John Foster, for some reason:

"If you were dressing a person and knew that they had to wear the same clothes for 10, 20, 30 years or more, would you dress them in bell bottom jeans? (...)

Um, sure, I guess. They are pretty versatile.

"(...) Give them feathered Farah Fawcett hair, or better yet, a Mohawk?

I don't know man, would it fit their style or their personality? Their culture? Their face shape? Also, how about you spell her name right? Kind of a thing of basic human decency.

"(...) Pierce their nose or cover them in tattoos?

Do you live under a rock, dude? ... Are YOU a rock, by any chance?

"(...) Or would you research clothes until you had determined what was built to last, and what was trendy and sure to fall out of fashion soon enough? I hope that you would put in the time towards doing the research."

A bit rich to talk about doing research after writing the paragraph I just quoted, but okay.

If you feel so very inclined, you can say you only value one culture and one aesthetic, while the rest is all bad decisions, eccentric taste and empty trends. (I wouldn't, but fuck me, it's your book)... but to phrase it like it's common sense and attempt to use it for general education about design is where I have a problem with it.

On the topic of this kind of "timeless design" he's talking about... What exactly is that anyway? We study graphic design history and we can pull threads from every time period that connect the designers and designs of the time in various ways. The world around us does and will always affect how we design, but so will our personal style and what we want to say. And maybe that personal style, the one famous designers are individually known for years and years after they're dead, maybe that style is bell fucking bottoms and luscious blonde hair.

"Few things send me off into a fit of giggles like a woman wearing white trousers over dark underwear, unintentionally (let’s hope) showing the entire world the outline of her unmentionables. When said undergarment has a pattern of hearts or polka dots on it, the giggles become uncontrollable. Juvenile behaviour for sure, but who can blame me?"

(John Foster on "Thou shall be aware of paper show-through")

Men are not ashamed enough.

"Twenty years ago, hand-cut film made a silhouetted image, and a photographer created drop shadows with light and film. Today, the magic wand can help create a silhouette in moments. And a drop shadow is created with a Photoshop effect. This may seem like a modern miracle, in the same league as antibiotics and mobile phones. But it is not. This is another instance of the saying, ‘Just because one can do something, doesn’t mean one should do something’ (...)" (Sean Adams on "Thou shall not silhouette and drop shadow every last image")

Are we unironically comparing a photoshop effect to... antibiotics?

... Am I supposed to laugh?

...Help?

"(...) There’s a saying that proclaims, ‘Behind every great man there stands a great woman’, just as behind every great layout there stands a great grid. If it wasn’t for those grids our layouts would stay out late drinking too much and end up lying in inconsistent gutters covered with messy typography. But hey, it’s good for a layout to let its hair down every once in a while and give itself a break. Grids provide layouts with a stabilising influence, but a layout should take its grid out on the town every so often to say thanks for all that good advice. It’s at times like these that the combination of perfect grid and flexible layout can make the grandest of statements. Without them, the life of a layout can become so phone directory, if you know what I mean? Okay – I just need to ask my wife to approve this text before I email it to the publisher." (Tony Seddon, on "Thou shall break out of the grid if the layout prescribes it")

Dude... Is this the best you could do? Be honest, did you write this and think to yourself how you well and truly crushed it? Did you? Did you at any point stop and think "Man, this might be a dumb fucking thing to say..."... No? Okay.. I figured as much...

"Despite our general assertion and expectation, the rest of the world doesn’t do everything in English. They even have the nerve to add little squiggles, dashes, and dots over some of our precious letterforms. How dare they! It seems like some of these have a basis in how these people talk, you know, with those funny sounds that come out where we would have plainly said an ‘o’ or an ‘e’. It might seem humorous until you realise that we could use the same system just to help northerners and southerners understand each other. The reason we have printed matter at all is as a substitute for a person actually being there to say it in front of us. If they would have stood there pronouncing words as they occur in their natural environment, then we should respect those sounds. If this means mastering some of the keyboard shortcuts and special characters, well, we are learning something and broadening our horizons and showing respect on every level." (John Foster on the rule 79: "Thou shall use correct accent marks")

I get this was supposed to be funny, maybe in a bit of a self-depricating way even... but truly, can we analyze this for one minute, because I don't think this is doing what he thinks it's doing. _

"Despite our general assertion and expectation, the rest of the world doesn’t do everything in English."

... Whose assertion and expectation, John? Cause it's not mine, that's for sure. I'd go as far as to say that most people don't have that expectation. I guess this guy had a very specific target audience and it was not me.

"(...) it seems like some of these have a basis in how these people talk, you know, with those funny sounds that come out where we would have plainly said an ‘o’ or an ‘e’ (...)"

... Funny sounds? You know there's a name for them, right? And it's also not complicated or that insanely foreign at all, no need to make "funny" jokes so readers could understand why they're used.

"It might seem humorous until (...)"

Until nothing, man. Nothing seems "humorous" here. Were you born yesterday? _

Also, learning how to use diacritics as a person working professionally with typography is bare minimum and actually doesn't do much if anything when it comes to "broadening our horizons" or "showing respect".

John, my guy, I fear the bar is truly in hell for you when it comes to this and you are dangerously comfortable about that state of things.