Communication

[Moses Yoder]

I have no wish to fight, I would just like to see a logical discussion on this topic. The following posts were made in a thread about a book that was written concerning the Studley tool chest in the Neanderthal Haven forum. The Studley chest has always been an interest of mine since I first saw the poster offer 30 years ago or whatever. I purchased the poster when it was reprinted several years ago and have yet to make an appropriate frame for it and will purchase the book when I have some cash in hand.


It would have been a brief bit of work to’ve set the paragraph formats so as to’ve eliminated the orphans (there may not be any widows, didn’t notice them at a quick check through the book). Similarly, computerized typesetting make it quick and easy to examine all special characters and replace them w/ the proper ones.

Most egregiously, the setting of the dimensions make it more difficult to recognize them, since the fractions are shilling style and separated from the whole number by a hyphen.

If typography doesn’t interest you, please skip all of the following save for the last paragraph. Thanks.

Hopefully, someone at Lost Arts Press will take the following as constructive criticism:

Orphans: pgs. 4, 5, 32, 40, 52, 55, 60, 189, 194 (also an atrocious break (...ev-//er-new...)

page bottoms are ragged / not flush, so no reason for such, similarly, no formal grid, so it’s bizarre that they put the first line of a paragraph above two images on pg. 62, then continue the paragraph below them. Similarly on pg. 80, identifying head for Center Gauge appears vertically high than the matching photo, while the same for Drill gauge is pushed down below (on pg. 86 the same elements are consistent — heads are higher than matching photographs, but on the facing pg. 87 they’re inconsistent again). Lots of trapped white space throughout (e.g., pg. 106).

Bad breaks: pg. 27 top (...compa-ny logo.¶), pg. 33 (hyphenated a 2 line paragraph), pg. 76 (... “Russell Jen-nings.”¶), pg. 155, last line of second paragraph is (was.”), pg. 192 (...an ev-//er-flowing...), pg. 193 (...many of//us). The index formatting is beyond bad — I’m fairly certain it’s InDesign’s defaults w/ no adjustments and set in two too-narrow columns. It also ends on a short page, just 7 lines in a single column, almost over-whelmed by the furniture (book title and folio in the upper left corner of versos).

Also fractions are set as shilling style: 1/8" (pg. 56), w/ a hyphen if after a whole number (pg. 59), a lowercase “x” is used to indicate dimensions rather than the proper symbol, × (pg. 57)

It’s really a shame that the micro typography couldn’t be as perfect as the text, the photography, or the tool chest which is the subject of the book.



It is really sad if in a group of people who handle dimensioned material and a significant subset of whom do signage that they don’t know the difference between:

5' 2"
and
5′ 2″

In the last quote I had to rely on someone else's comments to realize that the publisher used quote marks instead of special characters for minute and second markings. When I saw that post for the first time I thought a mistake had been made. If I put on my bifocals I can actually see the difference between the first dimension and the second dimension. Some of you still do not know what is being talked about here I think.

In my opinion when communicating the only requirement is that you deliver your thoughts in a manner in which the receiving party comprehends what you are trying to convey. Am I incorrect in this belief?

[Chuck Wintle]

I have no wish to fight, I would just like to see a logical discussion on this topic. The following posts were made in a thread about a book that was written concerning the Studley tool chest in the Neanderthal Haven forum. The Studley chest has always been an interest of mine since I first saw the poster offer 30 years ago or whatever. I purchased the poster when it was reprinted several years ago and have yet to make an appropriate frame for it and will purchase the book when I have some cash in hand.





In the last quote I had to rely on someone else's comments to realize that the publisher used quote marks instead of special characters for minute and second markings. When I saw that post for the first time I thought a mistake had been made. If I put on my bifocals I can actually see the difference between the first dimension and the second dimension. Some of you still do not know what is being talked about here I think.

In my opinion when communicating the only requirement is that you deliver your thoughts in a manner in which the receiving party comprehends what you are trying to convey. Am I incorrect in this belief?

you are correct to believe good communication is the key to success in any endeavor. Perhaps a switch to the metric system for dimensions in dwg's could solve the issue? So rather than have this to read 5' 2"
and 5′ 2″ it would indicate mm's or cm's such as 1574.8 m ? Just a thought.

[Wade Lippman]

In my opinion when communicating the only requirement is that you deliver your thoughts in a manner in which the receiving party comprehends what you are trying to convey. Am I incorrect in this belief?

So there is no difference between a well written and a poorly written book (post, article, whatever) if they both contain the same thoughts and are both comprehensible?

[glenn bradley]

I think someone found out that writing a book isn't as easy as some think ;-) We have a few published folks on the forums and they can probably verify that. I do believe that if we communicate our ideas effectively, valid communication has occurred. In any communication I think we should try to be as correct as possible. In a written document that I am paying for I expect decent editing, publishing and manufacturing skills. I expect about the same level of quality from a fictional paperback as I do in a coffee table book; they're just entertainment. In reference materials I expect more ;-)

[Chuck Wintle]

So there is no difference between a well written and a poorly written book (post, article, whatever) if they both contain the same thoughts and are both comprehensible?

Or perhaps it comes down to credibility of the document and the author? If something is poorly written or edited then it will call into question the entire document?

[Phil Thien]

All I can say is, I'm glad I don't know enough about typography that any of the stuff indicated would bother me.

[William Adams]

Typography is the craft (or art) which exists to honour the text with an appropriate typesetting.

Fine, well-done typography is pretty much invisible, but it will make a text easier to read and understand. See Beatrice Warde’s essay, “The Crystal Goblet” (written under the pen name Paul Beaujon) for an examination of this. As idealized writing, it also looks nicer. Virtusoso is a good looking book, it would’ve taken just a couple hours additional work to make it perfect typographically and potentially award-winning.

The big problem is that when the desktop publishing revolution happened, the composition industry sold out for sinecures, rather than being involved in the new technology. This new technology can make most of this sort of thing automatic if one simply engages some sensible settings, and the other things are straight-forward search and replaces (which must be done by hand, since they require an awareness of the meaning of the text which machines don’t have).

Naturally there are lots of books written about typesetting books, the problem is, few people bother to read them, and teachers either don’t know or gloss over “minor” things such as the correct symbols for minutes, degrees, feet and inches.

Here are what should be salient points from the other thread:

In a lot of ways, this exemplifies the XKCD comic on graphic design and the awkwardness of being aware of it (search for “xkcd kerning”, “If you hate someone, teach them to understand kerning.”)

The sad thing is, graphic design and typography are idealized writing, so the school systems dropping cursive from the curriculum will likely make this sort of thing worse, resulting in a further diminishing of the public’s ability to appreciate visual design — which as people who make things which are differentiated by visual appearance we should probably be concerned about.

[William Adams]

Discussed this on the typography sub redditt, and Joel Thomas wrote this, which perfectly expresses what I was trying to communicate:



I own most LAP books, and even those that seem to have been given a good amount of design and binding attention are not that well combed typographically. Which is a criticism I hate to make, because they’re a great company; but small, and I think consisting mostly of people who worked in magazines. The sad conclusion is that really really fine typography is only in the interest of the typographically bent these days — the folks buying LAP books are mostly woodworkers, and this sort of thing is well beyond good enough for us.

You nailed it though. Typography used to be hard, so you might as well have done it right. But, like woodworking, machinery made it all easier, and ensuing generations forgot the finer points of the craft; now what is palpably mediocre passes as really top notch work. It’s a bit humorous because LAP is doggedly about getting back to the roots of the craft, bur their books often end up looking like the typographic equivalent of a bummer 90s woodworking magazine project — a puerile sense of proportion and style, but a glass smooth finish on veneered mdf. If you make something look like it could only be a quality object, you can convince the majority of people, who lack the ability to get at the thing’s guts and figure out whether it really is.

[Phil Thien]

Typography is the craft (or art) which exists to honour the text with an appropriate typesetting.


To be sure, I'm not saying it doesn't matter. And I'm not even saying it doesn't matter to me.

I'm just saying, I'm glad I'm ignorant in this case.

But yeah, if you can help them improve the quality of their texts through posts like this, then by all means...

[Tom M King]

I can see where it would be as irritating to some, as using "your" when "you're" is correct, to me. It's only right to speak up about it. As many times as I have seen "your" used incorrectly, it still wastes my time by having to slow up reading to see what they meant. It's the waste of time that's irritating, even if it's less than a second.

[Scott Shepherd]

Personally, being in a field that deals with a lot of "Graphic Designers", I think a great deal of what is argued about is complete nonsense. I see huge discussions and arguments when people are designing text based things. People tell them their fonts aren't conveying the right message,etc. then you turn on the tv or open a magazine and see Fortune 100 companies using Arial for a font in their "Madison Avenue" marketing company designed advertising campaigns. If it's good enough for Coke, Pepsi, Ford, Chevy,etc. then it's probably good enough for a 3 person small business.

For centuries, the population had no choice but to learn from books, books that they wanted to publish, not books the population wanted to read. If you wanted to learn something new, you'd have to read a book written by some educated wordsmith. Now, with the Internet, you can learn from 1000's of people with vast backgrounds.

I have learned more in the last 10 years of my life, from the Internet, than I ever learned from any other source.

I'll gladly overlook someone's shortcomings in the desktop publishing world that has a skill or knowledge they can teach me, before I pick up a book by someone that knows desktop publishing but not the content of their craft.

My grammar is horrible, yet I'm capable of sharing my knowledge with those interested. If you want perfect grammar and my knowledge, you will have to find another source.

I'd rather that they wrote that book than not because they weren't typography experts.

[William Adams]

Actually, their choice of typefaces was fine — some of the sizing was a bit heavy-handed, but in style there should be no argument of fact, only differences of opinion regarding personal tastes.

Doing things correctly typographically would’ve been a matter of a couple hours’ work, and would have resulted in a flawless, potentially award-winning book. Amortized over the print run it shouldn’t significantly even cut into the profits, let alone the cost — if we could all have a fine steak rather than a hamburger for the same price, why shouldn’t the people preparing things go to the slight additional effort of educating themselves in the standards of the craft which they choose to practice?

[Tim Boger]

I turn towards my shop while shaking my head, I can only hope that the indicators on my tape measure are consistent and accurate .....

Carry on gentleman.





I have no wish to fight, I would just like to see a logical discussion on this topic. The following posts were made in a thread about a book that was written concerning the Studley tool chest in the Neanderthal Haven forum. The Studley chest has always been an interest of mine since I first saw the poster offer 30 years ago or whatever. I purchased the poster when it was reprinted several years ago and have yet to make an appropriate frame for it and will purchase the book when I have some cash in hand.





In the last quote I had to rely on someone else's comments to realize that the publisher used quote marks instead of special characters for minute and second markings. When I saw that post for the first time I thought a mistake had been made. If I put on my bifocals I can actually see the difference between the first dimension and the second dimension. Some of you still do not know what is being talked about here I think.

In my opinion when communicating the only requirement is that you deliver your thoughts in a manner in which the receiving party comprehends what you are trying to convey. Am I incorrect in this belief?

[Scott Shepherd]

Actually, their choice of typefaces was fine — some of the sizing was a bit heavy-handed, but in style there should be no argument of fact, only differences of opinion regarding personal tastes.

Doing things correctly typographically would’ve been a matter of a couple hours’ work, and would have resulted in a flawless, potentially award-winning book. Amortized over the print run it shouldn’t significantly even cut into the profits, let alone the cost — if we could all have a fine steak rather than a hamburger for the same price, why shouldn’t the people preparing things go to the slight additional effort of educating themselves in the standards of the craft which they choose to practice?

How would they even know? We have some highly educated people on this forum and so far, none of them knew. If you don't know what you don't know, how would you know to fix it?

To steal from another famous quote, I would rather have learned with the mistakes, than never learned at all.

[William Adams]

They’re in the business of publishing books. Wouldn’t it behoove them to learn the standards of the industry as they should be practiced?

I’ve lost count of the number of copies of Bringhurst’s The Elements of Typographic Style I‘ve given to people — if I thought they’d act on it, I’d gladly purchase yet another copy and send it to them.

[Joel Thomas Runyan]

These are small details to the majority of readers, to be sure. But they are not nonsense. If we are to accept as readers that any symbol which is legible is acceptable, then we as woodworkers would likewise have to accept that any thing which has four stable legs and a top constitutes a good table. And surely the uncomfortable feeling that most people unconsciously feel and quickly pass over--but any good woodworker recognizes as an ergonomically awkward height, narrow knee space, or split-level seam--is not nonsense. It represents a deep (if latent) understanding of the way things ought to be, and that way has been passed down in type and in wood for hundreds of years. If we lazily pass over it because what we create is only "functional" and only of use to the maker in its sale, then we do an ugly disservice to all the great ones who struggled and found the right way in order that their works be beautiful and lasting. The misuse of type is no different to those aware than the knocking of knees, contortion of posture, and general instability wrought by an ill-designed table. It can be read, indeed, but only in a persistent state of discomfort.

[Mel Fulks]

I'm generally on the side of accuracy. Did not know there is a difference in those marks. There are some changes being made in our language as regional differences disappear. Seen pieces on TV where Southerners go to school to lose their accents in the hope of getting jobs in media. A side effect is they come out mispronouncing some words they formerly said correctly. The word "often" has always been pronounced "offen" ,now everyone on TV pronounces the T. And style manuals are only right until another one comes out.

[Jim Koepke]

They’re in the business of publishing books. Wouldn’t it behoove them to learn the standards of the industry as they should be practiced?

I’ve lost count of the number of copies of Bringhurst’s The Elements of Typographic Style I‘ve given to people — if I thought they’d act on it, I’d gladly purchase yet another copy and send it to them.

They are in the business of publishing specialty books. The speciality being woodworking related.

Is there a reason you suspect they would not welcome some information they may be missing?

jtk

[Tom Stenzel]

If there's a minor mistake I don't see that as a major problem. But if there are lots of mistakes it does build up mentally and make something unnecessarily hard to read.

Personally I'm not hard on widow/orphan control in fiction writing. Reading fiction I'm always reading forward and rarely backing up to reread something.

But in a technical book it's irritating as you might be flipping a page back and forth to make sense of something.

My suggestion to William Adams: Contact the company and offer your services. You are probably pointing out layout issues they're completely unaware of. You could get a job out if it, even work from your home. That is, if you have the time or interest and can get decent compensation for your work.

(http://www.sawmillcreek.org/member.php?23302-Jim-Koepke)Jim Koepke (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/member.php?23302-Jim-Koepke) wrote:

****
Is there a reason you suspect they would not welcome some information they may be missing?
****

It's human nature to not like being told you don't know what you're doing. I know, I have a lot of experience in the matter!

;)

-Tom

[Ken Fitzgerald]

The average person doesn't read with the goal or idea of critiquing either typography or grammar but rather reads for content and possibly gaining some knowledge. In fact, I would suggest few people are knowledgeable enough to recognize minor typographical mistakes.

A person in need of sustenance won't care if offered steak or burger. As long as it cooked well enough, not necessarily perfectly cooked, they will find it palatable.

[William Adams]

I did: blog.lostartpress.com/2015/05/12/free-shipping-for-virtuoso-ends-tomorrow/

Can’t really do it as job, since I have a non-compete w/ my day job, but we’ll see what they say. I guess I should go back to working on that book Addison-Wesley wants me to write.

[Jim Koepke]

It's human nature to not like being told you don't know what you're doing. I know, I have a lot of experience in the matter!

A recent thread was about a bicycle with handle bars that were geared to turn the front wheel opposite of what we have all learned to steer a bike. It took forever for the person to unlearn his instincts. Once he had, it took him awhile to be able to ride a normal bike.

It may be similar for other learned behavior.

Then again, it may be in how changing a habit is approached.

Come in shouting, "you guys really messed up and need to change your ways... " May get you a polite thank you and a "we'll get back to you."

Start with how ground breaking their books are to the woodworking public, then offering to show them a few techniques to take their publishing to the next level may be a way to get them to take heed.

jtk

[Scott Shepherd]

These are small details to the majority of readers, to be sure. But they are not nonsense. If we are to accept as readers that any symbol which is legible is acceptable, then we as woodworkers would likewise have to accept that any thing which has four stable legs and a top constitutes a good table. And surely the uncomfortable feeling that most people unconsciously feel and quickly pass over--but any good woodworker recognizes as an ergonomically awkward height, narrow knee space, or split-level seam--is not nonsense. It represents a deep (if latent) understanding of the way things ought to be, and that way has been passed down in type and in wood for hundreds of years. If we lazily pass over it because what we create is only "functional" and only of use to the maker in its sale, then we do an ugly disservice to all the great ones who struggled and found the right way in order that their works be beautiful and lasting. The misuse of type is no different to those aware than the knocking of knees, contortion of posture, and general instability wrought by an ill-designed table. It can be read, indeed, but only in a persistent state of discomfort.

If you put two quotation marks straight or at an angle, I seriously doubt that's the same thing as making a table that's crooked.

I have read many books written by tradesmen. I realize when I buy them that they aren't English professors.

I can't even make my keyboard type the things that are being pointed out. I get one choice, shift on the apostrophe. Whatever it is, it is. If I were to self publish an ebook, it would use the keys I have on my keyboard.

At the same time, if they paid people to fix it perfect, then people would be complaining that the book costs too much and no one would buy it because they'd be "getting ripped off".

Man, I hope I never get to the point in life where the direction of inch and foot marks gets my feathers ruffled.

[William Adams]

To access such special characters one can either use a utility such as Charmap.exe or Allchars: http://allchars.zwolnet.com/ — some operating systems have built-in support for accessing them, such as Mac OS X’s support inherited from NeXTstep.

Some application programs will have glyph palettes to make them accessible — check the manual for your word processor / page layout program.

As I noted, it would be a couple of hours’ work to fix it up — wouldn’t affect the price and would barely eat into their profits. The variability of the print run would be a larger number.

[Dave Anderson NH]

Very interesting reading in this thread so far. But back to Moses' question about communication.

Good communication means different things to different groups of people. It is both a matter of style and an ability to get the message across. What is appropriate for a scientific paper or book is far removed from a children's book in sentence and paragraph length, types of sentences used (simple, compound, complex) and how the ideas are expressed. Military prose uses almost no adjectives, keeps the message short, and strives hard to word things so that there is no ambiguity or question as to what is meant. In contrast, the text of a political speech.... well, need I really explain. All of the preceding communicate, but the style, text, grammar, and choice of words vary to meet differing needs.

[Joel Thomas Runyan]

If you put two quotation marks straight or at an angle, I seriously doubt that's the same thing as making a table that's crooked.

I have read many books written by tradesmen. I realize when I buy them that they aren't English professors.

I can't even make my keyboard type the things that are being pointed out. I get one choice, shift on the apostrophe. Whatever it is, it is. If I were to self publish an ebook, it would use the keys I have on my keyboard.

At the same time, if they paid people to fix it perfect, then people would be complaining that the book costs too much and no one would buy it because they'd be "getting ripped off".

Man, I hope I never get to the point in life where the direction of inch and foot marks gets my feathers ruffled.

It's the same thing in principle. There's a right way to do it, but most people can still read a poorly set book or use a crooked table, so it goes unnoticed. The authors of these books aren't the ones doing the typesetting--I hope--so rest assured, someone is already getting paid to do the work that *ought* to include fixing the aforementioned errors. And I'm sure that if you pride yourself in your work, whatever it is, someone doing a so-so job of it would catch your eye. I don't think anyone has ruffled feathers here, we're just pointing out obvious problems with products we've purchased.

[Kent A Bathurst]

THis is interesting.........please continue...........

314159

[Art Mann]

How can we worry about the shape of inch marks and quotation marks when a large plurality of the people on this and most other forums don't even know the difference between "quiet" and "quite"? The are just letting their spell checker make the bad calls for them. This information is quiet disturbing but I wish we could all be quite about it.

[Jim Koepke]

a large plurality of the people on this and most other forums don't even know the difference between "quiet" and "quite"

A more often made error for this forum is "vise" and "vice." The both may have a strong grip, but they are different.

jtk

[Mel Miller]

As far as butchering language goes, "these ones" bothers me the most.

[Kent A Bathurst]

As far as butchering language goes, "these ones" bothers me the most.

And - how do y'all feel about "youse guys"?

[Art Mann]

And - how do y'all feel about "youse guys"?

I ain't got no opinion on that.

[Moses Yoder]

Yea, I seen that the other day.

Seriously, great discussion.

I understand that the way a person presents themselves affects our opinion of them, mainly their intelligence. For instance I have developed opinions of the people whose posts I read in this forum based on the way they are written which opinions may not be accurate at all.

[Scott Shepherd]

It's the same thing in principle. There's a right way to do it, but most people can still read a poorly set book or use a crooked table, so it goes unnoticed. The authors of these books aren't the ones doing the typesetting--I hope--so rest assured, someone is already getting paid to do the work that *ought* to include fixing the aforementioned errors. And I'm sure that if you pride yourself in your work, whatever it is, someone doing a so-so job of it would catch your eye. I don't think anyone has ruffled feathers here, we're just pointing out obvious problems with products we've purchased.

It's not the same thing in principle. You are comparing a crooked table to to lines that are .030" in height with a .010" skew to a crooked table? A crooked table would be noticed by all, and if it were a poor joint, then the table would fall apart or fail at some point in time. The vast majority of people would notice it. However, probably less than 1/10 of 1% would notice the skew on the hash marks and 100 years from now, someone will still be able to use that book.

So the proposal, for a tradesman, that wants to write a book, is to learn typography and study all the different glyphs available and make sure they are using the right ones? I hope that never happens because that would mean no tradespeople would ever write another book.

I can access many different glyphs from my keyboard. If I hold down the key for any letter, it pops up with all the various glyphs available for that key. For instance, if I want to type a, I can type a,à,á,â,ä,æ,ã,å,ā all from the same key, just holding the key down. Hold the quote button down. No glyphs. If it's not important enough for Apple, who was at the center of the desktop publishing world for decades, then it's not important enough for me.

If you told me to cut a piece 5' 2" or 5ft.2in. or 5 fut 2 enches long, I'd still cut you a piece 62 inches long.

As noted on the practicaltypography site :

314180

So it's been removed from character sets in the digital age, meaning, it doesn't exist in many character sets. If it doesn't exist, you can't use it.

[Sam Murdoch]

Butchering the language or the evolving of the language I don't know which but within the past year - or a bit longer - I have heard the word SO creeping in to usage in a most grating manner. Not unlike the word LIKE which became used in every sentence with or without merit, the word SO has now become THE WAY to begin to answer a question.

Started out as a young person thing but now the use of the word SO at the front of a sentence has become part of the vernacular like a plague. I hear it now across the spectrum of public talk, from PHDs, generals, politicians (well of course) media interviewers and those they interview, among others. Listen for it and beware or you will become just another of these ones using SO to start your sentences.:)

As for the style critique of published books - well, this borders on the tyranny of knowledge, that is, if such awareness keeps the reader from enjoying or appreciating the subject because the presentation is a bit flawed. I agree with the comment that I would rather the book be written and the knowledge shared, than not at all, for fear of misplacing punctuation or the like. As a woodworker/builder I can go into a room and spot many flaws of which the homeowner is unaware - blissfully so. I choose to be glad they have a nice home and not make myself crazy with how much better it could all be if they had only asked me.

Please don't scrutinize my post :rolleyes:.

[Scott Shepherd]

Listen for it and beware or you will become just another of these ones using SO to start your sentences.:)


So sorry Sam ;)

[William Adams]

Proper primes and double primes were included when I purchased my first digital font set, Adobe Garamond, Adobe Original #100 and #101 back in 1989, and they’ve always been present in Pi fonts such as Agfa’s Mathematical Pi set.

Accept no excuses or substitutions. Demand the best.

Sad thing is, these days, the only books I unabashedly enjoy purchasing / reading are those by Dr. Donald Knuth — find an error in one and time was, he’d cut you a check for $2.56 (points of improvement are worth 32¢) — these days you get a deposit into a virtual account in his fictional Bank of the Island of San Seriffe: http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~uno/boss.html (I’ve got a physical award check which I keep in my cubicle at work, but haven’t yet found an error since the digital system was set up. AIUI, Dr. Knuth will cash you out w/ a money order if so requested.).

[Frederick Skelly]

As for the style critique of published books - well, this borders on the tyranny of knowledge, that is, if such awareness keeps the reader from enjoying or appreciating the subject because the presentation is a bit flawed. I agree with the comment that I would rather the book be written and the knowledge shared, than not at all, for fear of misplacing punctuation or the like. As a woodworker/builder I can go into a room and spot many flaws of which the homeowner is unaware - blissfully so. I choose to be glad they have a nice home and not make myself crazy with how much better it could all be if they had only asked me.

Good points Sam. Thanks. They don't invalidate what's bugging William - instead they put things in a context that I can personally relate to - he's that skilled professional looking at the flaws in my "nice home".

Personally, I'd rather read a rough, long-hand manuscript than not get the information I'm after. I think LAP is doing our profession/craft/hobby a service by finding a way to publish such books while still making a little money. I'll choose to accept the slightly lesser quality of their typography as part of that package. Others may not.

[Joel Thomas Runyan]

It's not the same thing in principle. You are comparing a crooked table to to lines that are .030" in height with a .010" skew to a crooked table? A crooked table would be noticed by all, and if it were a poor joint, then the table would fall apart or fail at some point in time. The vast majority of people would notice it. However, probably less than 1/10 of 1% would notice the skew on the hash marks and 100 years from now, someone will still be able to use that book.

So the proposal, for a tradesman, that wants to write a book, is to learn typography and study all the different glyphs available and make sure they are using the right ones? I hope that never happens because that would mean no tradespeople would ever write another book.

I can access many different glyphs from my keyboard. If I hold down the key for any letter, it pops up with all the various glyphs available for that key. For instance, if I want to type a, I can type a,à,á,â,ä,æ,ã,å,ā all from the same key, just holding the key down. Hold the quote button down. No glyphs. If it's not important enough for Apple, who was at the center of the desktop publishing world for decades, then it's not important enough for me.

If you told me to cut a piece 5' 2" or 5ft.2in. or 5 fut 2 enches long, I'd still cut you a piece 62 inches long.

As noted on the practicaltypography site :

314180

So it's been removed from character sets in the digital age, meaning, it doesn't exist in many character sets. If it doesn't exist, you can't use it.

That refers to a difference in function. The similar *principle* is that there is a right way to set joinery, and there is a right way to set type. The consequences of each are obviously different. But if one does things only partially right, the whole is degraded. If a table top joint is unlevel by a 1/64", the vast majority of people would not notice it in use, and all else being equal the table could be used 100 years from now. And if everyone accepts that that 1/64" is just fine because it doesn't affect the table's use, then what's the point in doing finer work and flattening your table tops? Why don't we just screw some 2x4s together? It'll hold. Language and typesetting are the same way. They need to be vigorously maintained, or else our standards drop. And if you don't think that the standards of building furniture and writing prose can fall, I'm not sure what else to say.

As I said before, the tradesman writing the book isn't the one doing the typesetting. He submits his manuscript to editors and copy-editors and all manner of other people who eliminate the mistakes. This is why publishing companies exist. Read through the myriad of free self-published books on Amazon and you will quickly see why having high standards of publication is necessary. Most people are terrible writers and designers, however good their ideas are. And there is something to say for having the ability to freely communicate one's ideas in book form. It's a great thing. But I'm arguing that having basic typography errors in a finely printed book about a tool-chest that is the very woodworking definition of anal-retentive detail obsession... well it's incongruous to the point of humor.

And God help us if Apple is to become the standard of language and design in this world.

[Jim Koepke]

And God help us if Apple is to become the standard of language and design in this world.

You may rest easy, the standard of language and design is safely in the hands or Twitter, Facebook and Youtube.

jtk

[William Adams]

To return to the original topic. Penultimately, communication is a test of the abilities of the person speaking/writing to elicit understanding and empathy in the person hearing/reading. Ultimately it’s whether or no information was accurately conveyed.

While I believe I’ve accurately conveyed information, there doesn’t seem to be much empathy for my position. While I can certainly accept and understand that, I would appreciate assistance in understanding why.

Briefly, the crux of my position is that work by professionals in a field should be held to the accepted standards of that field, whether or no the general public considers such standards worthy, or even of interest.

Is that not a valid position? If not, why not? Does it apply to certain professions, but not to others? If that is the case, what are these professions and why / how are they relegated to this second-rate status?

Let’s turn this around. You have been given a gift of a piece of furniture, which for some reason important people in your life were aware that you wanted, but didn’t have the wherewithal to make for yourself. It is purchased from a company which is known for perfection in some unrelated field, but when you receive it, it falls far short of perfection in ways which only you as a woodworker can recognize.

Is it then valid when, upon attempting to discuss other aspects of the piece on a suitable forum, and you are drawn out about the failings of the piece as an exemplar of woodworking, your concerns and frustrations regarding this are dismissed out-of-hand as lacking merit, standing or import?

[Tom Stenzel]

One problem is that we're looking at this from a wood working making point of view to the book reader point of view.

Let's change the comparison to driving down a road. A bumpy, poorly finished potholed road with poor signage can certainly get you where you want to go. But consciously or subconsciously when you arrive at your destination you will be more tired than if you had taken a nice road with good signs.

Same with any literary content. People have spent careers figuring out what is pleasing to the eye and easy to read. To dismiss it as a bunch of trivia is a mistake.

Although at my age and trifocals my ability to SEE the inch symbol is suspect, much less figure out if the correct symbol was used.

Note to William Adams: I've read about the checks for $2.56 from Donald Knuth in connection to TAOCP. I've never met or knew someone that received one before. Yet another unsung celebrity here at the Creek.

I wonder how many of those checks ever got cashed?

-Tom

[Scott Shepherd]

Briefly, the crux of my position is that work by professionals in a field should be held to the accepted standards of that field, whether or no the general public considers such standards worthy, or even of interest.

Is that not a valid position? If not, why not? Does it apply to certain professions, but not to others? If that is the case, what are these professions and why / how are they relegated to this second-rate status?



Sure, the professionals in a field should be held to high standards. However, you're talking about perfection here. You're not talking about people in a book using "their" instead of "there". You're talking about something so obscure that it's at the very line of perfection. Are there people in every craft that are professionals that don't create perfection? Probably 99.99% of them don't. When was the last "perfect" woodworking project you saw? No flaws at all, perfect? If you looked at 1000 pieces with a critical eye, could you find fault with 999 of them? I would suspect so.

I don't believe anyone is saying that it's not important to strive for perfection, we're just saying that most of us accept that people that do things perfect every time just don't put many products out for us to use.

Perfection is something to strive for, but it's almost never obtainable. How many errors are there in a dictionary? I bet there are quite a few.

[Kent A Bathurst]

I bet there are quite a few.

Scott - how many times must I remind you about modal verbs?

I will bet....
I would bet.....
I might bet.....
and so forth........

You are making us woodworkers look like uneducated.............ummmmmmm.......woodworkers?

[William Adams]

Yes, but most of these are quite basic. Widow / orphan control is built into all page layout programs and even most word processors, it’s a checkbox which they didn’t check.

Bad breaks is a simple, standard part of a final review of pages — you search for all hyphens and instances of hyphenated words and address them individually — I used to do it for a ~100 page journal once a month which had a 24 hour turnaround from submission to return of finished pages.

Not having short last lines is a simple GREP search-replace to apply the nobreak attribute as local formatting to the last two words of a paragraph.

Not trapping white space is basic good design principles.

Consistent head formatting / placement is a matter of using proper paragraph styles, inline graphic styles and object styles and doing so allows the text to reflow automatically and makes doing the work quicker and more fluid. This actually would have made their pagination of the book go more quickly and automatically and saved enough time / effort to make all the other checks / corrections / changes.

Using the wrong character obscures the meaning and demeans the language and diminishes it and is an out and out error, which no amount of frequency or prevalence can change.

Thanks, Tom. Getting the reward check was one of the high points, and something which I was very glad of, and which exemplifies how making the effort to try for perfection results in a better product and world. My check was for his book Digital Typography though, not TAOCP. Noted Monotype should be capitalized and pointed out that he’d failed to mention that TeX had gained a feature which allowed it to change the spelling of a word when it was hyphenated.

I’ll be blunt. Should the people at Lost Arts Press be considered as professionals in the book publishing field and held to the same standards of work as other book publishers such as Hartley & Marks? If not, why not?

[Joel Thomas Runyan]

I’ll be blunt. Should the people at Lost Arts Press be considered as professionals in the book publishing field and held to the same standards of work as other book publishers such as Hartley & Marks? If not, why not?

I'm local to them. Tempted to drop off my copy of Tschichold's The Form of the Book.

[William Adams]

If it's the Hartley & Marks edition, you might want to sell it instead — last time I checked it was up over $100.

I really wish that my 401K had appreciated in value like many of the type and graphic design books I’ve bought had. I could retire.

You don’t need to inflict the dense Teutonic prose on them though, even something as simple as Robin Williams’ The Mac/PC is Not a Typewriter would address the majority of my concerns, or even her The Non-Designer's Design Book. That something intended for non-professionals would help them so much is kind of my point though.

[Malcolm Schweizer]

OK, I was holding my breath trying not to comment, but I will. At first when I saw William's post about font and other errors, I thought, "what a nut." (Hang with me, William, I am hopefully going to redeem myself.) On second thought, however, I actually have a love for fonts to the point that as an art student I used to design my own fonts, and once did a "painting" that was actually just different fonts arranged in an appealing manner to create movement. It won a national art competition in New York. I guess they liked it. Sadly, it was in a collection that was stolen from a gallery and I have no pictures of it to post.

Perhaps to William an improper use of a lower-case "x" or "orphans" in typeset are the equivalent of a 1/64-inch gap in either side of a dovetail, or a beautifully-executed piece of furniture with exposed end grain, and not as an intentional design element. A typesetter that is not a woodworker might say, "What's the big deal?" A woodworker might say, "Well that would have otherwise been a very nice piece."

I think Lost Art Press, judging by their chosen name, should appreciate William's feedback, even if the rest of us may think it a bit obsessive compulsive.

My Schweizer Surfboards logo was my own design (not my own font, but my overall design) and uses font as art, especially with the small, name-only logo. The large cross logo was very difficult to balance everything. Move the font up and it clashes with the crossbar of the cross. Move it down any further and it is unbalanced. The "Saint Thomas, Virgin Islands" is intentionally made to blend in because I wanted it known, but I did not want that to be the first thing you saw. I wanted the cross to be in everyone's mind, as part of my plan has been to create a line of surf wear, and I want people to see the cross and think "Schweizer Surfboards" much the same as when you see a white apple with a bite out of it you think "Apple Computers."

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314208

I also modified an existing font for my daughter's cradle boat, making the "o" the sleepy moon. I actually think I could have done a little better with it. It's not as obvious as I had hoped. I share this one to show how subtle changes to font do make a difference. I also drew the "N" into the "o" because otherwise it looked like "N od" instead of "Nod."

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[Art Mann]

On first glance, I read "H6d".

[Scott Shepherd]

On first glance, I read "H6d".

Lol, me too. I also got SCHW=IZER :)

Had to double take on both of them. I like them a great deal from an artistic point of view. Nice work Malcolm, shame about having your art work stolen.

[Malcolm Schweizer]

Ah! See- I see "Schweizer" because of course it's my name and I have seen it for years. It's like the guy with the bike that goes opposite of where you turn it. ...and so we come full circle, pun intended. Well it's too late to change now, so it shall remain. :-)

[Scott Shepherd]

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE your boards Malcolm. Just gorgeous. Really loved the handboards. They are just beautiful.

[Caspar Hauser]

'a large plurality of the people on this and most other forums don't even know the difference between "quiet" and "quite"'


'A more often made error for this forum is "vise" and "vice." The both may have a strong grip, but they are different'.

jtk

The difference being that the former is the American spelling of vice, the Brtitish spelling of vise.

[Malcolm Schweizer]

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE your boards Malcolm. Just gorgeous. Really loved the handboards. They are just beautiful.

Much appreciated.

[Bill ThompsonNM]

Typography is the craft (or art) which exists to honour the text with an appropriate typesetting. Fine, well-done typography is pretty much invisible, but it will make a text easier to read and understand. See Beatrice Warde’s essay, “The Crystal Goblet” (written under the pen name Paul Beaujon) for an examination of this. As idealized writing, it also looks nicer. Virtusoso is a good looking book, it would’ve taken just a couple hours additional work to make it perfect typographically and potentially award-winning. The big problem is that when the desktop publishing revolution happened, the composition industry sold out for sinecures, rather than being involved in the new technology. This new technology can make most of this sort of thing automatic if one simply engages some sensible settings, and the other things are straight-forward search and replaces (which must be done by hand, since they require an awareness of the meaning of the text which machines don’t have). Naturally there are lots of books written about typesetting books, the problem is, few people bother to read them, and teachers either don’t know or gloss over “minor” things such as the correct symbols for minutes, degrees, feet and inches. Here are what should be salient points from the other thread: In a lot of ways, this exemplifies the XKCD comic on graphic design and the awkwardness of being aware of it (search for “xkcd kerning”, “If you hate someone, teach them to understand kerning.”) The sad thing is, graphic design and typography are idealized writing, so the school systems dropping cursive from the curriculum will likely make this sort of thing worse, resulting in a further diminishing of the public’s ability to appreciate visual design — which as people who make things which are differentiated by visual appearance we should probably be concerned about.

I think part of the problem is that it might have take more than "a few hours" to upgrade the book. The Lost Art press principles come from the magazine publishing industry. Magazine and Newspaper publishers take great liberty with publishing niceties and even grammar, because they have deadlines and they have to Fill the pages.

The publishing industry doesn't have one accepted standard, book print quality varies greatly even within a single category. It would be nice if the Lost Art Press evolved to the quality of publishing as I see with high end cookbooks, for example, but even if the software they're using has the capability to take care of the niceties (it may not if its magazine oriented) it is likely the editors and publishers are not familiar with higher quality standards.

[William Adams]

I think part of the problem is that it might have take more than "a few hours" to upgrade the book.

As I noted, I do this sort of thing for a living. Three parts to it:

- not setting proper defaults --- matter of a checkbox, a couple of minutes
- not reviewing the details of the setting of the text --- a couple of hours tops
- fixing the paragraph and object styles to be consistent --- this should have been built into the project from the beginning, but even doing it manually after the fact wouldn't've taken more than an hour or so to decide upon what was correct, look through the pages, then fix them by hand-tweaking

I guess that's the other part which rubs me the wrong way --- all of this is indicates a lack of rigor and good working practices. I don't understand how people can willfully choose not to use every feature w/in a program to its best ability to allow work to be done more quickly and efficiently.

They're either using InDesign or Quark XPress, those are the only two interactive page layout programs left. Probably this could've been done in Scribus, though it would've been a bit more work. If it were a longer book it might've been worth doing in a specialty typesetting tool such as 3B2 or XyVision or (La)TeX, but it's just not a very big project by typical standards for such tools (my first project was 2,200 pages and was considered small by the standards of the company which I was then working for).

Per: blog.lostartpress.com/2015/04/15/drowning-in-pixels-and-paper/ it's InDesign (see .indd in the filename in the slugline)

[roger wiegand]

You could argue that in making a drawer it is sufficient that the materials to be contained not fall out the bottom, and that it slide back and forth. You'd be right if all you care about is the most base level of functionality. Why do more than a nailed together box? Dovetails, elegantly carved handles, piston fit in the carcass are all extravagant frippery.

So too with language and typography. You can pay any amount of attention to grammar, word use, typography, and page layout in an effort to make a work of art out of a simple written communication.

I enjoy good typography and layout (though I know little about it), but am really irked when I have to read something where the layout impedes my ability to read the words (like the lousy MS Word right justification that creates all kinds of weird spacing). Just like when I make a drawer and want it to have more than the crudest functionality, I think it's worth investing time and energy in making my written documents look nice on the page. Is it necessary?, probably not; does it create a good impression and give better results? (i.e. a better reception to what I've written), yes, in my experience; does it make me feel better about my work? yes, absolutely.

[Pat Barry]

Lol, me too. I also got SCHW=IZER :)

Had to double take on both of them. I like them a great deal from an artistic point of view. Nice work Malcolm, shame about having your art work stolen.
Thats funny Scott! You were inconsistent in your comprehenshen of the = character. You really must have seen SCHW=IZ=R, but your mind made a correction to ZER in place of Z=R. :)
Anyway, its a cool, unique and memorable logo and that's really all you want. The swoosh doesn't actually spell Nike in any font that I know of

[Pat Barry]

What I have learned is that if I ever try to write something to be published I will certainly look to get someone like William to edit and typeset it for me. Reading should be enjoyable and enlightening and I can surely see the value in getting the edits and typesetting done properly. If I did it myself it would be a huge mistake.

[Rick Potter]

Malcolm,

I also got it as SCHW=IZER, and H6d. I get it now, but had to re-read the posting first.

Sadly, I have seen your cross avatar for some time. I now can make it out, but until today I always wondered if you belonged to some Satanic biker gang, or something :eek:. It looks like a cross made into a knife to my old eyes, and in the avatar size, I couldn't make out the writing. Not being aware of your surfboards, I had no idea it was a trademark.

Thanks for posting the enlarged pic so I could read it..

[Mike Chance in Iowa]

Going back to Moses original statement that the only requirement in delivering your thoughts is that the receiving party comprehend it. That's a fair thought, but it's not quite that simple. If you see a child standing with their legs crossed, hands in front of them and squirming, it's safe to assume the child needs to go to the bathroom. We as adults have learned it's more appropriate to indicate that need via the use of words. That said, a sailor or truck driver will choose very different words than Southern Ladies at a social event to indicate they need to go to the bathroom.

Now let's switch over to learning, experience & exposure. I read through the posts in this thread and it seems one of the big issues is lack of learning or exposure to gain that experience and knowledge.

How many of you actually learned typography and layout in school along with everyone else in your class? I was born in the 60's so all my school work was handwritten. I learned to type on a manual typewriter in 7th grade and very little was discussed about formatting a letter other than you indent 5 spaces for the first word in the paragraph. Everything else was left-aligned. Skip to 11th grade and I had an awesome teacher who noticed a skill set I had. With only glancing at documents, I can spot format, typos & spacing errors without thoroughly reading the document. Because of my novelty skill, she showed me different layouts and some formatting rules - so that I actually had some exposure to them. No other students in my class learned about this kind of stuff.

Typography? I was about 19 when the coolest thing ever was when I learned you could take the daisy wheel out of a typewriter and switch from courier to orator! That was the extent of my typography training.

I feel blessed to have had as much exposure to so many different things in my life, yet there is always so much more to learn. I am a font-aholic. I have thousands of fonts organized on my computer. I design fonts that I need for my business or for personal projects. I have worked with all sorts of non-standard glyphs, but I can't tell you what a good majority of the glyph symbols mean or what their use is. What I know is all self-taught based on the exposure & resources I stumbled across over the years - because I have an interest in fonts & graphics and sought out more information not taught in my school classes.

Switching back to the ability to communicate ... While I would prefer to read a well-formatted document, I accept that the person writing it probably does not have that skill set. If I want to learn about the "Cladrastis kentukea" I will probably learn a lot more practical information from someone who works at a Kentucky tree farm and never used a computer, than if I talk to a person who formats & edits documents all day and studies modern dance at night in New York City. Team those two people up and they could produce a neatly formatted, valuable reference guide to the horticulture community.

[Shawn Pixley]

Going back to Moses original statement that the only requirement in delivering your thoughts is that the receiving party comprehend it. That's a fair thought, but it's not quite that simple. If you see a child standing with their legs crossed, hands in front of them and squirming, it's safe to assume the child needs to go to the bathroom. We as adults have learned it's more appropriate to indicate that need via the use of words. That said, a sailor or truck driver will choose very different words than Southern Ladies at a social event to indicate they need to go to the bathroom.

...edited...

Switching back to the ability to communicate ... While I would prefer to read a well-formatted document, I accept that the person writing it probably does not have that skill set. If I want to learn about the "Cladrastis kentukea" I will probably learn a lot more practical information from someone who works at a Kentucky tree farm and never used a computer, than if I talk to a person who formats & edits documents all day and studies modern dance at night in New York City. Team those two people up and they could produce a neatly formatted, valuable reference guide to the horticulture community.




I have resisted commenting so far. I know a fair bit about graphic layout, kerning, etc... but felt I had little to add here. However on the subject of communication, I have fairly strong opinions:

(Standing on the soapbox now) Where I went to school, they promised only two things, "you will learn to think here and you will learn to write." They delivered. I wrote a minimum of one paper per week during university.

The best advice I ever got was during my first week as an intern architect. My supervisor asked me on Friday what I thought my job was. I responded with a very academic and fairly pretentious response as to the nature of architecture. He responded, "cut the crap, what is your job?" I responded with the duties they had me doing that week, bathroom elevations and stair sections. "No, no, you're not getting it. Your job is to communicate. You communicate the owner's wishes and your design to those that will build it. You need to become expert at this. When you become expert in communicating this, no matter what you do, you will be successful."

I took that advice to heart, and strove to become as clear a communicator as possible. I fail far too often.

I disagree with Moses in some respects. In social situations, one must be gracious and mannered in communications to all. This means acceptance of sloppiness or imprecision of language. However, in professional communications and all publishing, one should be as precise and clear as possible. Sloppiness of terminology and other aspects create needless confusion and create doubt in the knowlege of the author. We would not accept a substitutution of the term "cap iron or chip breaker" for "lever cap". In conversation , we would know what is meant and likely let it go. In publication, it is unacceptably sloppy.

Analogous, is when you see a dirty table tray on your airplane flight. You then wonder their standards on engine maintenance.

In short, in publishing, I think there is a higher standard for language, precision and clarity. (Off of soapbox now)

When I read a non-fiction book or substantial prose, I think it is incumbant upon the author to clearly and precisely express their ideas. It is after all, a lasting impression of their work.

[Tom Stenzel]

Before we were discussing the layout of the text. Shawn brings up probably the most worthwhile part of communication -clarity of expression.

The one most influential thing I read about that was the essay Politics and the English Language by George Orwell. It's available on the 'net, worth the time to read it.

-Tom

[Moses Yoder]

You could argue that in making a drawer it is sufficient that the materials to be contained not fall out the bottom, and that it slide back and forth. You'd be right if all you care about is the most base level of functionality. Why do more than a nailed together box? Dovetails, elegantly carved handles, piston fit in the carcass are all extravagant frippery.

So too with language and typography. You can pay any amount of attention to grammar, word use, typography, and page layout in an effort to make a work of art out of a simple written communication.

I enjoy good typography and layout (though I know little about it), but am really irked when I have to read something where the layout impedes my ability to read the words (like the lousy MS Word right justification that creates all kinds of weird spacing). Just like when I make a drawer and want it to have more than the crudest functionality, I think it's worth investing time and energy in making my written documents look nice on the page. Is it necessary?, probably not; does it create a good impression and give better results? (i.e. a better reception to what I've written), yes, in my experience; does it make me feel better about my work? yes, absolutely.

I think Frank Klausz addresses these concerns well. Basically there is a point of no value added in woodworking projects. There has to be a balance between the value of the product and the amount of time spent producing it.

This discussion has been very educational for me. I own a lot of books and will be looking at them through different eyes now. I appreciate the fact that the errors, whether they are egregious or not, were pointed out because I learned something.

[Evan Ryan]

They’re in the business of publishing books. Wouldn’t it behoove them to learn the standards of the industry as they should be practiced?

I’ve lost count of the number of copies of Bringhurst’s The Elements of Typographic Style I‘ve given to people — if I thought they’d act on it, I’d gladly purchase yet another copy and send it to them.

Bringhurst's book is a LAP book for graphic designers. Check it out and you will see the rigor William is talking about at work. Zero content about woodworking, but a great read, sort of like this thread.

[William Adams]

Zero content about woodworking

I dunno, if one is doing signage, it's very relevant. Another book which might be more acceptable here would be Michael Harvey's Creative Lettering Today which I am pleased to see has come back down to a reasonable valuation. It’s a combining of three of his previous texts including Carving Letters in Stone & Wood.