The proportions of the iPad screen are 768 by 1024 pixels, a 3:4 ratio, usable in both orientations. What does this mean for layout?
Tuhin Kumar suggests fluid layout:
[Y]ou can view [the iPad] either in landscape or in the portrait mode. But for the designer that means two completely different layouts for which to design. It is for this specific reason that the iPad highlights the need for smart fluid width design.
With everyone sharing their thoughts on Apple’s new iPad, I thought I’d share mine, both of them.
Two posts, Part I today.
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If you’re even remotely interested in typography and graphic design, you’ve probably seen the documentatry Helvetica. If you haven’t, I recommend it highly. Helvetica, the typeface, shows up just about everywhere: in corporate logos, ads for high-end luxury goods, utilitarian signage, notices at the local laundromat. It’s one strand of mid-20th-century modernist design: the search for neutral spaces, neutral means of expression. As one blogger put it, “the movie presents the typeface as an emblem of modernity, simplicity and abstraction.”
But there has to be a limit. Nowadays, under the influence of postmodernism, we tend to retro-interpret “neutralist” modernism as just another style, suggestive of rationality, technocracy, and pragmatism.
So, is Helvetica really the appropriate typeface for a plaque commemorating a visit by Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall to Victoria’s Anglican cathedral?
Christopher Burd is a business analyst, writer, and information designer based in Victoria, British Columbia. His website is www.catchword.ca. You can follow him on Twitter.
