Reprinted with permission
from DESIGN,
the Society for News Design's
quarterly journal
Spring 2002
Interview by Steve Cavendish
Cavendish: I noticed a bunch of drop shadows in the book. I take it that you don’t fall into the shadow-averse, design-trends-are-evil bunch.
Harrower: I’ve always believed that stereo is better than mono, that color is better than black-and-white, and that 3-D is better than 2-D. Compare those zoomy logos and graphics you see on TV, or in ads, with the logos and graphics in your newspaper. We’re duller. We’re blander. We insist on looking “respectable,” which is newsroom code for “dull and predictable.” And why is that? It’s a question that haunts me. Why are newspapers so freakin’ uptight? Is it because most burned-out 50-year-old editors don’t have the time or talent to be fun or cutting-edge anymore, or to take creative risks, so they make it forbidden?
Newspapers SHOULD look trendy. Absolutely. They should mirror the culture: the colors, the fonts, the stylistic effects. A 2002 newspaper should not look like a 1992 newspaper. For example, don’t you love looking at old magazines or TV shows from the ’60s, seeing those funky old fonts and day-glo colors? That’s called “personality.” Now, ask yourself: Was any of that personality reflected in ’60s newspaper design? Absolutely not. Then, as now, newspapers played it safe, avoided trendiness, and maximized their dullness by remaining personality-free. Which is where that “we’re-in-the-culture-but-not-OF-it” philosophy gets you.
Cavendish: You’re doing some “environmental graphics” these days. You’re not going to sit in a tree for a year are you? Because it wouldn’t be unheard of in the Pacific Northwest.
Harrower: Yes, I confess I’m a bit of a tree-hugger. But at the moment I’m creating a system of signs and maps for the motorheads at Portland International Raceway. It’s a cool opportunity to explore environmental graphic design, which means I get to use words like “wayfinding” and “signage.” And I’m grappling with fonts and proportions in odd new ways (should that type be 5 inches or 7 inches tall?). From here, maybe I’ll move on to shopping malls and zoos. Can you imagine how complicated the signage must be at a place like Disney World? It’s quite a specialized craft, like newspaper design. And, of course, Disney World is a real Mickey Mouse operation, like many newspapers.
Cavendish: If you’re designing a paper from scratch, what typefaces do you pick?
Harrower: Are you running out of questions already?
Cavendish: Pick: Interstate or Bureau Grotesque.
Harrower: When I was much younger, back in prison, making highway signs all day, I grew tired of Interstate. And orange jumpsuits. Gimme Grotesque.
Cavendish: Pick: ’NSync or the Backstreet Boys?
Harrower: When I was much younger, back in prison, making highway signs all day, I grew tired of boy bands in orange jumpsuits. What is this, Tiger Beat magazine?
Cavendish: No, it’s Pulse. Which leads me to the last question: If you were stuck on a desert island with only five albums, what would they be?
Harrower: Oddly enough, my favorite records are all design-related:
1. Meat Loaf, “Dingbat Out of Hell.”
2. The Moody Blues, “Days of Futura Passed.”
3. Van Halen, “Jumps.”
4. Alanis Morissette, “Jagged Little Palatino.”
5. Pink Floyd, either “Dark Sidebar of the Moon” or “Another Brick in the Walbaum.”
Of course, the Beatles wrote some classic tunes about newspaper design, like
“A Hard Day’s Nimrod” and “Lucy in the Skybox With Diamonds.” And of course you have Bob Dylan’s “Everybody Must Get Stone Serif Italic.” And then there’s. …
Cavendish: We’ll end this before it gets any more out of hand. Thanks.
Steve Cavendish is a designer at the Washington Post. He is currently serving 25-life for attempting to kill the animators who brought us Jar Jar Binks.
