Great article appearing in the latest issue of Print Magazine about Typography Blogs. The article discusses Lines and Splines (a fave) and Textism (another frequently visited site) and how the online type blogs are tearing down the snobbish walls erected around formal typgraphic discussion.

I found the article, by Joe Clark (of NuBlog fame), online for your reading pleasure.

I applaud Print for publishing the essay, as it is one of the first articles I have seen in the slew of offline magazines that I still read, that references the topical blog.

In the same issue of Print, Rick Poynor laments the lack of "real" criticism in design. This refers to true criticism about designed works rather than the critical writing or theoretical writing about the topic of design in general. If he looked around online at the plethora of blogs that talk about design, he would find a lot of designers, albeit online, web, IA, ID, experience types, writing critically about the work of others. Criticising the experience, the design, the choices the designers made.

In the meantime we are inundated with sites, books, annuals, features in magazines, that fawn over the work of a designer with little to no critical analysis or discussion of their work. Until the sides are balanced or some of the online writers make the leap into the "printed word", there will seem to be little in the way of critical writing by designers. These designers are generally unknown in the circle of "design writers" so to Poynor they probably don't exist - but they are here and vocal and writing and "seeing" the work of others.

Comments

Just in time for Lines & Splines to close.... :-(