Is there really little to think about?

Last Thursday I went to the talking graphics lecture at LCC. The speaker was Freidrich Forssman, a book designer and typographer who is little known outside of his native Germany. His lecture was entitled 'Book design as a way of thinking' and I thought a few points he made were worth remembering.

1. There is little to think about, but these little things should be thought about thoroughly.

This comes from a man who has written a 400 page book on the typographic possibilities one needs to consider when seeting one sentence of type. Yes, just one sentence, yes 400 pages. This is a man who knows how to think long and hard about the smallest detail! The point is true in typographic terms, but in the context of a PhD, the thought is overwhelming—so many 'little things' all to be thought about in such depth.

2. We don't invent things we have to discover them. They are always there, you just have to ask the right questions.

This sort of reminds me of the Bruce Mau Incomplete manifesto for growth point that states something like the wrong answer is the right answer in search of a different question. It is a great mantra for a practice PhD I think—the answers will come from the process, and the process needs to be allowed to develop in its own way, not forced.

3. Arrogant design doesn't look straight into the eyes of the reader—it looks down to the reader and has fellow designers in mind in a contest of coolness.

This is the only one I am not so sure of. Its a very subjective statement, which in itself isn't a problem, but it seems to be assuming the reader is incapable of understanding the work in the way a designer might. Beyond that I suppose one could also refer to Barthes' point that the text only becomes active when it is read—death of the author (or perhaps designer in this case), birth of the reader. But I've got a right headache, so I'll leave you to ponder on that yourself.