Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!apple!ames!amdcad!weitek!hemingway!robert
From: robert@hemingway.WEITEK.COM (Robert Plamondon)
Newsgroups: comp.text.desktop
Subject: Re: Typography--Was Re: ventura
Message-ID: <783@hemingway.WEITEK.COM>
Date: 2 Jun 89 21:14:17 GMT
References: <32118@sri-unix.SRI.COM> <7650004@hpwrce.HP.COM> <4048@tekig4.LEN.TEK.COM>
Reply-To: robert@hemingway.WEITEK.COM (Robert Plamondon)
Organization: WEITEK, Sunnyvale CA
Lines: 37

>>What I am saying, Valerie, is that your profession isn't a hard one
>>for an engineer to learn. Most of us who use DTP have already learned
>>it. Probably as well, or better, than most book designers. And I speak
>>from experience on that, not just idle speculation.
>>
>> Howard Stateman

I've heard that when T.E. Lawrence ("Lawrence of Arabia") went to
publish SEVEN PILLARS OF WISDOM,  he hand-set the book and re-wrote
large sections of it so the pages would come out aesthetically
pleasing.

Most people who use desktop publishing wouldn't be able to tell the
difference.

There is an arrogance held by many people that disciplines that they
haven't studied contain insufficient depth to WARRANT study: that
history, or engineering, or graphic design, or generalship, or
carpentery are all areas where a dilettante can hack together work
that is just as good as the best of them.

The term that best describes this state of mind is "blindness."

It turns out, if you look, that most disciplines that have
specialists NEED specialists.  If you don't understand why, you only
have a surface knowledge of the discipline.

I once watched a book designer design a data sheet format.  It was a
humbling experience.  The main thing it taught me was that everything
on the page affected everything else on the page, and that changing
one thing in isolation, without considering its effect on everything
around it was a sure way to bad design.

	-- Robert
-- 
    Robert Plamondon
    robert@weitek.COM
    "No Toon can resist the old 'Shave and a Hair-Cut'"