Category: Design Tips & Propaganda

I don’t know how. So leave me alone. After decades of using Quark Xpress, I find myself alone, the last survivor of the nuclear holocaust of the Page Layout Wars. Are there ever victors in nuclear war? No. Well, except World War II; we seem to have planted a flag or two and 700 McDonald’s…

Let’s clear the air about pixels. An unfortunate rumor has it that they are mined by miniature slaves, and that “pixel” is short for “PIXiE Labor.” Nothing can be further from the truth. Pixies make notoriously bad slaves, as they always escape, taking with them important belongings of their overseers, like shoelaces and tomatoes. Because…

All clients would like some say in the piece that you are working on–the piece they will be paying big bucks to print. It’s fair enough to let them have their little say, in the same way that it’s kind to not tell your child that no, you will never be as big or as…

This is part of an ongoing series to help people be better designers, but not better than me. The column’s name may have to change again, due to the surprising number of non-French-speaking people who think “semaine” means “semen.” I assure you, this would be a very different column if that were the case. “Semaine”…

This is part of an ongoing series to help people be better designers, but not better than me. Collect all two! This started out as “Tip du Jour,” but if I posted these daily, all my knowledge would be exhausted in 20 days. So I found a different French word, so it still sounds classy.…

This is the first of an ongoing series to help people be better designers, but not better than me. Collect them all! When making typographical errors in your word processing documents, you should avoid painting type correction fluid directly onto the monitor screen. Most popular brands of white-out use the chemical Aryan-12. Not only is…