“The industry’s protective ecosphere is strong. A coterie of enablers, some unwittingly, foster the myth. Regulators have been absent and afraid to challenge the PE behemoth.”
“Private equity is an industry that thrives on failures. It is a form of economic activity with so few redeeming features that even a sympathetic account of its workings becomes an indictment of its track record, its culture, and its practices.”
@litherland I remember designing at a firm in the ‘90s when consultants entered the building and we all talked about growth as a necessity. It was the end.
My son asked me about investors and 401ks last week.
This is a tough one. I was an editor at A Book Apart for more than a decade, and it was the honor of a lifetime. We left everything on the field, all of us, always. We sweated the details. I loved everyone I worked with, from my colleagues to all of the authors.
@litherland I bought the first collection when it came out and I was moving from exclusively print design to incorporate equal amounts of digital. Those titles set me up to run my own business doing just that. Huge impact
@litherland Recently bought a good pen. I want to write more consciously. Also tried to remember how I learned to write (in Belgium). It must have been a standarized way of writing in the seventies catholic, Flemish schools. Certain characters I remember (capital A and H) others I forgot (capital S and T)
An interesting exchange with someone today about Arial made me wonder if most people really do think of type more in terms of product than in terms of process.
Greg Gazdowicz certainly recognizes this and has thought about this in depth; that’s one reason I love Terza so much.
Oliver Reichtenstein has thought about it, too.
The type I use to write, the type I edit in—this matters hugely to me; it’s not trivial.
I wonder why uncials have always left me cold. I have never liked these forms. Maybe it’s just a question of my not being sufficiently evolved to appreciate them?
@onpaperwings I have these very strong typographic biases that I have never really understood; I’m not sure where they come from. Maybe part of it comes from growing up surrounded by (really well typeset) books and magazines, setting type myself as the EIC of my high school newspaper… So I love tightness, condensedness, low contrast. Even when these things are not necessarily appropriate for all contexts!
@litherland That’s interesting. I’m somewhat the opposite; not even knowing what graphic design was until I was a graphic design major in college (I only knew that I liked computers and art).
But same: I have very strong preferences. I think maybe my dislike of uncials comes from my dislike of unicase alphabets too?
Also, never been a fan of handwriting typefaces, either. Have always felt that if you want a handwriting feel, why not just … hand write it?
@litherland When you’re cutting your way through the wilderness, italic first is a great and freeing way to work. Let the design lead where it may, and (compared to the other way around) it’s almost a negligible effort to develop its counterpart Roman.
“I work well with slightly crazier people, I balance them out. I like seeing how things can get better, not fighting things for the sake of fighting them but listening to things that people suggest. You reach a point where you realise you’re not always right, in fact, there really is no right or wrong, you just keep trying stuff until it clicks.”