Design Horrors

I was reading Brad Feuerhelm today, in one of my periodic fits of wouldn't it be funny if I took one of his things and translated it in to English? It turns out, every time, that it's impossible. There are sentences that don't mean anything, so what do you do with those? There are sentences which admit multiple readings, although usually it doesn't matter which one you choose. Worse are the sentences which are clearly two thoughts spliced together, so rendering it more simply turns it from obscure gibberish to perfectly clear gibberish. Nobody would believe the translation, or at best they'd think I was being mean.

Anyways, he was going on about Stephen Shore's recent re-issues in his usual ponderous style, and mentioned that he really liked the line next to the page numbers in Transparencies and that MACK's book designers are super cool. Of course, anyone who pays attention knows that MACK design is awful. Ugly fonts, horrific margins, and photos just thrown fecklessly down on the page without any sense.

End papers that seem to be "look, just jam whatever you have extra from your wedding album business in, charge it as handmade Japanese paper, and we'll split the profit, ok?"

I probably should not get started on the front matter, because I won't stop until my heart gives out, which will only take a few minutes.

But this one, this is a bit special. You're gonna have to click it. There is, hand to God, a page number in there.

So, sure, I get it. First, obviously, it's an attempt to manage page hierarchy. Photos forward, book-mechanics back. The page number isn't as important as the photo. Check. Second, it's 50:50, but there's a good chance some smart-ass thought this would be a cute reference to transparency, referring to the title. Yeah, yeah.

Trouble is, it's non-functional. You can't read that shit, not reliably, and definitely not if your eyesight isn't spot on. I have an otherwise decent cookbook that uses the same idea, albeit rather more attractively, and I hate hate hate it.

Ok, so it's non-functional. They're, what, "playing with the functional form of the book" maybe. Nobody cares about the page numbers in a photobook so maybe let's have some fun. Hey, why don't you just number all the pages 6 you fuckmooks?

Don't make non-functional books. It's like making a watch that just moves the hands around at random. The point isn't just to make a watch-like piece of shit you strap to your arm, the point is to make a work of art that is also a watch. The watch-ness functions as a constraint, within which your brilliance can truly reveal itself.

Don't stick useless page numbers in there. With, or without, a line. If page numbers don't matter, just leave them out.