John McWade, a true pioneer in desktop publishing and a gifted design educator, passed away on October 8, 2024, from complications following heart surgery. Here’s a small slice of his remarkable journey. In the early 1970s, “art school” could be disappointing for those of us more interested in graphic design than pure artistic expression. So […]
graphic design
5 principles of good graphic design
In thirty-something years of plugging away at this business, I have been called an art director, a commercial artist, a graphic designer, a desktop publisher, and a graphic artist (and, of course, a bunch of things we won’t go into here).
100+ books that celebrate fine typography…
In 2008, I pointed you to the website of publisher Scott & Nix, Inc. and their pick of “100 Typographic Books”. Charles Nix, who curated the list, described it like this: “One hundred books about typography might seem like a lot, but actually, it just scratches the surface. Consider this a start. Below are a […]
What is your graphic design dream job?
I was looking for the address of a software maker the other day and it got me thinking about some of the great places there are for a graphic designer to learn about the trade and work in 2018. With all of the pivotal changes I’ve witnessed in our industry over the last forty-plus years, […]
Commercial graphic design is not self-expression
A friend who teaches a college-level design course bought a walls-worth of small frames and invited fifty designers to contribute a piece of work. The idea being, to provide future students with nuggets of motivation and inspiration. This phrase, an opinion near and dear to my heart, is one I would like every young designer […]
Crowdsourcing design and marketing projects is for amateurs
“Crowdsourcing” design is the process of enlisting a pool of volunteers to come up with solutions to a specific design and marketing problem. The buyer writes a brief, submits it to everyone in the pool, then takes a look at what they come up with. They choose the solution they like best and pay the […]
The suicide of design
Recently and yet again, I was asked for a copy of a font. Someone I thought of as a legitimate designer asked me to e-mail a font I paid for so they would not have to. Though it has happened many times, this “I’m a shoplifter so you must be one too,” attitude never ceases […]