Tag Archives: Composition

Wordle Word Clouds: So This Is Fun

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Last week, NAI Executive Director Tim Merriman came into my office and said, “Paul, come here.” In my mind, this conversation almost always ends with, “You’ve screwed up one too many times and now you’re fired.” In reality, Tim hardly ever fires me. In this particular instance, he wanted to show me a website he had learned about called Wordle.

Wordle generates word clouds based on text that the user enters. Tim was impressed with the potential use this tool has for social marketing or qualitative research, whereas my thought was, “Neat!” (Note added October 15, 2010: Tim wrote a serious, grown-up post about word clouds on the NAI Blog.)

After learning about the site from Tim, I went to Wordle and entered all of the text from my September 21, 2009, post about the Phillies typeface, Scriptwurst. The reason I chose this post is that roughly 98 percent of the hits we get on this site are from people looking to download the Phillies font Scriptwurst, which they cannot do because it’s custom designed and proprietary. But every time I write “Phillies font” or “download Scriptwurst,” we’re likely to get a few more hits, and we’re obsessed with numbers so I’ll try to do that a few more times.

Wordle allows users to select from a handful of fonts (most of which I had never heard of) and control settings related to orientation, composition, and color. The example above uses the typeface Powell Antique, a color palette called Heat, and a typographic orientation of mixed horizontal and vertical. You’ll notice that the largest words are those repeated most often in the post, namely “Phillies typeface.” (Hello Google searchers!)

This composition is set in the typeface Loved By the King in a color palette called Milk Paints. The composition mode is set to “Any Which Way.” Given my aversion to handwriting fonts and my affection for the grid, it was difficult for me, emotionally, to include the above in this post. But notice the way the words “Phillies Typeface Scriptwurst” jump out. (Cha-ching!)

This one is set entirely horizontally in the typeface Vigo and the color palette Kindled.

And finally, this one is set in the typeface ChunkFive with a color palette called Organic Carrot. I notice as I write this that naming typefaces and color palettes can be a little like naming indie bands—the weirder the better.

There are limitations to Wordle. For instance, you cannot tweak the word list once you’ve created a cloud that you like, nor can you force the word cloud to fill a specific shape. However, you can create custom color palettes, and most importantly, you can create a vector-based pdf of your word cloud, which can be edited in a program like Adobe Illustrator. (To do this, click the print button, then print to a pdf.) The advantage to this is not only that you can use the pdf for high-end printing purposes, but you can also edit it or use it as part of a larger composition. You could even tweak your word cloud to include multiple typefaces—like the Philles typeface Scriptwurst, if you can find a place to download it.

Also, the site states explicitly that any composition you create is yours and can be used for any purpose, so if you’re creating T-shirts or posters or other sales items, there’s no need to worry about copyright issues.

I recently became aware that a post I wrote last November about an online color scheme designer led to many wasted hours that could have otherwise been used productively. One reader spent three days spinning the color wheel round and round on her computer screen nonstop until she passed out from exhaustion and was hospitalized with dehydration. I can only hope that this Wordle post will have the same effect.

I hope you’ll check out Wordle and create compositions meaningful to your own organization. And don’t worry about those financial reports your boss has been waiting for since last week. You have word clouds to create.

Fine Art vs. Graphic Design

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People often say things to me like, “Hey, you’re an artist, give me your opinion on this,” or, “Hey, it must be fun working as an artist,” and, “Hey, you just stole my parking place.” This is because graphic design is often confused with fine art, and the two are very different. Also, I steal people’s parking places. You snooze, you lose, pal.

To me, the single most important factor that differentiates graphic design from fine art is the intent of the communication. Graphic designers, like interpreters, create communication on behalf of someone else—a resource. That resource could be a multi-national corporation or a local nature center. Fine artists, on the other hand are beholden to no one but themselves.

Graphic designers (and interpreters) rely on both sides of the brain to create communication that is aesthetically appealing and entertaining as well as organized and accessible. Fine art, on the other hand, is often more successful if the meaning is obscured. Fine art can afford to be pure self expression, with composition decisions based on intuition rather than organization.

Of course, the danger for fine artists is to assume they have a head start when they get into graphic design. In fact, most artists have to unlearn some of the habits from their craft (“I’m putting this here because it feels good.”). On the contrary, I would argue that the most important sensibility a designer can have is a sense of organization rather than an innate sense of what is aesthetically appealing.

Streakers, Browsers, and Students: Sam Ham on Hierarchy

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In late April, I presented a one-day Interpretation By Design workshop in Helena, Montana, during a training event sponsored by Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks, the Montana Historical Society, and NAI Region 7. Sam Ham, keynote speaker at the upcoming NAI National Workshop and author of Environmental Interpretation: A Practical Guide for People with Big Ideas and Small Budgets, delivered a plenary session the day before I presented, so I had the distinct disadvantage of having to follow his act.

f_sam_hamOn the other hand, the event afforded me the opportunity to have dinner with Sam. We mostly talked baseball and compared notes on how we spent the most recent royalty checks from our respective books (Sam bought a small island; I bought a six-pack of Fat Tire beer).

The conversation briefly veered to the subject of interpretation. Sam offered a unique take on the notion of hierarchy in interpretive design that I feel compelled to share.

We talk in Interpretation By Design about three levels of visual hierarchy, including primary (the attention grabber, the element viewers notice at first glance), secondary (supporting information for those who are intrigued by the primary information), and tertiary (the real nuts and bolts for those interested in pursuing the subject further).

The idea that our primary audience is often a very brief one is well established. In their book, Signs, Trails, and Wayside Exhibits, Michael Gross, Ron Zimmerman, and Jim Buchholz present the 3-30-3 rule to describe the amount of time visitors might spend on a composition at each level of hierarchy (3 seconds, 30 seconds, and 3 minutes, respectively).

Sam, in his unique and energetic fashion, talked about how visitors can be described as “streakers,” “browsers,” or “students.” “There is no ‘average’ visitor,” he said.

In our interpretive media, Sam said, we want to make sure that even the streakers (whom I envision as shifty looking visitors in sunglasses and overcoats) come away with an understanding of our themes as they breeze on by. This can be accomplished through engaging but simple image-word pairings. For example, Sam suggested an exhibit with an image of a grey wolf paired with the word “Endangered.” Obviously, additional information should be included for those who stop to learn more, but even those who don’t will come away with an understanding of the basic premise of the composition.

This forces us away from topic-based titles to titles that convey the essence of our themes. The topic-title “Grey Wolf” with an image of a grey wolf accomplishes very little for a brief audience. When we sit down to write a theme or headline or design an exhibit, it’s useful to think of Sam’s streakers. What will that visitor who barely even slows down to review your communication come away with? It forces us to be creative. (“When I wrote the book,” Sam said, “I never imagined that people would write boring themes.”)

Trying to steer the conversation back to baseball, I suggested pairing an image of the Philadelphia Phillies with the title, “World Champions.” Sam, a Seattle Mariners fan, was not familiar with the term.

“I Hate the Grid”

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I recently presented a two-day training workshop with our co-author Lisa Brochu. The participants were interpreters with a city parks department, nondesigners responsible for creating nonpersonal media. When I do these presentations, I talk primarily about choosing meaningful colors and typefaces, working with type and images, and using a grid to achieve a clean and organized composition.

As we worked on an exercise related to composition, I suggested to one participant that she move an item to reinforce her grid. The woman (who had identified herself as an artist* early in the class) said, “I hate the grid!” I laughed, because I certainly respect that some new designers feel constrained by using a grid, especially people who consider themselves artists and rely on intuitive decisions.

Still, I stand by the grid as a simple and effective way to organize information and create a consistent look and feel for compositions, from a single sign to a 200-page publication. And good designers find a way to make the grid work to their benefit.

Every rule designers impose on themselves, such as using two typefaces or working within a certain color palette, is meant to limit decisions so that compositions don’t become jumbled, meaningless messes. The grid is just like these other rules. Placing elements in a composition based upon “what feels good” rather than using a grid is like choosing whatever typeface (or however many typefaces) on a whim from page to page within a publication. It’s like choosing colors with no regard for a predetermined, meaningful color palette. Like these other rules, the grid helps us create consistent, accessible, clean compositions.

*Check back soon for more on the difference between fine art and graphic design.