Ellen Lupton: Design Writing Research
Sections About Ellen Lupton
About Ellen Lupton is a writer, curator, and graphic designer. Her most recent books are D.I.Y: Design Books It Yourself (2006) and Thinking with Type (2004). She is director of the graphic design MFA Research/Projects program at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in Baltimore. She also is curator of Essays contemporary design at Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York City, where she Interviews has organized numerous exhibitions, each accompanied by a major publication, including the National Design Triennial series (2000, 2003, 2006), Feeding Desire: Design and the Tools of the Table, 1500–2005 (2006), Solos: New Design from Israel (2006), Skin: Surface, Substance + Design (2002), Graphic Design in the Mechanical Age (1999), Mixing Messages (1996), and Mechanical Brides: Women and Machines from Home to Office.
Books in the works include D.I.Y. Kids (with Julia Lupton) and Graphic Design: Structure and Experiment (with Jennifer Cole Phillips and MICA students and faculty). She is the co-author with Abbott Miller of several books, including Design Writing Research (1996) and The Kitchen, The Bathroom, and the Aesethetics of Waste (1992).
Lupton is a 2007 recipient of the AIGA Gold Medal, the highest honor given to graphic designers in the U.S. Ellen Lupton: Design Writing Research
Sections About Ellen Lupton
About *** What makes a typeface “good”? Books Currently, most fonts created in the open source spirit are produced for small or underserved Research/Projects linguistic populations. Such fonts are “good” in the moral sense. In the future, designers may Essays choose to make free fonts in the service of other social needs as well. For example, in develop- Interviews ing countries graphic designers who seek to build a typographic culture in their home regions require more than a bare-minimum typographic vocabulary, and they often rely on pirated typefaces to do so. A richer selection of legitimate free fonts, clearly labelled and promoted as such in an educational way, might help to build respect for the larger commercial ecology of typeface design.
****Is a typeface a meaningful gift to humanity? In the scheme of things, a typeface may seem like a small gift, so maybe designers and software companies should devote their charitable efforts to more urgent causes. However, I believe that typefaces are valuable, powerful, and beautiful cultural tools, worthy of legal protection and deserving of the price they bring in the Western marketplace. Moreover, a gift of typography makes good on a unique body of skill, knowledge, and passion. Ellen Lupton: Design Writing Research
Sections Books
About Skin: Surface, Substance, and Design Books Research/Projects Inside Design Now Essays Thinking With Type Interviews Design Writing Research Thinking With Type
The organization of letters on a blank sheet -- or screen -- is the most basic challenge facing anyone who practices design. What type of font to use? How big? How should those letters, words, and paragraphs be aligned, spaced, ordered, shaped, and otherwise manipulated? In this groundbreaking new primer, leading design educator and historian Ellen Lupton provides clear and concise guidance for anyone learning or brushing up on their typographic skills.
Thinking with Type is divided into three sections: letter, text, and grid. Each section begins with an easy-to-grasp essay that reviews historical, technological, and theoretical concepts, and is then followed by a set of practical exercises that bring the material covered to life. Sections conclude with examples of work by leading practitioners that demonstrate creative possibilities (along with some classic no-no's to avoid).
Design Writing Research
This critical study of graphic design and typography is a source for anyone interested in the art and history of books, letterforms, symbols, advertising, and theories of visual and verbal com- munication. A section on theory considers the centrality of the written and printed word to post-structuralism and deconstruction. A wide range of design practices are discussed, from the history of punctuation and the origins of international pictograms to the structure of modern typography. A section on media looks at the role of design in mass communications with essays on stock photography, visual journalism, illustration, advertising and vernacular design cultures. The book closes with history, a section organised as a time line spanning 200 years of design in America. These historical case studies show how the modern profession of graphic design emerged in response to cultural, political and economic developments in the US.