Type, design and automated layout, Atypi 2011

With the move from print to online, everything we do is about the future of type and typography. For the last year Petr van Blokland and I have developed XierpaWeb, a publishing tool based on the Python library Xierpa. It is used by e.g. Nomadeditions in New York to produce a growing number of magazines, issued weekly on the basis of typographically founded design templates and automatic layout. Developments in the production of all kinds of publications increase in speed and impact. Many publication designers (books, newspapers, magazines, corporate identities) and their customers are not aware of these recent dramatic changes. Even designers for new media, such as blogs, websites, apps and e-books tend to see their work as local and separate. With a modest guess of an increase in speed of 2.5 times, the next 10 years are comparable with the change, 25 years ago, from photo-typesetting to desktop publishing. These changes will continue, offering less time for users, customers, designers and producers to adapt their knowledge, experience and behavior. As designers, we must be aware of these changes to make our work needed in the future. Where by definition it is impossible to predict discontinued developments, it is feasible to envision technology driven developments by extrapolating what has happened in the past years. The talk will address these issues from the perspective of the future of design and the increasing wide range of platforms and devices (“tablet computers require new thinking and new methods of design and production”). Design the design process. The designer as integrator, instead of artist defining the color of the buttons. Some projects and cases, including the magazines from Nomad Editions, are presented as optional directions.