What very few designers realize, particularly the younger ones, is that most people would rather read something—actually read the words—than look at all of their lines and arrows and silly pictures they’ve screened back.
When the words finally reach the reader, the designer has, as often as not, rendered them almost unreadable, and so a reader moves on. But we’ve always felt that the words don’t need a whole lot of help—that a piece about searching for tigers in Ireland is not necessarily needing of a picture of tigers or of Ireland, much less blinking or screened-back ones. The words are enough, if the words are good.
— Reprise of McSweeneys.net

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