Ideas for text

[Jamesnkr]

As an experienced graphic designer... I'd probably start with a trad sans-serif 'body text' font

But you've used Baskerville which is not a sans-serif font...

[Glimpse]

Apologies again! I've no idea why I put 'sans'!

It should of course have read a serif font... And that brings me to my next piece of advice, always proof read carefully!!!

[silvercleave]

Could I just add that when it comes to proof reading it should be carried out by someone else, you can read it yourself and then read over your mistakes



Ian (very old but been in the print game since hot metal days)

[Glimpse]

Ian (very old but been in the print game since hot metal days)

I'm not quite hot metal, but I cut my teeth during that awkward cross over between traditional 'lick-n-stick', Letraset etc and the first Macs. Due to the wonderful way education was funded in '91/92, all my schooling (Manchester School of Print & Design) was using dark rooms, drawing boards and scalpels... I didn't get my hands on a Mac until my first job! I certainly think the old-school techniques teach you an awful lot more than simply being let loose on a computer with Creative Suite.

[silvercleave]

Oh Glimpse, how true your words are!! Give a man a computer and he becomes a graphic designer.........................

[Jonathan]

Silvercleave and Glimpse, please stop it, or you'll get me going
I worked as an advertising typographer from the early 80s. Then I was forever explaining what the word meant. Now everyone with a computer can't understand why it would ever have been a job as the computer sorts out that sort of thing!

[IFGL]

Is it a choreographer phor top dincors?

[Graysalchemy]

Silver Cleave Said ' Give a man a computer and he becomes a graphic designer.........................'

Give a man (or woman) a morso and they think they are a picture framer

[Glimpse]

Give a man a computer and he becomes a graphic designer..

It makes me chuckle when I hear 'youngsters' using print terms with no idea where they came from - like step-and-repeat, trap, grip, slug etc. Modern software still uses a lot of those old print terms, but there's a world of difference between clicking an option in a menu and working into the small hours in a dark room exposing thousands of negs!
I only need a whiff of 'dev and fix' and it takes me right back!

It's far easier these days, but after 25 years working in the industry and 11 years running my own studio, I don't want to have to rely on it as a sole source of income for the next 25!

[markw]

What is significant to the original question is just how much typography sophistication we have using the most basic programs - with very little skill or knowledge its possible to produce a good looking block of text. Just avoid trying to be too clever and complicate something that is supposed to be simple and elegant.

Apprenticed as a Black & White artist in 71 - no hot metal for me - just a bottle of Indian ink, a brush and a journeyman who only accepted perfection.

[IFGL]

the best thing to is
to make the font randomly
changing sizes, it looks great!

change the colour and font

as much as you can

your customer will love it!

Try to use word art.

AREOLA

[Glimpse]

Or just copy/pate the text into one of those bloody word-cloud generators that seems to be the inspiration for almost everything on Etsy!!!

[prospero]

Paste. There's a hang-on from the olde days. Once upon a time pages were mocked up using scissors and a glue pot.

I used to know a bloke who did Scaperboard illustrations for newspapers/mags. B/W photos just didn't print sharp enough so they had to replicate them. He would use a clever ruler that would move a set increment at a time to score white lines. Do the whole board in one direction and then rotate 90º and repeat. This would give an even tone made up of black squares. Then he had to carefully widen some lines to form the dot pattern which eventually became the image. Took 100s of hours to do a small picture. They looked amazing. Not like drawings but like very sharp photograghs. Apparently this skill almost died out with the advent of computers, but the early digital efforts just didn't have the impact of the hand-done ones. So advertisers briefly reverted to the old scraperboards. By that time there where few people who could do it so he made a fair bit of cash.

[Glimpse]

My first job was working with a guy who did scraperboards for an advertising agency in Liverpool. He was an amazing illustrator who'd had an amazingly varied career working for motor companies in the 50s and 60s and even illustrating Ladybird books.

I always remember that he had a small leather pouch for his scalpel and blades that contained a tiny whetstone and a glass vial of oil. He'd meticulously sharpen his blades every morning and I swear they were sharper than a brand new Swann & Morton fresh out of the wrapper!

[Graysalchemy]

Ladybird books, that brings back memories my dad worked for them in the 60-70's. I probably had every ladybird book published in that period. I was taken to the print works in Loughborough in the late 70's and seeing the type setters setting the pages for each book. A whole book was printed on a single sheet of paper and stored as paper until stock was needed.

C.F. Tunnicliffe was the wildlife illustrator that I always remember. His original artwork from Ladybird Books was auctioned of a few years ago my dad was tempted to by one but didn't in the end.

[prospero]

Rowland Hilder was another who cut his teeth on advertising illustrations. Sadly these drawing were never considered artworks in their own right and it was standard practice to sling them out once the printing was done. The Daily Express has a only small handful of older Rupert Bear original drawings.

https://standby4action.files.wordpress. ... 51_p12.jpg
https://standby4action.files.wordpress. ... v_p020.jpg

[Graysalchemy]

I believe Ladybird Books kept all the illustration artwork from this period.

[Glimpse]

There are a few new Ladybird titles out now, not as beautifully illustrated but rather amusing nonetheless...



http://www.penguin.co.uk/books/the-lady ... 718183592/
http://www.penguin.co.uk/books/the-lady ... 718183585/