My 10 Design Commandments
1. You shall never forget to KERN!!!
!!!
2. You shall not use Comic Sans.
…along with Papyrus, Bauhaus 93, Hobo, Lucida, Century Gothic, Cooper Black, Curlz MT, Impact, etc., etc. And the list goes on. Sigh.
3. You shall check for widows and orphans when typesetting.
Please adjust leading, kerning, tracking, margins, hyphenation, etc… WHATEVER you have to do to reunite these lonely phrases with their families.
4. You shall not piss off the printer with bad pre-press practices.
PLEASE visit prepressure.com (or go back to school).
5. You shall not use a 72dpi image in a print job.
Unless you want to blind the world with ugly mega-pixels.
6. You shall not use RGB in a print job and CMYK in web.
I hope I don’t have to explain this.
7. You shall not forget that negative space is your friend.
“Less is more.â€
8. You shall not create type (or logos whenever possible) in Photoshop.
There are vector-based programs for that.
9. You shall not create a multi-page brochure in Word, PowerPoint or Photoshop.
WTF. Like are you even a designer?!!!
10. You shall always create multiple back-ups.
Or else you’ll try to kill yourself many times when your computer dies on you.
I know I missed about a billion others but there isn’t enough space on my server to list them all. What are your 10 commandments (which doesn’t have to be design-related)?
KATY:
jen (2)
atalante (1)
chanel (1)
Kathy (1)
magalaya (1)
Ahh, those (from the ones I understood lol) are vital in design commandmants. Love the concept by the way. However, on a more unoriginal note, proper english is key. Slang just doesn’t do it for me.
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i definitely agree on the font and photo one!
i get this twitch when i see a font i can recognise on word
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That’s too many rules, I’m going to design hell
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Haha! I think Gothic Century is cute when you use it right!
5. You shall not use a 72dpi image in a print job. Horrible! It seems like the people who do this are blind or have super blurry vision that make them think it’s normal.
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I so agree with your number wambah 10. It just so frustrating when you lose a file and you need to create another one.
I can’t think of a funny commandment right now. lolzzz.
Take care, Katy. :p
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i love century gothic! i am going to design hell as well
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I’m with all of these people haha.. I have a thing for Century Gothic as well! And typing up my ten commandants would take a while, so I think I’ll have to save that for a time when finals are not looming ahead.
BTW, I’m fairly certain that at one point I looked like the asian girl in that photo.
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Katy
June 13th, 2008 |
I think it’s because Century Gothic is one of those fonts used by EVERYBODY… especially those who aren’t designers because it IS a nice font, but way overplayed. A lot of fonts like Helvetica are over-played as well but they have a much longer history than Century Gothic.
My biggest peeve is when people use Century Gothic in small print (magazine articles, books, etc)… it looks hideous! They are designers too.. what the hell are they thinking?!!
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i’m so embarrassed. i’ve probably broken most of those.
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I like a couple of those fonts…
I never print stuff, so no worries for me.
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Lol at the last picture
#10 – oh yes. Oh #9.. how often I had to do that at work, in WORD. I almost died, kept my head shaking…. lol, but we don’t have In Design and most of the time we need a brochure FAST. But I see it the same way as you 
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Amen to the font thing. I hate HATE HATE seeing fonts like that.. I even see fonts that are over-used on video games. It makes it feel crappy when you’ve seen the font so over-used. I also agree with some of those other things too =P
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I think I’m guilty of using Impact and Century Gothic, haha, but not on professional documents. Moreso for cam captures and stuff. I love with people print out pixelly photos. It’s always made me laugh.
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Gosh there is so much more for me to learn. I actually like comic sans (even though for a long time I knew it’s ‘bad’) and I’m really hard headed when it comes to the back-up thing.
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NOOOOO!!! I love Century Gothic!
Impact is good for macros, lulz.
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hahaha i fuck up sometimes when i do print and forget to convert my file to CMYK
-=T
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Katy
June 19th, 2008 |
Omigosh you have no idea how many times I forget to do that until the very end!!!
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I never went to design school + my computer is too crappy to add new programs, so I sadly break a lot of these rules. I so am going to get a kickass new computer in the next six months and pack it with great programs though. I feel so behind.
Comic Sans and Cooper = two fonts my clients always request. The customer is always right. (Not!)
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Thanks for the commandments.
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HAHAHA! Awesome commandments. I can’t agree with the #2/#10 more. Though, I have to admit, I do sometimes use Century Gothic, but only for titles. As for print design, I’ve not designed many of those because I’m just not very good with Illustrator. But then again I’m not a full fledged designer since I’ve never taken a design or computer lesson in my life. LOL. It’s always just been a hobby of mine but I do try to be professional when given commissions anyway.
I don’t think I have 10 design commandments, but I do have a pet peeve: Appropriate font sizing. Not everyone has perfect vision!!! I can’t see 8px fonts. I’m sorry. No matter how aesthetically pleasing it is, 8px font is just impossible for my eyes – be it print or web. With web, at least I can increase its size by force. With print, well, it’s going into the trash can. Hahaha.
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Katy
June 20th, 2008 |
That reminds me.. I haven’t changed my font to 9pt after updating this theme! It was at 11px!
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Sorry but I love Century Gothic
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Rule number 11 for any 10 commandments: You shall not forget that rules are there to be broken
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Hi – like your article
As a printer I wish loads more designers were like you – out of interest on our blog we have loads of useful articles on designing for print whether it be litho or Digital.
Cheers
Pete – UK
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