Design is not, or should not be, mere decoration and abstraction, but part of the business of communication.

The concern should not be for the beholder's — or creator's eye for beauty. It should be for those who, it is hoped, will read a publication and gain sufficient from it to want to buy it again, or the product it is advertising, or both.

But how frequently are opinions on the invalidity of a typographic design cast aside, displaced by the view that legibility isn't important if the product looks exciting?

This is absurd. A design that looks exciting but is incomprehensible is nothing more than a beautifully-painted square wheel!

Communicating
or just making Prettyshapes
by Colin Wheildon

Edmund C. Arnold

Edmund C. Arnold (born in 1913) is considered by many as the "father of modern newspaper design." He is responsible for more than 250 newspaper designs throughout the United States, Canada, Iceland, New Zealand and Latin America and has written many textbooks on the subject.

From the Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame