I created Antypography to help educate designers in a way that was hopefully different than just another web gallery of good/bad designs. Kyle Meyer, Elliot Jay Stocks and Rett Martin created Typesites with the same intent, but focusing on providing insightful critiques on well-crafted sites instead of ridiculing the mistakes of bad ones.

Great idea. Great execution. Nice job, guys. I’ll be reading it regularly.

They appear at the beginning of virtually every DVD or videotaped movie. We’ve all seen them but does anyone pay attention to them? I do, and I’m outraged! Not because I paid good money for a movie and should be able to make my own backups in case the disc goes bad without the fear of imprisonment being shoved down my throat, but because the schmos who design these title slugs don’t know how to follow some of the most basic rules of typesetting. Notice anything odd about line 2? How about line 3? If not, let me explain:

1. When typesetting, do NOT use double spaces after a period. That is reserved for typewriters. Many of today’s young designers never had to use a real typewriter at all, so they have no business following the double space rule in the first place.
2. Don’t justify text if your measure is not wide enough. Inevitably, some squishing or stretching will occur. A little here and there is not a problem, but this example clearly violates good legibility guidelines.

Is it possible that a single uninformed designer is responsible for every one of these title treatments? Most likely not. But we continually see the same problems over and over, so apparently people are just copying each others mistakes. Ironic, wouldn’t you say? Given that these warnings are designed to prevent duplication?

Check out a couple more examples:

You might be saying to yourself, the way to solve this problem is to center the text. Well, that’s what this designer did…but they still overlooked the double space in line 3. Now, even though the text is centered, we’re still left with an odd overall shape—particularly on line 4—and an unsightly widow at the end. What’s a designer to do?

So, killing the double spaces and moving to left justification of the text should fix it, right? Not if you’re this guy. Nice rag you got there on the right, fella. But at least the double space issue is fixed on this one…or is it? Check out line 7. A double space within a sentence. That’s some good work, right there.

You’d think that between the U.S. Government, Interpol and Hollywood, they’d be able to come up with one good designer between them, but for the life of me, I can’t seem to find one well-designed warning screen. Granted, there are a few that aren’t horrible, but for the most part, all of these screens look like they were hastily put together by some low-level production assistant. I don’t have a sample of one, but there’s a good chance you’ve seen the ones from Paramount or FOX that repeat their logos in a pattern in the background with copy set on top of it using an ornate typeface in all caps and a in light color causing all sorts of legibility issues. Oh, the shame of it all…we do better than this.

If I had the time, I’d put together a library of warning screen templates at all of the relevant sizes and start plastering them all over the internet along with the source files in the hopes that someone would take notice and start using them. Based on how much they seem to be derived from one another, it may not take long to actually have an effect. That’s the optimist speaking. The pessimistic side of me would say, the so-called art for these slugs are already sitting in the libraries of post-production houses everywhere that the likelihood of change is slim. But then again, it gives me something to complain and write about, so I suppose that makes up for it all.

This is old news to most, but definitely worth a mention on any blog talking about typography. Seven was one of the first great modern movie title treatments with some creepy-yet-tasteful typography. Designed by Kyle Cooper, a pioneer in motion graphics who founded Imaginary Forces in 1996 with Peter Frankfurt and Chip Houghton. Over the years, the firm has pumped out some of the most influential title treatments in history.

Here’s a quote from Cooper taken from Digital Arts Online:

I’ve never hired anyone that hasn’t come with a background in graphic design and type. There’s a lot of individuals that are fine animators, and are making things that move nicely but if you go through it frame-by-frame, a lot of the compositions are ugly.

And another taken from an interview on Thunder Chunky when asked about comparisons to Saul Bass:

There is no question that Saul Bass is the father of film titles but Paul Rand was the father of American graphic design. Mr. Rand and my teachers at Yale did not hold up Saul Bass as a great designer. I think Saul Bass’s contribution is obvious and I love the later work he did with Martin Scorcese but by Rand’s standards Bass was not a typographer. I prefer the Westinghouse logo to the Minolta logo. The thing with Rand also was that he did everything with his own hand and I do not think as far as the logos go that was the case with Saul Bass. But again I do not consider myself worthy to be compared with either of these men but I will press on and hopefully get better.

The Nine Inch Nails soundtrack and eerie imagery add to the creep factor. Here’s the full trailer courtesy of YouTube »

All this bad type is making feel ill (especially that last one…yikes!). Nothing is more appropriate for a blog about bad typography than some good crap! Some poor unfortunate soul in the next stall is probably wondering where all the rolls went. “hey buddy…enough with the art project, little help?”

x-posted from Swiss Miss.

Jesus taught us to forgive, but it may not be humanly possible to forget the abomination that is this website. If you think the 3D type and screen shot are bad, behold the king (of quite possibly the worst website design ever) in all it’s animated gif glory. It’s mesmerizing.

Seen on Command Shift 3.

No, I’m not posting this to laugh at the innuendo, whether it was intentional or not (although it is kinda funny wouldn’t you say?), but rather, to ridicule the designer who just couldn’t resist the temptation to use a heart for the letter o. Some may say it’s clever. I say it’s cliché.

Cross-posted from Ad Goodness

What a disappointment. Tumblr is such a nicely designed website, with well-crafted themes and all.  Well, I guess it’s too much to ask for real apostrophes on their maintenance page…three times, no less.

Yikes. Where do i start? this site is just atrocious. Let’s count the violations, shall we?

1. How many typefaces can you fit on one page? Mixing more typefaces than one can count on two hands is quite a feat.
2. Squeezing type into small spaces with no breathing room (see free shipping promo on right rail)
3. Different sizes and typefaces on “Shop for:” and “Search” which seemingly should have the same prominence since they both use the same graphic icon in close proximity (hey, at least the “other” section headers are consistent! er…except for that rule under “Shoes by Department” that’s nowhere else to be seen).
4. Wow, they actually have real quote marks for the customer testimonial at the bottom of the page. Too bad there’s a huge gap between the end of the quote and close quote mark.
5. Did anyone notice W i d e Shoes on the right rail? Someone please put me out of my misery. I can’t stand to look for any more…

You’d think a company that dedicates so much real estate to graphical text treatments would have some sort of style guide to create a semblance of consistency for all of those promotional units. Beyond type, the sporatic use of color ain’t helping – but that’s a whole ‘nother topic for a blog about color theory.

Zappos is renown for their customer service, and that’s helped them become an increasingly popular, and highly successful website. Fortunately for Zappos, their design (if you can even call it that) doesn’t seem to hurt their sales. $600M in revenue per year ain’t too shabby. Imagine what they can do if they fixed it just a little. This reeks of opportunity. Some skilled designer out there who has the ability to educate executives on the concepts of good design and usability should be able to do some serious damage (as in good) to their margins.

Hopefully, someone gives this site a facelift soon so no one can say, “good design is not required to run a successful website.”

Paul Dersian, a visual artist from Romania created an alphabet flip book that uses letterforms as patterns. Simple and elegant.

Explore the rest of his website for some additional creative fun.

Joshua Smith is one of the few old-school typographers still working today. Don’t see too much hand-lettering like this anymore.

Check out more of his work at Hydro 74.