“This site is based on a walk by Phil Baines for his graphic design students which was then written up for the 1997 ATypI conference. The text has been updated and expanded to include other examples. This walk concentrates on larger examples of public lettering and doesn’t mention incidentals — stop-cocks, manholes, dates on buildings, builders marks, &c — of which there is much en route. Much of the pleasure of this kind of walk, is finding things yourself. Although also ‘public’, it entirely ignores advertising hoardings, store signs and most corporate identities as these are usually approached as pieces of graphic design rather than opportunities for specialist, site-specific lettering.”

“Recently I started to address an apparent discontinuity in IA, which was: How to combine faceted classification, regarded as a ‘bottom-up’ metadata system, with the hierarchical navigation that’s typically considered a ‘top-down’ structure — thereby giving (unsuspecting) users much more power over their browsing… Now there is FacetMap, a solution so simple that we can take any metadata you’ve got, and turn it into a browsing system right here on our servers. Every page is generated when you request it, in order to display the efficiency of our unique technology.”

“Why we created the indexes: We created the Indexes and thesaurus page to help Web site visitors find information and to reduce the cost of maintaining the site. Even on a relatively modest Web site, standard keyword searching can return too many matches to be meaningful. Furthermore, visitors need cross references and definitions to understand specialized terms, such as ‘upstream knowledge management’ or ‘authority files.’ Finally, maintaining indexes and tables of contents for a monthly publication is too time consuming and error-prone without a standard list of terms in database format.”

“Walk into any K-Mart. Then walk into any Target. You’ll see similar merchandise (substitute Martha Stewart for Michael Graves), similar target audiences, even similar prices. The difference between the stores is brand. If you followed usability gurus like Jakob Nielsen blindly, brand would have little to no place in information and interaction design.”

“This section displays images sorted by known dust jacket designers for titles printed in the years 1928 through 1970. It includes pictorial, design, and non-boilerplate text styles found on flexie’s and hardbacks, plus illustrated acetates and box images.”

“Walk into any K-Mart. Then walk into any Target. You’ll see similar merchandise (substitute Martha Stewart for Michael Graves), similar target audiences, even similar prices. The difference between the stores is brand. If you followed usability gurus like Jakob Nielsen blindly, brand would have little to no place in information and interaction design.”

“This section displays images sorted by known dust jacket designers for titles printed in the years 1928 through 1970. It includes pictorial, design, and non-boilerplate text styles found on flexie’s and hardbacks, plus illustrated acetates and box images.”