oh and to chuck grimes: i know that you hate graphics heavy pages, but i've been thinking about you and graphics and art for a month now. i don't think you appreciate the extent to which this stuff is addicting if you like color and lighting.... i mean, how can i possibly resist making these three d images and beveling frames in stead of plain old flat ones and so on and so forth. it's eye candy, chuck, and i find it pleasing to look at, even though tedious to download and highly inefficient and, for those busy sites, just plain annoying and distracting. anyway, i can't imagine what the web would be like if it were that dull old once ubiquitous gray. sure would have been functional, but not delightful, not pleasing,
oh just some incoherent thoughts. but i'd be interested in what you have to say about art, web design, efficiency and so forth.
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What can I say? Some quick thoughts.
The reason I suggested typography was not just for its utility or functionality, but primarily its contrast to bitmap ubiquity. The trouble with any sort of graphic design is its own easy banality. But let's talk eye candy. Take a look at this:
http://dizzy.library.arizona.edu/branches/ccp/ccpjpg/heineck.jpg
Does it really work? No. Not really. The best I could come up with is, sure, I get it. Now look at this:
http://dizzy.library.arizona.edu/branches/ccp/ccpjpg/dahlwolf.jpg
That works. Why? I don't know, it just does. It is an icon that works as its own critique. Child-like, sexy, hard as nails. It is a Louise Dahl-Wolfe photo of Carson McCullers.
There is something about the high contrast of a gelatin silver print that just drips with sensuous, sentimental and violent cinema noir--the cigarette, the bangs, the heavy make-up--especially on a face that doesn't need it. Richard Avedon does something related to it, but as its brightly enameled opposition--stunning surface, huge format, wonderful--and totally commercialize--yet not quite.
Isn't that the level you want to get at?
Well, at any rate, for typography take a look at, _The Elements of Typographical Style_, Bringhurst, R, Hartley & Marks, Vancouver, 1992.
Chuck Grimes
