by Dennis Green
For at least 30 years, I have argued with graphic designers about the meaning and use of words in page layout. “They have to be legible!” I insist, “They have to be readable. They’re more important than the graphic design!” Even on web pages and blogs. So you can imagine my dismay when I realized the other day how wrong I’ve been, and actually admitted it to my dear friend, graphic designer Tania Fardella, owner of Indigo Design.
Of course, it helps that Tania is absolutely gorgeous — Sicilian and Greek and even more lovely than when we met, some 15 years ago. And perhaps it made my conversion easier that we weren’t discussing some mutual project and words, heads, text, copy, that I had a vested interest in protecting.
We were having lunch at Asena, the little Mediterranean café on Santa Clara Avenue in Alameda, sitting by the window. She pulled out of her bag a handful of “comps” for dessert — roughs of new designs for her business. And the first things she showed me were some samples of a new business card for Indigo Design
Now, I used to give marketing seminars for S.C.O.R.E. — the “Service Corps of Retired Executives” — long before I was retired from the ad game, and I always made the point early on that the first piece of marketing communications my students would likely use would be a business card for their new firms. And how important its design would be. “Chose your business name more carefully than you would the name of your first-born child.”
And as Tania leafed through her samples, I was immediately taken by one design — a squarish format with the name of her business running along the edges, chopped off in fact, the top of the letters in “Indigo” and the bottom of the letters in “Design” just missing. I loved it.
“What I like about this one,” I said, after dismissing all the other options, “is the contempt you demonstrate for the words, the letters…the
utter disregard you show for the words.” She was startled by my comment, but no more so than I was. For I saw how wrong I’d been all these years.
Later, as Tania and I had a drink down the street at the Lemon Tree Inn, sitting chatting madly at the bar, I told her about my old prejudice. “As a writer,” I confessed, “I’ve always been partial to the words, insisting that they be legible, readable…and you…you…artists!”
“Yes..?” she said coyly.
“You simply look at the words as another…another…” I couldn’t place it.
“As just another design element!” she said happily.
“Yes! Goddammit!” I nearly shouted loud enough to scare the whole bar filled with patrons… “That’s it! A design element. And do you have any idea how infuriating that is to a writer? Do you?” She looked at me with such compassion I thought she was going to pat me on the head.
“No,” she said sweetly.
And then she told me that her boyfriend, James, (who paints wonderful artwork, graffiti art similar to, but beyond that done by Basquiat), chose the same design I did as his favorite. “That’s understandable,” I said. “But use a different color. Use purple!”
“Purple?” she was surprised.
“Yes, purple, lavender, prunewhip…send me some samples, about six different shades of purple.” I said.
“Why purple?” she was mystified.
“Because it’s the color of your aura,” I said, looking at her sideways, and seeing that faint, yet rich purple hue around her head. “Royal purple. You were probably a Greek goddess or Sicilian princess in a previous life!”
So you can teach an old dawg new tricks, especially if you’re gorgeous and talented and take no prisoners. Tania tried out some sticky sweet phrases for the back of her card on me, and I shook my head, adamant. “Nope,” I said. “You’re much tougher than that. A woman with real balls…”
A little later, she was talking about an old boyfriend, and got this vicious look on her face. “That’s it!” I cried. “That’s the woman with balls the size of Texas. That’s the real Tania!”
“Oh, you think so?” she demurred.
“Poor James,” I laughed. “He never knew what hit him!”
©2010 Dennis Green
No comments:
Post a Comment