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Designs that have a whiff of complex impenetrability tends to suggest big, complicated ideas. Academic writing tends to work the same way, I understand.

Michael Bierut

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Michael Bierut
Age: 54
Designer
Graphic Designer
Cleveland
Ohio
Design
Whiff
Bigs
Designs
Understand
Suggest
Ideas
Tends
Writing
Academic
Work
Complexes
Way
Complex
Complicated

More quotes by Michael Bierut

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No one loves authenticity like a graphic designer. And no one is quite as good at simulating it.
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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?
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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.
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When it comes to working on identities, a lot of the time I find myself working with a company that has been around for a while. No matter what they say their goal is, the history and the impression that they have already made in the minds of the public is a real thing that you have to deal with.
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Good typography, first, makes words readable. At its best, it does something more: it helps express the animating spirit of the ideas behind the words.
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BE PURPOSEFUL AND THOUGHTFUL IN THE CHOICES YOU MAKE WHEN THE OPTIONS ARE NEARLY INFINITE.
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I'm not sure about my design work every time.
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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.
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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.
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If typography is calling attention to itself, it's taking that attention away from what the words are saying.
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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.
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If you look at the Olympic graphics for Mexico or Los Angeles, those programs don't look contemporary by today's eyes but they really look like they are of their place and time.
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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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I'm not an expert in typefaces that serve scientific writing, but I'd guess that's another dozen or two.
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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I had a lot of enthusiasms that were very contradictory, I was never very doctrinaire in the type of design I wanted to do.
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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Australia seems to strike a balance between big and small. It's big enough to have that diversity, but not so big that it disintegrates into something that is not connected.
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I can see how some people get sentimental about how we used to do things in 'the good old days' but in a way I just think they are being nostalgic for the way they were brought up.
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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