Communication design involves the design of letters, pages, books, posters for advertising, etc in such a way that it becomes more pleasing for people to read and would be more attractive. The two articles given for the study are “Lucian Bernhard-The master who couldn’t draw straight” by Steven Heller and “The Ideal Book” by William Morris.
“Lucian Bernhard-The master who couldn’t draw straight” by Steven Heller is the biography of a legend in the field of communication design namely Lucian Bernhard. Bernhard came into the field of graphic design in the age of eighteen as an innovative posterist. He was the son of a doctor who wanted him to follow his path in medicine. But out of love for art he left the house and led a poor life in the streets of Berlin until Ernst Growald, the manger of one of Berlin’famous advetising agency recognized his talent. From then onwards he never had to look back and became a well-known designer for posters, trademarks, alphabets, packages, textiles, furniture etc. He invented a new style of poster art namely ‘Sachplakat’ which also known as object poster and is characterized by exclusion of the most necessary visual elements. The text was minimum and the colors used were aseptically bright. He was highly interested in typography and designed German alphabets and published in 1913. He was a person who could not draw a straight line and hated geometric precision in alphabets. Some of the designs for alphabets he developed include Bernhard Gothic, Bernhard Antiqua, etc, and these became very popular text faces. Although his alphabets were not preferred for texts and books, it was highly recommended in the advertising field. His designs are still honored by many in the field and by writing a biography the author would have thought that it would inspire the new comers in the field and also would give them an idea regarding some of the legendry works of a great person in the history of communication design.
“The Ideal Book” by William Morris is about designing a book in such a way that it would look beautiful even without any ornament in the form of art. It is intended to give an idea to people who are designing a book regarding the importance of the design of the alphabets, spaces within and between words, importance of the extend of margin on all four sides, the weight and type of the paper, size of the book as a whole etc. Any from of art or pictures should be included only if it is absolutely necessary and if it is colorful, it would add to the beauty of the book. The author of the article would have thought that this article would give an idea to the people about the importance of communication design. This article is of high importance to the today’s communication designers because it contains valuable advices on how to design a book, which one would love to read.
