Designs that have a whiff of complex impenetrability tends to suggest big, complicated ideas. Academic writing tends to work the same way, I understand.

People in the UK will say that the design community in the US is much more coherent than other countries. It has no government support at all, so it's really like a grass roots thing.

A lot of times, you design a logo to be timeless, but with something like the Olympics, timelessness is maybe not something you should be going for. Maybe you should be trying to come up with something that will really become associated with a moment in time, a few weeks, that happened, period. Then you look back, think about it and connect it with that time. It may look dated later but it will be still be evocative.

A lot of times, you design a logo to be timeless, but with something like the Olympics, timelessness is maybe not something you should be going for.

Sometimes I will give some very vague directions to the designer that I'm working with on a particular project and they'll come back and surprise me with something that really shows a lot of their own 'hand' in it. Other times I'll have a really clear idea about how I want it done and I'll draw it out pretty precisely and say 'make it look exactly like this' and it will be something where it looks like I can say it was 'fully my design'. The work can also range between the two.

If typography is calling attention to itself, it's taking that attention away from what the words are saying.

I've never really acquired any facility for working on the computer, though one day I think I would like to. My generation just barely missed it, which I don't think is a good thing or a bad thing.