Heck, there's even a rivalry between NoCal and SoCal! The NoCal designers are uptight and too white. ;-) I'm kidding, it's mostly my imagination. In type design the only rivalry I've really gleaned is between Americans and Europeans - but you have to pay very careful attention to smell it.

BTW, I recently learned that if you're a graphic designer in Mexico, you better be from Tijuana if you want max peer respect.

hhp

Really? I can see the American/European thing, but I always thought something big inside the U.S. was going on. Seems like there would be at least something, given the fact that different interests have based themselves on the two coasts (at least in my mind)--East coast: book publishing, West coast: entertainment/computer industry.

Is the Tijuana thing true? Several years ago I lived in a region in Mexico (Oaxaca) that was about as far geographically and culturally from Tijuana as one could get; now I've never been to Tijuana, but every sign and work of graphic design in Oaxaca seemed as if it were in emulation of something in Tijuana (or the pictures I've seen anyway). Interesting.

There could be something in the graphic design field* - I was talking about type design.

* Armin might know. About TJ too.

hhp

Message from another shore --

Simplify, polarize, antagonize: who needs that bullshit?

(Sorry if I offended anyone -- I though that dirty word would be bleeped.)

> who needs that bullshit?

Modernists?

hhp

>Modernists?

Modernists are above petty rivalries.
"We don't need no one to tell us what's right or wrong"
-- Paul Weller

"We already know that everything should be forced to fit on a grid."

hhp

Why yes...

The thing with Tijuana is that it's neither Mexico nor US. It is one of the weirdest amalgams of cultures and nationalities. Graphic design coming from Tijuana is some of the freshest, edgiest � even smartest � coming from Mexico.

Scott, Tijuana is unlike anything else in Mexico, which is why Oaxaca (which is more like everything else in Mexico) seems like such a departure. BTW, there is NO design in Oaxaca. I'm not sure though if being from Tijuana gives you instant cred. But it is a hotspot to be in� kind of like Minneapolis or Madison, WI.

Mexico City is filled with amazing designers and some very good type designers. Most notably Gabriel Martinez Meave. And many of the people who were part of Matiz are incredible type and graphic designers. Very different style from that of Tijuana's though.

As far as the US East/West coast thing, in graphic design, there is a very big difference. West Coast design is at times much more colorful than East coast. There is more illustration used in the East Coast, perhaps because of the insane amount of illustrators in NY. The styles are very blurry now, what with the internet and all. The differences are subtle and still noticeable but not as apparent as 10 years ago. We had a similar discussion on Speak Up, not long ago, if anyone's interested.

Type design differences, I don't know. Probably there is.

Paul Renner (c.1950), translated by Chris Burke in his "Paul Renner":

"The truly Modern, that is, the undistorted expression of an objective Zeitgeist, is only what we hold today to be timelessly perfect. This is not the same in all periods, because the insight into the timelessly valid changes from generation to generation"

and

"For the Modern is an idea, an unending task, never to be entirely resolved. We seek it on a narrow ridge, which drops away on one side into thoughtlessly adopted convention and on the other side into the Modish, which is mostly a somewhat foppish exaggeration of the Modern at any one time. this ridge is no comfortable middle way."

I would have thought this understanding of the Modern would be sympathetic to you, Hrant, rather than demonizing Modernism as a banal "fitted to the grid".

But surely there are Modernists, Traditionalists, post-Modernists, post-traditionalist, etc., all over the geographical compass, and most designers don't categorize themselves in these or any terms, we just do it.

And if we do categorize, is it by which side of the country we live on, by which side of the bed we sleep on, or somewhere in between? Get over it -- it's the principles that matter, not the people or where they happen to live.

> but every sign and work of graphic design in Oaxaca seemed as if it were in emulation of something in Tijuana (or the pictures I've seen anyway). Interesting.

Forgot to address that. It's the other way around actually. Oaxaca is one of the oldest and more culturally important cities in Mexico. Some of the finest artists and craftsmen live and work there. Tijuana, having the identity crisis that it has, borrows a lot from Mexico's vernacular which is born in "more Mexican" cities like Oaxaca or even Mexico City.

Equally though, Tijuana has one of the most visuallly- and linguistically-intriguing vernaculars.

> Type design differences, I don't know. Probably there is.

I do see differences myself (and somewhat parallel to the graphic design field, not suprisingly), it's just that I haven't noticed rivalries. I guess because type design is a more insular activity, there's more of a "whatEVER" attitude to peers.

----

> "The truly Modern ....

And not just only in his day, but only on his island. Modernism is never perfect - nothing is.

Modernism is not useless, and I do feel sympathetic to it to some extent, but it's also half the story. Because we are humans, not machines, and the most important thing to realize is that total control is impossible. Modernism considers perfection to be possible (even if only theoretically) - this is arrogant and naive.

".... which drops away on one side ...

And then the ridge ends, and you have to jump anyway.

> is it by which side of the country we live on

Not entirely. But certainly Europeans are more Modernist than Americans for example.

>Europeans are more Modernist than Americans

There you go again: meaningless, un-provable, inflamatory sweeping generalization delivered as statement of fact.

Man you're uptight. For a Canadian. :->

hhp

Criticizing Americans, it's what we do best.

>Criticizing Americans, it's what we do best.<
LOL!!! So do we Americans (criticize ourselves).

:-)

Oh� "rivalries"?

Um, we are designers, not rappers.

I don't here about to many gun battles between type designers or even graphic designers unlike the gun battle Lil Kim had here last summer. It looks like Kim and Martha can share a cell together soon.

I don't know know. I think that the Europeans (esp. Central Europe) are still caught up in modernism to a greater extent than Americans.

Hrant is generalizing, but this whole thread is about generalizations.


Also, type design is very different in each European country. But I don't think that this is a big secret. I do think that there are differences between East Coast and West Coast Type Design. Just compare Font Bureau and Hoefler-Freer Jones to Emigre, or PsyOps. Could Emigre have ever happend in NY or New England? Of course, T-26 might throw my whole hypothesis off. They are in the middle, geographically, but left stylistically.

The coast is clear to me
:-)

>Um, we are designers, not rappers.<

Funny, I actually WAS thinking in those terms when I posted the thread.

Having lived and worked in Italy, Switzerland and on both coasts -- Cape Cod and Sonoma County -- I think westerners mistrust any guy who wears chinos instead of jeans. I found designers and illustrators in Milan to be the most fun to be among, but then we were all young. In and around the Boston-Cambridge area I found illustrators to be very open and helpful whereas designers were uptight almost to a man. (Note that I did not say woman. ) It might be that we were all that much older and competitive. Yes, it's generalizing, and I'm guilty as charged.

Hrant,

Man you're uptight. For a Canadian. :->

I resemble that statement.

Hrant,

"We already know that everything should be forced to fit on a grid."

Help me with this, I have read several times some mention of grids. What is up with the grid stuff? This is not a trick question. Give it to me straight up.

You'll have to ask a gridnik.

BTW, you're a classical typographer, right? Where everything is center-justified?
If so, you have a grid too - it's just one line.

hhp

Hrant

BTW, you're a classical typographer, right?
����������������

This is a more accurate way of thinking.

BTW, you're a darwinian typographer, right?

����������������

Anyway thank you. Grids are obviously a good thing. Type is composed into lines-of-type. That would be a grid, and a good thing. Justified lines, depending on compound criterea, can certainly be a good thing. Which is why these two examples have survived. Mind you, all things that survive are not necessarily good. Cockroaches for instance, unless, naturally, you have a particular pension for that sort of critter.

Sorry to have wasted your time. I thought there was something special about "gridnicks" Sounds as though we are all "gridnicks". Making the term more or less redundant.

Paul Giambarba

You do some nice work.
http://giambarba.com/bizimage/Polaroidsx70accessorieskit.html

> we are all "gridnicks".

Everybody is everything/anything to some extent.
But no matter how much I might rely on grids myself, at least I see their inherent fallacy too.

Yoda was wrong: it's not what you do, it's what you try.

hhp

>Everybody is everything/anything

Far out, man.
See you're in a Type High frame of mind already.

Hey, you're funny. For a Canadian. ;->

hhp

Thanks, Gerald. I'm just beginning to put together a blog about my 25 years of Polaroid corporate ID and product image at:
http://giam.typepad.com/the_branding_of_polaroid_/
It will cover the important years 1957 through 1977 and I will describe the behind-the-scenes efforts to get such projects accomplished within a corporate environment, such as beating off the MBAs who had read a book or two about point of purchase.

paul

looks great, will watch that space. always loved the polaroid branding