Small Bites: Design Links I Love | April 13, 2015

Beat the Monday blues with inspiring designs! Enjoy your week and create good work!

Louis John Pouchee was a type designer in the nineteenth century. Several of the faces he designed were considered lost in a fire at Monotype in London. They were recently found, and they turn out to be some of the most, beautiful intricate woodcut typefaces in existence. His work is stunning, and it’s wonderful that it is not lost.

99U published an interview with legendary Pentagram designer Michael Beirut this week on finding your voice. He discusses working with Massimo Vignelli for 10 years and what it was like to find his own design aesthetic. He offers advice for new designers and emphasizes sticking with what you’re good at instead of trying to be jack of all trades.

Keyboard shortcuts will save your life in time and efficiency. Here’s a graphic from Design Taxi with the essential shortcuts for Adobe Illustrator.

Web design and print design are ultimately both design with similar foundations. However, their mediums are quite different and there are essential differences between the two that will make or break your project. Learn how to design for both with these 15 tips.

Small Bites: March 23

We are 3 days into spring and kicking off another week. Here are the small bites that inspired my design main course this past week.

Fast Company did an article this week featuring a new website that FINALLY explains what the 3 letter airport code means. Have you ever wondered why it was LAX for Los Angeles or why Toronto is YYZ? As a global travel junkie, I definitely did. Whether you’re interested in travel or not, the website is beautifully done with gorgeous typography (hello, Futura!) and rocking a clean, modern grid.

As designers, our bosses/clients can make us crazy at some point. What if your boss was the President? AIGA did a great article this week interviewing the Creative Director for the White House. All those speeches and bill proposals that President Obama does needs graphic design work. Ashleigh Axios does great work with pretty dry material. She actually makes budget proposals visually interesting with clean, modern infographics.

Aaron Draplin is one of my favorite designers and the founder of the Field Notes notebooks. Draplin loves America and really promotes made in America and vintage Americana in his design work. This week he released a limited edition of his Field Notes called “Two Rivers.” This edition will benefit the Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum in Wisconsin. These are beautifully designed and printed and benefit a piece of American history.

I’m a total sucker for beer packaging design, which is odd given that I don’t drink. But, I think some of the best creative design work out there lands on beer packaging. HOW Magazine agrees and just recently released a book on beer label design, but check out their top 10 listed on their website this week.

And, finally, Typographica released their favorite typefaces of 2014 this week. Check out these beautifully designed typefaces from around the world.

Understanding the Anatomy of Typography

Typography is complicated and has an anatomy all its own just like we humans. Type has arms, legs, eyes and even a crotch! I’ve always had a really hard time remembering all the tiny parts of type, but as a professional designer, it’s time I learn.

As popular as typography is, especially right now with the boom in hand lettering, there aren’t a lot of clear diagrams explaining all the intricacies of typographic anatomy. So, I decided to make my own. Below is my poster, which is for sale at Red Bubble and below that is an explanation of a handful of the terms.

Poster design copyright 2015 Noel Dolan, Noel Dolan Graphic Design

Definitions are from Typedia.com and TypographyDeconstructed.com the copyright belongs to them. 

X-Height: The height of the main body of a lowercase letter

Cap Height: The height of the main body of a capital letter

Baseline: The invisible line where letters sit

Ascender: Stroke that extends above the x-height (seen on lowercase “h”)

Descender: Stroke that extends below the baseline (seen on lowercase “y”)