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If typography is calling attention to itself, it's taking that attention away from what the words are saying.

Michael Bierut

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Michael Bierut
Age: 54
Designer
Graphic Designer
Cleveland
Ohio
Away
Typography
Calling
Taking
Consciousness
Saying
Attention
Words

More quotes by Michael Bierut

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We use the word typography to describe two different things: the design of letterforms, and the layout of typeset passages on a page. Both of those experiences are really important to communicating information, especially when that information involves complex ideas.
Michael Bierut
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There was a time when most people had a choice between two kinds of personal communication, handwriting or using a typewriter. Today, people are invited to choose from a list of (surprisingly exotic) typefaces every time they turn on their computer. I think this has made everyone more aware of the idea that picking a typeface is a conscious choice.
Michael Bierut
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A lot of times, you design a logo to be timeless, but with something like the Olympics, timelessness is maybe not something you should be going for.
Michael Bierut
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Australia is one of the few places that I can think of where the cities, at least those I've been to, seem to have strikingly different characters and visual textures. To an American like me, there's basically Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane and the rest is all bush.
Michael Bierut
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BE PURPOSEFUL AND THOUGHTFUL IN THE CHOICES YOU MAKE WHEN THE OPTIONS ARE NEARLY INFINITE.
Michael Bierut
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Target for example, is just a dot with a circle around it, that's all it is, so if you want a logo like Target, you don't need to hire a designer, you barely need to know how to operate a computer program, the logo may as well be anything.
Michael Bierut
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I've never really acquired any facility for working on the computer, though one day I think I would like to. My generation just barely missed it, which I don't think is a good thing or a bad thing.
Michael Bierut
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If you ask people in the US what logos they like and recognise, they'll name Target or Nike.
Michael Bierut
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Most processes leave out the stuff no one wants to talk about: magic, intuition and leaps of faith.
Michael Bierut
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The truth about logos is that they are not that hard to do.
Michael Bierut
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I actually don't think that brand new logos are worth that much or mean that much in and of themselves. So why not have a class of third graders compete to design your logo?
Michael Bierut
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We get used to things, and we like reading the way we're used to reading.
Michael Bierut
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I think once the artistic world of the type designer merged with the scientific world of the computer programmer, you began to see this crossover.
Michael Bierut
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Australia has always put out some good design, particularly environmental graphics. I associate that with Australia, more so that a lot of other places. Whether that has anything to do with the landscape, who knows?
Michael Bierut
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The studies I've seen about readability and legibility tend to focus on a specific set of metrics: size, not just the point size, but things like the size of the lower case letters as a proportion of the overall letter height, and line length. People simply can't read really small type set in really long lines.
Michael Bierut
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The scientists at CERN were actually surprised that people commented on this. Reportedly Fabiola Gianotti, the coordinator of the CERN program to find the Higgs Boson, was asked why she had selected Comic Sans. She simply said, Because I like it.
Michael Bierut
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I've heard some designers talk about the design process being centred on invention, starting with a blank slate. I admire that and occasionally I'm capable of that, but I have to admit that I really have trouble working with completely open briefs.
Michael Bierut
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The problem contains the solution.
Michael Bierut
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Graphic design is the fiction that anticipates the fact.
Michael Bierut
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I think that you could design a terrible logo for a good company with great people and they could build it into a great program. Alternatively you could design what seems to be a brilliant logo for people who are not smart or energetic or are incapable of associating with anything positive and it would become a terrible logo.
Michael Bierut