Two schools of web-design: the Bringhurst and Weingart approaches
   I guess this is Typography week at webactivism.org.
   I sure have diverged quite abit from the site’s namesake of late, but gaining different perspectives on web-work from different people’s exploration is an activism of sorts, in that it expands our awareness of what this field can embody.
   That or I’m sick of whining about Bill Gates, ‘anti-terrorist’ constitution-tramping, and the increasing list of baddies with control over our domain.
   I have just finished reading Typography, by Wolfgang Weingart. It is a beautiful book to look at, though quite a chore to read. The text itself is invigorating, following Weingart’s personal explorations in twisting the bonds of typography (often quite literally, as in his curved work with lead type). But I am befuddled by his choice of large, italic underlined copy. Sure, it is readable, but not easily so, and he doesn’t clarify his reasons for this decision.
   Weingart is the typographer’s typographer, using personal development as the root for his concepts, rather than basing his work on any real research into the subject of the project:
   ‘I crossed out the typography until almost illegible by running silver bars over the words. It symbolized my sudden apathy for metal type and the beginning of a breakthrough in which I erased the past.’
   This wasn’t a personal project, but a poster for for a photography exhibit.
   Using technical experimentation as the source of our work is a strong undercurrent in many Flash sites on the web, and has produced much inspiring work. But rifts occur when we try to transpose these personal explorations to more rote, professional work.
   Weingart himself exhibits this chasm; his personal experiments are stunning – mercilessly repeated letter forms, lead-type poured into circular tubes that shift with each impression on the paper, applying his typographical discoveries to photography – but I was consistently underwhelmed by his professional projects. Many richly embody his reaction to swiss typography. But often, that is all they embody: something meaningful to designers, but meaningless to much of the world.
   Tipping a hat to a particular web-designer by including some tortured 3D geometry in the site, regardless of the subject, is a similar, though even less meaningful approach.
   This in stark contrast to Bringhurst, who sees the designer’s role as a service more than an art. Aside from a few celebrities chosen for their personal style, much of the print-world of design has aimed to ellucidate the subject as the root of any design concept. In the web world, we have a host of ‘web-designers’ who approach the media more as digital illustrators than as someone potraying the ideas of another through layout and graphical decisions.
   And then there are those who acclaim content as king, feeling that all should submit to the easy expression of the subject. And while a titilating shifting interface created through action-script bashing may not be helpful for someone trying to uncover a postal-code, there is a way our personal explorations in web work can be useful in the practical world.
   This isn’t to say that experimental work is not valid if it is not practical. Web can be art; and that is enough. Web can also be practical. When the sensitivities to the medium that we explore in our personal work can be applied to practical work, rather than directly applying the techniques uncovered, perhaps the bridge we seek so often between personal and professional can be built.
Filling pages with the same Berthold Akizidenz-Grotesk character over and over, along with his other intensive experiments, undoubtedly gave Weingart the sensitivity and understanding of the letterform his work shows. Perhaps it is a lack of sensitivity to the reader that fuddies his professional work. We can learn a lot from this man.