BELLAMYBUDIMAN

Seems like my almost-a-week-old tweets created quite a disturbance in a fraction of the local design world. Understandable, I’m not exactly the guy who opted for a more diplomatic language in my tweets, that’s just me. And also understandable that while many are called designers, not everyone was privileged (nor have the will to) study history of the field they’re working in. Hence this post as my explanation.

The tweet started as a response of the new Kereta Api Indonesia logo, a result of a logo contest (I am against these types of contests, but this is open for discussion in some other time). A friend asked me how would I responded in the new logo. I was outside, with only my phone, I Googled it, and this article came up as the top result that day:

The logo was set in Arial. I loathe Arial, not because of its looks, but because of its history and conception (I will get in to this later on). In response to a question my friend asked, I tweeted this:

Logo KAI baru menurut gue: Lumayan, itu juga kalo ngga pake Arial. Desainer tolol mana ini yang milih Arial as a first choice?

This tweet resulted in my other two tweets, which I will also explain later in this article. Note that the following two tweets doesn’t exactly relate. After a while, another friend of mine told me that the real one wasn’t set in Arial, as he explained in his tweet:

This is definitely Arial, like pointed out by @bellamy. But, I think it could be the vendor’s mistake. You know.

And yes, it was apparently set in Gill Sans as it is now available on their website, which in turn affected my first tweet. I wanted to set the record straight and found out many hours afterwards that the tweet in question is posted in draft. I cynically thanked my mobile provider. The tweet was this:

Apparently the KAI logo was actually set in Gill Sans. The trophy messed it. My apologies. But this doesn’t change the other two tweets.

It seemed that reposting this wasn’t relevant that day, and yes, that was my mistake, and I should’ve posted it to correct my observation despite the irrelevant time gap. Some people criticized me for not researching it thoroughly before tweeting. Fine, that’s your opinion, I respect that.

There we have it, about my first tweet. Now on to the second and third tweets.

The Typeface Called Arial

As a response to my first tweet, and as a reminder to fellow designers (that hopefully understands what I’m tweeting about), my second and third tweets were these:

Kalo pilihan type pertama desainer itu Arial, berarti: Dia seleranya rendah, serendah PC yang dipakenya & pengetahuan tipografinya cetek.

Gue ngerti sih kalo orang awam milih Arial. Tapi kalo loe ngaku desainer, ya mungkin baiknya loe sekolah lagi, atau ganti profesi.

Harsh? Hey, I never said that I wasn’t, again, that’s just me, and I don’t think people that know me are surprised either. But do I hate Arial? Yes, I do. But I don’t hate things without a reason. For example, I hate that current local Japanese cars are getting lower in terms of build quality. I don’t hate the actual Japanese brand, but I’m disappointed when they could do better, they opted for a lazy “solution for the masses”. Being a designer, I’m educationally trained to be critical, to be precise, to be thorough, and to provide the BEST solutions for my clients. I didn’t say that I can do all of those 100% every single time, but that is what I aimed for. And personally as a designer, I believe that a good typeface is the key to good communication. This is exactly why, I read the history behind the world’s most ubiquitous typefaces. This includes Helvetica, Futura, Garamond, and of course, Arial, among others. And they didn’t have this book around for nothing.

Some regarded me as a Helvetica fanboy. While everybody’s entitled to their opinion, that is an assumption. I never said that. If I were a Helvetica fanboy, I wouldn’t be using DIN for this website’s wordmark, or a custom typeface for Neuro-Designs‘ logo. In fact, I rarely use Helvetica nowadays because there are always a thousand other different typefaces to pick from. So, I’m a Helvetica fanboy? Besides, being a fanboy for a single typeface is ridiculous. A typeface has its own character, and you can’t simply replace Garamond with Frutiger and get away with the same result.

In the case of Arial, I thoroughly understand that Arial is now more ubiquitous than Helvetica itself. Add the fact that piracy thrives in Indonesia, and you probably doubled that chance. Everybody uses Windows (pirated or not), everybody doesn’t know Helvetica, everybody knows Arial instead, and it became everyone’s favorite sans-serif typeface.

But have you read the actual history behind the conception of Arial?

Here is an article I found that explains the history about Arial in an easily and digestable way. It is 10 years old, but still relevant to this day. And here is another one that is newer, and it is as relevant as the first one, although it is written from a different angle and I don’t agree all the way with his opinion that Helvetica is a rip-off of Akzidenz Grotesk. Go ahead, spend some time reading those articles, and process it.

Now, is Arial actually a rip-off of Helvetica? In the essence of all things design, no. But why do I call it a second-grade Helvetica copy? Because in the essence of its historical past, you can say that it is. This is the reason not many know about.

Arial was born under the condition that Microsoft needed a typeface that is as ubiquitous as Helvetica (which was used by the Macintosh at that time), but without the licensing fee. To get around that, they turned to Monotype to have a similar typeface designed. It is true that parts of Arial was based on Monotype Grotesque, but instead of Monotype Grotesque, the glyph widths are nearly identical to Helvetica. Why? Why not just make an entirely new typeface? Well if so then you can’t simply replace all Helvetica-based documents with Arial and get away with it. To be a perfect type replacement, it needs to be in a similar glyph width with the one it replaces.

If Arial is bad for being a clone of Helvetica, shouldn’t Helvetica be bad for being developed to compete with Akzidenz Grotesk? No. The key difference here is that Helvetica was developed as a competitor to Akzidenz Grotesk, but Arial was born just to avoid licensing fees. This issue has been long discussed, and you can find references on this in Wikipedia, in various articles (like the ones above), in the Helvetica documentary movie (which you can see the clip below), and in Erik Spiekermann’s blog (he is one of the greatest type designers, in case you don’t know).

Clip of Erik Spiekermann’s interview on Arial, in the Helvetica documentary. Jump to around 3:56 to specifically see that part.

This is why I think that Arial is such a low-esteemed typeface with low taste. Not entirely from a design standpoint, but more from of a historical standpoint. I’m sure you designers don’t like the feeling when someone plagiarizes your work without credit.

But why do I have to call the (so-called) “designers” to have such a low taste when using Arial? Because designers should know better. If you use typography to reflect your work, then study it, know the history, appreciate the type designers, and appreciate what they intended those typefaces to be. If we are designers, the entities who are supposed to be the solution-giver to people’s problems, the ones who are supposed to upscale the design of their clients, then why do we settle for a typeface that has a long shady history? Is this how we supposed to give solutions to clients that trusted you to give them a bang for every single penny they pay you with? If so, then apparently all designers are assholes, because with that logic, there are no difference between designers and fake Tag Heuer manufacturers. We simply brought our clients along as victims in a cloud of mediocre design decisions. As a good friend of mine said:

Understanding typography is not about always having the ‘superior’ face, but understanding of not opting for the ‘inferior’ one.

And I think he nailed that description better than I do. Besides, everyone’s entitled to their own opinion. You can mock me behind my back, hey, whatever makes you happy, as I can also mock you behind your back. Then we can call it even.

PS: You might imagine why my site is rendered in Arial in your PC. I set the default body type to just “sans-serif”. Too bad then, apparently that’s your PC’s default sans serif typeface, not mine. I could use @font-face for that, but then you’ll probably complain it’s slower to load. Accessibility rules suck, don’t they? Maybe.

PPS: And no, this is not why my Twitter account is now protected. You simply assume too much and thought that all of my actions are related to the things you said. And no, I don’t have to share the reason to you.

Image credit: Inilah.com and Wikipedia

Update

As promised before, I wanted to post the update on this matter. For the past few days, I’ve been discussing with Dwi Sasongko (and Farid Stevy as well, indirectly), Dimas, and Singgih about this matter. And I want to clear them up. Sorry that the update couldn’t be any sooner than this.

First of all, regarding Farid’s logo. Dwi stated in his email that the reason everyone’s outraged is because of my poor choice of words. “TOLOL”, to be exact. I must admit, that is not the best word I have, and Dwi said it hits him because Farid is a close friend, he designed the logo, and well, you know the rest. So here’s his email, and my reply to him, which he wanted me to put in public domain:

Hi Bellamy,

Let me clarify this.

I have no issue with that when I tweeted that the main reason of the “war” is the word “TOLOL”. I just simply tweet and you freely interpret the way you want, and assume that you were right. Well, that’s up to you. I don’t have to explain further.

I have read your blog post and have followed your conversation with Dimas. I do respect you as professional designer who have idealism and you do respect history and value it so very much. I also do respect your opinion on whatever subject.

Those are not my issue at all. Seems your blog post “just” to clarify that you are not font or typeface fanboy. Sure you aren’t.

People around me still think that you ran away after saying “TOLOL” to the designer who use Arial. That’s what people understand.

Are people too stupid? No. Do people ignore your explanation? Mostly yes. They do not care for further explanation. In this point, you are the joke.

For me personally, I felt insulted when you said that designer who choose Arial as a first choice is TOLOL. People will think “who do you think you are, Bellamy, to judge people like that?”

Farid and Dimas are my closest friend, at that time Aulia bashing about the process of creation of the logo to Farid, everyone felt insulted. Still the same, Who do you think you are?

FYI, Farid got the information that he won the contest back in the middle of August after very pertinent selection by judges from DKV ITB and professional designers. When it was announced, the logo has passed many steps to make it public legally. It has patent, it has certificate of originality, etcetera.

So, this information is known in our circle (farid,dimas,ckncp,me) and when you said that word, we laughed our asses off.

Dwi,

I think your response is fair enough, I respect that thoroughly. But there are some bits that I chose not to write in my blog:

First, I did say the designer was an idiot when I looked at that trophy photo I found in inilah.com. The logo itself were great, it is professionally made, I can see that, and by far it’s probably one of the best logos our government could have, thanks to Farid. The reason I bashed the “designer” because I thought that was it, I did not see the actual logo until Sigit pointed me that it was actually Gill Sans. Before that, I thought it could be just some guy in a printshop that coincidentally made a logo that good, called himself a designer, went away with Arial, and have it put on a trophy, and I certainly did not think it was Farid. That was my mistake, hence the apology tweet that did not get sent, whatever the reason.

Second, I do believe that Farid would take that logo to his professionalism level. So I have no doubt that it was his best intentions to make the logo as good as it is, with all the necessary steps and patenting process. But I do regret that the trophy maker destroyed his work with a wrong typeface. I find that unacceptable. But I do understand that happens all the time. Even some of the logos I made was butchered when it is passed to different “designers” by our clients. It seems that I am just a bit too pedantic on this matter.

In any case, I hold no grudge on when people are tweeting to support Arial and so forth. Of course I’ll take that as a joke :) But I felt I needed to clear up things with you, especially after seeing your tweet. If you’re insulted because I judge people, then I apologize, I certainly cannot expect everyone to feel the same way as I do. You have every right to do so.

So we both understand about the matter, as well as Farid. I certainly cannot expect everyone to take my tweets the way I think they do, so if anyone was offended by it, I apologize.

As for my discussion with Singgih, here’s the rundown. I initially took Singgih’s posts in Facebook and Twitter as a hostile act, but I decided to contact him personally and talk. Despite my initial judgement, to my surprise, Singgih is a very reasonable person. Too bad we have to get to know each other in bad circumstances, and not back then while we’re still in the same forum. Singgih, I think I owe you this one.

Singgih is upset because of practically the same reason with Dwi. But not because of Farid, but because of the entirety of designers that I called as “TOLOL”. Even if I say it’s not, that is what my tweets implied. Since we’re in the same industry, that’s the exact reason why he cannot accept my statement, because I called the others idiots. I can’t blame him for that. In fact, he is right. Long story short, I know why he’s upset and why he posted all those screenshots in Twitter and Facebook. And if anyone is offended because of my tweets with the same reason as Singgih, or even because of any reason, I apologize as well. I believe Singgih can clarify our previous late night conversation.

My tweets (or should I say, screenshots at this point) will always be there, I cannot take those back, because then I would be unfair to write all this without proof. It’s up to Singgih if he wants to take it down or not, he has every right to do so. If he decided not to take it down, then let that be a reminder for me. I hope this clears up everything.

Such a bold statement coming from someone who lives and works in Indonesia. But hear me out, I don’t put up titles without a reason. For the past few years, I am often asked why do we have 85% overseas clients and 15% local clients. So here are the reasons for that, based on my experience:

Free Pitches
First and foremost, I hate free pitches, and some Indonesian clients think that this is part of a good corporate governance (yeah, good corporate governance my ass). Here’s my explanation on why free pitches are a disgrace to humanity. In the creative industry, our resources are our key assets to make our business work, and that includes time, money, manpower, and above all else, creativity itself. So if we waste these for something that we probably won’t get, I would prefer that we work on something else, and use our precious creativity there. And yes, stealing designs to be given to cheaper designers is a definite sign that you’re a colossal douche, and I’m pretty sure that they reserved a spot for you to rot in hell.

Window Shopping
This is also a bad habit. Not that this only happen with Indonesian clients, but to overseas clients as well, except that it is on a lower frequency. So when we already contributed a few hours of our time to research and make a comprehensive quote for a project but got ditched with no reason, I hate that too. The least you can do is to say that you’re not comfortable with the price we asked, and then fine, maybe you’re not a suitable client for us. Fair enough, not everybody is everyone’s client.

The Inability to Know What One Wants
This is a killer move. Most of Indonesian clients seem to revolve around the idea of a trend (or perhaps ego and pride as some people like to call it). One has a blog, everyone wants a blog. One has a social media manager, everyone wants it, too. One has an E-commerce website, everyone wants to make one without realizing that they don’t even have a freaking store to begin with. But almost none seem to understand if they need one in the first place, or if that is just the result of being a follower. And the second they see these array of zeroes in the quote, they bail out and said “I didn’t realize that building an online shopping website is such a huge investment.” Well, if you’re looking for a proper one, yes it is. Sorry, but that is a fact.

The Inability of Appreciating Creative Work
This is the ultimate thing of all the things that we hate in this nation’s creative industry, people who cannot justify that building a website, for example, is worth more than 500,000 rupiahs. I can’t say many things about these people except that if they value design and creative work like shit, then that is exactly the same value I’d give to their business.

In the end, I don’t mean that all Indonesian clients are bad. As I stated before, we do have local clients as well, and those we’ve worked with are not bad clients. They appreciate our work, they value the need of design in general, and most of all, they listen. They listen and they are willing to take our advice as design professionals instead of telling us that they-paid-so-they-get-to-order-us-things.

But there’s the other side of the coin as well. Some designers are also to blame because they value themselves so low, that inconsiderate clients think they own these people’s lives. So why don’t these designers value themselves higher? Why don’t they value their industry better to begin with? To this date, I simply don’t know how to answer this properly, or how to figure out how their minds work. I hope someone would really enlighten me on this one.

Again, those are my observations based on my experience. So depending on different circumstances, my writings here cannot be accounted for a factual reference to your particular cases. They are just my two cents.

Over the years, I’ve had my share on teaching and experiencing (as a student) what our curriculum on web design is like. And in this post, I am going to show you why I am deeply concerned on how the web industry is going in our country.

So first things first, I have been participating in the internet since 1995, that was when connection was scarce in the country, we had to rely on unreliable dial-up modems and ISPs at that time. Long story short, I’ve learned how to hand-code HTMLs by 1998, turned into an amateur web designer in 1999, started Neuro-Designs, and worked my way up as a professional web designer until now, in the world of web standards and Web 2.0. So, if you have doubts on what I have to say here, I have a hefty good reference of fellow web designers and developers to back me up, and frankly, perhaps you weren’t meant for the industry.

I believe it was back in 2005 that I had no other choice but to take the Web Design class in the campus, of course, to pass with my Visual Communication Design major. And seeing what I had to learn there, frankly, I was not impressed. Not to brag, but what’s covered in the curriculum, that’s exactly what I learned back in 1998, and in that class I was already practicing my CSS and table-less layout skills. Maybe because of this disappointment, I received a C for the subject. Yes, believe it or not, Bellamy, a web designer, received a C on the Web Design class. Believe it or not, that’s the grade I got. A few years afterwards, I got the chance to serve as a student’s assistant in the very same class. Years have passed, but the curriculum has not. I feel like I was teaching what I learned 10 years before. I was frustrated, and this is definitely not what web design is supposed to be. And if this continues on, then it is no surprise that Indonesian colleges can’t produce competent web designers, and this is exactly why major IT companies and design agencies in Indonesia doesn’t even have a clue what web design is now like, they’re just too stubborn and too ignorant to even evolve their own knowledge. They’re still stuck to what’s probably pre Web 1.0, while now is the era of Web 2.0, and Web 3.0 is just probably around the corner waiting to be unleashed.

Here’s what we were taught using the very same curriculum year after year: Build a website out of PhotoShop and Dreamweaver’s WYSIWG editor. Yes, no fundamental basics on interface designs, no rules explained on why websites have a set of its own typography treatment, why websites are not to be treated like brochures, and why good websites should be built on hand-coded HTMLs. None. No matter if it has a good structure or not, just make a working website, as simple as that. At this point, I can assure you that having someone build a website from scratch in iWeb could result in a better web-standards compliant website.

As a professional web designer, I’ve learned the hard way on what it takes to create a real deal web design from scratch. And professionals throughout the world agree that creating a fully-functioning website from a WYSIWG editor is probably just the same as catering a dog poop. Web designing is no easy task, it requires design knowledge (yes, we need to have a good sense on design rules, grids, typography, and every basic graphic design fundamentals), interface design knowledge, web typography, website structure design, and to top it all, although optional, we need to know how to hand code these websites using XHTML, CSS, and every other technological tidbits that keep evolving over the years. That’s why not everybody could be a web designer or developer, and that’s exactly why if you want to be a web designer, you need to start off on the right track and no excuses, you have to be computer-literate. And if all of these seemed overwhelming, then you’d probably better finding some other interest.

In my opinion, if we’re going to make the curriculum any better, you can’t fit everything in a single semester, and in a single subject. This is just physically and mentally impossible. In order to produce good web designers, you will need to do the subject in stages. Here’s what I have in mind:

Web Design 1: Introduction to web design, fundamentals of interface design, and website structures
I see no point of having people to create a fully functional website here. They must understand the basics, know what the essence of interface design, and learn how to cope with the limitations in designing for the web. Furthermore, students must also be taught on how to plan their websites, build a good structure while maintaining the fundamentals. The goal at the end of the subject is for the students to be able to produce good website design mockups, and that’s it.

Web Design 2: Template conversion, HTML, CSS, and table-less layout
This stage covers a more advanced degree to those who are interested in becoming a real deal web designer. And with the things taught in Web Design 1, hopefully they will understand why web design has its own limitations to serve the next step: Template conversion. Students must be able to grasp the essence on how HTML and CSS code works, and when they do, rest assured that this will aid them to be a faster and more competent web designer in the future with minimal hiccups in the design to prototype process. This stage also covers the importance of losing tables as a part of your layout. Just face it, everybody uses CSS for layouts now, table-based layouts are ancient.

Web Design 3: Website building
This stage is the highest degree on becoming a competent web designer. While in the end we would probably still need web developers to aid our work, being a web designer who could produce a working website prototype can surely help in what you do for a living. In this stage, students are expected to learn the basic fundamentals of how to put your website into a working prototype, whether online or offline. This also involves knowledge on how to set up your domain name, hosting space, and every other requirements to make sure that your website will definitely WORK, including how to port your website into a simple CMS such as WordPress.

On the internet, many professional designers have probably written an article on why being a web designer is not as easy as it looks. One of the good articles that I’ve found is this. And as you can see, as long as we’re still using the same curriculum over and over, sorry, it just won’t work. Web technology is evolving every single day, and what we’ve been using now is the same thing I used 10 years behind. And this is the reason why I never wanted to teach another web design class anymore. It’s frustrating to shell out students with a decade old set of knowledge. Can anyone confirm if this is also the case on other educational institutions as well?

Some good reads for inspiration:
A List Apart
CSSREMIX
For Web Designers
Jeffrey Zeldman
NETTUTS
PSDTUTS
Shaun Inman
Smashing Magazine
Web Designer Depot
Web Designer Wall

Yesterday I posted a link on my Facebook wall. It is called Churchmarketingsucks.com. It is a site that I found way back and I found that it is a very good site for us, Christian designers, to read about.

No, it’s not a site that declares church marketing sucks, but it is actually a site that drives our motivation about designing things for the church and God.

In a brief, they believe that if you are a good designer, then you should or even have to give out the best design effort possible to create a thing that communicates God to the masses. Let me quote what they wrote:

Our mission is to frustrate, educate and motivate the church to communicate, with uncompromising clarity, the truth of Jesus Christ. Church Marketing Sucks is a part of the Center for Church Communication, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping the church matter.

Frustrate.
Something’s wrong with your church. Something’s wrong with the Church. Church marketing efforts and communication in general suck. We’ve got the greatest story ever told, but we don’t know how to tell it. The church has a problem communicating, and it’s time to change.

Educate.
We love the church, but it needs some help. Typos, cheesy logos, and bad clip art aren’t helping the cause. But snazzy marketing won’t save this ship, either. It’s not about being perfect, but there’s a better way to communicate. It’s authentic, it’s loving, and it knows how to spell.

Motivate.
This isn’t simply about putting butts in pews or selling glossy postcards. It’s about helping the church be the Church, and seeing lives changed as a result. If helping the church communicate better allows one person to finally glimpse the Gospel, then our work has been worthwhile. It may be fuzzy math, but God can worry about that.

Offended?
Good. So are we. For too long the church has been the object of scorn and Christians have been the reason people turn away from Christianity. It’s time to change.

If you’re offended by our use of the word ‘sucks,’ we do offer an alternative url, ChurchMarketingStinks.com, and we’d encourage you to check out our rationale for using the word ‘sucks.’

Not Offended?
Good. You can help. If you think you know what you’re doing, if you think your church’s marketing doesn’t suck, then come alongside and offer your support.

What’s in it for Us?
A lot. We want to see this name changed to ChurchMarketingNoLongerSucks.com as soon as possible. All of us behind this project are communicators. From writers and designers to businessmen and creative pastors, we all want to help the church communicate better.

The reality is that we all have day jobs, too. Many of us make a living at the very thing we’re asking churches to do: design better, write better, communicate better. Are we asking churches to hire us? Nope. Do we need them to hire us to put food on the table? Nope. Would we turn a church away if they did want to hire us? Probably not.

ChurchMarketingSucks.com is an idea, not a business. You’ll notice there is limited (and filtered) advertising, no pop-ups, no gimmicks. We’re a part of the non-profit Center for Church Communication, whose mission is to help churches matter. What’s in it for us is what’s in it for the church: not sucking.

Yes, DESIGN better. Our church can afford to do that, but we often being faced with the statement of “GOOD OR BAD IS A RELATIVE THING”. Oh I agree completely, and probably not all of the members of the church have the best design or artistic taste or aesthetically inclined, but try this argument: If we can afford (please note the statement “we can afford”) to print out a design that works best in full color for God, would we still want to print out those cheap photocopied ones? Or those poorly designed flyers with crappy typography. Too bad, in our church, yes, they would print out crappy leaflets or use those crappy flyers. Heck, even our website sucks, our annual budget report sucks, our church office signage sucks, and our church magazine sucks. That dreaded Indonesian horror magazine might’ve look better.

This is not the case of saving money, because by all means, the church can afford that even after saving its money. We’ve been blessed by God with the capacity to do so. This is because nobody realized how important communication, branding, and everything else in regards of expanding and communicating His Kingdom to others. Probably we should consider helping other churches that are less fortunate to be able to do the same.

So, is it hard to give the best for God? No, it is not when you give it out to the people who really have the expertise and wanted to help. Too bad, some of them already disappointed to even want to help again. It’s all about being ignorant and being simply tasteless.

So go ahead, visit the site and open your minds. If you’re a designer, designing for God is not something hard to do. All we need to do is just not to suck. Because if you do, then it’s probably because you don’t have the talent (perhaps God wanted you to use your talent somewhere else, this is not something bad).

I’m not shamelessly promoting myself as a good designer, I’ve decided that my days in graphic design service at the church is nearing the end, and someone should really replace my spot. I believe there are lots of good designers in our church. Why not ask them how to do things? They know best because it’s their expertise. Remember, this is for God, so I’m taking this seriously. It should be the best. After all, in the end, a visual disease is still a disease. Doctors would like to cure AIDS so bad, and mechanics fix cars that are broken. And we designers, just like doctors, we cure visual diseases. That’s why God gave us the talent.