Michael Bierut Quotes - Page 2

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• I grew up in a Cleveland suburb called Parma, Ohio. Somewhere along the way I fell in love with a typeface called Bodoni. It turns out that Giambattista Bodoni had his foundry in Parma, Italy. So I pick Bodoni because us guys from Parma have to stick together.

  Michael Bierut

  Ohio, Guy, Together

  Source: scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org

  7 Copy quote

• We get used to things, and we like reading the way we're used to reading.

  Michael Bierut

  Reading, Way, Used

  Source: scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org

  14 Copy quote

• We use the word typography to describe two different things: the design of letterforms, and the layout of typeset passages on a page. Both of those experiences are really important to communicating information, especially when that information involves complex ideas.

  Michael Bierut

  Ideas, Two, Design

  Source: scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org

  4 Copy quote

• I think different designers have different points of view and different strong personalities can influence the way certain cities are perceived.

  Michael Bierut

  Strong, Thinking, Views

  Source: facingsideways.com

  13 Copy quote

• Australia is one of the few places that I can think of where the cities, at least those I've been to, seem to have strikingly different characters and visual textures. To an American like me, there's basically Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane and the rest is all bush.

  Michael Bierut

  Character, Thinking, Cities

  Source: facingsideways.com

  17 Copy quote

• Certain kinds of typeface design and typographic design are designed to persuade: we can make this company look modern if we use a crisp sans serif typeface, or we can make this restaurant look like its been around forever if we use typefaces and layout styles that have been around forever too. But there are other categories, and ballot design is one of them, where the goal should be to be purely functional. There have been notable failures in this category.

  Michael Bierut

  Goal, Forever, Design

  Source: scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org

  11 Copy quote

• A lot of times, you design a logo to be timeless, but with something like the Olympics, timelessness is maybe not something you should be going for.

  Michael Bierut

  Design, Olympics, Logos

  Source: facingsideways.com

  7 Copy quote

• The scientists at CERN were actually surprised that people commented on this. Reportedly Fabiola Gianotti, the coordinator of the CERN program to find the Higgs Boson, was asked why she had selected Comic Sans. She simply said, "Because I like it."

  Michael Bierut

  People, Scientist, Comic

  Source: scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org

  12 Copy quote

• I think once the artistic world of the type designer merged with the scientific world of the computer programmer, you began to see this crossover.

  Michael Bierut

  Thinking, World, Computer

  Source: scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org

  12 Copy quote

• I have a really shallow idea about what Australia is.

  Michael Bierut

  Ideas, Australia, Shallow

  Source: facingsideways.com

  6 Copy quote

• A simple MS Word document, or a Powerpoint presentation, has its limits, particularly the unpredictability in how the page will actually display. With a PDF, you are locking down all those variables.

  Michael Bierut

  Simple, Pages, Limits

  Source: scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org

  6 Copy quote

• Compared with now when almost everyone knows what graphic design is and has some sort of access to the tools to make it, back then, it was really esoteric, you had to quantify it as being 'like commercial art', as one still does in certain circles. It was a strange thing to want to do for a living.

  Michael Bierut

  Art, Circles, Design

  Source: facingsideways.com

  5 Copy quote

• I can see how some people get sentimental about how we used to do things in 'the good old days' but in a way I just think they are being nostalgic for the way they were brought up.

  Michael Bierut

  Thinking, People, Way

  Source: facingsideways.com

  4 Copy quote

• If you ask people in the US what logos they like and recognise, they'll name Target or Nike.

  Michael Bierut

  Nike, Names, People

  Source: facingsideways.com

  5 Copy quote

• I believe sans serif typefaces - today upheld as models of neutrality and legibility - were called "Grotesques" in the 19th century because people thought they were hideous. But now we're used to them.

  Michael Bierut

  Believe, People, Neutrality

  Source: scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org

  6 Copy quote

• Sometimes I will give some very vague directions to the designer that I'm working with on a particular project and they'll come back and surprise me with something that really shows a lot of their own 'hand' in it. Other times I'll have a really clear idea about how I want it done and I'll draw it out pretty precisely and say 'make it look exactly like this' and it will be something where it looks like I can say it was 'fully my design'. The work can also range between the two.

  Michael Bierut

  Hands, Ideas, Two

  Source: facingsideways.com

  6 Copy quote

• I wanted to be a graphic designer from the time I was 15, without ever having actually met one. I lived in the mid-west, not in a media centre, and I didn't know anyone who did that for a living. It took me a while to find out what that thing I wanted to do was actually called, but once I sorted that out I got really interested in it.

  Michael Bierut

  Media, West, Designer

  Source: facingsideways.com

  7 Copy quote

• I've heard some designers talk about the design process being centred on invention, starting with a blank slate. I admire that and occasionally I'm capable of that, but I have to admit that I really have trouble working with completely open briefs.

  Michael Bierut

  Design Process, Trouble, Designer

  Source: facingsideways.com

  4 Copy quote

• It was stone carvers in ancient Rome, scribes in the Middle Ages, all the way through Gutenberg to the present day. That's a pretty long track record. More likely we may reach a point where each one of us is a typographer with our own custom proprietary typeface.

  Michael Bierut

  Rome, Long, Track

  Source: scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org

  4 Copy quote

• There was a time when most people had a choice between two kinds of personal communication, handwriting or using a typewriter. Today, people are invited to choose from a list of (surprisingly exotic) typefaces every time they turn on their computer. I think this has made everyone more aware of the idea that picking a typeface is a conscious choice.

  Michael Bierut

  Communication, Thinking, Typewriters

  Source: scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org

  4 Copy quote

• When it comes to working on identities, a lot of the time I find myself working with a company that has been around for a while. No matter what they say their goal is, the history and the impression that they have already made in the minds of the public is a real thing that you have to deal with.

  Michael Bierut

  Real, Goal, Mind

  Source: facingsideways.com

  4 Copy quote

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

  Michael Bierut

  Writing, Ideas, Design

  Source: scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org

  4 Copy quote

• It was 4 or 5 years into my first design job before the idea of doing graphic design on computers started taking hold. I started working in 1980, the Macintosh was introduced in 1984, then the real desktop publishing only started coming around in 85-86, but it wasn't really until the end of the decade that the transition became irresistible.

  Michael Bierut

  Jobs, Real, Years

  Source: facingsideways.com

  4 Copy quote

• In the US you have New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, Miami and dozens of other cities; a few of them have a really strong visual character. But even with those there is just too much space between them and too many people.

  Michael Bierut

  Strong, New York, Character

  Source: facingsideways.com

  4 Copy quote

• If you look at the Olympic graphics for Mexico or Los Angeles, those programs don't look contemporary by today's eyes but they really look like they are of their place and time.

  Michael Bierut

  Eye, Looks, Mexico

  Source: facingsideways.com

  7 Copy quote

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