Ryan

All I was trying to figure out was why for example you included Tschichold, Jan The form of the book (1975) but not one of his other books. In here you mentioned you were going to include blurbs but decided not to. Without that blurb I don't know if you included that Jan Book with the intention on adding the others later, or included just that one for a specific reason

Emilie

@Ryan well that's the point of a Community wiki, not giving the whole answer in one go...

Wolff

19:03

@Emilie My mom used to be a elementary school teacher. In the 1970-90s she used to make Christmas decorations with the pupils. Later, near her retirement in the 2010s, she couldn't ask 15 year olds to cut something and glue it together. They simply didn't have the motile skills, so she had to train "scissor cutting", "paper gluing" and "knot binding" with them.

Ryan

@Emilie okay so then my question, "Do you want a list of every book on design theory from the beginning of time to 1980?" it seems your answer would be yes

Wolff

A lot of my "common sense" when it comes to graphic design comes from hours and hours of playing with pen, paper, scissors, glue etc.

(sorry to interrupt your discussion)

Emilie

@Wolff Ah I see what you mean :) Maybe your mom could answer my Q (graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/questions/109741/…)

Wolff

Lol! I actually think she gave the pupils a sheet like that to cut by.

Emilie

I occasionally give a packaging design class. We used to have more traditional intro courses (sketching, no computer, including presentation mock-ups). I saw a huge difference in cutting skills when we ditched those courses for computers/PDF presentations

@Wolff Ah well maybe there's some science to it lol

@Ryan Well when you say "the beginning of time" it makes it sound like I'm asking for something unreasonable

Graphic design theory doesn't date back to prehistoria or anything :P

My kid loves playing with scissors, she seems to think they're magical or something

Ryan

19:10

@Emilie I dont know if the inclusion of :P is to indicate this was sarcasm or not

Emilie

I'm sort of wary she'll give herself a magical haircut

Wolff

That will happen one day.

But she'll be able to pass the "cut by this line" test.

Emilie

@Ryan Well do you actually mean "the beginning of time"?

Ryan

@Emilie absolutely. or at least the earliest i (or someone else) can find

if theres a book on designing lithographs by a monk in the 14th century wouldn't we want to include it?

Emilie

@Ryan Is the book theoretical in nature? Does it include best practices, delineates sets of ideas that are broadly agreed upon in the field?

Ryan

19:17

@Emilie your wiki didn't mention any of those items as being necessary for inclusion in the list

Emilie

@Ryan "Graphic design theory"...??

not collection of works...not biographies...

Ryan

right and im saying if there's an instruction manual one monk wrote for other monks in the 15th century explaning how to design and create lithographs we would want to include it right?

im not saying a collection or works or a biography

im saying if a book on graphic design exists from 1250AD or 1450AD or 1650AD or any other time up to 1980 we would want to include it under the current scope of your question

Emilie

Well I don't expect there are tons of such books, so if a handful of books like this land in the wiki, so what?

If there's enough material pre-1900s, we can split it in a different question

Ryan

okay and what about bad design books? like ones from the 70s that exist but aren't really worth talking about? should those get listed as well anyways? (im not sure if there are many from the 70s compared with the 80s and 90s but I bet there are)

Emilie

well "theory" is sort of supposed to get rid of "bad" books

Wolff

19:22

Is it possible to see the question you are arguing about?

Emilie

@Wolff I rage deleted it :)

Wolff

Ah...

Emilie

I'll paste what I had here

Wolff

I can kind of guess the content.

Emilie

"Who were the early graphic design theorists and what were their works?"
This community wiki is meant to be beneficial for novices and experts alike, by providing a bibliography of theoretical graphic design works.

I’m suggesting a cut off around early 80s. Given enough interest, it may be fun to consider creating one for more recent works.

If you don’t have enough reputation to edit the wiki but have enough to leave a comment below with a new addition, please feel free to do so and we can merge it in.

----
and the work in progress answer (community wiki anyone can add to it, gains no rep)...

Albers, Josef
The interaction of color (1971)

Arnheim, Rudolf
Art and visual perception: A psychology of the creative eye (1974)
Visual thinking (1969)

De Bono, Edouard
Lateral thinking: Creativity step-by-step (1970)

Müller-Brockmann, Josef
Grid systems in graphic design (1981)

Osborn, Alex
Applied imagination (1953)

Tschichold, Jan
The form of the book (1975)

Wolff

19:25

It's interesting to witness your discussion. I can't decide who to agree with.

Emilie

@Wolff Well I guess that's how we try to get to interesting places...

Wolff

I've never really read so much about design theory as I probably should.

My education has been more "hands on". But I would like to read more. The list of books might be a little overwhelming though. Remind me of how far behind I am.

Emilie

@Wolff We have a lot of scripting questions that remind me how far behind I am :)

Wolff

Lol.

I don't mean compared to everyone else, but compared to my own potential.

Emilie

@Wolff Yea that's what I meant too

I expect people would have added books I haven't read

But I see that as something exciting, potential for growth

Wolff

19:36

Sure. I wouldn't feel bad for very long, but if the list gets too long, I would have to pick (a bit) randomly from hundreds of titles.

Emilie

@Ryan FWIW, my inspiration was this meta.stackexchange.com/questions/134495/…

@Wolff Well that's why I was sort of debating if including a blurb for each author was worth it. I only decided against it because I didn't want people to refrain from contributing if they didn't have a proper blurb

Ryan

sorry @Emilie I really gotta get focused on work stuff. More interested in this but deadlines are crushing me and im making mistakes. Ill hop back on in an hour or so after I get some work caught up

Emilie

@Ryan Oh I know. I totally ruined all of my scarce free time on this for the day, which hasn't helped.

PieBie

15 minutes

Emilie

I was literally typing "I'm just sticking around until election results" :)

I've got my craft beer ready to be opened :)

Wolff

19:45

Lol. Election night. In Denmark we eat fried pork.

Wrzlprmft

@Emilie Is that a sign of your support for the Belgian candidate?

Wolff

Haha.

Emilie

@Wrzlprmft Possibly :) It's also a sign that I need a beer lol

imgur.com/a/cB3cSBa

I might have to wait, sleeping babies and opening cans are not compatible :P

Wolff

But you can write?

Emilie

@Wolff Yep, the problem with the sound of opening cans is it's too sudden and loud

And I've written so much while my kid was sleeping, at that point I think it's actually sleep inducing to him haha

Wolff

20:04

Opening beer cans can be sleep inducing to me.

Emilie

@Wolff Haha! Well it's just 4.5% :P

Wolff

You can have two then.

Emilie

@Wolff My drink of choice pre-kids was green chartreuse 8)

Meta Graphic Design

3

Q: 2019 Community Moderator Election Results

Graphic Design's sixth moderator election has come to a close, the votes have been tallied and the new moderator is: They'll be joining the existing crew shortly—please thank them for volunteering, and share your assistance and advice with them as they learn the ropes! For details on how the...

discussion featured election

Wolff

@Emilie Don't think we have that here. Is it cheap or expensive?

Emilie

20:14

@Wolff You probably do, it's a European thing. It's not awful expensive but it's not cheap either

Not expensive like some scotches

But it's not gin

But it's mighty strong and yummy

And it's also a ZZ top song lol

PieBie

speaking of sleeping babies and beer: this beer guzzling geek is going to get a drink to his baby daughter, then sleep like a baby :)

see y'all tomorrow

Wolff

Looks a bit toxic, but I wouldn't say no.

@PieBie, congratulations.

PieBie

@Wolff thank you!

Wrzlprmft

@PieBie: Don’t forget to sign the mod agreement, so you actually get you powers (and we can litter your inbox via mod-exclusive channels).

Emilie

@PieBie The first thing I've learned as a parent is whoever came up with "sleeping like a baby" definitely had no babies lol

See you around @PieBie, have a great night!

Wrzlprmft

20:21

@Emilie Well, babies sleep very robustly, just irregularly.

Emilie

@Wrzlprmft I can attest that robustness does not apply to beer can sounds :)

Wolff

20:37

@Emilie, reader of books, there is a subject I would like to read about, but I don't know what to search for. Maybe you could point me in a direction?

Emilie

@Wolff I'm all ears/eyes :)

Wolff

It's a subject I often find artists are having a hard time understanding. I would like to be able to explain it better - maybe in writing.

When you want to reproduce a piece of flat visual art you can do it in (at least) 3 different ways as i see it.

For example a comic page. You can make a photorealistic reproduction where you can see the paper texture of the original. You can manipulate the image/scan to a degree where you are making a digital painting. You can make ink based graphics where you separate the colors for different inks. And you can of course mix these.

Emilie

@Wolff I have to run for now but I'll check again later :)

Not sure I'm getting the "You can make ink based graphics where you separate the colors for different inks." do you mean like recreating the picture using colors (regardless of the means you're using: brush, pen, etc.)

Wolff

Differentiating between those different "ways" of reproducing an image interests me. Not how to do it in Photoshop, but more how it affects the art. The photo-realistic reproduction indicates that the original is the true piece of art. The more graphic approach will make the print itself the "end product".

I should visualize this - it sounds more complicated that it is.

Emilie

Do you mean differentiating what they imply for the work? Their meaning?

Sort of like, option a is "the real thing", option b is a "symbol"...

Wolff

20:55

@Emilie By "graphic" I mean, with a comic book page as example, separating the contours to be black only, maybe using different spot colors for the colors. "Manually" controlling what is printed in each channel. Contrary to "digital painting" where you paint/edit in Photoshop in RGB and convert to CMYK.

The point is: I sometimes work with artists who wants to create art prints for sale, but they are not aware if they want to photo-realistically reproduce the original or create a "new" original in the printing process.

Emilie

@Wolff And you're looking for terms to designate those things?

Wolff

As a an endless hobby project I'm going to try to make some kind of publication with inspiration to artists/designers from a craftsman. I'm just trying to find out if others have written about this. But it lies a bit in between craft and theory.

The voting percentage for the mod election has been going down for each election.

Emilie

21:18

@Wolff Yes I noticed that too :(

Wolff

From 17% to 7%.

Emilie

@Wolff We need to make the community more engaging

Wolff

First time I was confronted with an election I don't think i voted. I didn't know the contestants and I was unsure what a moderator even does.

Emilie

@Wolff Ah well I'd be interested in reading it, but I'm not sure if I know of similar stuff that's been written :)

I'll keep it in mind for if I see anything relevant

The publications related to printing I've encountered were typically more technical

Wolff

I don't want to fill your brain with my thought junk.

Emilie

21:22

There's always space for more, I just happen to become less and less coherent with each day 8)

Wolff

@Emilie That's my challenge. I would love to be able to explain these subjects without referring to any Adobe product. Don't think it's entirely possible though.

Emilie

@Wolff Oh I think that's doable, from what I understand of what you're saying

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