Inspiration and insights #4 — Count Binface, general election websites, and more
From the newsletter: It’s been a strange couple of weeks for me. The UK General Election campaign is at its halfway point, and the parties are all pushing their messages to voters. I decided to study their websites to see how effective I thought they were. I wrote about what I found and how I might design things differently were the parties to come calling.
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- Diving into party website designs
- The Conservatives’ post-manifesto website
- Labour’s post-manifesto website
- Labour’s general election websites since 1997
Not to put too fine a point on it, I was disappointed, unimpressed, and not a little depressed by the standard of design from all the main parties. And I don’t just mean their uninspiring images, lacklustre typography, and out-of-the-box layouts. I mean their inability to do what they’re designed to: engage an audience, communicate messages, and inspire people to act.
After imagining what I might make if Labour came calling, I thought I needed to show some impartiality. Not wanting to help out the Conservatives—no matter how indirectly—I chose to imagine what I’d make if the intergalactic space warrior and perennial candidate standing against Prime Minister Rish! Count Binface came calling.
Well, it looks like my reputation has reached the faraway planet of Sigma 9 because a few days later, Count Binface did call, and he asked if I had time to turn my design ideas into his campaign website for this general election. How could I, err, refuse?
Squarespace is the platform of choice for intergalactic space warriors. So—with less than a week before Count Binface was due to announce his manifesto—my challenge was to develop the website using Squarespace. It’s not a platform I’m especially familiar with, and I was a little concerned that I wouldn’t be able to deliver all the details in my designs using Squarespace. But I soon realised I could add SVG to Squarespace’s code blocks and learned to use its injected CSS feature to override the platform defaults and add extra design details that were not possible out-of-the-box. Overall, I’m very happy with the results.
Whether you think perennial or novelty candidates are a positive aspect of politics or not, I believe they demonstrate just how precious the democratic process is. If I were in Prime Minister Rish! constituency, I’d lend my vote to Count Binface. After all, who wouldn’t like to see Yorkshire Pudding Day become a national bank holiday?
Inspiration spotlight
Robert Massin
(Robert) Massin—he enigmatically stopped using his first name in 1950s—was a French art director, book and graphic designer who caught my attention because of his stark black and white imagery and expressive typography.
Massin’s typography is interesting, not because of exotic typefaces, but because of the ways he used seemingly ordinary typefaces and arranged type in unusual ways. About typefaces, Massin said:
There are no ugly typefaces, you just have to know how to use them.
Like all great typography, Massin’s type designs tell stories, like this famous work for Eugène Ionesco’s The Bald Soprano in 1965. For Ionesco’s book, Massin’s goal was to, as Laetitia Wolff described, create “the dynamism of the theatre within the static confines of the book.” His typesetting made the words reflect the personality of the characters and what they were saying.
Compared to other masters of type like Herb Lubalin and Herbert Matter, there’s a subversive, almost anarchic feel to Massin’s designs. In many ways, they remind me of Sniffin’ Glue and other punk zines from a decade later.
Massin was self-taught and developed his style throughout his career in book covers and interiors. Massin’s work is less well-known than Max Huber, Herb Lubalin, or Herbert Matter. I’ve never seen his name in an article about web design or mentioned at a design conference.
Book of the month
Massin
This monograph of Robert Massin’s work by Laetitia Wolff—which was published in 2007—definitely deserves its space on my bookcase and yours.
This is an Amazon affiliate link, so I earn a tiny amount from your purchase.
Around the web
Ahmad Shadeed: CSS Cap Unit
“I needed to place a box between two words and keep it aligned. I thought about a way to size the box to be equal to the capital letter height. After some research, I found the cap unit and it worked as expected.”
Richard Rutter: A modern approach to browser support
“Clearleft didn’t have a written browser support policy to counter or complement that of our clients. For the sake of professionalism and good client relationships, we decided to rectify that.”
Juan Diego Rodríguez: What Are CSS Container Style Queries Good For?
“What are CSS Container Style Queries, and why should you use them? Juan Diego Rodríguez delves deeply into style queries, what exactly they are solving and what sort of use cases you would find yourselves reaching for them.”
Michelle Barker: Modern CSS Layout is Awesome: Talking and Thinking About CSS Layout
“I recently gave a CSS layout talk at Pixel Pioneers conference in my (sort of) home city of Bristol. I’ve spoken about CSS layout quite a bit over the years, but I feel like there’s always a lot to talk about, as things are changing all the time!”
Thanks for reading, and please press “reply” if you’d like to nerd out about any of the above. I always respond.
— Andy