My piece on legibility the other day brought a lot of response, all of it on my side. Since I'm not opposed to quoting folks who agree with me, here are some excerpts starting with Jim Hanley…
You're not alone in thinking that art direction is often inimical to readability of books and magazines. I think, though, that it's been an issue for a lot longer than you think. David Ogilvy was particularly critical of bad art directors, as far back as the mid-sixties. His Ogilvy on Advertising is a book of which I've given away many copies, over the years. In it, Ogilvy speaks about the disregard he encountered among art directors about making copy readable. He cites a large body of research he did that sans serif fonts, all caps, reverse type, and italics were more difficult for people to read. Still, he described a constant battle to keep them out of work that came from his shop.
I don't know if he was active long enough to see the abominations that desktop publishing brought to publishing, but I have no doubt that he'd be equally appalled by the yellow type on a green background you described. Or pretty much every page of Wizard Magazine, when it was still around.
His dictum was that if these type choices worked, The New York Times would use them. And, to date, I'm pretty sure they don't.
Boy, I'm thankful every day that I don't have to look at Diamond's Previews anymore.
From John B. Traylor…
I could not agree with you more. I worked in the printing industry for over 45 years and with the rise of self-publishing and art directors as you mentioned the quality has really suffered. When I began my career in printing everything was still hot metal (at least where I worked) and the Linotype operators who were setting type actually would catch errors in the copy. By the time I retired all the copy came in either over the internet, disk or thumb drive. By that time we were supposed to print it just as it came in warts and all.
Jan Kasick wrote a very long message of which this is a fraction…
The last book I brokered was assigned to the kind of art director you can't stand. He looked at every page and practically wondered out loud, "Hmm, what can I do on this page to get people to notice my contribution?" If this had been an art book, he might have been justified although if he'd been assigned your Jack Kirby book, what he would have been wondering was, "How do I get everyone to notice me more than Kirby?" We had to keep rejecting pages that were not legible and every time we did, he grumbled that we were insisting he "dumb down" the book's design.
Jim Houghton writes…
You're 99% right, Mark. "Real" designers are actually interested in communication through design — which means, among other things, being able to read the words. And you are 150% right about designing onscreen. Us old fogeys had to actually know that 5 pt. type is not readable, but them young-ass designers are looking at a screen that's blowed up real good. I get sent ads all that time that are gorgeous — if they were actually going to get printed that large.
You're also right about not getting designy at the expense of the work that you're supposed to be showcasing, especially if it's Jack Kirby.
But you're wrong about reversed type. Okay for small bold headers, if you don't mind being mildly tacky, which I can live with. If you mean it's okay for body copy, though — okay, it's not as bad as lime green text on a middle grey web page. But nobody should be asked to read quantities of reversed body copy. Says the old fogey. Who knows about dot gain.
I can live with reversed type in small quantities. I can even put up with text over graphics on rare occasions. One person who didn't want their message quoted here told me a story about a time he called for the text to be in bright yellow over a very dark photo in a magazine article about espionage and spying. Then they decided that didn't work so he picked a bright yellow picture and indicated that they type should be in black. Then his assistant changed the photo but forgot to switch the type back. You had to hold the page at a certain angle with bright sunlight bouncing off it to be able to read the text. He received praise from one of his peers for the clever statement he was making about those paragraphs, turning them into a hidden message in keeping with the theme.
More on this another time. I just noticed what time it is. Thanks to all who wrote even if I didn't quote you.