Erik Spiekermann
But most people do not design numbers because numbers are hard. As you can see on the street, most numbers are standardized. They tend to be very generic because people are scared of numbers; redesigning numbers is like redesigning the Latin alphabet. The way we write our numbers comes from Arabic, although they’ve been abstracted. The three used to slant down, like a 2 or something. You see this angle in Arabic, with the stresses on the bottom. Our normal numbers – real, legible numbers – are a little bit clunky, because they’re tall but narrow. They have weird diagonals. It’s a nightmare. There’s this one line going across this space. That’s why we cross our 7 in Germany, and also why we have the upstroke and downstroke, like on the 1.
And you very often see this thing, sort of a little serif, on the front of a 7. It comes from the fact that you may need to distinguish the seven from the 1. I just did the typeface for the European freeways, and all the tests are basically the same: Are those 1s? People think they’re Ls or whatever. You don’t know. It could be a stroke. It could be an L, an I. They need the upstroke. I personally like the little serif because it just makes it a little wider. It gives it a little more recognition. The funnier thing is that the 3s and 5s often get confused. If you look quickly, sometimes you reverse the image, because our brain flips the image from our eyes, but sometimes it doesn’t turn it back. That’s why when you see people scribble on walls, they graffiti the N backwards. It’s more instinctual, it’s the obvious movement. Otherwise, you stop there, and then you have to go – “Hold it! Put the can back up, and go back up now.” It’s like the boustrophedon, or the typewriter carriage, you don’t want to return on empty. This way is quicker.
In the end, my favorite number of all is the 2 in Akzidenz Grotesk Light. It looks like a swan that has a big neck. It doesn’t come back. American 2s always curve back. That one just has this big neck that ends short. Maybe the swan is a childish association, but to me it has this majestic “don’t touch me; leave me alone” quality, but still elegant. Swans aren’t cuddly. They’re bitches. But that’s what I like about the 2. It’s different. And it’s very difficult to do because you have this big white space, then it gets very black down there. You get some light into the top. It’s really a bitch, a total bitch to get that curve right so that it doesn’t fall over, so that it doesn’t sit on its ass. Designing a 2 or any number is always really difficult.
But maybe that’s why I like them so much."
Numbers
Issue 08
In this Issue
Strategy555 Million Subscribers & CountingAs the competition grows in China's mobile market, it is cultural dynamics that will determine who comes out on top.
ImpulseThe Collective InstinctExploring the human inclination to curate: what we keep, why we keep it,
and what it means for design.Play1:1
BehaviorLuck Has a "RNG" To It
ObjectHasselblad 501CM
In PersonErik Spiekermann
MethodsCalculated Design
StrategyThe Urban Legend of Corporate Intranets
ArtDigitalism
StortytellingWriting Without Words
CityCity Guide: San Francisco
EventsCalendar
Hey, how the hell do you
Joe Clark - July 19, 2008
Hey, how the hell do you expect us to read this piece when you break it up into four sections?
You’re not doing that to artificially and dishonestly increase pageviews, are you? Because you sure aren’t doing it for readers.
I second Joe’s opinion,
Paul Walker - July 20, 2008
I second Joe’s opinion, (though perhaps not his rather rude sentiment). There’s no advantage for anyone in splitting up articles (if you were to have ads, more impressions would be the only advantage; but (thankfully) you don’t and thus it isn’t). It’s not as though people have an issue with scrolling on web pages; and the sections are too long to solve that issue for the vast majority of people anyway. Otherwise, It’s a very interesting article.
Hey guys, As Paul pointed
Tim - July 20, 2008
Hey guys,
As Paul pointed out, we're not selling ads and therefore don't really care about page views. However, we do care about the reading experience. As you may know, the articles are derived from our print magazine, and some of them are very long. When we designed the site (this specific feature has actually been carried over from the previous site), we felt that scrolling down would be more disruptive to the online reading experience than clicking to the next page. We conducted extensive user testing, and the results confirmed our assumption. But we're not dogmatic about this: We will monitor this very closely going forward and if there's more feedback like yours we may adjust the design, especially for longer pieces.
Thanks again for your feedback and reading design mind.
Tim
I concur with the idea that
Clinton - July 21, 2008
I concur with the idea that scrolling beats clicking. Why would scrolling be disruptive? We already have to scroll past the images just to get to the article. Scrolling down makes me aware that I have everything I need to consume this article in one place. Plus its quicker than waiting for page loads.
ha! so funny because i opted
yael - July 21, 2008
ha! so funny because i opted to scroll down and read the comments before clicking through the "next"... i second clinton's comment.
oh, the horror the horror
Justin - July 21, 2008
Clicking "next" is sooooooooo hard, wah.
Either is disrupting to reading, to some degree, depending on the reader. Then again, so is turning a page. Whichever works best for the majority of readers and the design of the site, run with it.
ahhh...
nk - July 22, 2008
ahhh... twos...designing.
"Auf dem Weg zum Wissen begegnen uns viele Zweifel."
clicking vs scrolling: Scrolling allows one to scan back easier in the article to review something that was skimmed over too fast the first time when a latter mention in an article tells me I need reinforcement. No doubt, it's easier than remembering which page it was on and which page to click back to.
where are the numbers?
Bryan Bedell - July 22, 2008
I prefer scrolling, too, for what it's worth but the real crime here is that there's no images of, or even a link to, the Design Within Reach numbers that are discussed throughout the article.
(they can be found here:)
http://www.dwr.com/category/designers/r-t/eri...
Sadly, only one is still available.
Spiekermann
Brian - July 22, 2008
After seeing Spiekermann in "Helvetica" I could care less about what he has to say. He is a blowhard.
More importantly...
Sam Potts - July 22, 2008
Couldn't you have turned on the heat for the poor guy?
Click the comments
Bob - July 22, 2008
Grrr....this list of comments is getting too long for scrolling. Can't you guys divide it into pages to click thru?
Spiekermann?
Thomas Bland - July 27, 2008
Hey all,
While the presentation of the article has evidently not scored many goals, does anyone have anything to say about the content?
I'm endlessly impressed by the sheer attention to detail of top type designers (I always wonder if they are all extremely anally-retentive as people...). I'm a pretty big fan of most of Spiekermann's typefaces, and I think he's quite a witty and interesting individual.
@Brian - What didn't you like about Spiekermann in Helvetica? For me, he was the highlight of the documentary - I found his obtuse attitude towards traditionalist typography to be hilarious.
Hi, what pen does Mr
manu - July 30, 2008
Hi, what pen does Mr Spiekermann use in the photos 4 and 5?
Conviction
John - July 31, 2008
Spiekermann seems like an assterisk because he has convictions, whether they are popular or not. He is an amazing designer and feels strongly in his own way about design. Most designers today have no idea what they stand for in design and I am not talking about personal aesthetic. He doesn't hate helvetica because he thinks it's boring. He hates helvetica because it makes his gut turn upside down and his blood boil. That's passion, grow a pair.
Great article, I saw a TV
Michael Long - August 3, 2008
Great article, I saw a TV programme called "The Story of One" presented by Terry Jones (Monty Python) about the history of numbers from the beginning up until the renaissance of binary in modern computing; I'm sure it's on YouTube somewhere.
I'm also curious why Brian thinks Spiekermann was a 'blowhard' in Helvetica (and the expression is "couldn't care less", not "could care less").
Count this as another vote for scrolling vs. four pages of clicking.
Scrolling is much better than clicking.
Silas - August 14, 2008
I agree with the scrolling through the article for ease of reading. I read an article on here that was 7 pages long... that was significantly irritating to make note of.
The comment Justin made about page turning being disrupting was interesting. I love reading books and never thought or noticed that page turning was disruptive. Perhaps it is something that I have just acclimatised to - a physical act of turning a page which is always linked to reading. Whereas a mouse click is used for so many different actions - just thinking out loud though. hmmmmm.
I think that reading online and from monitors is still not as pleasant an experience as reading from a book or other forms of printed matter. Why is that?
Any thoughts?
reading experience
CrispyCornFlake - September 29, 2008
@Silas – the resolution on screen is a lot lower than print, so the edges are blurrier, which is tiring on the eye.
print version?
eric - December 24, 2008
@CrispyCornFlake,
well, you could also print out the article if its too hard to read on screen. Oh wait, that's kind of a pain when its split up between 3 pages.
And, if there was a 'print article' option, then that would satisfy us 'scrollers' as we'd opt to read that version and you clickers can keep on clickin'
Pagination vs. scrolling
Brian - January 14, 2009
@Tim
Your "extensive user testing" and findings for scrolling versus pagination really interest me. How about an article on that? Did you find that without pagination, people bailed on reading the article because they gauged it to be too long? Or did people simply complain about scrolling? Personally, I find the pagination inferior to scrolling. Here's why:
1) I finished the article (great, by the way) and wanted to send the link to a friend. Pagination forced me to return to page one to do so.
2) Your design (as rendered in Firefox 3, PC) presents the page numbers as very small targets. I like that you implemented the links as block elements (making the elements larger) but without a visual border I still try to get my cursor over the number's space.
3) Page loading slowed down my experience and disrupted continuity -- I had to find my place on each new page. Small issue perhaps but exacerbated by the fact that I simply wanted to mouse-wheel through the whole thing and couldn't.
Scrolling vs Pagination
Lana - February 21, 2009
Hey guys,
Thanks a lot for all the comments on scrolling and pagination. I have a homework which is to compare scrolling down screens in an interface with fixed, or as you put it 'clicking', screens. Cool, it was a helpful brainstorming.,