Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!xanth!ames!apple!chuq
From: chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach)
Newsgroups: comp.text.desktop
Subject: Re: Typography--Was Re: ventura
Message-ID: <31634@apple.Apple.COM>
Date: 25 May 89 16:19:56 GMT
References: <8905160047.AA12857@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu> <32118@sri-unix.SRI.COM>
Organization: Life is just a Fantasy novel played for keeps
Lines: 39

>I'm sorry if I sound testy. It's just that I'm a publications
>professional, an editor, and I'm awfully tired of engineers who
>think they know as much as I do about publication design.
>I don't try to design circuits or write programs; why do they think
>they can design publications?

I want to attest to what Valerie says. Ever since the day I sat down and
said "I know, Toto! I'll publish a fanzine! No problem!" my life has been
somewhat dominated by trying to figure out how to make it look good. A
side-effect of this is that I now can't sit down with any publication, from
a fellow fanzine to Time magazine without analyzing the publication (sort of
like the writer's lament: you can no longer read for pleasure, because
you're looking at everything as a writer).

Being to a good degree self-taught in computers, and being completely
self-taught in graphic design, I can say this: programming is a lot easier
to pick up and be good at. 

Don't think you can just grab Pagemaker and slug something through. I did.
Many others do -- and it shows. Not even that the design is bad,
necessarily: just that the design is inappropriate for the technology they
used. You don't use fountains on a laser printer, and you don't use a
Varityper on a fanzine that's going to be photocopied.

I've got four years (ack!) of OtherRealms that's sitting in a file that is a
classic testament to how much work needs to go into the design aspects, and
what happens when you don't know what you don't know. Typography is a set of
skills in and of itself -- and just because someone has pagemaker doesn't
mean they can handle it, any more than owning a C compiler let's you program
a Mac.



Chuq Von Rospach      =|=     Editor,OtherRealms     =|=     Member SFWA/ASFA
         chuq@apple.com   =|=  CI$: 73317,635  =|=  AppleLink: CHUQ
      [This is myself speaking. No company can control my thoughts.]

This is....The Voice....of USENET....in special English. 1300UTC on 11525.