An Interview with iA Founder Reichenstein: Good Design is Invisible

According to foreign media reports, Oliver Reichenstein is the founder and director of the design company Information Architects, which has branch offices in Tokyo, Zurich, and Berlin. iA's day-to-day business covers quirky concepts such as website design consultations and Twitter strikeouts. But the company has also seen some success in iOS and Mac application development. The iPad version of Writer is a ground-breaking minimalist text editor that has made OS X and the iPhone a leap forward with a combination of a few visual enhancements and elaborate typography.

Recently, Reichenstein was interviewed and answered some questions about software design and development. As iA's work is affected by its European and Asian operations, his views on the differences between the two are interesting, especially his views on the status quo of the Japanese design business. After all, for anyone who recently visited a turbulent Japanese website, iA has a tasteful and simple job that is totally inconsistent with the company's headquarters in Japan. Please read on below, and you can see why Rei Kestein explained this, as well as issues related to typesetting, user interface design, and impact.

Reporter (instead of A): Where do you live now and what are you doing?

Oliver Reichenstein (below B): I live in Switzerland. After the earthquake, my wife and I decided to leave Japan because we thought that the nuclear accident only 2 hours away from Tokyo did not affect our 3-year-old child. Safety. It is still too early to judge whether or not our decision is correct, but I think that from the bottom of my heart, this is the right decision. Since we have companies in Zurich and Berlin, most of our customers are in Europe, so there is no big business risk to do so. In fact, this is the best year we have ever made and it has brought me closer to our major customers.

A: What caused you to go to Japan in the beginning and let you stay?

B: I go there on vacation. It feels like traveling to another planet, so I decided to stay and explore extraterrestrial life. At that time I had to choose between a career in a big brand agency and learning new things. When I arrived in Japan, I didn’t understand Japanese at all. I lived in a world without languages. Like a baby, I had to learn everything from scratch. I think that this kind of illiteracy and the experience of gradually returning to society later made me a better designer. When you cannot read or write, you need to explain everything you encounter through visual cues. You begin to understand the things and people behind this language. If a large number of standard mechanical interfaces work differently, extensive training on the basic interface is required.

In the nearly three months of dumb life, I also discovered the artistic and functional beauty of Japanese typesetting, and discovered the artistic and functional beauty of Latin typesetting files. One of my favorite places to visit in Tokyo is Ueno's calligraphy museum. When I first arrived in Japan, I arrived there. What surprised me was that I could completely see the shape and guess the broad meaning of some calligraphy. When I started to learn Chinese characters and use symbols to express meaning, I began to see that many of our texts intuitively expressed what they described. The English "Dog" looks like a squatting dog. The German "Hund" (which belongs to the same hound as the English hound) looks like a standing dog. I won't get into too deep, because it sounds crazy. No matter what, I began to look at and think about language and visual presentation from a completely different perspective. Ultimately this gave me the vision and spiritual freedom to create iA.

This freedom also brings me together with other like-minded people. We still have branch offices in Shibuya, Tokyo. Fortunately, I can go there every few months.

A: What is the biggest influence of graphic design on your online work? Network design?

B: I have never been satisfied with the status quo of the network. The website page is always - and still is - too confusing, not in line with my taste. I didn't really understand where I was wrong until I discovered the typesetting problem. I learned a lot from Khoi Vinh's blog during this period. The main point is: try to find ways to turn typesetting knowledge into this new medium.

The impact of the old college design work on iA mainly comes from typeetters. I grew up in Switzerland, so Frutiger, Ruder, Tschichold, Müller-Brockmann, and Miedinger have a great influence on my visual DNA. I found this in Tokyo just as I could find grammar when I could speak. We personally met some of my design heroes, such as Erik Spiekermann and Roger Black, which taught me that their work was so influential. It has always been passionate and energetic.

Working in Japan, I know from a slightly different angle why we don't like our design culture - typical Swiss indifference, lack of emotion and liveliness, the use of color is often awkward monotonous. I learned to look at their weaknesses and strengths and find ways to improve them.

I think that if iA can't break through Swiss style, I can't cooperate with Japanese designers. I deeply appreciate our work as the chief designer of Tanaka in Tokyo. Japanese designers grew up with Chinese characters, which gave them a more subtle view of how to deal with white space, gray values ​​and contrast. There are slightly different color vocabularies in Japanese, which means that the Japanese have a slightly different sense of color.

The design of Japan and Switzerland is actually a very good combination. In general, there are many similarities between Swiss culture and Japanese culture, including design.

As a web designer, you need to think about how people use their hands and mind

A: In your increasingly digital world, what do you think about the integration of graphic design and product/industrial design disciplines?

B: The good design principle has not changed. Dieter Rams said: "A good design is a design that is as small as possible. It is less but better - because there is no non-essential part of the product that focuses on important aspects." This applies to all design subjects, including web design. Web design looks like a flat design because it looks flat, but it is actually more electromechanical than any form of drawing. As a web designer, you need to think about how people do things and use their brains. You need to design the product with the least input and the largest output.

When I started designing fonts, my ability improved a lot. I realize that micro-layout is the basic unit of our work. The more I understand typesetting, the more I understand what I do. Typography is not about making or choosing beautiful fonts. Whether you are designing or setting typesetting, what you do is designing text for optimal performance. Both typesetting designers and typeetters need to have their own understanding of macro typesetting and micro typesetting.

This is obvious in terms of typesetting designers. Of course, there is no legibility without legibility. However, few typeetters understand that if they do not have micro-typos (or legibility) ideas, they will not be able to do typesetting (readability).

Good user interface design always pays attention before trouble arises

Without the collaboration and communication with Bold Monday, the font maker who produced and optimized the iA Writer font Nitti Light, iA Writer would not be the way it is now. Many make this product so easy to use. Many people feel that this is a good reason because of typesetting.

To make you more aware, we optimized the font on the new retina display to make it look the same as on the iPad2. To do this, we have to grade the fonts and make slightly different versions for each type of display so that they have the same visual value. For the user, the font is exactly the same as the iPad 2 on the retina display. This requires us to make a lot of adjustments (to find a suitable definition), and Bold Monday offers a wide range of expertise.

Good design is invisible. A good screen design is in the form of sub-atomic levels of micro-typing (the exact definition of typefaces), the mesh of macro typesetting (fonts used) is invisible, and the interactive design and information architecture world is invisible. Inputs with the least input, the most output, and the least conscious thinking are screen designers' attention.

Automatic layout adjustment based on the screen is one of such compromises. We call it responsive typesetting. This typesetting is not just a font grading. Responsive typesetting is the relationship between font type, line spacing, space, line thickness, and so on. Recently, the screen resolution has become so diverse and complex that we think it is necessary to design our own fonts to find out under what circumstances micro-typesetting is most effective.

The greatest revelation for most of us is Apple’s work. What makes us particularly proud is that Apple likes us. They listed iA Writer as one of the annual applications, perhaps spontaneously or accidentally, and they started to use our lines. A year ago, we described the benefits of iA Writer as: "The less you think about a program, the more you can think about it." Six months later Apple used a similar language to describe the new iPad.

A: I would like to hear your views on the status quo of Japanese software and web design, because the work of iA seems very different. iA's design came from Tokyo. Is there an ideological conflict?

B: Japanese network or application design cannot be compared with Japanese art, graphic design or architecture. These designs must meet the Japanese reading style, and this level of design is low for the general public. One of the reasons that Japanese websites and application designs feel bad is that technology requires good active and passive English knowledge. English is the universal language for contemporary web and application development. Even if you are proficient in English-based Objective-C or JavaScript, if you can't communicate with international developers and designer communities, you will miss out on desirable and even possible ideas. Japanese developers and designers who do not speak English are trapped in relatively low technology and design levels.

A: What are the best and worst representative designs for Japan?

B: Muji did a good job selling its own and unbranded products. In contemporary Japan, it is one of the most powerful and successful commercial design entities.

Another impressive commercial design heavyweight company is Uniqlo. I am not a regular customer of Uniqlo goods, but from a professional point of view, they have done something that impresses me. I think UNIQLO is very good at making big consumer brands, and it surprises and satisfies large audiences with low prices and high quality. They do a good job of controlling the brand identity and have developed the brand in amazing ways in the past few years. Their beautiful advertising campaigns are amazing. They also have some of the best designed Japanese applications on the Apple App Store.

For good design, nothing is more destructive than team thinking and collective decision making

Although Tokyo's designs are generally disappointing, Japan's interior architecture is unique. It is very close to the best and the worst. Although the private interior decoration in Japan is very flat, public interior decoration (shops, restaurants, hotels) are equally astonishing.

Japan or, more precisely, the Tokyo public fashion scene, is undoubtedly the most amazing in the world. The worst Japanese designs can be seen everywhere. Ordinary website, application, advertisement. . . Usually the design is very poor. why? Nothing can undermine good design than team thinking and collective decision making. As I said, for most people, good design is intangible, and collective decision-making focuses on visible design, which is exactly the bad side of design.

A: How do you see the overall design of the operating system? Personal applications often have their own interface innovations. Do you think there is room for improvement in iOS's generic UI style?

B: IOS is a mobile version of Windows XP. Looks like Windows XP, but it doesn't reach Windows XP's market share. Sooner or later Apple will have to fundamentally improve its UI style. For example, strict internal guidelines must be established in the use of metaphors. That being said, the user interface design of the operating system is the highest form of graphical user interface and interaction design, making it difficult to achieve both iconic and functional designs at the user interface level.

Personally, I hope Jonathan Ive develops. Some of my friends watched his achievements in the new mobile iPhoto and map app, but this may be wishful thinking. I personally hope that they do not need Ive because he is concerned about good hardware. If iPhoto and the new map app are the upcoming IOS6 test balloons, I hope they work hard to improve the icons and discard the tacky glass shelves.

I still remember that I wanted to see a perfect white user interface. This is difficult to do for backlighting devices, but it can be done. For those who have little experience designing operating system user interfaces, this is just a random choice. Regardless of how I prefer to see the future version of Apple instead of Microsoft's Metro. We now see more emphasis on graphic rather than interface design, too CartesiAn, too bland, too cold.

Many of my designer friends like Metro. I may be wrong, Microsoft may get early users, and occupy a large market share in one or two years. But I suspect that Metro is not designed for the general public, and IOS is.

Anyone can hardly tell whether or not typography is good or bad, but everyone can feel it

I think the only reason that Microsoft may have opportunities on mobile devices is that they seem to be investing a lot in typography, and Apple doesn't seem to have. For example, Microsoft's latest future video uses Gotham as a system font. Although I don't think Gotham is a good system font, it has the enthusiasm and friendliness of NEUE Helvetica on iOS. I understand this as "We care about typesetting." Having good typesetting can score on the subconscious of most users. Few people can tell whether or not typesetting is good or bad, but everyone can feel it.

A: You have done some design research for customers such as Facebook, but it has never been put in place. Which product, website, or service do you really want to get a real redesign opportunity?

B: I have always dreamed of designing an operating system GUI. But currently there is no chance for Apple to do it for us.

A: How did iA Writer start to be revealed, is it the catalyst for iOS? Is there an iPad version when the Mac version appears? Have you ever thought of developing this program for Android or other platforms?

B: There are many factors that cause it to appear. In the early 1980s, I designed my first text editor. I also designed a pixel font with a 5×5 pixel grid as a text editor. I did this to see more text on Dragon 32 at 256x192 resolution.

The biggest motivation for the development of iA Writer came from the frenzy of developing its own hardware digital typewriter. Obviously, if you have a good contract in China, production hardware is not difficult. But it is still crazy for a small production company. But a few months later, Apple introduced the iPad, so it is not necessary for us to produce our own hardware.

The Mac version appeared because the IOS version was so successful. We tried to duplicate the same user experience in a completely different environment, which took some time to do - only a few weeks to copy.

A: What was the reason for deciding to bring Writer to iPhone? How do you think people will use this application?

B: I hope to see the documents on the road. When using a text, I didn't have the patience to wait 45 minutes from home to the office. I also want to have a notebook that can take notes and convert the notes into text.

A: Typesetting is an important part of Writer's design. What challenges do you face with the iPad's retina display and how do you solve these problems?

B: We immediately noticed that our fonts didn't look right on the retina display. We adjusted it until it looked the same as the screen with lower resolution. However, rating alone is not enough - iPhone, Mac, and iPad have different screen sizes and reading distances and require a lot of changes in font spacing, line height, and margins.

A: Is there any progress on the iPad's automatic adjustment of fonts? Does the new product's CPU make it more feasible, have you considered implementing a feature that does not work on specific hardware?

B: We have already solved the problem of blocking our performance, but we also focus on another set of functions at the moment, so I will not make any commitment to do so. In general, there is no problem providing different functions on different devices. Writing on touch devices is completely different from mouse and keyboard devices.

Implement some features that cannot be used on some hardware as long as we change our ideas appropriately. Our top priority is speed and simplicity.

A: Writer has been a great success. Where does iA go now? Will you balance web design and more application development in the future, or will Writer be a one-off?

B: It is often said that it is impossible to have customers and their products at the same time. But I think that if you can handle several big customers, you can also handle big products in big customers.

We have been working hard with customers to learn from each other. The freedom to choose customers is the only way to work in an important relationship. Writer makes it easier to say "no". Customer work allows us to develop Writer in a sense-appropriate manner, without having to cater to fashion and external functionality. Although this can result in good sales and meet the requirements of the technology community, it does not provide more benefits to the core user.

We plan to continue to develop for customers and products because we feel that both can benefit from our experience gained in various fields. Through our own products, we can better understand our customers. By working for our customers, we can better understand ourselves as product manufacturers. Few design companies have the same insights as planning, designing, and developing successful applications. Many companies will promise you success in the App Store, but without any substantial commitment. We do not guarantee success because we know the first-hand information.

A: When does the future network trend appear?

B: We are working hard, but we will not be in a hurry. We have a series of beautiful conceptual studies, but we haven't done it yet. The latest map was taken away by the tsunami. I hope to publish the next figure before the end of this year.

A: Where can you find inspiration in the real world or online?

B: Outside the design community, including architecture, philosophy and art. But most of the time, no external inspiration is needed. We have a great team. We never lack ideas. Our views on what we have done have not changed since the establishment of iA in 2005: the enrichment to the essence.