Communication

[Moses Yoder]

I have no wish to fight, I would just like to see a logical discussion on this topic. The following posts were made in a thread about a book that was written concerning the Studley tool chest in the Neanderthal Haven forum. The Studley chest has always been an interest of mine since I first saw the poster offer 30 years ago or whatever. I purchased the poster when it was reprinted several years ago and have yet to make an appropriate frame for it and will purchase the book when I have some cash in hand.

It would have been a brief bit of work to’ve set the paragraph formats so as to’ve eliminated the orphans (there may not be any widows, didn’t notice them at a quick check through the book). Similarly, computerized typesetting make it quick and easy to examine all special characters and replace them w/ the proper ones.

Most egregiously, the setting of the dimensions make it more difficult to recognize them, since the fractions are shilling style and separated from the whole number by a hyphen.

If typography doesn’t interest you, please skip all of the following save for the last paragraph. Thanks.

Hopefully, someone at Lost Arts Press will take the following as constructive criticism:

Orphans: pgs. 4, 5, 32, 40, 52, 55, 60, 189, 194 (also an atrocious break (...ev-//er-new...)

page bottoms are ragged / not flush, so no reason for such, similarly, no formal grid, so it’s bizarre that they put the first line of a paragraph above two images on pg. 62, then continue the paragraph below them. Similarly on pg. 80, identifying head for Center Gauge appears vertically high than the matching photo, while the same for Drill gauge is pushed down below (on pg. 86 the same elements are consistent — heads are higher than matching photographs, but on the facing pg. 87 they’re inconsistent again). Lots of trapped white space throughout (e.g., pg. 106).

Bad breaks: pg. 27 top (...compa-ny logo.¶), pg. 33 (hyphenated a 2 line paragraph), pg. 76 (... “Russell Jen-nings.”¶), pg. 155, last line of second paragraph is (was.”), pg. 192 (...an ev-//er-flowing...), pg. 193 (...many of//us). The index formatting is beyond bad — I’m fairly certain it’s InDesign’s defaults w/ no adjustments and set in two too-narrow columns. It also ends on a short page, just 7 lines in a single column, almost over-whelmed by the furniture (book title and folio in the upper left corner of versos).

Also fractions are set as shilling style: 1/8" (pg. 56), w/ a hyphen if after a whole number (pg. 59), a lowercase “x” is used to indicate dimensions rather than the proper symbol, × (pg. 57)

It’s really a shame that the micro typography couldn’t be as perfect as the text, the photography, or the tool chest which is the subject of the book.

It is really sad if in a group of people who handle dimensioned material and a significant subset of whom do signage that they don’t know the difference between:

5' 2"
and
5′ 2″

In the last quote I had to rely on someone else's comments to realize that the publisher used quote marks instead of special characters for minute and second markings. When I saw that post for the first time I thought a mistake had been made. If I put on my bifocals I can actually see the difference between the first dimension and the second dimension. Some of you still do not know what is being talked about here I think.

In my opinion when communicating the only requirement is that you deliver your thoughts in a manner in which the receiving party comprehends what you are trying to convey. Am I incorrect in this belief?

[Chuck Wintle]

I have no wish to fight, I would just like to see a logical discussion on this topic. The following posts were made in a thread about a book that was written concerning the Studley tool chest in the Neanderthal Haven forum. The Studley chest has always been an interest of mine since I first saw the poster offer 30 years ago or whatever. I purchased the poster when it was reprinted several years ago and have yet to make an appropriate frame for it and will purchase the book when I have some cash in hand.





In the last quote I had to rely on someone else's comments to realize that the publisher used quote marks instead of special characters for minute and second markings. When I saw that post for the first time I thought a mistake had been made. If I put on my bifocals I can actually see the difference between the first dimension and the second dimension. Some of you still do not know what is being talked about here I think.

In my opinion when communicating the only requirement is that you deliver your thoughts in a manner in which the receiving party comprehends what you are trying to convey. Am I incorrect in this belief?

you are correct to believe good communication is the key to success in any endeavor. Perhaps a switch to the metric system for dimensions in dwg's could solve the issue? So rather than have this to read 5' 2"
and 5′ 2″ it would indicate mm's or cm's such as 1574.8 m ? Just a thought.

[Wade Lippman]

In my opinion when communicating the only requirement is that you deliver your thoughts in a manner in which the receiving party comprehends what you are trying to convey. Am I incorrect in this belief?

So there is no difference between a well written and a poorly written book (post, article, whatever) if they both contain the same thoughts and are both comprehensible?

[glenn bradley]

I think someone found out that writing a book isn't as easy as some think ;-) We have a few published folks on the forums and they can probably verify that. I do believe that if we communicate our ideas effectively, valid communication has occurred. In any communication I think we should try to be as correct as possible. In a written document that I am paying for I expect decent editing, publishing and manufacturing skills. I expect about the same level of quality from a fictional paperback as I do in a coffee table book; they're just entertainment. In reference materials I expect more ;-)

[Chuck Wintle]

So there is no difference between a well written and a poorly written book (post, article, whatever) if they both contain the same thoughts and are both comprehensible?

Or perhaps it comes down to credibility of the document and the author? If something is poorly written or edited then it will call into question the entire document?

[Phil Thien]

All I can say is, I'm glad I don't know enough about typography that any of the stuff indicated would bother me.

[William Adams]

Typography is the craft (or art) which exists to honour the text with an appropriate typesetting.

Fine, well-done typography is pretty much invisible, but it will make a text easier to read and understand. See Beatrice Warde’s essay, “The Crystal Goblet” (written under the pen name Paul Beaujon) for an examination of this. As idealized writing, it also looks nicer. Virtusoso is a good looking book, it would’ve taken just a couple hours additional work to make it perfect typographically and potentially award-winning.

The big problem is that when the desktop publishing revolution happened, the composition industry sold out for sinecures, rather than being involved in the new technology. This new technology can make most of this sort of thing automatic if one simply engages some sensible settings, and the other things are straight-forward search and replaces (which must be done by hand, since they require an awareness of the meaning of the text which machines don’t have).

Naturally there are lots of books written about typesetting books, the problem is, few people bother to read them, and teachers either don’t know or gloss over “minor” things such as the correct symbols for minutes, degrees, feet and inches.

Here are what should be salient points from the other thread:

In a lot of ways, this exemplifies the XKCD comic on graphic design and the awkwardness of being aware of it (search for “xkcd kerning”, “If you hate someone, teach them to understand kerning.”)

The sad thing is, graphic design and typography are idealized writing, so the school systems dropping cursive from the curriculum will likely make this sort of thing worse, resulting in a further diminishing of the public’s ability to appreciate visual design — which as people who make things which are differentiated by visual appearance we should probably be concerned about.

[William Adams]

Discussed this on the typography sub redditt, and Joel Thomas wrote this, which perfectly expresses what I was trying to communicate:

I own most LAP books, and even those that seem to have been given a good amount of design and binding attention are not that well combed typographically. Which is a criticism I hate to make, because they’re a great company; but small, and I think consisting mostly of people who worked in magazines. The sad conclusion is that really really fine typography is only in the interest of the typographically bent these days — the folks buying LAP books are mostly woodworkers, and this sort of thing is well beyond good enough for us.

You nailed it though. Typography used to be hard, so you might as well have done it right. But, like woodworking, machinery made it all easier, and ensuing generations forgot the finer points of the craft; now what is palpably mediocre passes as really top notch work. It’s a bit humorous because LAP is doggedly about getting back to the roots of the craft, bur their books often end up looking like the typographic equivalent of a bummer 90s woodworking magazine project — a puerile sense of proportion and style, but a glass smooth finish on veneered mdf. If you make something look like it could only be a quality object, you can convince the majority of people, who lack the ability to get at the thing’s guts and figure out whether it really is.

[Phil Thien]

Typography is the craft (or art) which exists to honour the text with an appropriate typesetting.

To be sure, I'm not saying it doesn't matter. And I'm not even saying it doesn't matter to me.

I'm just saying, I'm glad I'm ignorant in this case.

But yeah, if you can help them improve the quality of their texts through posts like this, then by all means...

[Tom M King]

I can see where it would be as irritating to some, as using "your" when "you're" is correct, to me. It's only right to speak up about it. As many times as I have seen "your" used incorrectly, it still wastes my time by having to slow up reading to see what they meant. It's the waste of time that's irritating, even if it's less than a second.

[Scott Shepherd]

Personally, being in a field that deals with a lot of "Graphic Designers", I think a great deal of what is argued about is complete nonsense. I see huge discussions and arguments when people are designing text based things. People tell them their fonts aren't conveying the right message,etc. then you turn on the tv or open a magazine and see Fortune 100 companies using Arial for a font in their "Madison Avenue" marketing company designed advertising campaigns. If it's good enough for Coke, Pepsi, Ford, Chevy,etc. then it's probably good enough for a 3 person small business.

For centuries, the population had no choice but to learn from books, books that they wanted to publish, not books the population wanted to read. If you wanted to learn something new, you'd have to read a book written by some educated wordsmith. Now, with the Internet, you can learn from 1000's of people with vast backgrounds.

I have learned more in the last 10 years of my life, from the Internet, than I ever learned from any other source.

I'll gladly overlook someone's shortcomings in the desktop publishing world that has a skill or knowledge they can teach me, before I pick up a book by someone that knows desktop publishing but not the content of their craft.

My grammar is horrible, yet I'm capable of sharing my knowledge with those interested. If you want perfect grammar and my knowledge, you will have to find another source.

I'd rather that they wrote that book than not because they weren't typography experts.

[William Adams]

Actually, their choice of typefaces was fine — some of the sizing was a bit heavy-handed, but in style there should be no argument of fact, only differences of opinion regarding personal tastes.

Doing things correctly typographically would’ve been a matter of a couple hours’ work, and would have resulted in a flawless, potentially award-winning book. Amortized over the print run it shouldn’t significantly even cut into the profits, let alone the cost — if we could all have a fine steak rather than a hamburger for the same price, why shouldn’t the people preparing things go to the slight additional effort of educating themselves in the standards of the craft which they choose to practice?

[Tim Boger]

I turn towards my shop while shaking my head, I can only hope that the indicators on my tape measure are consistent and accurate .....

Carry on gentleman.

I have no wish to fight, I would just like to see a logical discussion on this topic. The following posts were made in a thread about a book that was written concerning the Studley tool chest in the Neanderthal Haven forum. The Studley chest has always been an interest of mine since I first saw the poster offer 30 years ago or whatever. I purchased the poster when it was reprinted several years ago and have yet to make an appropriate frame for it and will purchase the book when I have some cash in hand.





In the last quote I had to rely on someone else's comments to realize that the publisher used quote marks instead of special characters for minute and second markings. When I saw that post for the first time I thought a mistake had been made. If I put on my bifocals I can actually see the difference between the first dimension and the second dimension. Some of you still do not know what is being talked about here I think.

In my opinion when communicating the only requirement is that you deliver your thoughts in a manner in which the receiving party comprehends what you are trying to convey. Am I incorrect in this belief?

[Scott Shepherd]

Actually, their choice of typefaces was fine — some of the sizing was a bit heavy-handed, but in style there should be no argument of fact, only differences of opinion regarding personal tastes.

Doing things correctly typographically would’ve been a matter of a couple hours’ work, and would have resulted in a flawless, potentially award-winning book. Amortized over the print run it shouldn’t significantly even cut into the profits, let alone the cost — if we could all have a fine steak rather than a hamburger for the same price, why shouldn’t the people preparing things go to the slight additional effort of educating themselves in the standards of the craft which they choose to practice?

How would they even know? We have some highly educated people on this forum and so far, none of them knew. If you don't know what you don't know, how would you know to fix it?

To steal from another famous quote, I would rather have learned with the mistakes, than never learned at all.

[William Adams]

They’re in the business of publishing books. Wouldn’t it behoove them to learn the standards of the industry as they should be practiced?

I’ve lost count of the number of copies of Bringhurst’s The Elements of Typographic Style I‘ve given to people — if I thought they’d act on it, I’d gladly purchase yet another copy and send it to them.