maslak@unix.SRI.COM (Valerie Maslak) (05/25/89)
Sigh. We have complaints about the quality of desktop publishing. Fonts. Resolution. It's complicated. What will look decent as output from a small copier will not fly on a Heidelberg press. Most people who are doing newsletters or memos don't want to be bothered with the niceties that produce book publishing quality type. So what can you do? Pick your typefaces carefully. Times Roman or Computer Modern are never going to work as well (in my opinion, I HATE Computer Modern) for heavy text as Baskerville, Goudy Old Style, Century Old Style, and a few others, if the computer versions of these are well-executed. There are thousands of fonts out there, and not all of them work equally well for all applications. Remember that kerning makes a big difference. If you don't have kerning, your text will always be a kluge. Remember that 300 dpi laser printers are never going to give you the look of real phototypesetters (cold type) or hot type. If you need phototypeset quality, find a service bureau that will set your stuff from disk to a high-resolution output device. An article I'm looking at here in Electronic Publishing and Printing magazine says there are 500 Postscript service bureaus in the U.S. And photocopying on copier quality paper is not going to look like gravure or offset printing on book paper. Take your repro to a printer if you want it to look printed. Remember also that books used to be designed by professional designers, who knew their trade. Are you a professional book designer? Do you know the optimal proportions of type point size, line length, interline spacing, marginal white space, intercolumn space, etc? Do you know which combinations of heading font and text font work well together? If you don't, and want to do your own publishing (composition), you'd better get educated. Find some good references on typograpy. I'm sorry if I sound testy. It's just that I'm a publications professional, an editor, and I'm awfully tired of engineers who think they know as much as I do about publication design. I don't try to design circuits or write programs; why do they think they can design publications? Valerie Maslak
chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) (05/25/89)
>I'm sorry if I sound testy. It's just that I'm a publications >professional, an editor, and I'm awfully tired of engineers who >think they know as much as I do about publication design. >I don't try to design circuits or write programs; why do they think >they can design publications? I want to attest to what Valerie says. Ever since the day I sat down and said "I know, Toto! I'll publish a fanzine! No problem!" my life has been somewhat dominated by trying to figure out how to make it look good. A side-effect of this is that I now can't sit down with any publication, from a fellow fanzine to Time magazine without analyzing the publication (sort of like the writer's lament: you can no longer read for pleasure, because you're looking at everything as a writer). Being to a good degree self-taught in computers, and being completely self-taught in graphic design, I can say this: programming is a lot easier to pick up and be good at. Don't think you can just grab Pagemaker and slug something through. I did. Many others do -- and it shows. Not even that the design is bad, necessarily: just that the design is inappropriate for the technology they used. You don't use fountains on a laser printer, and you don't use a Varityper on a fanzine that's going to be photocopied. I've got four years (ack!) of OtherRealms that's sitting in a file that is a classic testament to how much work needs to go into the design aspects, and what happens when you don't know what you don't know. Typography is a set of skills in and of itself -- and just because someone has pagemaker doesn't mean they can handle it, any more than owning a C compiler let's you program a Mac. Chuq Von Rospach =|= Editor,OtherRealms =|= Member SFWA/ASFA chuq@apple.com =|= CI$: 73317,635 =|= AppleLink: CHUQ [This is myself speaking. No company can control my thoughts.] This is....The Voice....of USENET....in special English. 1300UTC on 11525.
calhoun@m.cs.uiuc.edu (05/26/89)
> /* ---------- "Typography--Was Re: ventura" ---------- */ > Remember also that books used to be designed by professional designers, > who knew their trade. Are you a professional book designer? Do you know > the optimal proportions of type point size, line length, interline spacing, > marginal white space, intercolumn space, etc? Do you know which > combinations of heading font and text font work well together? > If you don't, and want to do your own publishing (composition), > you'd better get educated. Find some good references on typograpy. > > I'm sorry if I sound testy. It's just that I'm a publications > professional, an editor, and I'm awfully tired of engineers who > think they know as much as I do about publication design. > I don't try to design circuits or write programs; why do they think > they can design publications? > > Valerie Maslak Your points about desktop puiblishing are well taken. However, as a former textbook typesetter, I've seen some pretty UGLY specs generated by your "professional designers". I have a hard time believing that I could do worse than some of them. Knowing what makes a good design or a good computer program is as much (if not more) a matter of experience as education. I'm guessing you don't try to design circuits or write programs because you've never taken an interest in it. So why knock those people taking an interest in your profession just for their lack of experience. --------- Jeff Calhoun Dept of Computer Science, University of Illinois Rm 222 Digital Computing Lab 1304 W. Springfield, Urbana, IL 61801 Internet, BITNET: calhoun@cs.uiuc.edu UUCP: {uunet,convex,pur-ee}!uiucuxc!uiucdcs!calhoun ARPANET: calhoun%uiucdcs@uxc.cso.uiuc.edu CSNET: calhoun%uiucdcs@uiuc.csnet
chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) (05/27/89)
>However, as a >former textbook typesetter, I've seen some pretty UGLY specs generated >by your "professional designers". I have a hard time believing that >I could do worse than some of them. Definitely. Design/layout isn't an exact science. Sometimes people screw up. Sometimes editors overrule the designers. Sometimes someone changes things at the last minute. A common thing in publishing is for an editor to tell the designer how many signatures the book will use. This limits the number of pages that can be printed, and if the manuscript doesn't fit, the designer gets to wedge it in. Or you run four pages over in a 16 page signature -- forcing the designer to either close things up to make room or use filler material in the back. Sometimes, you just screw up. I just got back new business cards today that I designed. They're ugly. Some of that is because the printer (Alphagraphics, whome I will *not* go back to) did a half-ass repro job -- and on top of that, decided to do some cutting and pasting, even though they had camera ready art. They did *that* so poorly that I have a batch of business cards that have my name on it and my wife's e-mail address. You figure out how they could screw up that badly. (Needless, there were adjustments made to the cost, but I won't touch them again for anything). At the same time, however, I find I made some design decisions that I thought would work and didn't. They're ugly -- even if they'd been reproed properly they'd be ugly. So even though I thought I knew what I was doing, when I was done, I found I was wrong. That's life. Fortunately, it'll be easy to fix the cards and print new batches. (I think). Sometimes, you don't get the opportunity to re-run the job. >Knowing what makes a good design >or a good computer program is as much (if not more) a matter of >experience as education. I'm guessing you don't try to design circuits >or write programs because you've never taken an interest in it. So >why knock those people taking an interest in your profession just for their >lack of experience. True. But there are a lot of people out there who seem to think they can read the PageMaker manual and they're desktop publishers. There's a fairly hefty learning curve out there. I don't laugh at the folks who are at the low end of the learning curve -- I was there a few years back myself. I laugh at the folks who don't want to believe a learning curve exists. I've seen too many ludicrous documents to do otherwise. Desktop publishing isn't a panacea. It's a tool. Use the tool, and you can save yourself a lot of grief. Abuse it, and you relearn the realities of Garbage In, Garbage Out. Chuq Von Rospach =|= Editor,OtherRealms =|= Member SFWA/ASFA chuq@apple.com =|= CI$: 73317,635 =|= AppleLink: CHUQ [This is myself speaking. No company can control my thoughts.] This is....The Voice....of USENET....in special English. 1300UTC on 11525.
howeird@hpwrce.HP.COM (Howard Stateman) (05/29/89)
/ hpwrce:comp.text.desktop / calhoun@m.cs.uiuc.edu / 8:26 am May 26, 1989 / > /* ---------- "Typography--Was Re: ventura" ---------- */ > Remember also that books used to be designed by professional designers, > who knew their trade. Are you a professional book designer? Do you know > the optimal proportions of type point size, line length, interline spacing, > marginal white space, intercolumn space, etc? Do you know which > combinations of heading font and text font work well together? > If you don't, and want to do your own publishing (composition), > you'd better get educated. Find some good references on typograpy. > > I'm sorry if I sound testy. It's just that I'm a publications > professional, an editor, and I'm awfully tired of engineers who > think they know as much as I do about publication design. > I don't try to design circuits or write programs; why do they think > they can design publications? > > Valerie Maslak I have a degree and 6 years' experience in publication design and layout, and most of a degree, and 10 years' experience in computer hardware repair. And now I support desktop publishing software for a major computer manufacturer. I'll guarantee you that it was a LOT easier to learn how to design a book than it was to learn how to design a circuit. And your either/or attitude is way out of line, since most engineers see publications by the ton, which means they have gone through half the educational process for book design right there. On the other hand, you probably have not seen nearly as many circuit designs. That just means you haven't yet got the background in their field that they have in yours. It doesn't mean you couldn't learn. Of course, there is a lot more objectivity to circuit design than there is to book design. I needed to learn all about components and manufacturing processes and materials to learn how to design a circuit, as well as how to lay out the drawings and present them for publication. But all I needed to learn to design a book were a few minor details about the limitations of the press and bindery, what fonts were available in what sizes and on which typesetting devices. The rest were subjective "I know what I like" kinds of art decisions. 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, Hewlett-Packard Response Center, Mountain View, CA | |howeird@hpwrce.HP.COM or hplabs!hpwrce!howeird | |Disclaimer: I couldn't possibly speak for HP. I know too much. | |--------------------------------------------------------------------| |Sysop of the Anatomically Correct BBS (415) 364-3739 | --------------------------------------------------------------------
gjb@cs.brown.edu (Greg J. Brail) (05/30/89)
> True. But there are a lot of people out there who seem to think they can > read the PageMaker manual and they're desktop publishers. There's a fairly > hefty learning curve out there. I don't laugh at the folks who are at the > low end of the learning curve -- I was there a few years back myself. I > laugh at the folks who don't want to believe a learning curve exists. I've > seen too many ludicrous documents to do otherwise. Not only that, but I've found that people sometimes confuse the ability to design and typeset pages on the computer with the ability to "use PageMaker." There have been many occasions when people have complimented me on my ability to deal with computers, but many fewer times when people have told me they thought I was a good designer. (And I don't think it's because they think I'm a bad designer. :-) ) It's just that many people think that they can learn PageMaker and then be considered a "designer." Also, when moving from traditional pasteup methods to PageMaker, the kinds of things that look sloppy are totally different. At the newspaper I work for here, PageMaker has all but eliminated crooked lines of text and makes every box perfectly square and neat. But now, people try to squeeze text into columns that are too narrow, leave too much leading between lines of headlines leave boxes and text elements a pixel or two away from the right place, and do other things that didn't seem to be as much of a problem before. It seems errors of the X-Acto knife have been replaced by errors of the mouse. -Greg -------------------- Greg Brail gjb@cs.brown.edu
amanda@intercon.UUCP (05/31/89)
In article <7650004@hpwrce.HP.COM>, howeird@hpwrce.HP.COM (Howard Stateman) writes: > But all I needed to learn to design a book were a few minor details > about the limitations of the press and bindery, what fonts > were available in what sizes and on which typesetting devices. > The rest were subjective "I know what I like" kinds of art decisions. > > 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. [insert sound of head bonking against the wall here :-)] There's a large gap between learning the basics of working with a printer and professional publication design, Howard. Getting something "workable" isn't too hard, even though a lot of "DTP" newbies haven't even got that much down. However, this compares to professional design roughly the way building an electronic project out of "Popular Electronics" compares to laying out a 6-layer board with a weird form factor and 50MHz clock signals running around it. There's a difference between even an experienced amateur and a professional, and with good reason. Your books may well look pretty good ... up to a point. Did you spend time thinking about things like: - Text color and visual consistency; - Column and margin proportions; - Rivers and ladders in the text; - Ink flow on the press, especially if you had illustrations; - The visual resiliency of the typestyle you chose when it's used with a particular kind of printing technology; - How well your design fit the uses it would be put to by the readers; - Characteristics of how humans read and how they can be taken into account for more effective layout; and so on. Photographs and color separation require their own bodies of knowledge, as well. "DTP" systems, when used well, are very good at allowing people and organizations to produce reasonable looking documents in a short period of time and at a low cost. This isn't all there is to the field, though, and many of the problems people complain about with "DTP" are simply lack of experience with the complexities of effective design. I've had a lot of art training, and work with letterforms (modern and historical) as a major hobby. Even so, I tread very carefully with book design. With time and experimentation, I can come up with things that look "real," but it's been a hard-won skill, and I'd still say I'm in the "advanced amateur" category, despite having designed and produced effective manuals, magazines, and advertisements. Sometimes when I'm dealing with people doing "DTP," the phrase "knows just enough to be dangerous" comes to mind :-). -- Amanda Walker <amanda@intercon.UUCP> InterCon Systems Corporation
briand@tekig4.LEN.TEK.COM (Brian Diehm) (05/31/89)
>> I'm sorry if I sound testy. It's just that I'm a publications >> professional, an editor, and I'm awfully tired of engineers who >> think they know as much as I do about publication design. >> >> Valerie Maslak >And your either/or attitude is way out of line, since most engineers see >publications by the ton, which means they have gone through half the >educational process for book design right there. >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 Howard, are you trying deliberately to be inflammatory or what? I understand what you're saying, but it sounds pretty negative the way you put it. Since we're all flapping about our credentials, I spent 17 years as as a software engineer - I have software patents. I've spent about two years in a publications group. I came into this group with a better-developed design sense than most of the people in our group, and so I brought in a whole new "look and feel" to our publications (at least from my division). The change in publication value is enormous; our customer response has been more than positive, the publications have won some awards, and a group of electronics magazine editors volunteered the opinion that these manuals were the best looking, most attractive manuals they had seen packaged with an industrial instrument. I think I'm qualified to comment. So, what is the upshot? Well, at some level, Howard is right. This discipline is less difficult to learn than some others. On the other hand, Valerie has EVERY RIGHT to be testy. What's the difference? Professionalism. There are lazy engineers, there are lazy graphic designers and layout artists. Many of the lazy ones in both professions seem to have the attitude that it should all come without effort. Howard, your statement that most engineers are "halfway there" simply because they've been deluged with documents is a perfect example of this laziness. It is an OUTRAGEOUS statement, and typifies the attitude that so offended Valerie. It offends ME, damn it. Exposure at the level you are citing is "subliminal" (to use the word incorrectly), below the level of awareness. Oh sure, some things will make more of an impact because they are well-designed, but the typical engineer is a reader of content, and doesn't understand WHY some things are more effective than others. Of course, if you point out to an engineer just how the reading presentation manipulates his acceptance level, he will understand readily what is going on. And some engineers will find this an interesting subject. I did, that's one of many reasons I'm here. But not all engineers are going to know or care, and not many are going to find it an interesting subject for study. And the lazy engineers will simply use their ego to assure themselves that, yeah, they heard about the subject once, so they're experts. (I claim as fact at least 60% of all engineers have over-inflated egos.) A perfect example occurred recently, when a couple of marketing people began to develop a hard-hitting competitive newsletter for our sales force. They were told by the marketing manager that our group would do the design and layout. They decided on their own that they were going to play around with it. They spent a lot of time on it, and got nowhere. THEY even admitted they got nowhere. I did a design, and a good one. Not a great one, a very solid good one - the project didn't deserve full artistic treatment. They didn't like it, which was just fine with me (trust me on that). Subsequent conversations brought out that it wasn't the layout they didn't like, it was the lack of a fancy logo. OK, let's do a logo for it. But then, they didn't understand that a logo conveys image (other than the image of "professionally typeset") and that they needed to decide what image they wanted to project. Well, we eventually got a logo, and it's OK. So now they want to tweak with the layout again. EVERY SUGGESTION THEY CAME UP WITH VIOLATED BASIC DESIGN PRINCIPLES. I was patient. I DID every one of them so that they'd understand that it didn't work. THEY WERE UNABLE TO SEE THAT IT DIDN'T WORK. So I explained the principles behind it all. They weren't sure. Every design professional in the area understood what I was going through. I even checked back with other designers to make certain I wasn't missing some- thing. No, it wasn't me. All designers go through this frustrating experience, again and again. The upshot of it was that they will use my layout, but they don't THINK they like it - they're not sure. The primary problem is that they are frustrated that they couldn't do it themselves (they're willing to admit that) and they can't improve on my layout (they finally admitted that too.) I'm willing to concede that the customer is right, and that somehow I haven't connected with the "inner image" of what they want. In this sense, I have failed them. But they also have in hand a viable vehicle for their newsletter, which they didn't have beforehand, even after they'd tried. This has been a real learning process for them, and they admit that too. They were simply ignorant of the fact they were ignorant. This is the attitude that Valerie is fighting. When I hired software people, one of my best interview questions was this: Most interviews are the process of telling me what you know. Now I want you to tell me now what you DON'T know. This one question stopped cold the arrogant and the ignorant alike. It would filter out the real designers from the wanna-be designers. And the lazy from those who care. Anybody can be a designer, even engineers. Hell, anybody can DO almost anything! There are no sacred cows. All it takes is a lot of work. -- -Brian Diehm Tektronix, Inc. (503) 627-3437 briand@tekig4.LEN.TEK.COM P.O. Box 500, M/S 39-383 Beaverton, OR 97077 (SDA - Standard Disclaimers Apply)
maslak@unix.SRI.COM (Valerie Maslak) (06/01/89)
In article <7650004@hpwrce.HP.COM> howeird@hpwrce.HP.COM (Howard Stateman) writes: >since most engineers see publications by the ton, which means they >have gone through half the educational process for book design right >there. On the other hand, you probably have not seen nearly as many >circuit designs. That just means you haven't yet got the background >in their field that they have in yours. It doesn't mean you couldn't >learn. Well, Howard, lemme tell you. I was married to a circuit designer, one of the best, I might add, in the analog realm, and I've seen a few circuits in my time. But that, I think is really beside the point. I've also seen a number of DaVincis and Picassos, and that hasn't made me a painter. Mere exposure doesn't make an education. I wasn't trying to make a point about circuit design being easier or harder to learn than publishing. Why were you? See below. >Of course, there is a lot more objectivity to circuit design than >there is to book design. I needed to learn all about components and >manufacturing processes and materials to learn how to design a circuit, >as well as how to lay out the drawings and present them for publication. You've described several separate aspects of electrical engineering practice here. Nothing says all aspects have to be performed by the same person. In fact, final drawings will be done by a technician or a draftsman, not the engineer, in many cases, yes? And the technician, not the engineer, will do the breadboard. And the production line will turn it into a product. See what I mean? Learning something about a task doesn't make you the person best suited to do it really well. >But all I needed to learn to design a book were a few minor details >about the limitations of the press and bindery, what fonts >were available in what sizes and on which typesetting devices. >The rest were subjective "I know what I like" kinds of art decisions. Yes, well, you're giving a perfect example of what I've been talking about. Many of those "art" decisions aren't subjective at all; they're based on objective measures of readability and retention. They're based on aesthetics, and graphic design principles, not personal preference. Most of those principles are just as objective, in their own way, as Maxwell's laws. From what you say, you learned ZILCH about publication design, and you think you know all you need to know. So you're what I call a danger. You're one of the people who may be designing publications but probably shouldn't be. >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. You haven't learned it, based on what you say here. You've learned enough to MAYBE be a production coordinator. Typical technical arrogance. Let me give an example. A company I won't name was about to put out its first advertisement. Two-page spread in all the big journals. The fonts were fine. And the pasteup was all straight. The engineering types who were in charge saw no problem. Their motto was "the gold standard." They were going to print the ad on silver paper. If you're an engineer, and you deal with publications, do your clients a favor, will you, and sign up for a decent graphic design course? U.C. Santa Cruz has an excellent extension program. Funny, I think if I wanted to be a circuit designer, goddess forbid, I'd enroll in some classes myself... Valerie Maslak
jwi@lzfme.att.com (Jim Winer @ AT&T, Middletown, NJ) (06/01/89)
In article <32294@sri-unix.SRI.COM>, maslak@unix.SRI.COM (Valerie Maslak) writes: > In article <7650004@hpwrce.HP.COM> howeird@hpwrce.HP.COM (Howard Stateman) writes: | |since most engineers see publications by the ton, which means they | |have gone through half the educational process for book design right | |there. On the other hand, you probably have not seen nearly as many | |circuit designs. That just means you haven't yet got the background | |in their field that they have in yours. It doesn't mean you couldn't | |learn. | Well, Howard, lemme tell you. I was married to a circuit designer, | one of the best, I might add, in the analog realm, and I've seen a | few circuits in my time. But that, I think is really beside the | point. I've also seen a number of DaVincis and Picassos, and that | hasn't made me a painter. Mere exposure doesn't make an education. Well, Howard, reading a bad book doesn't make you a good writer. If you come from the UNIX/troff school, you have probably gotten used to one of the worst default document designs ever to be perpetrated upon the unsuspecting public. Troff uses 10 point times roman, justified, with a 6-1/2 inch line length. 1) Times Roman doesn't reproduce well on laser printers at 300 dpi. (Troff was intended for use with a typesetter.) 2) Justified type is harder to read than ragged right. 3) Optimum line length is 39-52 characters rather than the 80 or so you get with 10 point TR in 6.5 inch lines. 4) If you're writing for a European audience, sans serif type is easier to read. In the US, serif is easier. (It depends on what you were brought up on.) | |Of course, there is a lot more objectivity to circuit design than | |there is to book design. I needed to learn all about components and | |manufacturing processes and materials to learn how to design a circuit, | |as well as how to lay out the drawings and present them for publication. | | You've described several separate aspects of electrical engineering | practice here. Nothing says all aspects have to be performed by the | same person. In fact, final drawings will be done by a technician or | a draftsman, not the engineer, in many cases, yes? | And the technician, not the engineer, will do the breadboard. | And the production line will turn it into a product. | See what I mean? Learning something about a task doesn't make you | the person best suited to do it really well. Well Howard, since 25% or Americans are functionally illiterate, and 90% of Americans don't read (even though they apparently can), the fact that you seem to be able to write in sentences and paragraphs may indeed make you an expert at something -- but not at book design. That also doesn't mean you have anything to say. Your arrogant statement that there is a lot more objectivity to circuit design than there is to book design is a good example of a well constructed sentence without intelligent content. When I have attempted to convince circuit designers that 10 point Times Roman on a 6-1/2 inch line wasn't optimum for reading, they insisted that their documents weren't *professional* unless they looked just like the other documents they had seen. Isn't it interesting that high tech professionals were more interested in conformity of appearance than they were in communication of ideas? Do you suppose that they didn't really have anything to say? The ability to copy bad designs doesn't make you a good book designer or a good circuit designer. | |But all I needed to learn to design a book were a few minor details | |about the limitations of the press and bindery, what fonts | |were available in what sizes and on which typesetting devices. | |The rest were subjective "I know what I like" kinds of art decisions. | | Yes, well, you're giving a perfect example of what I've been talking | about. Many of those "art" decisions aren't subjective at all; | they're based on objective measures of readability and retention. | They're based on aesthetics, and graphic design principles, | not personal preference. Most of those principles are just as | objective, in their own way, as Maxwell's laws. From what you say, | you learned ZILCH about publication design, and you think you know | all you need to know. So you're what I call a danger. You're one | of the people who may be designing publications but probably shouldn't be. Well Howard, I think you've missed a few minor details. Based on the personality that's showing through your writing, I suspect that your circuit designs often miss a few minor details too -- it goes with the kind of personality that speaks with ignorance. | |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. | | You haven't learned it, based on what you say here. You've learned | enough to MAYBE be a production coordinator. Typical technical | arrogance. Well Howard, based on my experience, you're one of the very few people in the whole world who can write in sentences and paragraphs. That indicates a well above average intelligence. You ought to be smart enough to have some idea what you don't know. | If you're an engineer, and you deal with publications, do your | clients a favor, will you, and sign up for a decent graphic design course? | U.C. Santa Cruz has an excellent extension program. Funny, I think if | I wanted to be a circuit designer, goddess forbid, I'd enroll in | some classes myself... | | Valerie Maslak And Howard, you might consider a Dale Carnegie course as well. Jim Winer ..!lzfme!jwi I believe in absolute freedom of the press. Pax Probiscus! Sturgeon's Law (Revised): 98.89% of everything is drek (1.11% is peanut butter). Rarely able to send an email reply sucessfully. The opinions expressed here are not necessarily Those persons who advocate censorship offend my religion.
charly@Altos.COM (Charly Rhoades) (06/02/89)
Valerie Maslak has written: >> I'm sorry if I sound testy. It's just that I'm a publications >> professional, an editor, and I'm awfully tired of engineers who >> think they know as much as I do about publication design. >> I don't try to design circuits or write programs; why do they think >> they can design publications? >> > In article <7650004@hpwrce.HP.COM> howeird@hpwrce.HP.COM (Howard Stateman) responds thus: >I have a degree and 6 years' experience in publication design and >layout, and most of a degree, and 10 years' experience in computer >hardware repair. And now I support desktop publishing software for >a major computer manufacturer. I'll guarantee you that it was a LOT >easier to learn how to design a book than it was to learn how to >design a circuit. Are we talking about which *you* thought was easier, document design or circuit design? I don't think so. I think the point that Ms. Maslek is making is that engineers should let pubs specialists do their jobs. Nobody doubts that engineers, whether experienced in pubs or not, think they can do as good if not better job than the people paid to do it. Since when is this news? And since when are documentors the only recipient of such arrogant egotism?? Firmware designers scoff at systems people; developers loathe testers; field servive engineers laugh at developers. The only rallying cry for these engineers is when they talk about marketeers or management. Then they finally agree that all these people are bozos too! My feeling after about ten years of dealing with the computer industry is that this common attitude of engineers is symptomatic of the growing technocratic society we live in. As people are valued for their increasingly narrow field of knowledge, they value less and less the common skills that "anybody" can do. Engineers are smugly confident that they know the correct use of "which" or "that" since they have been using these words in speech and writing nearly all their life. Documentors are just riding on the basic skills most of us have been using most of our lives. > And your either/or attitude is way out of line, >since most engineers see publications by the ton, which means they >have gone through half the educational process for book design right >there. Yep, just show it to me and I *know* it. I've been driving for over ten years but I don't know beans about how a universal joint *really* works. Nor could (or would) I attempt to fix one -- or design and build one from scratch. Moreover, I respect the person who can! I also know enough to know what I don't know. Is it perhaps conceivable that using a tool is not "half the educational process" for desgining that tool (notwithstanding our attempts to build in "user-friendliness")? Can you imagine the reaction if the tables were turned? "As a ComputerLand dealer for twenty years I've seen computers by the ton, which means I've gone through half the educational process for designing them right there." (Of course, it would be the same: scoffing disdain and ridicule.) > On the other hand, you probably have not seen nearly as many >circuit designs. That just means you haven't yet got the background >in their field that they have in yours. It doesn't mean you couldn't >learn. > Documentors I have worked with rarely treat an engineer's suggestion as shabbily as engineers treat a documentor's suggestion. Which is more likely to happen: A writer follows the suggestion of an engineer and makes the change in the book (e.g., a re-organization of chapters or a new table), or the engineer follows the writer's suggestion and makes the change in the program (e.g., a user prompt or a help screen)? >Of course, there is a lot more objectivity to circuit design than >there is to book design. I needed to learn all about components and >manufacturing processes and materials to learn how to design a circuit, >as well as how to lay out the drawings and present them for publication. >But all I needed to learn to design a book were a few minor details >about the limitations of the press and bindery, what fonts >were available in what sizes and on which typesetting devices. >The rest were subjective "I know what I like" kinds of art decisions. > >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. These paragraphs say it all--the inherent superiority of objective fields of knowledge over subjective ones, "learn all about components and manufacturing processes" vs. "all I needed to learn ... were a few minor details," use equals knowledge (even mastery)... As a personal note to Ms. Maslek and other documentation professionals in the audience, I think Mr. Statemen's attitude is all too prevalent in the computer industry, and I suspect in other technology-based industries as well. This is our obstacle as documentors of technical information, our challenge. While I fear I might have indulged my penchant for argumentative dissection here, perhaps the best thing to do now is to turn our thoughts to how best to work in this environment. Mr. Statemen's worth is as an object-lesson of the current state of affairs. And while he has made it clear that his suggestion to Ms. Maslek is to "get off your hight horse; most engineers can design documents as well if not better than documentation professionals," perhaps he (and similar minded colleagues) could also provide some constructive comments. Pray tell, Mr. Statemen, what should we documentors do to improve our lot? Learn how to program? > > -------------------------------------------------------------------- >|Howard Stateman, Hewlett-Packard Response Center, Mountain View, CA | >|howeird@hpwrce.HP.COM or hplabs!hpwrce!howeird | >|Disclaimer: I couldn't possibly speak for HP. I know too much. | ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Only your arrogance exceeds your vast knowledge. Charly Rhoades {pyramid|sun|amdahl}!altos86!eddie!crhoades ------------------------------------------------------------------------ If you know you have an unpleasant nature and dislike people, this is no obstacle to work. J. G. Bennett ------------------------------------------------------------------------
robert@hemingway.WEITEK.COM (Robert Plamondon) (06/03/89)
>>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'"
lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu (Greg Lee) (06/04/89)
From article <1368@lzfme.att.com>, by jwi@lzfme.att.com (Jim Winer @ AT&T, Middletown, NJ): >... > 4) If you're writing for a European audience, sans serif > type is easier to read. In the US, serif is easier. (It > depends on what you were brought up on.) > >... circuit designers ... they insisted that >their documents weren't *professional* unless they looked just like >the other documents they had seen. Isn't it interesting that high >tech professionals were more interested in conformity of appearance >than they were in communication of ideas? ... The principle that what is most legible depends on what you're used to reading is known, but its application is apparently not understood. Perhaps excessive concern with the esthetics of design erodes the ability to make a cogent argument. I am not schooled in book design, but I really don't see what special expertise is involved. I designed and printed one book and helped with another, using TeX in both cases. I just looked at some examples as models for the first version, then screwed around with the formatting parameters until it looked nice. Being impressed with the advice in the TeXbook that one should have the design done by a professional, I took my drafts to the publisher and got comments and advice, which, however, turned out to be quite trivial. I doubt that book design is even much of a craft, much less a science (as some seem to be contending). Greg, lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu
mouser@portia.Stanford.EDU (Michael Wang) (06/04/89)
Uh oh, here we go again! In article <4058@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu> lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu (Greg Lee) states that: > I am not schooled in book design, but I really don't see what special > expertise is involved. I designed and printed one book and helped with > another, using TeX in both cases. I just looked at some examples as > models for the first version, then screwed around with the formatting > parameters until it looked nice. Being impressed with the advice > in the TeXbook that one should have the design done by a professional, > I took my drafts to the publisher and got comments and advice, which, > however, turned out to be quite trivial. I doubt that book design > is even much of a craft, much less a science (as some seem to be > contending). Greg, just because in your one case you didn't find formatting a book very difficult doesn't mean that anybody can do it, and that book design is a simple task. There are a number of reasons why your argument isn't convincing to me. 1) Just because your publisher didn't make any non-trivial recommendations doesn't mean that your book couldn't have used some changes. As other people have stated, there are many books being published now that have terrible designs; not all publishers (and designers) know what they are doing. 2) You had the advantage of using TeX, which takes care of many of the tasks a book designer normally has to worry about, like watching out for widows and orphans; making sure lines are being hyphenated properly (not too many hyphens in a row, etc.); making sure large chapter headings are properly kerned; using hyphens, en-dashes, em-dashes properly, substituting ligatures in the text where needed, etc., etc. Now it is great the TeX does all this stuff for you, but unless you fully understand what TeX is doing, you probably won't be able to apply these concepts outside of the TeX environment. For example, do you know how to properly space large words in all caps? This is actually a very difficult thing to do properly. Do you know what widows and orphans are? 3) Copying somebody else's formatting and ideas is a good way to learn about general design principles. But, unless you understand why the original designer made all those design decisions, you will never be anything more than an imitator, unable to solve design problems creatively and originally. 4) "...screwed around with the formatting...until it looked nice." That is a very interesting statement. Though I get the impression that you are good at picking out "nicely" designed documents from "poorly" designed documents, that doesn't mean that everybody can. I know people who think that a simple flyer to look "nice" should have 4 different typefaces in 2 or 3 styles each for a total of around 10 fonts. Now I know you wouldn't think so, but making the implicit generalization that everybody knows what a "nice" document should look like is, I feel is incorrect. 5) Book design is only one small area in the field of typography and graphic design. Just because book design seems simple to you doesn't mean that other areas are simple too. In one simple example, creating pages that contain multiple columns, I feel, is much more difficult than creating single column pages. I know you didn't imply this in your message, but since the dicussion has moved toward document design in general, I thought I would mention this point. Finally as a disclaimer, let me say that I'm not a typographer or a graphic designer. I am, like many other people, somebody who got interested in DTP and have grown to enjoy producing "nice" looking pages from my computer. However, unlike many other people, I have spent a lot of time learning about typography and graphic design by reading, talking with experts in the field, and taking classes. I feel that, though the basic knowledge about typography campared to other fields (such as programming), may be easier to learn, to be really good at it takes just as much time, effort, and skill. -Michael Wang +--------------+------------------------------------------------------------+ | Michael Wang | Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305 | |--------------+------------------------------------------------------------| | ARPAnet, BITNET, CSNET, Internet: mouser@portia.stanford.edu | | UUCP: ...decwrl!portia.stanford.edu!mouser AppleLink: ST0064 | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu (Greg Lee) (06/05/89)
From article <2706@portia.Stanford.EDU>, by mouser@portia.Stanford.EDU (Michael Wang): " ... " Now it is great the TeX does all this stuff for you, but unless you " fully understand what TeX is doing, you probably won't be able to " apply these concepts outside of the TeX environment. True. So? We were talking about whether technical folks can do a decent job formatting their documents, weren't we? Not whether they know everything and can do everything that a professional designer knows and can do. " For example, do " you know how to properly space large words in all caps? This is " actually a very difficult thing to do properly. Do you know what widows " and orphans are? I don't know about spacing words in caps. Tell me. I do know about widows and orphans. Look, I wasn't saying you don't have to know anything. But reading a book or two will tell you about widows, orphans, avoiding long lines, rivers, and stuff like that. There's just not that much to it. " 3) Copying somebody else's formatting and ideas is a good way to learn " about general design principles. But, unless you understand why the " original designer made all those design decisions, you will never be " anything more than an imitator, unable to solve design problems " creatively and originally. True. So? See above. A technical document ought not to have an original design. It ought to be readable. That means it ought to look like other documents with similar subjects that readers have seen. Imitation is enough. " ... Now I " know you wouldn't think so, but making the implicit generalization that " everybody knows what a "nice" document should look like is, I feel is " incorrect. I did not make such a generalization implicitly. Producing a nice document requires taste and the willingness to devote care and attention to the task. Not everyone can do it. But some amateurs can do it, I'm maintaining, for the special case of technical documents in their own fields. " 5) Book design is only one small area in the field of typography and " graphic design. Just because book design seems simple to you doesn't " mean that other areas are simple too. In one simple example, creating " pages that contain multiple columns, I feel, is much more difficult than " creating single column pages. ... The book I did had two columns per page. What's the big deal? Greg, lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu
mouser@portia.Stanford.EDU (Michael Wang) (06/05/89)
Boy isn't this discussion great! In article <4062@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu> lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu (Greg Lee) writes: > From article <2706@portia.Stanford.EDU>, > by mouser@portia.Stanford.EDU > (Michael Wang): >> ... >> Now it is great the TeX does all this stuff for you, but unless you >> fully understand what TeX is doing, you probably won't be able to >> apply these concepts outside of the TeX environment. > > True. So? We were talking about whether technical folks can do a > decent job formatting their documents, weren't we? Not whether they > know everything and can do everything that a professional designer > knows and can do. Well Greg, in your original article you made the statement that "I doubt that book design is even much of a craft, much less a science (as some seem to be contending)." I'm trying to contend that book design (and typography in general) IS a craft, and, in some parts, a science. I'm not arguing about whether or not technical folks can design pages; I know many that can. What I am arguing is that typography is not as easy as some technical people are trying to make it out to be. Since you seem to be backing away from your original statement by stating that in the "special case" some amateurs do a good job of producing technical documents, I won't argue the point with you anymore since I agree with you on this point. From what it sounds like, you have picked up the basic principles of typographic design very quickly - and that's great; many people do. On the other hand, many people pick up technical fields, like programming very quickly. I thought myself BASIC in about a week when I was twelve, and Pascal in about a month when I was sixteen. Does that make programming any less of a "craft" or "science" since it was so easy for me? I think not. -Michael Wang +--------------+------------------------------------------------------------+ | Michael Wang | Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305 | |--------------+------------------------------------------------------------| | ARPAnet, BITNET, CSNET, Internet: mouser@portia.stanford.edu | | UUCP: ...decwrl!portia.stanford.edu!mouser AppleLink: ST0064 | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu (Greg Lee) (06/06/89)
From article <2733@portia.Stanford.EDU>, by mouser@portia.Stanford.EDU (Michael Wang): " ... I thought myself BASIC in about a week when I was twelve, and Pascal " in about a month when I was sixteen. Does that make programming any less of a ""craft" or "science" since it was so easy for me? I think not. So who said programming was a science? From the perspective of an amateur at both (me), programming and computer typesetting (not book design) are good parallels. An amateur can reasonably expect to rival a professional in a limited domain of interest, but will not be so facile or able to articulate what he does or what needs to be done. But you can't just "pick up" circuit design, I don't think. Greg, lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu
chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) (06/06/89)
>From the perspective of an amateur at both (me), programming and >computer typesetting (not book design) are good parallels. An amateur >can reasonably expect to rival a professional in a limited domain of >interest, but will not be so facile or able to articulate what he does >or what needs to be done. From the perspective of a professional computer person (11 years) and a semi-professional publisher, let me just remind folks that it's really easy to learn a programming language, but not nearly as easy to become a professional programmer in it. There is a *big* difference between writing a "hello world" or a few hacks for your own use and writing a CAD package that gets sold on the open market. It's the same in design. It's pretty easy to get the first 50% and be able to lay out a book or a technical report that isn't ugly (these are, by the way, the easy parts of graphic design). There's a big difference between laying out a 50 page technical report and laying out a magazine, or an advertisement, or any of the complicated projects. There is a big difference between a publication who's design purpose is to not be so ugly people notice it and a publication that is designed to attract and focus attention. As long as all you're trying to do is not be ugly, graphic design is fairly easy. It's when you take the next step that life gets interesting. Chuq Von Rospach =|= Editor,OtherRealms =|= Member SFWA/ASFA chuq@apple.com =|= CI$: 73317,635 =|= AppleLink: CHUQ [This is myself speaking. No company can control my thoughts.] You are false data. Therefore I shall ignore you.
dfickes@bucsb.UUCP (David Fickes) (06/06/89)
Can we drop the flames and leave the engineers at home. As a pub professional (publisher), I have discovered man things. 1. Design can be easy. 2. Design can be a bear 3. Everyone has an opinion. 4. Most opinions are valid. 5. Two opinions are better than one but committees are worse. 6. The skill is knowing the elements. 7. Engineers tend to think they are always right. 8. Engineers have some of the ugliest resumes and newsletters on earth. Every time I've discussed a design with a client, they usually respond with amazement that so much thought goes into each element. Documentation design is easier than book design which is easier than magazine design ( a personal opinion primarily based on time schedules and variables). The kicker is that I never claim any serious design skill and instead rely on a series of designers who are trained to be good. I usually have a LOT of input but I customarily outline the project and then suggest modification to the 5-10 concept ideas they come up with. There are LOTS of ugly designs. I'd suggest for a basic education that you look at MIPS (pretty good but too tight of text) or HIPPOCRATES which is excellent overall and consistently so each month. Its not the tools that make a good design but ability. I have my own favorites of course and most people have theirs but I find the dismissal of the skills involved very short-sighted. - david -- ============================================================================== David K. Fickes Expert Publishing Group UUCP: ...harvard!bu-it!buphy!dfickes 33 Spruce Street OTHERWISE: dfickes@buphy.bu.edu Watertown, MA 02172 PHONE: 617/926-4158
roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) (06/06/89)
I've been doing *roff for about 10 years now, only a few years less
than I've been writing programs and designing circuits. Over the last few
years, I've been doing a lot of troff, and even some Mac-based word
processing. I can turn out man pages as well as the next guy, or tech
reports, or scientific manuscripts. I can even sound like I know what I'm
talking about when it comes to serifs and rag-right, and neat stuff like
that. Does that mean I know anything about document design? Not a chance.
And, from some of the really ugly textbooks I've seen, it's pretty obvious
that there are a lot of people just like me out there; the difference is
that they think they know what they are doing and have been able to
convince publishers to let them submit camera-ready copy and to hell with
the designers. The results are often pretty horrible.
A few years ago, I got involved with putting together our annual
report. 80 or so pages. I did the technical end of it, setting up the
troff macros and stuff. We had a designer do the actual design, however.
She worried about all sorts of stuff that never would have occurred to me.
Due to budget limitations, we do the masters on an Apple LaserWriter Plus.
That means 300-dpi resolution on regular xerox paper. That limits the type
of fonts you can use. It means you do the final printing on the kind of
paper which doesn't make the fuzzyness of the letters look bad. That means
you have to pick from a certain set of inks. That means you're limited in
the colors you can do the type in. Which means you're limited in what
color to make the cover. And the type of font changes how you lay out the
pages (not to mention that you're limited to the fonts available in a
LaserWriter Plus). The original design was done in Helvetica and we
discovered that the LW's Helvetica wasn't quite like the Helvetica the
designer was using (some of the carefully-fit display type didn't fit
anymore and needed to be re-designed).
The designer worred about keeping the page count to a multiple of
four. About which stuff ended up on facing pages. About keeping certain
pages on left- or right-hand pages. Some sections were re-arranged to get
the handedness correct, and I think we even ended up with inserting blank
pages in stategic spots to get it to come out like she wanted (all the time
worrying about that magical multiple of 4 page count!) And, every 4 pages
we added made it cost more. And made it fatter; we did fold-over-and-
staple-through-the-fold binding; which starts to not work well somewhere
about 80 pages, the exact limit depends, of course, on the kind of stock
you use for the cover and on the kind of paper you use inside, which of
course depends on the resolution of the printer and the type of ink, etc.
Actually, it was an interesting back-and-forth. She did the
initial design specs (type sizes, column lengths and widths, hairlines,
underbars, all that neat stuff) and I sat down to turn it all into troff
macros. When I went back to her with some sample pages which I thought
were pretty true to the specs, she tore them apart and I went back and
diddled the macros to get them closer. Changes I had made because I
thought they were inconsequential turned out to have far-reaching
consequences. Some stuff that she wanted to do just turned out to be
impossible to do in troff. Eventually we came up with a design which
pleased her and was doable in troff. The end result was a really good
looking report. The design was flexible enough so that every year it can
change a little bit as needs dictate, and to keep each year's different
enough to be interesting yet still clearly the same style. Had I done it
myself, it would have come out neat and clean and very ugly.
--
Roy Smith, Public Health Research Institute
455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016
{allegra,philabs,cmcl2,rutgers,hombre}!phri!roy -or- roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu
"The connector is the network"nazgul@apollo.COM (Kee Hinckley) (06/07/89)
In article <4062@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu> lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu (Greg Lee) writes: >The book I did had two columns per page. What's the big deal? Hmmm. Did you make sure that illustrations were at the top of the page? Did you line up the first letters mechanically, or adjust them according to the balance of the characters (in other words, to appear in a vertical line a capital "O" needs to be somewhat to the left, since the eye doesn't see the left edge at the same location, say, as the left edge of an "E"). Did you make sure that the bottom lines of pages opposite each other lined up exactly, even if one might have had an image which caused the lines to drop a fraction of a point size? Did you take into account in any drawings that to make something seem to be a circle you actually have to stretch it a little, since the human eye sees things wider than they really are? Those are some of the things you need to think about if you really want to want to get things *right*, and I don't even really know anything about typesetting other than that there are literally hundreds more tidbits like that, not counting just straight esthetics, issues of which fonts to use, when to use serif or sans, which can be combined and which cannot...
chuck@melmac.harris-atd.com (Chuck Musciano) (06/07/89)
In article <4065@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu> lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu (Greg Lee) writes: >So who said programming was a science? > >From the perspective of an amateur at both (me), programming and >computer typesetting (not book design) are good parallels. An amateur >can reasonably expect to rival a professional in a limited domain of >interest, but will not be so facile or able to articulate what he does >or what needs to be done. I would place both programming and document design in the same category: they are both an art. Anyone can try to learn the basics of either, but only a few people, with some in-born talent, will be good at either of them. In the same way that good book designers blanch and retch when they see some terrible book, I gag and choke when I see bad code. I am co-editor of a newsletter here at Harris. I know that my skills at design and layout are middling. On the floor below me is a real-life artist. We are always taking things to her and asking her opinion. I am always looking for advice from more experienced people. Whenever I find a dcoument I like or dislike, I try to determine what it is about the document that caught my fancy. I then try to apply the idea to documents that I create. While this is somewhat off-subject, it has long been my contention that not everyone is cut out to program, and that frankly, they should leave the job to someone more suited. At some point in any endeavor, you need to know when to give up and turn to more capable people. My standard rule of thumb is that I won't try to fix the pipes in my house, if my plumber won't try to write code. Although I own a monkey wrench, I wouldn't dream of, say, putting in a new shower stall. In the same way, when you are producing a document, at some point you need to punt and turn to someone else. Wasn't it Shakespeare who said "A copy of Ventura doth not a book designer make"? Chuck Musciano ARPA : chuck@trantor.harris-atd.com Harris Corporation Usenet: ...!uunet!x102a!trantor!chuck PO Box 37, MS 3A/1912 AT&T : (407) 727-6131 Melbourne, FL 32902 FAX : (407) 727-{5118,5227,4004}
lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu (Greg Lee) (06/07/89)
From article <3794@phri.UUCP>, by roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith): " ... Actually, it was an interesting back-and-forth. ... " When I went back to her with some sample pages which I thought " were pretty true to the specs, she tore them apart and I went back ... If you could take the trouble to tell more about that back-and-forth, I think it would be useful to some of us. Me, anyway. Greg, lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu
lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu (Greg Lee) (06/07/89)
From article <43acc9f9.1b147@apollo.COM>, by nazgul@apollo.COM (Kee Hinckley): >In article <4062@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu> lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu (Greg Lee) writes: >>The book I did had two columns per page. What's the big deal? > >Hmmm. Perhaps the following questions were to make a point and were not meant to be answered. But such issues of detail interest me, and so in hopes of stimulating further discussion, I'll go ahead and make some comment, anyhow. >Did you make sure that illustrations were at the top of the page? Did It was a dictionary without illustrations. Are you implying there is a special rule about this for multi-column text? >you line up the first letters mechanically, or adjust them according to the >balance of the characters (in other words, to appear in a vertical line a >capital "O" needs to be somewhat to the left, since the eye doesn't see the >left edge at the same location, say, as the left edge of an "E"). Did you Mechanically at the left of columns, and on the (justified) right I allowed letters to protrude over a point past the margin. I have seen the issue you raise discussed with regard to design lettering, but I did not know printers ever did this kind of justification for text. In regard to the right margin, well, there's a trade-off between how well the lines can be broken and the size of such protrusion errors that are allowed. A dictionary has many short paragraphs and consequently many paragraph-final lines that will not be justified. Perhaps for this reason the errors on the right seemed unnoticeable (to me). >make sure that the bottom lines of pages opposite each other lined up exactly, Essentially, once I realized that giving TeX just a little vertically stretchable glue to play with between each pair of paragraphs would allow over a line's worth of stretch for each column (because there were so many paragraphs). This allowed TeX to avoid widows and orphans completely, too. [But you're making a point about illustrations, I know.] >..., issues of which fonts to use, ... I did drafts with each of the font families available to me, CMR and the Adobe LW fonts, and chose the nicest looking. Is that what I should have done? (Times-Roman worked best, CMR looked bad and made the line breaking *really* difficult.) After fixing the column dimensions,I chose the point size by increasing it until TeX (and I) had too many line breaking problems, then backing it off a little. Is that what the pros do? I wound up having to break a line by hand about once every 10 pages in the 450 page dictionary. There *might* be some things that amateurs do better than pros because they know about special properties of a text and can afford to take the time. I wrote my own hyphenation routines for the non-English words that allowed for the presence of reduplicated forms, which were common. Would a publisher these days do that? I doubt it. Greg, lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu
jwi@lzfme.att.com (Jim Winer @ AT&T, Middletown, NJ) (06/08/89)
> > Jim Winer writes: > >... > > 4) If you're writing for a European audience, sans serif > > type is easier to read. In the US, serif is easier. (It > > depends on what you were brought up on.) > > > >... circuit designers ... they insisted that > >their documents weren't *professional* unless they looked just like > >the other documents they had seen. Isn't it interesting that high > >tech professionals were more interested in conformity of appearance > >than they were in communication of ideas? ... > > Greg Lee comments: > > The principle that what is most legible depends on what you're used > to reading is known, but its application is apparently not understood. > Perhaps excessive concern with the esthetics of design erodes the > ability to make a cogent argument. Jim Winer replies: My apology. I forget that most engineers are used to 10 point Times Roman created on a laser printer and then copied on the office copier. The result is almost always broken letterforms (by the second copy if not the first). Having spent all that time learning to recognize broken letterforms, of course they now have difficulty recognizing unbroken letterforms. By all means, give the engineers the sh*t they are used to. Greg Lee continues his comments: > I am not schooled in book design, but I really don't see what special > expertise is involved. I designed and printed one book and helped with > another, using TeX in both cases. I just looked at some examples as > models for the first version, then screwed around with the formatting > parameters until it looked nice.... Jim Winer replies: But were they good examples, or did you just duplicate more garbage? Greg Lee continues his comments: > ...Being impressed with the advice > in the TeXbook that one should have the design done by a professional, > I took my drafts to the publisher and got comments and advice, which, > however, turned out to be quite trivial.... Jim Winer replies: I wouldn't waste time with you either (this discussion is for the net, not for you). Greg Lee continues his comments: > is even much of a craft, much less a science (as some seem to be > contending). Jim Winer replies: Neither engineering nor book design is a science (leave that to scientistss). Book design is not a craft -- engineering is a craft. Book design is an art. Jim Winer ..!lzfme!jwi I believe in absolute freedom of the press. Pax Probiscus! Sturgeon's Law (Revised): 98.89% of everything is drek (1.11% is peanut butter). Rarely able to send an email reply sucessfully. The opinions expressed here are not necessarily Those persons who advocate censorship offend my religion.
roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) (06/08/89)
lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu (Greg Lee) writes: > If you could take the trouble to tell more about that back-and-forth, > [between me, the troff hacker and her, the document designer] I think > it would be useful to some of us. Me, anyway. One thing that drove me crazy was getting the page numbers right. She wanted them to be on the outside lower corner of the page, outside of the normal text margins, with a hairline rule above them. I was doing this using the -me macro package as a base. Provisions are made for even and odd footers, so getting the "outside lower corner" right wasn't a problem, but it turned out to be a bitch to get the overrules to come out right. The first year, we punted on them and had them put in by hand (i.e. somebody did "mechanicals"). Sometimes you just have to do kludges like that to meet deadlines. But, it turned out that the hairlines that the mechanical guy could put in by hand wern't exactly the same thickness as the hairlines my LaserWriter could produce. Again, we punted and decided that is was "close enough". Personally, I couldn't tell the difference. Another problem we had was with the type size and leading specifications. Typographers specify type something along the lines of 10/12 x 14 which means 10 point type on 12 point spacing (i.e. 2 point leading) on lines 14 picas long. It turns out that the what the -me macros do is instead of keeping track of the type size and line spacing, they keep track of the type size and the ratio of the type size to the line spacing. The (I think, misguided) idea is that as you change the type size, the line spacing magicly changes in scale). This may be convenient for computer hacker types, but it doesn't jive with the traditional way that typographers think and you end up with all sorts of strange round-off errors. Eventually, we had to settle on the line spacing that troff -me could produce which was closest to what the designer wanted. Another problem which we found no good workaround to was that C/A/T troff has a patheticly small set of fonts to work with. You just can't do bold italics (or, at least not that I can find out how). Because of the subject matter (microbiology), italics are used a lot (species name, genetic markers, enzyme names, etc). The document design called for section titles to be in bold. But what to do when a section title had an italicized word in it (fairly common)? The choices were to do bold roman or unbold italic. The former was more attractive but scientifically incorrect. We eventually settled on the latter. BTW, one interesting side note which really has nothing to do with document design. The head of each lab wrote a section describing their work. These sections were then combined with other text and assembled into the complete report. The people writing the individual lab sections had a lot of trouble dealing with the discipline that goes with writing a part of a whole. There were stylistic decisions that were made and people had to stick to; everything in third person, etc. One decision that was made was that the only people mentioned by name would be the lab heads. This meant you should say "Dr. foobar did such-and-such" even if the actual work was done by somebody in Dr. foobar's lab. One person insisted that the people who did the actual work should get the credit by name, and wouldn't back down when we told him that this wasn't really a scientific document, but was being written for the lay-public and that stylistic uniformity was paramount in this situation. It got real ugly. Another problem was convincing people that page-count was important. Everybody was told to aim for X pages. Some came in short, some came in long. A little variation was OK, but some were sent back with instructions to "cut a half a page or we'll do it for you" (but nicely). Some people just wouldn't listen and eventually we did have to do it for them, often with a lot of screaming and yelling resulting. Once everything was assembled, people got galleys back for proofing, with instructions to only look for typos, mispellings, missing words, and stuff like that. Passages which had been badly garbled during the text-hacking process could be fixed up, but only if they stayed about the same length. Some people came back with an extra half page of text, and got really pissed when we told them "page layout is already locked up, you just *CAN'T* do this!" In once instance, somebody insisted on lots of fairly minor changes all over his several pages of text. Eventually, we gave in (it got *very* ugly) and I told him to mark up his galleys and give them back to me. He insisted that he would rather just edit the files himself. I explained to him, as quietly and rationally as I could, that at this stage of the game (i.e. final layout) the files were *mine*. Nobody, right on up to the chariman of the board, touched those files but me if they ever expected me to work on them again. They had been carefully proofed, spell-checked several times, and run over again and again with a fine-tooth comb for all sorts of things that this guy didn't know anything about. We turned ascii quotes into directed quotes. Same for apostrophies. We "did the right thing" with stuff like primes, degree signs and scientific notation (turning all the $ 3 X 10 sup 6 $ into $ 3 ^ times ^| 10 sup 6 $, where "times" give you a real multiplication symbol instead of an "*", "x", or "X", with the appropriate extra quarter-spaces to make it look better. We got the accents right on peoples names, got the little circles right for Angstrom units, etc. Fixed everybody's hyphens, dashes, and minus signs to be the proper things. Put hard spaces where they needed to be. And so on. I tried to explain to this guy that if he would just take the galleys and mark them up and give me the corrected hard copy, that would be the best way for me to execute his changes. But noooo. He wanted to do it himself and wouldn't listen to reason. When I explained to him about all the work that went into the files and that nobody could edit them but me because only I knew every that was going on at this point, he got on his high horse about how he knew what he was doing and "don't you trust me not to mess it up". When I told him that, quite frankly, I didn't, he really got pissed! Things got *very* *very* ugly. Eventually, he refused to mark up the galleys, insisted on giving me his version of the file. Of course, the file that he gave me was derived from the original file that he had submitted weeks ago, many many editing sessions earlier, without benefit of all my work to get the accents and quotes right, and the typos, and the spelling checks, and.... but he didn't give a shit. He just wanted to do it his way, no matter how much extra work it made for other people. -- Roy Smith, Public Health Research Institute 455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016 {allegra,philabs,cmcl2,rutgers,hombre}!phri!roy -or- roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu "The connector is the network"
mcdonald@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu (06/09/89)
I have a bunch of comments on the following posting. This comes
from my background as a Professor of Chemistry and frequent publisher.
When my name is associated with my work, {\Huge \em I} am
responsible for what is said. I'll happily take advice from copy-
editors from publishers, but >>I<< am responsible for the final result.
>BTW, one interesting side note which really has nothing to do with
>document design. The head of each lab wrote a section describing their
>work. These sections were then combined with other text and assembled into
>the complete report. The people writing the individual lab sections had a
>lot of trouble dealing with the discipline that goes with writing a part of
>a whole. There were stylistic decisions that were made and people had to
>stick to; everything in third person, etc. One decision that was made was
>that the only people mentioned by name would be the lab heads. This meant
>you should say "Dr. foobar did such-and-such" even if the actual work was
>done by somebody in Dr. foobar's lab. One person insisted that the people
>who did the actual work should get the credit by name, and wouldn't back
>down when we told him that this wasn't really a scientific document, but
>was being written for the lay-public and that stylistic uniformity was
>paramount in this situation. It got real ugly.
If you say "Dr. Foobar did such-and-such", even if he didn't, think
of the legal implications: Say Dr. Swango did it instead. And it was a
fraud. Oh my!! Say Mr. McDonald (i.e. me) did it, and Dr. Foobar
won a Nobel Prize for the work. Not nice. Not nice at all. (Dr.
Foobar in fact mentioned me in the Nobel lecture.) The person who
insisted that credit be given to the correct people was right.
VERY right. VERY VERY right. IF you really refused to put in the
real people's names, you should have been summarily fired. What would
have happened if the person who did the work sued?
> Another problem was convincing people that page-count was
>important. Everybody was told to aim for X pages. Some came in short,
>some came in long. A little variation was OK, but some were sent back with
>instructions to "cut a half a page or we'll do it for you" (but nicely).
>Some people just wouldn't listen and eventually we did have to do it for
>them, often with a lot of screaming and yelling resulting. Once everything
>was assembled, people got galleys back for proofing, with instructions to
>only look for typos, mispellings, missing words, and stuff like that.
>Passages which had been badly garbled during the text-hacking process could
>be fixed up, but only if they stayed about the same length. Some people
>came back with an extra half page of text, and got really pissed when we
>told them "page layout is already locked up, you just *CAN'T* do this!"
You do have my sincere sympathy about this sort of problem.
--
>Roy Smith, Public Health Research Institute
Doug McDonaldalex@rata.vuw.ac.nz (Alex Heatley) (06/14/89)
>In article <litfl>, maslak@unix.SRI.COM (Valerie Maslak) writes: >Well, Howard, reading a bad book doesn't make you a good writer. If >you come from the UNIX/troff school, you have probably gotten used >to one of the worst default document designs ever to be perpetrated >upon the unsuspecting public. Troff uses 10 point times roman, >justified, with a 6-1/2 inch line length. > 1) Times Roman doesn't reproduce well on laser printers at > 300 dpi. (Troff was intended for use with a typesetter.) > 2) Justified type is harder to read than ragged right. > 3) Optimum line length is 39-52 characters rather than the > 80 or so you get with 10 point TR in 6.5 inch lines. > 4) If you're writing for a European audience, sans serif > type is easier to read. In the US, serif is easier. (It > depends on what you were brought up on.) I'm not a professional typographer (I define typography as in the following manner: "Anyone can draw lines on a page, art consists of knowing where to put the lines -- anyone can place words on a page, typography is knowing where to put the words"), but I do produce a magazine and I do simple desktop publishing for people. But I'm also cynical and I firmly believe that many publishing standards are dictated by expediency rather than hard rational reasons. For example: rules 2 and 3 quoted above. 2. Justified type is harder to read than than ragged right. Could someone cite a study giving this conclusion? All I've ever seen is arguments along the lines of less eye movement with ragged right vs arguments of constant eye speed with justified text. And when I look to the publishing world -- the books I read are justified, the newspapers I read are justified, many of the magazines I read are justified. To me this results in several possible conclusions: a) Justified looks better and form is more important than content. Hence everyone uses justified and to hell with readability. b) Most publishers/printers are incompetent if they can't even get a simple thing like ragged right correct. c) It's not a hard and fast rule. Both justified and ragged right are useful in certain situations and there is a set of heuristics to choose when to use one or the other. I vote for option c. 3. Optimum line length is 39-52 characters. Well I look again to publications, newspapers vary between 28 and 36 (from my sampling), magazines are slightly better varying from 40 to 44 and books vary from 60 to 90 characters to the line. Again you can draw several conclusions... For me, it seems that you have to look at the intention of your publication. For example, newspapers exist to sell advertising, that is their purpose, everything else is secondary. Thus advertising copy is of the utmost importance. So you have short articles, in narrow columns to give the maximum flexibility in wrapping the text around the ads. I've talked to newspaper printers and they tell me that the ad copy is always laid out first and the text mangled to fit around it. Again, you can make all sorts of rationalisations about how narrow columns are easier to read, how people prefer their news in short bursts, but the bottom line is that in a newspaper the layout revolves around presenting ads. Magazines are the next step in that the ad copy is still very important, but there is a little more flexibility (competition is also important and the intended market, compare Scientific American with the British Weekly New Scientist and with the JACMs). And so on. To me Typography does not consist of hard rules such as 40-60 characters to a line, ragged right instead of justified, multiple columns are better than single columns. Typography consists of a set of design principles and a sense of aesthetics. I have seen publications which apply of the rules I've mentioned in this para and they still fail, because the rules were applied mechanically without anyone looking at the aesthetics. I feel that the two most important design principles in typography are consistency and restraint (don't use more than two fonts per page unless... don't change layouts midway through a publication, unless...) once those principles are mastered, you can go on to more complicated concerns such as serif is easier for US audiences to read (what do you do if you're publishing an international magazine like BYTE? Serif or Sans-serif?) Having said all that, I'm prepared to be wrong. This is my analysis based on looking to the printed things I encounter every day. Newspapers have been around for well over a hundred years, one would think their design principles are fairly well known by now. Likewise for books. I'd like to hear, through this forum from people who can offer good reasons for hard rules, I'd like to hear from people who disagree with my analysis, I want to learn -- if I'm wrong then I'd like to learn where I'm wrong. And most of all I'd like to hear about the sets of design principles that others use. A sense of aesthetics on the other hand... well can aesthetics be learned or are they innate? Alex Heatley Computing Services Centre Domain: alex@rata.vuw.ac.nz Victoria University of Wellington Path: ...!uunet!vuwcomp!rata!alex P.O Box 600, New Zealand. Trolls can often be found under bridges ... or in Computing Departments.
aden@orion.UUCP (Michael Aden) (06/22/89)
In article <1989Jun14.000700.27327@comp.vuw.ac.nz> alex@rata.vuw.ac.nz (Alex Heatley) writes: >2. Justified type is harder to read than than ragged right. > > ... If I might add an explanation for justification as I see it, the ragged right is a distraction while reading, so I have a hard time going from line to line without drifting back and forth between lines. That would explain (to me at least) why one of the few places ragged text works is in bullet lists with isolation space around the text. But then again, maybe I should stick to plumbing - I think installing shower stalls is a piece of cake! :-) ____________________________________ {sun,pyramid,vsi1,uunet}!versatc!aden "I sure hope this doesn't appear twice." "I sure hope this doesn't appear twice."