originally posted on cohost (rip)
been enjoying looking at ikea's catalogue archive, which goes all the way back to 1950, where i discovered that they did in fact use stylish sans serif display fonts in their magazines back then. i don't know why i thought sans-serif was a more modern invention. i'm too young.
i just love the way these vintage catalogues lay out the text very intentionally between product illustrations. i imagine about how they were designed and printed, and how different the process must be from how i (for example) code up websites, or move text boxes around in a presentation program, even if the layouts don't feel all that different.
i guess it's a subtler difference, like the difference between one modern metropolis to another on the other side of the world. in the older catalogues, information is packed tighter. there's less empty space. and then, modern ikea catalogues show far less variety in fonts and font styles. the design choices that carried through to modern catalogues, like thick dashed borders for cutout guides, feel more playful in the modern context while feeling more business in the old designs.
i'm really fond of the look of text being packed together. i think it's the same reason i like pocket sized paperbacks and vertically stretched (tastefully, wouldn't wanna overdo it) Times New Roman. it's also why i tend to design things too small, informed by the minimalist font-size-10pt tumblr blogs i used to follow...
it reminds me of this old HTTP document (where, pleasantly, one page takes up almost exactly the height of my monitor, so i can page through it using my spacebar). compared to the design of the modern document obsoleting it, it's definitely a bit harder to read and navigate. is the double-line-height sans-serif-body-font simply more accessible? is beauty pain?
last week i designed a powerpoint presentation for a class, and it was very minimal, with (relatively) large sans-serif text, with lots and lots of white space. i was inspired by this one photo of an internal presentation by openai, i think, man i can't find it, and though i don't really care about the content of that presentation i really enjoyed how extremely to-the-point and underdesigned it looked. it's Steve Jobs keynotes again, i know.
point is, my taste lies somewhere in between the vintage and modern ikea catalogues, and i've been trying to pinpoint it. maybe something spaced out, with a clean off-white backdrop, with intentionally choiced fonts and line heights.
or... actually, why is it that i get attached to these superficial design elements? specific fonts, specific text transformations, specific colors? as if there is a "perfect website" in my mind that i'm constantly editing, and everything i would include in this website is my Taste, and everything i wouldn't include is Not. when i know perfectly well that design doesn't exist in a vacuum. can't have everything i design be an inside joke...
hey, don't you think using this serif font makes my extremely train-of-thought post look more coherent and credible? that's it, then. i only wanted to ramble about my recent thoughts on design.