{"id":542,"date":"2017-11-17T14:20:26","date_gmt":"2017-11-17T14:20:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/design\/?p=542"},"modified":"2018-01-08T20:35:41","modified_gmt":"2018-01-08T20:35:41","slug":"a-bit-of-design-manual-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/design\/a-bit-of-design-manual-history\/","title":{"rendered":"A bit of design manual history!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Found this little gem in a second hand bookshop in the middle of nowhere and there were a few interesting surprises in it.<\/p>\n

The book is Printing Design and Layout<\/strong> by Vincent Steer. I\u2019m not sure what date – from indirect evidence it seems to be post WW2 (I thin around 1945-6) and is the 4th edition (a quick online look suggests the 1st Ed is about 1933).<\/p>\n

I was really surprised by how much of a design manual it was, really stressing the underlying importance of good design judgement, skill and practice – basically all the good stuff we do in design distance learning. But it does this in a nicely grounded and practical way that we would also recognise at the OU today. It’s neither pure design theory or practice – it is a really good example of blending of both.<\/p>\n

And because it is about printing design the book itself if the major lesson in and of itself. It is beautiful:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

And here are a few examples of the practical theory I mentioned earlier:<\/p>\n

On the importance of sketching, prototyping and proofs:
\n\"\"<\/p>\n

On using visual thinking:
\n\"\"<\/p>\n

On the history of ornament (!):
\n\"\"<\/p>\n

And a dire warning about underlining (prior to ye internetz):
\n\"\"<\/p>\n

And at the back there\u2019s a fantastic catalogue of typefaces (not fonts!) \u2018currently available (and I really like the Lorem Ipsum.
\n\"\"<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll end on a last point about style and being clever – a great repetition on the theme of making sure that style never replaces the underlying value of good design:<\/p>\n

It is easy to be modern, for to be modern one has only to follow the crowd. It is easy to be clever, for to be clever one has only to learn a few typographical tricks. It is not so easy, however, to be simple and direct, for to be effectively simple it is essential to have gained a thorough mastery of the fundamentals.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Worth remembering \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Found this little gem in a second hand bookshop in the middle of nowhere and there were a few interesting surprises in it. The book is Printing Design and Layout by Vincent Steer. I\u2019m not sure what date – from indirect evidence it seems to be post WW2 (I thin around 1945-6) and is the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":551,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[65,66],"class_list":["post-542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-design-comment","tag-design-manual","tag-typography"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=542"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":552,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542\/revisions\/552"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}