SWD 40

The New York T(eye)imes
enjoy CARACTIOS
i poppin' * TOASTY * NUTSO  cereal!

Art: 2020
Size: paper size 22 3/4 in. H x 16 W
Media: Ink, colored pencil, watercolor and gouache; a piece of a linocut (AKS made).
Six pieces cut from hardcopy pages of the NY Times, May 5 and June 5, 2020 issues are collaged on the drawing.
At lower right, a fragment from a study, drawn 2005, of a human rights atrocity - genocide victim. Stitched thread.

Size: SWD 40 & 41 are framed in one frame side-by-side:
28 in. H x 39 W [71.12 cm. H x 99 W]

The artwork was inspired by the embrace, by the New York Times, of the destruction of common-sense fundamentals of graphic design, led worldwide by U.S. internet and computer industry giant Microsoft. The Microsoft and subsidiaries (e.g. Linkedin) assault on eye and vision health is embraced by American internet giants Facebook and subsidiaries, e.g. Instagram;  and Google and subsidiaries, e.g. gmail, Youtube, Yahoo, flickr.com

~
The NY Times hardcopy edition includes numerous text areas designed in astonishingly poor unreadable, inaccessible tiny, thin, light value type. They include the weather; maps; stock exchange info; graphs, diagrams and charts.
 ~
The NY Times online edition is worse, using the Microsoft role model of only designing heading words in accessible, vision-healthy black, high contrast type. The text of the news articles are designed and posted online in lighter-value, non-black, non-high contrast and vision harmful, hard-to-read and inaccessible type.

~
The Times online design of the type showing reporters, photographers names; photo captions; and text of graphs, charts, diagrams is even worse - all posted in nearly zero contrast type.
~

As an optometrist worldwide will confirm, there are no prescriptions for corrective eyewear for light value, extremely light-value, low-contrast and nearly zero-contrast type that is now commonplace on the internet.

~
(No) thanks to Microsoft, the destruction of common-sense fundamentals of graphic design has morphed to all  manner and sizes of hardcopy publication graphic design,  e.g. from the smallest, i.e.  business cards, to large, e.g. billboards, and all sizes in-between. Even many art and history museums, whose business is visual society and culture, have embraced unreadable, inaccessible graphic design.

/ art © A K Segan
 
Tags:
The New York Times graphic design; The New York Times accessibility; The New York Times website; New York Times graphic design; New York Times accessibility; New York Times website; preventing blindness; preventing blindness graphic design; preventing blindness website design; NY Times graphic design; NY Times accessibility; NY Times website; vision healthy website design; eye friendly website design; vision friendly graphic design; eye healthy graphic design; A K Segan