Graphic and industrial design

Reunited herein are the many links to my available articles on graphic and industrial design.

The Toronto Typographic Charter

The City of Toronto has no coordination whatsoever in the typography of its public spaces. I call for a Toronto Typographic Charter to fix the problem (2006.11.13 01:12)

Signage & wayfinding

Articles on signage and wayfinding in Toronto and on the TTC (the Toronto public-transit system). Additionally: Two old reports on wayfinding and typeface comparison at GO Transit

Print

Articles for Print magazine – including two on captioning typography and, soon, many more – now have their own page.

Graphic design

• Articles from the Globe and Mail, 1993 (added 2007.03.07)
  • Interview with Roger Black
  • Feature on joint presentation by Matthew Carter and Neville Brody
  • Life in Hel-vetica, a quick introduction to Helvetica for laypeople
  • Interview with Daniel Weil, designer of the Pet Shop Boys’s album/tile Very
• Review of Deep Sites by Max Bruinsma (originally published in Eye; 2004.11.18)
• Reviled Fonts: When recherché designers denounce certain fonts in high dudgeon, dost they protest too much? Aren’t these the same fonts that designers used when they were starting out? A call for participation in an article I’m writing
• Typecasting: Review of, and Commentary on, Typography in the Movies. First up: Guy Maddin’s Heart of the World
• Autonominal Fonts: How can it be that the visual appearance of the name of a musical group can epitomize a typeface and vice-versa? (at fawny.org)
• Daily Diet of Tubby, an assessment of the graphic design and politics of the National Post newspaper
• Monomania! With thousands of typefaces at their fingertips, just why are designers opting for typewriter fonts?
• My dinner with King Cobb Steelie (at fawny.org)
• Three articles on the Typo Expo that took place in Toronto in April 1996: A long monologue, a more conventional published article, and another conventional published article (at fawny.org)
• The 1994, 1995, and 1996 Advertising & Design Club of Canada Awards (at fawny.org)
• What’s wrong with the White Pages?
• My startling interview with design prima donna David Carson, including a superexclusive revelation about the true nature of his PageMaker sponsorship
• Alex Isley, late of Spy and a rather fabulous and unassuming and consistent designer
• Gary Panter, responsible for the look of Pee-wee’s Playhouse
• A new wayfinding system for the Toronto subway (since decommissioned and ignored, of course)
• Exactly what kind of impression Bruce Mau made at the Culture/Technology Convergence Conference
• Canadian identity as expressed through graphic design (yawn, though Paul Arthur makes some good points)
• An analysis of Liz McQuiston’s book Graphic Agitation on protest graphics (and review of the lecture she gave on the same topic)
• The influence of Babs Kruger-esque slogans on popular culture
• The conversion of the Village Voice to desktop publishing

Industrial design

My expertise in industrial design isn’t remotely as advanced as it is in graphic design, but I’ve written a few things.

• If point-and-shoot cameras are so dang fancy and expensive, why not just buy an SLR?
• Who the hell needs a fancy payphone, anyway?
• Why is the Polaroid SX-70 a legend while a successor instant camera, the Captiva, is merely a paperweight?
• My interview with and analysis of Gordon Thompson, Nike's chief designer (with sidebar on the Nike T.O. campaign)
• Gearing up for winter: The hardware you need to bicycle through the winter
• Full-face bike helmets: With no standards to meet and no objective evidence they're even needed, why do full-face bike helmets even exist, let alone cost so much?

Usability

A related field is usability, about which I have a couple of articles available. The documents are identical, but they’re available either right here at joeclark.org and over at my putative “business” site, contenu.nu.

Updated 2007.03.07 16:41

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