The Gray Suite

Dear Guests, It's Time to Pack Up

2010-09-01T01:48:00.003-04:00

My Dear Guests,

For nearly three years I have enjoyed your company here at my home, The Gray Suite. But due to the failing economy, The Gray Suite has been foreclosed on, and will be closing it's design shutters for good.

Okay, enough with the metaphor. Yup, this will probably be the final post on The Gray Suite. But don't worry! You can still get your almost weekly design ramblings from me, just not here. Ta da! My Portfolio Site included with blog, will now be host to all these posts and all the ones to come in the future. There's even a new Brought to you by the Letter post today! (Psst, it's Silom's lowercase 'x'.)

So, update your RSS feeds or Google reader or whatevers with the new blog address: http://www.heathervandemark.com/blog/ and then get over there! Cheers and hopefully see you again! Don't be a stranger.

Yours,
The Lady of the House

8Faces Issue 1 Review

2010-08-11T21:02:00.007-04:00

I had the luck to purchase a print copy of the new, limited-edition, typography magazine, 8Faces, before it sold out. And I can't tell you how ecstatic I am that I did. After pouring over it for the past 48 hours, I have a few things to say.

First, I think I'm so in love with it, because I received it literally a day after I sketched out the ideas/concepts for my first (three!) typefaces. I was playing around with custom lettering for some thank you cards, and the next thing I know I was swarmed with ideas and sketching letter forms left and right and technical notes as fast I could. So, to receive a typography magazine the next day added much fuel to the fire.

Some really cool things in 8Faces, Issue 1:

- Interview with Jessica Hische who's Daily Drop Caps and hand lettering-style are going to be subject of my Inspiration #2.

- It's incredibly well-written. John Boardly of ilovetypography, wrote a short article "Type Matters," and he compares the invisible technical details of a typeface that go undistinguished by readers to the way a seasoned chef adds salt to a dish to enhance the flavors but without the diner tasting the salt.

- I love that the interviewees had different opinions on the future of web typefaces and how they should be distributed/owned. Many of them had their hands in different projects such as TypeKit, FontShop, League of Moveable Type, etc. It's very unbias journalism that expresses both sides of an issue without taking a side. And everyone was very respect to each other. Ah, civil debate, how I've missed you!

- My favorite quote comes from Ian Coyle's interview. He says, "When a client comes to a designer - to any creative - it's not just the output; it's about the person: the way they think and the way they approach the work. ...And that only comes from thinking." He nailed it perfectly. When I read that, I thought back to myself about all those times when people said I think too much (as a bad thing) and relished that I have this ability.

- Lastly, they also interviewed Brian Willen and Nolen Strals, who to my amazement are here in Baltimore! They teach at MICA and wrote Lettering & Type (which I am familiar with.) So this was exciting, and a happy surprise/nod to the design community of Baltimore. Yea yea.

Essentially, 8Faces interviews 8 different typographers or design-extraordinaires and ultimately, asks them, "If you could you just 8 typefaces for the rest of your life, which would you choose?" I absolutely loved reading this spread after each interview, to see what typefaces overlapped and more interesting what the departures were. The departures were usually ones that achieved a personable sentiment between the designer and the typeface. It definitely opened up my eyes to some typefaces that I had overlooked. Georgia got brought up a lot as the go to web-safe font. I'm not sure how I feel about that!

8Faces, issue #1 is still available for PDF download if you're interested. I have to say I wouldn't want to read this in any other way than in print. Sometimes, when I'm at the airport or Barnes & Noble, I think to myself, I want to support the print industry, I love print, I'll buy some cool design magazines. And so often I am disappointed at the selection! But 8Faces is awesome because it's informative, well-designed and not-pretentious. I particularly like that's it's not pretentious. And there are extra goodies in it besides the 8 interviews, like a featured art piece, a chance to win something, etc etc. I strongly urge all of you - if you have even a slight interest in typography - to get your hands on Issue 2.

Brought to You by the Letter...

2010-08-10T08:42:00.001-04:00

Brought to you by the Letter: B
Old Standard TT, Regular, uppercase B

Of all the Google Font Directory typefaces, Lobster has got to be the most widely used so far online. Or maybe it's just so distinct that I notice it more often than say Old Standard TT. Lobster, by Pablo Impallari, is a really fun decorative script font. Something about it feels like summertime. The details - the loops and thick curves, the way the letters run together as there's something a little urgent and exciting. It all feels very vintage to me, maybe the 70s? I want to see the words Psyche! and Chill and Get Down written in Lobster in shades of burnt orange and mustard yellow with thick white strokes. And then it sort of hit me, Lobster reminds me of the typeface for the logo of those colorful Spanish lollipops, Chupa Chups. I can see some resemblance in style:

Extra awesome about the Chupa Chups logo: it was done by Salvador Dali in 1969. Thank you Wikipedia.

But on to the Lobster, regular uppercase B. I started doing some digging and Lobster is not only a very pretty font, but a very well-made font. I say this because a lot of care was taken into creating alternate versions of the letters (79 ligatures so far) that help finesse the font's handwritten feel. For example, notice the details of the B above: The stem and the curves connect in only one place, both bowls are open. However, notice the differences among the B ligatures below (These are displayed in Photoshop if you want to see it for yourself). The black type shows Contextual Alternates, the red type shows Standard Ligatures, and the blue shows Stylistic Alternates. Notice on the blue type how the bottom bowl connects to the stem. (More changes occur with the other letters, but I want to stay focused on the B.) This attention to detail is what makes Lobster stand out as a well-designed typeface, and it makes sense why everyone is jumping at the chance to use it.Courtesy of Google Font Directory, Impallari.com:

Design Foundry: Impallari
Designer: Pablo Impallari
Date: 2010
Classification: Decorative - script

You can find a lengthy and interesting description about Lobster from the creator himself here. An excerpt explaining what I mentioned above about the ligatures more in depth:

"A common problem that affect most script fonts, is that each letter must be draw in a way that connect with the next and previous letters. And that's quite difficult.

By having 26 lowercase character, that gives you more than 600 possible combinations for each letter (and arround 15600 for the whole alphabet). It's next to impossible to make it always connect seamesly whitout compromising the shape that each letter was originally intended to be.
That's why trying to make script fonts works it's like magic."

Impallari also released the typeface at Typophile, and it's interesting watching it develop in this forum here. The one thing I've gathered from the writing about Lobster, is that it is very much a collaborative effort. Although Impallari may have been the only one touching the letters, commentators and typography gurus had a lot of influence on the final design.

Brought to you by the letter...

2010-08-03T08:00:00.000-04:00

Brought to you by the Letter: D
Old Standard TT, Regular, lowercase d

Old Standard TT is another typeface available in Google's Font Directory. The lowercase 'd' feels particularly timeless, and I don't think the rest of the typeface translates quite as well. Although, the ascender is a little short in proportion with the x-height, which is uncommon (even disliked?) to see today in contemporary typefaces.

To be honest, I don't have strong feeling about this 'd', I just knew that I liked it when I saw it. Mainly, I thought the top and bottom brackets pointing in different directions was sort of funny. Like the hand gestures for that 80's Dance Like an Egyptian song. But after I checked out some other serif typefaces, I see that that's the norm for lowercase ds. Nevertheless, I stick by the Old Standard TT, lowercase d.

Oh, I will add that I think the typeface works better on the web at larger sizes. The smaller sizes start to have anti-aliasing issues and look a little fuzzy. You can see Old Standard TT at different sizes on the Google Font Directory page. (Better information below!)

Courtesy of Font Squirrel, The Salonnica
(You can download the font from Font Squirrel)

Design Foundry: Paratype (?)
Designer: Alexey Kryukov
Date: 2006-2009
Classification: Modern Serif

Old Standard was very common in the late 19th and and early 20th centuries for Biblical, classical and medieval reproductions. This association makes it a particularly good choice for scientific papers (particularly social and humanitarian sciences) because Old Standard's "specific features are closely associated in the people's eyes with old books they learned on." Old Standard is also a good choice for Greek and Cyrillic works, because Greek and Cyrillic lettertypes were based on the same classicist style. (The classification of "Modern" is based on the style, not the time period.) Old Standard includes over 1,400 glyphs to cover Latin, Greek and Cyrillic characters.

Inspiration Series #1: BHoff, Dribble and Website Design

2010-07-31T08:00:00.003-04:00

I've been meaning to create a portfolio website for years now. Every summer and winter break during grad school, I would think, yeah, I'll finally get my site done! And sure enough weeks would go by, and it just wouldn't happen. But during the final semester of my grad program--on top of all the other work I had to do to finish--I thought, okay I am going to do it. And after a night's worth of work, I designed my site.

And it was hideous! It was boring, it had obnoxious web 2.0 trends, it was disjointed, and more importantly, it didn't reflect me or my aesthetic. And the only way I came to this realization was through a little inspiration from Brian Hoff's redesign of his blog, The Design Cubicle.

Mr. Hoff (I don't know him, so I just can't call him Brian) posted some of his Dribbble snapshots of his site redesign on Twitter.

[NOTE:Dribbble is an invite-only showcase website for designers to show off their current works in 400x300 px squares. I've yet to receive my invite, ahem, so I've been hanging out and sharing my design snapshots at Forrst instead.]

And I loved them. The color palette was unique and fantastic. The fine details along the content margin.The textures and layers. Every detail was clearly a conscious choice. And I felt like I got a sense of this guy from this design. These tiny snippets made me excited not only for rest of his site, but also about design in general. Here's a guy who thought about the design and the usability, and not once or twice, but so many times until every piece fell into place. And you can see the finished result here: The Design Cubicle And yes, this site looks so good, I want to have sex with it. It is just so spot on.

As a writer, I'm used to rewriting a single sentence ten times to find the perfect word, the perfect rhythm. But I haven't quite taken that same editing mentality to my designs - especially my own branding, and I know I need to.

So I tossed out my old design and started again. I had to address the real crux of my problem: What is my design aesthetic? What do I want my website to say about me? What do I like about design?

Here are some of the things I wrote down:
1. I like type solutions (but need to learn more about typography)
2. I like taking photos (but don't have a voice yet)
3. I like clean, minimal and modern
4. I like fancy, complicated prints (but haven't done any myself)
5. I like writing and editing and critiquing
6. I like things to be thoughtful

And after contemplating what I had written for a while, it started to come together. I wanted something authoritative (#1, #2, #4). I don't know everything yet (and I'm still learning), but I want people to feel confident that I do. I wanted people to land on my website, and think oh, this is put together (#6). And I realized that perhaps a photo solution would be a good solution for me (#2).

I don't want to give away all the surprise about my new site (which should be up soon!), but here's a brief idea of what went into it: Taking photos, editing photos, working them into the site, type choices, type changes, layout choices, layout changes, choosing color palette, reworking the photos, choosing portfolio pieces, finding stock photos, editing stock photos, figuring out hovers, making social media icons, redoing the footer, etc. etc. (Then repeat for the blog design.)

And I know some of you might be rolling your eyes going, sheesh this is what you should be doing for every design concept Heather. And yeah, I know, thanks. But "should" doen't mean I always do, and I doubt you do all the time either. Especially, when it comes to our own work. When it comes to our own branding and identities, some of us get blinded by our own egos, and others throw themselves into client work just to avoid it. Either way, designing for ourselves gets treated differently. And differently shouldn't mean poorly.

For those of you who prefer a visual representation, here's a few Dribbble-esque 400 x 300 px snapshots of my own:

Brought to You by the Letter

2010-07-27T08:00:00.003-04:00

Brought to you by the Letter: K

Josefin, Regular, lowercase k

As you may or may not know, web sites are in some ways limited in what sorts of typefaces they can use/display. This handful of fonts are called "web safe fonts." However, with more and more print designers moving to web, a limited number of fonts has just become unacceptable, and there are a few ways to get around using just the web safe fonts and instead using some wicked cool fonts (without saving them as an image).

Google recently got into the game with the Google Font Directory. It currently includes 18 open-source fonts that Google actually gives you the code to embed the font into the site. That way, no matter the browser or computer platform, the font is available through the site and thus loads and displays correctly. Over the next few weeks, I'll be plucking some of the letters from the Google Font Directory.

This week is Josefin's regular, lowercase 'k,' which I am seriously loving as a letter and a typeface. Although, I would make a desperate plea to @sannorozco to please make/finish the bold and italic weights. It's just such a lovely, lovely typeface that additional weights would make it quite versatile.

What I like about Josefin the typeface is how "delicate, yet assertive" it is and "geometric, yet decorative." (the maker's own description.) It's a dressed up sans-serif. Josefin is Futura's date on a Friday night, wearing a little black dress and drinking dirty martinis.

What struck me about this k is it's hard, razor-like angles, and legs going everywhere. It looks the way a 'k' sounds, which to me makes me think of Korean characters, which were designed to look the way the mouth is shaped when pronouncing the letter. (So I can't help but feel like the shape has some Asian influence.) And while the 'k' doesn't look like the tongue's movement or anything, it does look like the sound k-k-k-k-k-k-k. Hard and awkward (and not boring looking). And Josefin's 'k' still manages to be so clean and concise and modern. Is it an abstract house or tree or some ancient hieroglyphic? The 'k' looks like it's from another time. The white space is perplexing and it should be because 'k's are.

Courtesy of Typemade.mx

(You can download the font there at the bottom of the page)

Design Foundry: Typemade

Designer: Santiago Orozco

Date: 2010

Classification: Geometric, Decorative Sans-Serif

"The idea for create this typeface was to make it geometric, elegant and kind of vintage, special for titling. It is based on 1927 Rudolf Koch's Kabel, 1930 Rudolf Wolf's Memphis, 1927(?) Paul Renner's Futura.

"My idea was to draw something with good style, specifically that reflects the swedish design and their passion for good lifestyle, and by default all other scandinavian styles."

Inspiration Series

2010-07-26T18:45:00.003-04:00

I've noticed that there are a lot of "Inspiration" posts on the web. They're usually just image after image of "inspiration." (Half the times the links are broken and I can't even see the whole image or original site, and it's actually incredibly frustrating - but that's another post.) And while, I like to browse these images, and while I appreciate them, am excited by them, am moved by them, I don't necessarily think of them as inspiring.

Granted, this might just be a case of semantics, but for me, deriving inspiration from something means to A. use one of my five senses to register something into my brain, B. be moved by that something, and most importantly, C. create something new intentionally based off of that original something. This to me is what inspiration is all about. Because we all get 500 ideas a day that are spurred by the things we see and interact with daily, but it's not enough to call it inspiring if it doesn't move you to actual make your idea a reality. I don't think a poet would call the sun an inspiration if they weren't also writing poetry about the sun.

Now you can argue that you could see a flurry of images on one of those design inspiration posts (or even in an art museum) and that they'll subconsciously influence your work from then on. And that's totally true, I agree, but that's more influence than inspiration... ? But there's also something wonderful about creating something that you can pinpoint to a moment of inspiration, a moment of a-ha. I think being influenced by 20th century art is different than being inspired by painting XYZ by author ABC.

Again, I might be running in circles and you might not see the difference, and that's no big deal. To an extent, I'm just rambling here. I'm also introducing a new series to The Gray Suite: The Inspiration Series (great name right?). So be on the look out for these, they won't be weekly, but hopefully at least monthly. I'll create something and discuss my process on how I went from the thing of inspiration to my creation and why.

Brought to you by the letter...

2010-06-22T08:00:00.002-04:00

Brought to you by the letter: B
Bauhaus 93, lowercase, regular b

Bauhaus is ones of those typefaces every designer needs to know. I'd even go so far that it's a typeface that everyone should know, but that's a very special classification mainly left to Helvetica, Arial, Times New Roman and Comic Sans, but I digress.

Personally, I don't think Bauhaus is all that pretty or useable. It's round and approachable without being childish. It's a little quirky the way the shape never really connects to itself. It feels simple but it's not. And when used in a certain way, Bauhaus can even feel distinguished. But like my earlier post on the typeface Broadway, Bauhaus is much more than a distinct visual face. Mainly because the typeface is held in esteem as a representation of a larger art movement of the same name.

Bauhaus comes from the German school of Staatliches Bauhaus which combined arts and crafts and fine arts in the early 20th century. The main theme of the school was to include all types of art in one roof (design, architecture, textiles, decor etc.). As a result, the Bauhaus became a movement as thinkers and makers from this time and school proceeded to go and influence many different art disciplines. Modernism played a large part in the Bauhaus school of thought, and I definitely think that's reflected in the Bauhaus typeface.

Courtesy of Wikiepedia.com:

I'll skip the regular breakdown of foundry, designer etc. And just give you a timeline instead since it's a bit confusing. In 1925, Herbert Bayer created Universal. Bauhaus is based off of that. There's also Burko Bold which is an unfinished Bauhaus design. Blippo was created in 1969 for Fotostar by Joe Taylor as a black weight to Burko Bold. Bauhaus 93 is a variant of URW Blippo Black. ITC Ronda gave lowercase letters to the family. ITC Bauhaus was finally created in 1975 by Edward Benguiat and Victor Caruso. Not going to lie - none of this is particularly clear to me - or at least the differences among each of these is not clear. But in a nutshell, Bauhaus in some form or another, has been around since the 1920s.

More interesting! Bauhaus was the typeface used for The Jeffersons and Roseanne title sequences. It was also used in Walt Disney World signage. And more recently, it's used sometimes in Homestar Runner titles. Whoa!

Brought to You by the Letter...

2010-06-09T17:24:00.007-04:00

Brought to you by the letter: H

Vitesse, regular, uppercase H

As a Heather, I have a very long history with the uppercase H. And I've always sorted of hated it. It's blocky and big and boring. It has no finesse, no style. But Vitesse's uppercase H takes the boring blockiness of the H and gives it some style.

I know you might be thinking that all slab serif Hs are all the same, but that's not true (see the bottom of this post.) Vitesse H feels sporty and spirited. It may not be the all-star character of the typeface, but it's the supporting player who grounds all the others. I definitely think a 3 pt stroke around it would scream varsity/university letter. (Not that I recommend doing that to this shape.) While I'm not super into sporty, collegiate typefaces, I think this one is a very modern, usable typeface.

Courtesy of typography.com:

Design Foundry: H&F-J

Designer: H&F-J

Date: 200?

Classification: 21st century slab serif

"Noting that nineteenth century designs were based on the ellipse, and twentieth century ones on the circle, we wondered what other geometries might prove similarly fertile, and were inexorably drawn to the rounded rectangle. Surprisingly, this attractive and familiar shape, so iconic of both the industrial and digital eras, has seldom been employed typographically as anything more than a novelty.

"The design that emerged has many of the qualities of a beloved sports car: Vitesse is agile, steady, suave, confident, and stylish.."

To continue on about how slab serifs are not all the same, I present to you an overlay of four slab serifs below. The black is Vitesse, the blue is rockwell, the yellow is courier, the pink is prestige elite. Even though it's a slab serif and a symmetrical letter, there are many places for variation: the length and thickness of the bracket, the length and thickness of the cross bar, the length and thickness of the legs. So for those of you who don't see the difference among typefaces, hopefully you do now.

Brought to You by the Letter...

2010-06-01T08:00:00.000-04:00

Brought to you by the letter: C
Broadway, Regular, uppercase C

Broadway is another one of those highly recognizable typefaces, using it instantly invokes the eras of the 20s and 30s. I'm partial to the C because it has a sort of half-empty/half-full vibe happening. Standing alone, the Broadway uppercase C looks like much more than a C, it becomes quite abstract.

I like that the terminals are rounded instead of completely flat, which I think help counteract the very thick and rigid lines that make up the heavy black part of the letters. The black line in the uppercase C also helps make the bowl more interesting and distinguished, by creating a flat sided white space, which is uncommon for any bowl.

Courtesy of wikipedia.com, identifont.com

Design Foundry: American Type Founders; Linotype (now)
Designer: Morris Fuller Benton
Date: 1925
Classification: Decorative, Art Deco

Broadway is a very popular Art Deco typeface. Originally, it was designed as a capitals only typeface, but in the 1970s during a resurgence of Broadway came several new variants that included lowercase letters.

Art Deco was a big art movement between 1925 and the 1940s that included a lot of geometric shapes and was always very ornamental. Art Deco was truly design for design's sake. While once it was called elegant, glamorous and modern, people began to associate it with a false-opulence. I think society has turned around on Art Deco once more, and it's returned to being a sign of elegance and glamor, but now with a hint of vintage.

2010-05-26T12:37:00.004-04:00

Brought to You by the Letter...

2010-05-25T22:32:00.008-04:00

Brought to you by the letter: N
Wingdings, Regular, uppercase N

Quite frankly in the font world, I think of Wingdings as a joke. I mean who actually uses Wingdings? Who even ever browses through Wingdings? Or Wingdings 2 or Wingdings 3? I sure don't. But nevertheless, as I was searching for letters for this blog post, my down arrow key took me into the land of Wingdings before I got the chance to turn around and head towards the safety of Verdana or Vitesse.

I found this "N"ugget of surprise in Wingdings: uppercase N, which is the skull and cross bones symbols. YEA Wingdings! Way to be badass. I imagine my inner, nerdy 8th grade self in 1998 repeatedly stroking the 'N' key, filling the AppleWorks document with lines of Wingdings skulls, depicting my angst nature in a single iconographic representation. Perhaps, I'd even make some of them red, to be truly artistic.

The skull and cross bones represents death, poison, danger and pirates. Can anyone think of anything else? I like this particular version--even if the nose looks a little too much like an upside down heart. And it's much better than the unicode version: U + 2620, which looks like a drawing done by an eighth grader.

Among all the gesturing hands and geometric shapes, the skull and cross bones is a fun surprise in the Wingdings typeface. It shows the designers had a sense of humor about themselves. Although, some people believe their is much, much more to be read into the Wingdings symbols. Read on for a few conspiracy theories.

Courtesy of identifont.com, squidoo.com, wikipedia.com:

Design Foundry: Publisher: Microsoft Typography
Designer: Kris Holmes and Charles Bigelow
Date: 1992
Classification: Dingbat

Wingdings now comes standard on Windows computers. It was originally named/derived from: Lucida Icons, Arrows and Stars. Apparently, when Wingdings was released in 1992, people quickly discovered that NYC in Wingdings is the Skull & Cross bones (N), Star of David (Y), Thumbs up (C), creating a suggestive message that killing/poisoning Jews (particularly NYC Jews) was a good thing.

Microsoft claims this was unintentional, and just happen to be where the symbols fell. And in later releases of Wingdings (which none of my newer computers had?) intentionally had Wingdings spell NYC with an eye (N), heart (Y), skyline (C), suggesting the ever popular slogan: I love New York. [Note: The symbol change seems to appear in Webdings.] For a roundup of other Wingdings conspiracy theories, visit to Squidoo.com/wingdings.

And in honor of all Dingbats, I thought I'd have a little fun and post this entire article in Wingdings for you above. In 1994, David Carson was the editor of Ray Gun magazine, and set an entire four page interview in Zapf Dingbats (another symbol typeface) because it (the article) was so boring. David Carson, I salute you.

Brought to You By the Number

2010-05-18T08:00:00.000-04:00

Brought to you by the number: 9
Eccentric, Regular, number 9

Generally speaking, I stay away from the typeface Eccentric. It is a caps-only typeface with a really high x height. It's the sort of typeface that is instantly recognizable; thus, making it more difficult to use as it's not just a blank canvas to be painted (designed) on. Eccentric has its own personality, which with a name like Eccentric is to be expected.

But when I was looking for a number to do this post, Eccentric's number 9 immediately struck me. In my odd mind it reminds me of an abstract rendering of a cartoon whale with it's overly large, oblong bowl for the body and it's bracketed serif as the tail. Now, I don't think this hidden gem makes Eccentric a better typeface necessarily, especially since cartoon-like, and large and whale-like is not representative of the typeface. Not to mention, the 9's oversized bowl is actually in the opposite fashion of the rest of Eccentric that has incredibly high waisted x-heights. However, Eccentric's number 9 is a great enough shape that I'm glad Eccentric, in all it's quirkiness and personality, exists at all.

Courtesy of myfonts.com, itcfonts.com:
Design Foundry: Unknown
Designer: Gustav F. Schroeder
Date: 1881
Classification: Decorative, Art Nouveau

"Eccentric is an all-capital, narrow-bodied, monoline display face that could be described as high waisted. With cross-bars and main junctures more than halfway up the letterforms, every letter - except the W - has a long-legged appearance. Eccentric has a wide range of display uses, from playbills to fashion advertisements."
Awesome find on Eccentric: There was a typophile.com blog thread about what typefaces would best suit historical figures, and someone said that Charlie Chaplin was totally Eccentric. And if you click here, you'll see CC's name in Eccentric as well as a CC poster that really matches well with Eccentric. It's very cool to see such a strong personality (Eccentric) pair up with something else -- I suppose only an equally strong personality would suffice.

Brought to you by the letter...

2010-04-27T08:00:00.002-04:00

Today's letter is brought to you by the letter: A.
Drescher Grotesk BT, lowercase A, light.

I'm using Drescher Grotesk BT as my personal branding typeface. And when looking through a bunch of type families, the little, lowercase 'a' was one of the letters in Drescher Grotesk BT that really stood out to me. I liked that it didn't have a head (the line that sometimes appears over a lowercase 'a'), I thought that made it feel a little more modern. I was worried that the bowl was overly large, like the quite distinct lowercase 'a' of Futura. I can see Futura's 'a' coming from a mile away. But really, when put into context, Drescher Grotesk's 'a' is appropriately rounded. It wasn't until I blew it up to 350pt for this post that I saw it wasn't perfectly rounded at all!

In fact, this 'a' looks quite like a closed off Omega symbol. Where the bowl meets the stem is quite angular and feels very Russian constructionist. I really enjoy this because it feels as though Drescher Grotesk's lowercase 'a' is both the beginning and the end.

Courtesy of identifont.com, wikipedia.com

Design Foundry: VEB Typoart (original), Bitstream (digital)
Designer: Arno Drescher, Nicolai Gogoli
Date: 1930, 1999-2001
Classification: Geometric Sans-Serif

Nicolai Gogoli revived Drescher's popular typeface Super Grotesk (?) in 1999 (?) as Drescher's Grotesk and received the Kurt Christians Award. (I can find no information about this KC Award online, other than that Gogoli won it in 1999. Anyone ever heard of it / know what it is?) Drescher Grotesk has seven weights (but no italics) including a small size with wider kerning/leading. It also has the right angle brackets that aren't square brackets: [ ] (and they're still different from these smaller <> angle brackets.)

Drescher's original typeface, Super Grotesk (?) had immense popularity in East Germany (where it was designed) as a replacement for Futura. (No wonder the big bowled 'a's are so similar!). My history is rough at best (please feel free to set me straight): VEB Typoart was the only type foundry in East Germany (under Soviet control). It was state-owned and opened in 1948 in Dresden, three years after the controversial Dresden bombings by the U.S and England. Typoart's mission was "to create typefaces for Eastern Germany and other Eastern Bloc countries. It was frequently ordered to plagiarize Western typefaces that Zentrag could not afford to license."

Brought to You be the Letter...

2010-04-13T08:00:00.002-04:00

Today's letter is brought to you by the letter: Z.
Neuropol, uppercase Z, regular.

Before you go telling me that that's not a 'Z' and is rather some messed up angle bracket, let me assure you, it is in fact the letter Z. It is Neuropol's uppercase, regular Z. It's the missing piece of this 'Z' that makes it so interesting. I connect this style with many things - the future, science fiction, aliens, complex/simple dualities. I feel this is the way movies make alien languages/type look. It's familiar to us, yet foreign at the same time. The slightly rounded ends make it feel friendlier / more human, making it not just a typeface for aliens, but also perfect for messages of a futuristic utopia.

Interestingly enough, linotype.com is not found of this open Z, because on it's Neuropol X page (which is an updated version of Neuropol) it states: "If you’re familiar with the old Neuropol, you will appreciate the improvements made to Neuropol X: a refined finish, lighter lowercase stems, improved spacing, and a closed roof Z. [emphasis mine]" Ha. I suppose I'm in the minority for my fondness for this particular Z, but luckily not in liking Neuropol typeface as a whole, as it has undergone many variations and additions.

Courtesy of indentifont.com, larabiefonts.com, myfonts.com

Design Foundry: Larabie Fonts
Designer: Ray Larabie
Date: 1997
Classification: Futuristic Decorative - Geometric Sans Serif Hybrid (or just a Decorative) font.

(Also known as Neuropol Deluxe, but anything else is just a variation of the original. Also, many of Larabie's fonts are free and available for commercial use, which is pretty great. When I say many, I mean hundreds, so definitely check that out.

"The design bridges a stylistic gap between the geometric sans serif fonts of the late 20th century and superelliptical futuristic fonts." - Linotype.com

Neuropol was an instant hit being widely used to promote music, clothing, electronics and techno-toys for the younger generation. I wonder if maybe I like this typeface because I was being subliminally hit with it in the late 90s? Ha. I'm also saddened I couldn't find specific examples of what this typeface was used for - if you see it let me know!

If I haven't completely convinced you of the greatness of Neuropol yet, check out the smiley face character... err, I mean the umlaut character.

Oh an old poster I did using Neuropol. Hot. Ha.

Brought to You by the Letter....

2010-04-06T13:03:00.003-04:00

Today's letter is brought to you by the letter: A.
Twentieth Century, uppercase A, regular.

I definitely really like the way Twentieth Century's uppercase A looks. It's got two strong legs to stand on, where the cross bar is positioned creates a good ratio of white space. But I was worried that it was a little boring. It's a geometric sans-serif, and for the most part, it looks like any other geometric sans-serif. But when I got digging, I found some neat information. (Keep reading)

Courtesy of wikipedia.com and briarpress.org

Design Foundry: Monotype
Designer: Sol Hess
Date: 1937-1947
Classification: Geometric Sans-Serif

Okay, apparently, another geometric sans-serif, Futura made an appearance in the mid 1920s for the Bauer foundry before Twentieth Century (1937-47). Tw Cent is just Monotype's version of a geometric sans-serif. There are others to: Metro, Kabel, Spartan, Vogue etc from different foundries. The differences among them are slim. They're just the licensed version for each foundry. Futura and Tw Cent are essentially the Coke and Pepsi of the type world.

Geometric sans-serifs (GSS) were resurrected in the latter half of the twentieth century with type families like ITC Avant Garde, Century Gothic and Avenir. These new GSSs had less stroke variation (notice how the cross bar is slimmer than the legs in Tw Cent) and higher 'x' heights. The increased 'x' heights made them perfect for children's books. This makes perfect sense, because I can't help but look at that Tw Cent 'A' and think ABCs, even though it's such a cold and unfriendly looking A.

Brought to you by the letter...

2010-03-30T08:00:00.001-04:00

Today's letter is brought to you by the letter: i.
Alfredo, Regular, lowercase i.

The lowercase 'i' is only important because of it's tittle. Hehehe, she said tittle. The tittle is the dot of the 'i'. And it is what keeps the lower case 'i' from falling into obscurity with the lowercase 'l' and amputated capital 'I'. And the fact that it conforms to the x-height (mean line) rather than the cap-line, also differentiates it from the 'l' and 'I'.

What's great about Alfredo Regular's lowercase 'i' is its stature. It leans away on its hind legs, shoulders back, almost ready to topple over, but really it's ganing momentum, ready to spring forward and throw it's tittle at you. I'm 50-50 on whether the stem gets too thin towards the top. This high thick/thin contrast is reminiscent of a modern typeface. I wonder if it's because 400px wasn't the display size the creator was working for.

In addition, I'm not crazy about Alfredo as a typeface as a whole. It's very 60s, groovy, curvy, decorative, but I think the 'i' manages to capture that attitude without being in your face about it. This is one case where the simplicity of the 'i' works in its favor.

Design Foundry: Unknown
Designer: Unknown
Date: Unknown
Classification: Decorative (?)

Hmm... Alfredo is not getting any hits on the Google radar. If anyone can shed light on this typeface, please do! Many variations of the name Alfredo, but no similar characteristics, very different families. I did however find an actor named Alfredo Font, which is kind of great.

Brought to you by the letter...

2010-03-23T08:00:00.002-04:00

Today's letter is brought to you by the letter: !
Zzzap OT, regular, !

Okay, I know the ! is a punctuation mark, not a letter. And no, I never had any intention of doing anything but letters and numbers. But sometimes, you've got to live life on the fly and go where it takes you. Ha. Anyway. A friend recently referred to me a the type girl (which lighted me up inside! Yay!) and he asked what I would typeface I would recommend for a tattoo. He wants to have Don't Panic! written on his arm, a motto taken from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and pretty sound life advice in general. I sent him over a list, which included some standard sexy sans serifs like Tungsten and Frutiger. But in the back of my head I kept thinking about Zzzap. A font I've recently become associated with thanks to I Love Typography's nifty Font Game iPhone app.

Zzzap looks just the way it's named, like a bolt of electricity went coursing through the edges of the forms. I think it makes for a more interesting and playful tattoo. Although, it probably wouldn't be a very calming typeface to reflect the message of don't panic. If anything, it'd probably keep you panicked and jostled with it's sharp edges and bold forms. I chose the exclamation point for today's letter (mark) because it that mark sums up Zzzap's electricity. The font might as well have been called Zap! or !!!. I also think the ! shape is particularly interesting the way it resembles an retro-style lightening bolt (again with the electricity theme.)

(On a sidenote, I really think my advice to use his own handwriting or that of his mom--or someone close to him--was pretty spot on. What do you think?)

Courtesy of fontshop.com

Design Foundry: Comicraft
Designer: John Roshell, Richard Starkings
Date: 2006
Classification: Decorative

Not much info on Zzzap, but the skinny on Comicraft (started by Roshell and Starkings) is that they're one of the first companies with a specialty in digitizing comic book lettering. "The Comicraft studio’s clients include Dark Horse Comics, DC Comics, Marvel Comics, Image Comics, Mad Magazine, Nickelodeon, Graphitti Designs, View Askew, Scholastic, Todd Mcfarlane Productions and NBC."

Personal Branding - Part III

2010-03-21T18:37:00.008-04:00

I know it's common for "part III" to suck. (Read: The Godfather Part III, Back to the Future Part III (?) and surely, there are others.) I'm hoping that my part III does not suck. In fact, I am so bold, as to hope that it's an improvement, a showing of progress. Would leave to hear what you have to say about them. All feedback welcome! Thanks again!

Currently, I'm leaning towards 1 or 3. Still working out the colors. (Note: the reds are supposed to be red, not pink.) Oh last minute edition -- too cheesy or okay?

Let me know what you think!

Brought to you by the letter...

2010-03-16T08:00:00.006-04:00

Today's letter is brought to you by the letter: Q
Cooper Black, uppercase, Q

Cooper Black may just be the cutest type face there is. It's bold and dark, but so curvy and soft. What's great about the Cooper Black uppercase Q is how, when taken out of context, it's such an interesting shape on its own. It looks like a little baby squid or something. It's stem (?) looks like a wave or some squishy tail. The angle of the bowl and the stem give the shape movement. Although it's dark and bold it's not static. Can't you just imagine a hundred of them floating against a blue background?

The only drawback to being so cute, in my opinion, is being used incorrectly. Cooper Black can easily feel bubbly and childish, too much so to be any good on posters or company collateral or anything. But when I started researching Cooper Black and saw that it was used on the Tootsie Roll packaging and for Garfield books, it clicked. An unusual use of Cooper Black was for Pet Sounds album cover by The Beach Boys. This is one example that shows Cooper Black's versatility. The type face on the cover looks friendly but not cute.

Courtesy of wikipedia.com:

Design Foundry: Barnhart Brothers & Spindler
Designer: Oswald Bruce Cooper
Date: 1921
Classification: old style serif typeface

"Old style or humanist typefaces date back to 1465, and are characterized by a diagonal stress (the thinnest parts of letters are at an angle rather than at the top and bottom), subtle differences between thick and thin lines (low line contrast), and excellent readability. Old style typefaces are reminiscent of the humanist calligraphy from which their forms were derived."

Courtesy of Linotype.com:
"The flowing outer contours create forms that are both strong and soft, making Cooper Black an extremely flexible font."

New Poster! Gouker's Senior Recital

2010-03-15T21:40:00.004-04:00

Hey all, I recently finished my friend Danny Gouker's poster and invitations for his senior recital. Whoo. Check out the poster below.

Brought to you by the number...

2010-03-09T08:00:00.000-05:00

Today's number is brought to you by the number: 2
Courier New, regular, 2.

Courier New's 2 is cute. Not over the top, trying too hard cute, but just sort of like 4-year-old kid smile cute. I like the slenderness of the shape and slabs. It's interesting how the two end points are rounded yet the bottom left angle was kept flat. It provides a solid foundation for the curve on top. The bottom bar with that tiny tail almost looks like an upside down 7. The flat edge and tail help keep uniformity among all the numbers.

If you don't think a number can be cute, or that that a small detail like a flat edge helps type uniformity, well check out Courier New's 6 and 9 below. Definitely not cute. And something about them doesn't feel quite right with the rest of the type face, especially where the line connects back into the shape nor the size of their bowls.
Courtesy of wikipedia.com, fontco.com and absoluteastronomy.com:

Design Foundry: Monotype (?)
Designer: (?)
Date: 1992
Classification: Monospaced Slab Serif

Courier was originally a monospace slab serif designed by Howard Kettler in 1955 for IBM's typewriters. Originally the typeface was to be called Messenger but Kettler thought, "A letter can be just an ordinary messenger, or it can be the courier, which radiates dignity, prestige, and stability." Courier New was introduced with the release of Windows 3.1 in 1992. I believe but can't find information to confirm, that the primary difference from Courier is that Courier New is anti-aliased. It's shape doesn't have sharp pixel edges, and smooth (see image below.)

Due to it's monospacing and high contrast, Courier New is often used for web coding and ASCII art. It is usually the recommended typeface for screenplays. And it was used as the U.S. State Department's typeface up until 2004 (when it was replaced by Times New Roman.) Courier New has been updated to version 5.00; which includes over 3100 glyphs, covering over 2700 characters per font.

Photographs

2010-03-05T20:08:00.000-05:00

Just for the record, I haven't meant to make this blog solely about "Brought to you by the letter...." I'm working on a lot of portfolio pieces, so expect more posts of me begging for critiques. I've also started taking more photos--which I guess should be published on this blog... but they're not, they're being published at my personal blog, Talking With Myself. I think just because I like the layout over there better. :) One day everything will merge together and their will be peace on earth. Until then, feel free to check out Talking With Myself.

Yours,
Heather

Brought to You by the Letter...

2010-03-02T08:00:00.002-05:00

Today's letter is brought to you by the letter: F.
ITC Blackadder, Regular, lowercase f.

I haven't done a decorative type face in this series yet, but as soon as I saw ITC's Blackadder, I knew that was about to change. What I really love about ITC Blackadder's regular, lowercase 'f' is how evocative it is. With the flowing, long stem and rough edges, it's the perfect typeface to use when writing that message in a bottle. It's an heirloom, a relic of a time when people wrote by hand, sailed ships to new lands, and said words like wench and booty and Jolly Roger without pretension or irony. Something about the actual shape makes me think nautical. Is it the way the stem leans forward, like a boat that forges ahead? Is it the descended extender that imitates a hook? Or the ascender that evokes a hook for a hand? Or the whole shape that was clearly created with a new quill pen and the finest Indian inks over choppy waters?

I think ITC Blackadder does exactly what type should do--evoke a time, a meaning, a place. Sure, it'll more often be used poorly than well, but occasionally (Pirate Day?) it could be used perfectly. I found this example of a wedding invitation using ITC Blackadder. While the typeface does have a romantic edge to it, I think it feel romantic in a lonely, ennui way, not quite the best subconscious feeling for a wedding. What do you think?

Courtesy of fonts.com and myfonts.com

Design Foundry: ITC International Typeface Corp
Publisher: Linotype
Designer: Bob Anderton
Date: 1996
Classification: Decorative

"It was the eerie transformation of insurrectionist Guy Fawkes’ signature after he was tortured that inspired British designer Bob Anderton’s new typeface ITC Blackadder. Basing his design on hand written letterforms typical of the 16th century, Anderton captured the flurried scrolls and curlicues of the era and then added the sinister tremble that defines ITC Blackadder. This elegant, yet menacing display face is perfect for theatrical uses and scare tactics." - Fonts.com

Personal Branding - #2

2010-03-01T23:12:00.010-05:00

Here are some things I've been working on. Feedback would be much appreciated.

The variations between these two are slight. Rather than being solid shapes, they're more dimensional in the second one. What I like about this look, is that I can use the shapes within the rest of the collateral to help create a cohesive look. For example, on the letterhead, I could have a row of little T T T T running across the top. (I don't necesarily want people to read the shapes. It doesn't really spell anything - ucatucd?, which is why I brought them down in value. I just want people to see the shapes. But I wonder if you all tried to read it? I got the shapes by removing the bottom half of the word HEATHER.)

I also wonder if all lowercase is better than title care? When I broke the logos down into their small look, the U with lowercase hv looked very bad. And it would probably be funny to mix the two, yes? And I'm still working out the color schemes. It's probably going to be some version of gray, or yellow or red.

Another sort of twist on the same idea:
This design actually mixes this new dimensional shape with an idea I had earlier, which was to make HV look like a pencil/exacto knife. When I pursued this before, it came out veeeery clip art. See below.

Below are two other previous branding attempts. The first I liked because it feels a bit more personable and less sterile. But it's a very tall logo which I was having issues with. The second one I liked at first, but then someone mentioned "jester" and I couldn't get that out of my head.
I'd really appreciate any feedback, critiques and suggestions. I think doing your own branding is the hardest thing.

Brought to you by the letter

2010-02-23T10:43:00.004-05:00

Today's letter is brought to you by the letter: C.
Tungsten, Medium, lowercase c.

I recently did some promotional materials at work, and convinced my boss to buy the Tungsten and Vitesse type families, both from Hoefler & Frere Jones. I thought Tungsten had the right look to fit with our sport, MVP concept. Tungsten is strong, it's tough, and compact. It's a man's man's type. It's not the in-your-face, million dollar, football quarterback type, it's the hold-on-to-your-roots, English rugby player type. You know, rugby guys that knock each other around without helmets and pads. That's some tough shit.

What I appreciate about Tungsten's medium, lowercase 'c', is that it is completely indicative of the entire typeface. It's compact--no unnecessary curves here, and means business. It is essentially a visual chain link, the building blocks of industry. This style of sans-serif was common in industrial, constructionist propaganda. This wasn't a type family that was designed it was built. But rather than being too tough, like an impact or some slab type, Tungsten gets the message across without being intimidating. It's too confident to demand anything. Tungsten knows you'll come along via your own free will.

Courtesy of typography.com:

Design Foundry: Hoefler & Frere Jones
Designer: Hoefler & Frere Jones
Date: 2009
Classification: Geometric (?) Flat-sided (?) Sans-Serif

"A few years ago, we started wondering if there was a way to make a typeface in this genre that was disarming instead of brutish, one that employed confidence and subtlety instead of just raw testosterone. Many such designs quit the fight when the going gets rough, abandoning their own internal rules when unruly letters like S or Y won’t conform to the grid — a frailty that’s especially unwelcome in this kind of typeface, whose square-jawed ruggedness would otherwise recommend it for action movies and airport paperbacks. ...The result is Tungsten, a tight family of high-impact fonts that doesn’t sacrifice wit, versatility, or style."

[They have a really nice write up of their font at their site, I recommend you read it.]

Brought to you by the letter

2010-02-09T08:00:00.000-05:00

Today's letter is brought to you by the letter: M.
Optima, Bold, lowercase m.

It's always easy for me to pick out Optima because although it's a sans-serif, it has a bit of shape to its form. You can sort of see how each leg of the 'm' is not a perfect rectangle, rather they have a slight curve to them from the top of the leg to the bottom (much like flare jeans.) Wikipedia calls it a "swelling at the terminal" which is really a great way to describe it, swelling. The swelling in Optima helps differentiate it from every other sans-serif. Does this uniqueness make for better readability? I don't know, but it does help increase its celebrity in the type world. You can't be famous is no one knows your name. (Note after reading Wiki article, this calligraphic touch to Optima does in fact help legibility!) And speaking of names, Optima also goes by Zapf Humanist because it was a humanist sans-serif created by Hermann Zapf. (You may know Zapf from Zapf Dingbats, he's a big player in the type game.)

I also enjoy Optima 'm's humps. While, I don't mind the slight curve/dip at the very top, starting point of the letter. Although, it becomes much more pronounced at the terminals, particularly in the Black weight (at which I find myself disliking the shape more and more.)

Courtesy of Wikipedia.com:

Design Foundry: D Stempel AG
Designer: Hermann Zapf
Date: 1952-1955
Classification: Humanist Sans-Serif

Optima’s design follows humanist lines, but its italic variant is merely an oblique, essentially a sloped roman without characteristic italic letterforms such as a single storey a and rounded base of v and w. This is more typical of a realist sans-serif such as Helvetica or Univers. Also unconventional for the contemporary sans, Optima's capitals (like Palatino's) are directly derived from the classic Roman monumental capital model (one other well executed example is Meier's Syntax). It is clear from the reverence in Zapf's designs that he regards the Roman capitals as ideal forms, and his executions in type prove the thesis. Like Palatino, another Zapf design, Optima is both widely admired and much imitated. Optima and Palatino are trademarks of Linotype (a Monotype company).

Optima is the typeface used on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

Humanist typefaces include Calibri, Johnston, Lucida Grande, Segoe UI, Gill Sans, Myriad, Frutiger, Trebuchet MS, Tahoma, Verdana and Optima, a.k.a. Zapf Humanist. These are the most calligraphic of the sans-serif typefaces, with some variation in line width and more legibility than other sans-serif fonts.

Every Shade of Gray

2010-02-04T14:19:00.002-05:00

I am officially announcing, right now, that I am so into gray. Not sure what it is but I really, really really like this color... err shade of black... err tint of white!

Brought to you by the letter...

2010-02-02T08:30:00.004-05:00

Today's letter is brought to you by the letter: J.
Bodoni MT, Black, lowercase j.

During my typography studies, it was a real a-ha! moment to learn that different weights of a type family were not just thicker strokes or slanted forms, but were in fact sometimes creations all their own. At that point, I thought it was not good enough to just know the letters of a type family in its normal/regular weight anymore. I had to spend time analyzing the different weights because they were in fact different shapes and deserved to be recognized as such. Suddenly the act of creating a type family with 11 variations truly awed me.

Such is the case with today's letter: MT Bodoni's lowercase 'j' in Black. It's a very handsome letter with its descender curling into itself rather than out. This was probably a good choice to avoid it looking too unbalanced. I particularly love how the thin contrasting stroke, common in Modern families, isn't actually a stroke, but rather is represented in the white space that separates the curl and the stem. A small touch of genius. I think it's quite a fine, fine letter.

This curling in also occur in MT Bodoni's 'f' and somewhat in the 'c'. As a result, none of these shapes look out of place within the Black weight or the MT Bodoni family as a whole. By changing the rules for this particular weight, MT Bodoni maintained consistency within the weight, the type family and the type of contrast.

Here's the regular weight MT Bodoni besides its bold and black brethren.Courtesy of Wikipedia.com:

Design Foundry: Monotype has the rights to the Bodoni font (?)
Designer: Giambattista Bodoni
Date: 1798
Classification: Didone / Modern Serif

Courtesy of FontCo.com:

"The serifs of Bodoni, in addition to being very thin, are also nearly perpendicular to the main stem, as opposed to the gently sloping serifs of the so-called "oldstyle" typefaces. In addition, the emphasis of stress is very nearly vertical. The result is an overall clean, yet somewhat cold, appearance, both loved and hated by typographers."

About Didone / Modern Serif, courtesy of Wikipedia.com:

"Didone is a typeface classification recognized by the Association Typographique Internationale (AtypI), and part of the VOX-ATypI classification system. It is characterized by slab-like serifs without brackets, vertical orientation of weight axes, strong contrast between thick and thin lines, and an unornamented, "modern" appearance."

Brought to you by the number...

2010-01-26T08:00:00.001-05:00

Brought to you by the number 5!
GeoSans Light, Regular, 5

The GeoSans Light, regular, number 5 is a robust looking number. I really like the slant of the stem, it creates a sort of motion within the shape, as if the top half is moving ahead, trying to catch up with 6. The slant directs your eye straight to the end of the curve so that you can't help but see the fullness (or rather emptiness of negative space) of the bowl. The top definitely balances the over-sized bowl. I think if the stem was upright, it would look as if the '5' was sticking out its belly and the shape would have a completely different characteristic to it. This '5' is unassuming, yet it feels interesting and modern.

From Da Font.com

Design Foundry: ---
Designer: Manfred Klein
Date: pre-2005
Classification: Sans Serif

Not much information on GeoSans Light or on Manfred Klein. Klein appears to be a German typographer. But I don't read German, so I can't provide much information. Sorry! But he has a whole lot of type families that you can check out at: http://manfred-klein.ina-mar.com/

Brought to you by the letter...

2010-01-19T08:00:00.002-05:00

Today's letter is brought to you by the letter: T.
Interstate, Regular, lowercase t.

What stood out to me about Interstate Regular's lowercase 't' was the ends of its stem. For a sans serif, it adds a little pizazz to have the top cut off at such an extreme angle, and for the bottom of the stem to curve and cut off at a lesser angle. It could have been a very bland, equal weighted, cross shape--just another letter in the alphabet--but it was obvious that this 't' was crafted with care. The terminal curve and angle plays very nicely with the erect stem. This letter says I'm a good school boy, but I'm fun too!

Even thought it feels neo-grotesque in it's lack of contrast and even width, it certainly has a distinguishing characteristic. Although, perhaps to people not in love with letter forms, maybe it does look rather inconspicuous?

Courtesy of Font Bureau.com:

Design Foundry: Font Bureau
Designer: Tobias Frere-Jones
Date: 1993-1999
Classification: Neo-grotesque sans-serif

"Familiarity lies at the heart of legibility. Interstate is based on the signage alphabets of our Federal Highway Administration, letterforms absorbed at a glance everywhere we drive. Interstate provides a real edge in swift communication." Interstate is recommended for newspaper and magazine use. Interstate has 40 different weights!

Courtesy of wikipedia.com:

The terminals of ascending and descending strokes are cut at an angle to the stroke (see lowercase t, and l), and on curved strokes (see lowercase e and s), terminals are drawn at a 90° angle to the stroke, positioning them at an angle to the baseline. Counters are open, even in the bold and bold condensed weights, further contributing to legibility.

About Neo-Grotesque Sans-Serif, courtesy of Para Type.com:

Neo-Grotesque is a refinement of early Grotesque structure. They were issued during 1950s due to the requirements of the Swiss typography style. Neo-Grotesques are more elegant than their predecessors and hardly have any distinguishing features, so may be described as standard and inconspicuous. They have small aperture, even widths, low contrast and large x-height. They were designed in many styles and weights. Ascenders are the height of uppercase. Normally italic is absent or replaced by oblique. Slopes are from average to significant.

Brought to you by the letter...

2010-01-12T08:30:00.004-05:00

Today's letter is brought to you by the letter: M.
Futura, Medium, M.

What I like most about the Futura 'M' is that it's unapolegetic--no soft curves, no humps or bumps, just three sharp points. It's like Futura 'M' is saying, if you mess with me, I will cut you. It's shape doesn't fall into the trap of looking like mountains, it's not a mountain, it's a letter and 'M' knows it. It's not trying to be anything besides a legible, no frills, geometric letter. The thick black lines make out two isoceles triagles--our eyes filling in the baseline--and the white space under them make two more. I also like how the middle downward point just crosses the baseline. Trying to be a little rebellious, are we 'M'?

Courtesy of My Fonts.com:

Design Foundry: Bauersche Giesserei / Bauer Types
Designer: Paul Renner

Date: 1927
Classification: Geometric Sans Serif

Courtesy of Wikipedia:
About: Futura is based on geometric shapes that became representative visual elements of the Bauhaus design style from 1919-1933. Futura has an appearance of efficiency and forwardness. The typeface is derived from simple geometric forms (near perfect circles, triangles and squares) and is based on strokes of near-even weight, which are low in contrast. This is most visible in the almost perfectly round stroke of the "o", which is nonetheless slightly ovoid. In designing Future, Renner avoided the decorative, eliminating non-essential elements. The lowercase has tall ascenders, which rise above the cap line. The uppercase characters present proportions similar to those of classical Roman capitals. Original Futura design also included small capitals and old-style figures, which were dropped from the original metal issue of the type. The digital versions of these glyphs were first produced by Neufville Digital under the Futura ND family.

Brought to you by the letter...

2010-01-05T08:30:00.003-05:00

Today's letter is brought to you by the letter: G.
ITC Cheltenham, Book, lowercase g.

ITC Cheltenham Book 'g' is kicking off this new series exploring type because quite frankly this is the letter that inspired it. I want to learn more about fonts and typefaces, so I figured why not spend one day a week talking about a certain letter/typeface. (I already have a new typeface project in the works, but I'll share that little secret on another post.) You'll have to excuse me if I use the wrong terminology, but please do correct me.

What really caught my eye on this 'g' is the open-bowl ascender. That's what really separated it from the numerous other serif typefaces I was copying at the time. (My typography teacher once made us trace over the letters of five typefaces to learn the shapes, contours and minute differences. I absolutely loved this meticulous task, so I continue to trace.)

The ascended-bowl opening creates a more interesting white space that juxtaposes with the trapped white space of the top bowl. And then there's the perfect, strict stem (?) that connects the two curvy sections. It's a perfect synthesis of contrast. Plus, it's ear (or terminal) is pretty cute.

A very brief history of ITC Cheltenham Book courtesy of font.com:

Design Foundry: ITC - International Typeface Corp.
Designer: Tony Stan
Classification: Clarendon Serif which means strong vertical weight stress; usually with heavy, bracketed and square-cut serifs

About: The original Cheltenham was designed by the distinguished American architect, Bertram Goodhue in 1896, for the Cheltenham Press, New York. Generally stronger in appearance than the popular text types of the time, the ITC Cheltenham font family has a large x-height that adds to its legibility in text settings.

What are your takes on the 'g'?

Promises and promises

2009-12-27T22:17:00.004-05:00

Okay, so I've done this before, all promising things (like a website) that haven't come to fruition. Well, you've got to cut me some slack. I've got a lot of things going on--including laziness, which I am doing my absolute best to correct.

Here are some upcoming things that I'm planning for the blog:

- The letters: a weekly post about my favorite letters and a short bit about why.

- Inspired or insipid. I post one thing that I found truly inspiring and explain why. You leave a nice or nasty comment saying if you agree.

- A 365 project: either photography, drawing or design, or maybe some combination of both. I'll spare showing all seven days work of work (I'm sure some of it will be sub par - it is okay to fail) and just post my favorite for the week.

More explanation will be provided upon commencement. I will totally assign arbitrary days to these weekly posts (I'm thinking Tuesday, Friday and Sunday in that order). I do plan on cleaning up the blog and building a website, so put that into the plan for 2010.

New Personal Logotype

2009-12-08T21:00:00.004-05:00

Since the summer, I've been working on a logo. And I've come up with plenty. Unfortunately, they've run the gammit from clip art-ish to so-so. I'd like it a lot once I was "finished" with it, after tweaking it for hours. But I think I finally have one that I'm ready to share. I'm pretty happy with it. I haven't decided on a color palette yet, so for now, you get to see it in it's rawest form: black on white. (The best and true way to judge the value of a logo.) Please, feedback, gimme gimme gimme!

Maybe you noticed that those are actually two different logotypes (good eye!). Or at least two different typefaces. The first one is Trade Gothic in light which has a great 'g' (not shown). (I bring up the 'g' because my variations of this logotype include the words design and photography.) The second typeface is Drescher Grotesk BT in Light which has a great ampersand (not shown). I think I lean a bit towards the 'a' in Drescher Grotesk as well. What do you think?!

Whatever words of wisdom or catty critiques you might have, I want to hear it all. This is my first time around and I'm still working on it. So I won't take too much offense. Thanks!

The Client

2009-11-30T09:00:00.000-05:00

Recently, I've been thinking a lot about the designer-client relationship. I've had some really great clients who love my work and trust me and pay me, and also some awful clients who, from my point of view, have lied and cheated me throughout the whole process.

Really I'm just wondering--how do we talk to our favorite clients? Do we act as if they're friends, telling them personal details? How do we talk to the difficult ones? Do we play the alpha-dog? How do we educate them? Is it even our job to educate them, or do we just ignore them and move to the next client, leaving them to harass another designer?

Here's a pretty amusing video on the client-designer relationship:

You can also read amusing stories of clients from hell, at Clients From Hell.com.

Please share your stories and insights about clients in the comments.

Decapitated Panda -- Good Product Design?

2009-11-04T08:00:00.002-05:00

I've been meaning to post this for a while, but haven't had the chance. And tonight I do. A light-hearted romp into my life if you will. For a long time, I was running all my schoolwork (design heavy stuff) on a 128 MB USB. Seriously, I know. Then I found out how small that was and how cheap biggers ones are that I upgraded to a Tribeca 1GB. And I couldn't resist buying the super cute panda! (It was much cleaner with paint fully intact when I bought it.)

And I took it home and unwrapped it from it's indestructible plastic casing, and I pulled its head off. --Wait, what?! Seriously. Tribeca, or whoever, designed the USB so that in order to use it, you had to pull off the panda head to reveal the USB port.

And now my adorable little panda is a decapitated piece of metal--gasp--robot Panda! (That joke would make more sense if you could see the body/USB part of it. Oops, didn't upload that photo. But robot panda was a great joke for it.) The whole point of this blog is just to say--wouldn't it have made more sense to make the feet the part that comes off? Because then you'd plug in the panda USB and a happy panda face would be looking back at you, instead of just a panda body. Strange indeed.

Side Note PRO: I really do like how the little light between its feet glows red. That's pretty cute.
Side Note CON: The panda body is a little chubby, because you know, pandas are and this is obviously a close to real life replica. But this extra pudge means the panda USB won't fit into the USB ports on the side of the MAC keyboards and that is sad.

Pantone: Color Leader, Cultural Failure

2009-10-26T08:00:00.005-04:00

I want to start by saying, I love Pantone. I love each tiny chip of perfect alphanumeric code of color. I envy people with Pantone mugs and bookbags. And I am aware that Pantone is an industry leader in terms of color and design. It's for that reason, that I'm concerned about how Pantone is choosing to lead the industry culturally.

Pantone recently sent me, at my request, a bunch of promo materials for their newest products and programs. They sent me collateral on Pantone Goe, the Pantone Chip In program, Pantone Fashion & Home, and Pantone's "Less Mellow, More Yellow" booklet. (I've since been to the site, and have not found a way to request these samples again.)

If you didn't know, Mimosa is Pantone's color of the year 2009. Hence, the Mellow Yellow booklet, to highlight all the various emotional connotations of the color yellow beyond mellow: aggressive, playful, zesty, surprising and intimate. I certainly agree with Pantone that yellow can be all of these things. However, I do not agree with how Pantone chose to represent these many shades of yellow (see below). My commentary continues after the images.

It's late, so I'm going to keep the critique simple and short.

The aggressive photo plays with the stereotype that black men are aggressive. But particularly because black "gangster" men are aggressive--note the bandanna, tank top, chain necklaces and tattoos. What really makes this offensive, is that they didn't even shoot the man in an aggressive pose such as head on with direct eye contact. Instead, he is shot at an angle, and his eyes are looking to the viewer at an angle--suggesting that he is responding to our gaze, not directing his own. They took all the "aggressiveness" out of this photo through the subject's pose, and relied on his cultural markers to identify him as aggressive.

Less offensive photo idea: Shoot an image of a person head on, eyes straight, in what appears to be some type of business suit. The tie could be yellow.

In the playful photo the woman is nude. She has no gaze because her eyes are shut. Her mouth has the hint of a smile. (I'm surprised they didn't shoot her mouth slightly open.) Her body positioning is offering itself to the viewer by elongating her neck and turning the head away. She is supposed to be playful, but is portrayed as the play thing instead. Also, the black lipstick, heavy black mascara and yellow band across her neck make this image reek of bondage themes, and she is clearly not the dominating one.

Less offensive photo idea: Show her moving! Show her actually acting playful, and preferably with clothes on.

The zesty photo makes the least sense to me. Again she is nude, because that is important when licking fruit and wearing bananas on your head. (C'mon, bananas? Are they really zesty?) Her eyes are positioned at an upwards angle. She is positioned to be looked down at and upon. Her mouth is suggestive. She's certainly not eating that fruit.

Less offensive photo idea: Show "zesty" foods or zesty behavior. Zesty is not a synonym for sexy. My zesty guacamole is not sexy. Use lemons, limes, peppers, spices. Or show her making a "zesty" face. And zesty face is not equal to sexy pout face.

The surprising photo isn't particularly offensive on its own. But it is offensive when shown with the rest of the series. A white male has his clothes on. He is positioned head on and in control. His gaze is direct. The meaning between the word-surprising, and the image is clear. It is surprising that there's a spoon on this guy's nose. There is no direct (and un-offensive) correlation between the word and the subject in the other photos. This photo is so blatantly different from the others. Why weren't they all shot in this way?

Less offensive photo idea: Make the other photos work better rather than perpetuate ridiculous stereotypes.

The intimate photo completely disregards any subtlety. The photo is a voyeuristic snapshot into the top of a woman's tank top. This photo gives the woman no agency, not even a face. Her mouth may be smiling, but it's not actually clear. She's being viewed from above, so she is looked down at and upon. Her body is being objectified, because it's not the entire woman being looked down at, only her cleavage. The short depth of field and soft focus on this image is completely unlike any of the other photos. And even more ridiculous--there's not even any yellow in the image! Except for the photoshopped flowers and swirls on top of the image. In that case, why use this image at all?

Less offensive photo idea: Intimate doesn't have to mean sex. This photograph could easily work by showing an adult parent coddling a child. Or heck just show a baby with a yellow cloth diaper or blanket--let the intimacy be inferred.

I don't want to forget the woman on the cover (1st photo) who is also nude. She's touching herself in an intimate way. She's not rubbing her neck, she's running her fingertips across it. Her mouth is slightly ajar.

Less offensive photo: Anything.

To sum up: Women are zesty, playful and intimate. Men are aggressive and surprising. Women are best gazed upon and nude. People of color are at their best when they represent stereotypes. And the main point to sum up about Pantone is that they either do not care about the messages they are sending out into society or this is just a huge glaring yellow blemish on their PMS chip.

Pantone's already declared yellow to be much more than mellow--aggresive, playful, zesty, surprising and intimate. Now I'm adding controversial to the list.

What do you all think?

Preserving a Language

2009-10-19T09:00:00.001-04:00

Recently @Issue posted an article (Designing A Font To Preserve A Vanishing Language) about Juliet Shen who is designing a font to preserve the language of the Native American Lushootseed tribe. It's really amazing to see the impact design and typography can make on culture.

What was amazing about Shen was that she took their alphabet/sounds (which were being represented by a mash-up of Times Roman and the International Phonetic Alphabet, work done by Thom Hess) and created a typeface for it.

From the article:

Shen recalls, "At the first meeting, one of the oldest of the language teachers said, ‘This is a graceful language, but it doesn’t look that way.’ The sound of the language speaks of the physical environment that the tribe has inhabited – like water washing ashore, wind moving through the trees. My internal design brief was to get rid of an ‘adapted’ look and make it appear as if it has always been.”

Poster Design

2009-10-15T09:30:00.003-04:00

Here's the latest poster for Turn Around Norman. The music is very cool and jazzy (that's not meant in a demeaning way.) I couldn't get away from a sort of 40s film noir vibe. You can listen to some tunes at: We Turn Around.com. So I tried to capture that. Real modern typeface--really, this type is categorized as modern--with some sans serif. Many shades of grey. I went with orange instead of red for readability, but I'm not sure how I feel about that. I think the circles and dots create a neat light effect--lighting being very important in film noir. I don't know... not a total film noir poster but somewhat reminiscent of it, maybe? How'd I do?

Poster: Creating Music Series

2009-09-26T20:08:00.001-04:00

Recent poster I did for the Creating Music Series.

Definitely recommend going-great music, great musicians. (and it's free.) Towson University.

Very Satisfied Customer

2009-09-04T08:00:00.001-04:00

I used to big a real make-up junkie. I even wanted to go to beauty school for a while. Things change, and while I'm not as interested in covering myself in pretty colors (or rather, I have less reason to do so) ranging from smoldering to punk, I recently decided, what the hey, I'll go buy some new make-up.

And boy, is it great!!! I got a promo thing in my email from animal friendly, rock n' roll makeup line Urban Decay, and I bought the Urban Decay Book of Shadows vol II. And I was super happy with the product and its packaging.

See photos:

The box: Super pretty, swirly and sturdy. Came with purple ribbon and what looks like foiling or metallic inks.

But there were so many great things inside the box. The peacock print, the large mirror, the pull-open doors, the promo booklet about Urban Decay and oh yeah, the makeup itself.

It gets better--- there were extra goodies that I didn't even pay for! Jackpot. Purple make-up bag, eyeshadow, eyeliner, eyeshadow primer sample, and mascara. I mean seriously, that is easily worth $30. Most of these were full size products, not sample. Whoo-hoo.

The lesson?
1. People want to get what they pay for. Urban Decay products while not cheap, obviously look like they're worth the money (i.e. it looks like someone took the time to put this package together nicely.)

2. People want to interact with their purchase/company. Sure I could have just gotten a box of eyeshadows and thrown it in my drawer. Instead, I ooohed and aaahed over it, I played around with it opening and closing things, I read the promo booklet, I took pictures of it and wrote about it!

3. People love a little extra something. Not just because it was free, but because it was a surprise.

Urban Decay, you get two big thumbs up from me. (In case it needs to be said, I have absolutely zero affiliation with Urban Decay.)

Photography

2009-08-29T21:12:00.006-04:00

So, I've always been fascinated with photographs and images, but honestly, don't know much about them in the scholarly sense. I'm taking a digital photo class this semester, and I'm hoping this will vastly improve my skills. (Although, I'm hoping to find out that I'm not completely lacking in skills ::crossing fingers::)

Recently, I went on vacation to Italy and Switzerland. And took a lot of photos. 500 photos. And as much as I love them, and some are just for memories there are many I want to go back to and work with to make them photographs, and not just snapshots.

Here are a few low-res images that I've been playing around with.

View from the Top:

After the Storm:

Film Exhibit:

Beast Wedding!

2009-08-12T09:32:00.003-04:00

Above is the new poster (of my creation) for the Jersey Band Baltimore CD release show. Jersey Band plays a new genre called lung core. It's hardcore music with a full out horn section. It's really cool and you can listen to them here. The CD is called Beast Wedding. Also playing the show: Quartet Offensive (plays Pavement), Soul Cannon and Leisure Icons. It's at the Ottobar in Baltimore on Thursday, August 27. The show is $8 and starts at 9pm. It's going to RAWK! Ha.

Attendance Map of Oriole Park - 2009 Season

2009-07-20T08:00:00.002-04:00

(May take a while to load.)

Basically goes through the first half of the Orioles season 2009, showing attendance for each opposing team's series. I thought that by displaying the information (opposing team, game number, percentage in attendance, actual tally of attendance, day of week and time, and whether the Orioles won or loss) this way, it would help the Orioles marketing team look at this data from a new perspective. Why were there huge jumps or major drops in attendance in a series? Which games were just anamolies--such as Matt Weiters pro-baseball debut against Detroit that made the attendance spike to 87% from just 24% the night before--and which games/series have no obvious reason for the climbing attendance--such as Texas' second night when attendance reached 84%, but averages about 45% for the 4-game series.

How can they improve attendance overall? Does a win or loss effect the next day's attendance?

Expect an update when the 2009 season is over.

Song by Warning Track Power, "How Bout Dem Os"

Bing.com: Changing the Face of Search

2009-07-14T15:14:00.004-04:00

Move over Google, there's a new search engine in town and it is pretty.

Bing essentially keeps Google's pared down, essentials only aesthetic. Bing has it's logo, a search box and button, and a few key category links. And a few, poignant links at the bottom to entice the bored web user (yes, they exist). Oh, and did I mention the beautiful photos?

Today's (7/14/2009) Bing:

Ooh what beautiful purples and blues. Ahh, Paris! Ahh, the Louvre! I honestly believe that the use of a single image on the homepage may help Bing take a bite out of Google's hold on the search engine market. Here's why:

1. It's Trendy
Seriously, I mean that. The web is going to see many more of these large format photographs as backgrounds in the future. Don't believe me? Check out Smashing Magazine (#4) or Web Designer's Wall's great collection of large-image background sites that are already ahead of the curve.

What I particularly like about Bing, is that in this web of digitally layered abstraction, to have a single, well executed photograph is very calming (is that the right word?). It's like a fresh breath amid the chaos.

2. Users Connect
The image, which changes everyday, helps the user connect to Bing in two ways. 1. It gives users a reason to visit the site, even if they're not trying to search. But just by going to the site, the image or one of it's related links will entice the user to click. A click will take the user to a search results page. So, even though I just came to look at a picture, I clicked on one link, and voila, I see Bing in action. Similarly, the changing image entices people to set Bing as the user's homepage, for the same reason as previously stated and hopefully with the same benefit.

The second way users connect to the image is by the content. The images on Bing (as far as I have seen) have always been a location. And it's an added bonus for the user, if they recognize the location in the photograph. If they visited there on a trip, the user is likely to share this photo with others, saying something like, I can't believe it, I've been there! (This happened in my office when a co-worker recognized a small seaside town in Italy that he had visited. As a result, all eight of us sitting around him headed over to Bing to check it out.) For example, the image above is of Paris, but a very specific location in Paris. And that's why it feels special if you recognize the place. They've managed to make Paris personal. Not only does the image cause a positive emotion, but makes the user likely to share this positivity. Again, increasing the number of visits to Bing which could easily increase the number of users.

3. Connecting the World
The locations displayed can be small remote locales or large, well known cities. It's as if Bing is scouring the world and bringing it into our homes. Is this not symbolic of what the internet does? Globalization is here. And Bing is bringing us the beautiful side (much needed among this depressing economy and environmental destruction.) The photographs give a location to this virtual space and it feels very welcoming. We're not blindly jumping into a virtual portal, we're setting out for an adventure beginning in Paris at the Louvre.

Conclusion
In writing, the most fundamental principle is that a piece of work must be both unique and universal. And Bing has found that very difficult common ground.

Bing is off to a great start with a strong visual viewpoint. But just because you build, and just because people come, does not mean that people will return. Ultimately, the real test for Bing will be its usability, its optimization, its search strategies, its advertising potential (in the future?) and its ability to bring something better than what is already out there.

I would let you know, but so far I only Bing for the photo.

The Pregnancy Flow Chart

2009-07-06T16:25:00.005-04:00

To see a detailed version, open this PDF and zoom.
Most information from the chart from: The Cradle.com

About the Pregnancy Piece of Mind Flow Chart

The flow chart examines information variables (medical, lifestyle, work and fun) over time (1st, 2nd, 3rd trimester). The start point was placed in the upper left hand corner, and colored yellow to differentiate it as the starting point. Decision markers were made black, information boxes were blue, and circular, ending points were either green or red for a negative/alerting or positive result.

Occasionally, information had to be placed next to the chart but was not actually linked to it (see "Every Visit Checklist" and "Daily Vitamin Checklist".) I'm hoping the written cues in the decisionmarkers--see left, see far left--is enough direction for the viewer to understand what to do (i.e. to look at the checklist but keep on the flow chart.)

I also think that the flow chart displays the significance of the medical process. I think it's easy to get caught up in the "fun" stuff like buying baby clothes and thinking of baby names, but really the most important aspect of the pregnancy (i.e. having the most steps involved) is the medical part. It helps keep the pregnancy in perspective about what is important.

Project Expansion

With more time, I'd like to include the information regarding what some of those tests are as well as why some of those activities would be beneficial. Probably result in more informational boxes, not actually changing the process within the flow chart.

Need a Little Lost During the Break?

2009-06-23T20:52:00.003-04:00

A project I did for class: Mapping the first 16 days on the island. It's not as detailed as like, my apologies, but summer school is quite compact. I'd love to open it up to show each individual, as well as expand it to show the entire 101 days. That may be a crazy long undertaking though, and am I really that devoted of a fan? Plus, how would I handle the time travel?!

Short Story

2009-06-21T21:16:00.003-04:00

Okay, so this isn't design, but I thought I would share anyway. Previously, I always thought I would be a writer. I've given up the pen recently for pursuits involving manipulating images via photo editing software. But I still love writing, and on a semi-regular basis, I teach some creative writing to some high school students. I try to write when they write and here's what I did:

"Where are we going Dad?" Kerry asked. Kerry was slung across his father's chest in a carrier bag. Kerry hadn't been in a carrier bag since he was young and couldn't fly, but recently his feathers had been molting and not growing back. Kerry hadn't flown for weeks now. This didn't worry Kerry, his parents kept telling him he'd be fine as they swept fallen feathers or smoothed out dying ones.

"We're going to Shadow Grove. Mom wants some special herbs, and I thought you could use some fresh air and sun. Your skin's too blue, it's not healthy." Brunji, Kerry's father, said. He kept his eyes ahead on the lookout for preying birds. Dusk was setting in and the attack birds would be out soon.

Kerry and Brunji soared over the tree tops, ducking up and down. Brunji wasn't yet old, he was still robust and when his wings flapped they sent breezes rippling through the mountains. Kerry stayed nuzzled against his father's white plumage. He didn't worry about predator birds, he was safe. The thrill of flight exited him and made him desperate to fly again. Whatever disease that was ruining his feathers, Kerry was more determined to beat it.

"Dad, when will my feathers grow back?" Brunji didn't answer. Kerry wasn't sure if his father heard him but decided not to ruin the quiet moment.

They circled down, and with ease Brunji landed in the grove. There were no trees, only a large field with a scattering of bushes. The grass was golden in the sun's diminishing glow. Brunji unlocked the carrier with his beak and Kerry hopped out.

"Go stretch your legs." Brunji said as he headed towards the bushes to gather herbs, the carrier case slung across his body. Kerry walked around, touching trees and digging his talons in the dirt.The fireflies began to come out--twirling and teasing Kerry, using their tiny wings to zig and zag just out of reach of Kerry's beak. He paid little attention to his dad who was still keeping an eye on him from the bushes. Kerry flapped his wings, giving them a good flutter in the open space, but no, he certainly couldn't fly with those bare wings.

The rustling stopped from across the way, and Kerry glanced up from his bug game. His father had moved towards him. The night was approaching and shadows encroached, but Kerry could still see the grim look on his father's face.

"Why so blue Dad? What's wrong Dad?" asked Kerry as he started to run to his dad. That look from his dad made Kerry's heart panic. Brunji said nothing, only stared at his son. Brunji extended his wings, he was a giant in the shadows, and swiftly began to rise into the sky.

"DAD!" Kerry yelled, screamed until it echoed through the mountains. Desperately beating his bare wings, trying to reach the air that was separating him and his father.

Brunji flew away through the mountains with all the might he had. The carrier bag empty. He wanted to be far away, removed from the far reaches of echoes, before the predator birds came out for the night.

Cultural Context

2009-06-17T09:52:00.003-04:00

Hey everyone, did a poster, and without saying too much about it, I was hoping I could get some feedback. What do you think the message is? Is it visually captivating? Anything not making sense? Are both taglines effective? Is one stronger than the other?

I'll offer up an intended meaning if I find that the poster is being taken the wrong way. Let me know what you think.

Calling all Cartography Geeks

2009-06-15T08:00:00.000-04:00

Was recently shown this nifty site: Hyper Cities

They take google maps and then overlay historical maps on top of it. You can keep layering multiple maps and change transparencies and such. This has gotta be a useful teaching tool. It creates a mash-up of genius proportions. I love, love, love it.

If you checkout the Chicago map, you'll see that Soldier Field stadium was built on water! I mean imagine what this means if Chicago were to ever get flooded? Don't go to the stadium! But I suppose people already learned that lesson.

Consider My Mind Blown

2009-06-05T16:01:00.009-04:00

I was in class the other night, and I totally had my mind blown in the best possible way.

Back Story:
After several delays on January 28, 1986, Shuttle Challenger launched. In the second minute of its departure, the shuttle exploded/disintegrated. In retrospect, scientists were able to discern that extreme damage to the O rings were the root cause for the explosion.

That morning, engineers from Thiokol and NASA managers exchanged information regarding the launch. The engineers, based on their data, felt that it was unsafe to launch. Over 10 charts and graphs were sent between the two groups, the engineers desperately attempting to convince the NASA managers of their concerns. Below is an example of the types of visual information Thiokol sent over:

My smart and kind professor, Nancy Kaplan brought to the class' attention that the "story" Thiokol was trying to tell was not being properly revealed. What is their point in this graph? It's difficult to say. Thiokol didn't presenta strong enough argument about the dangers of the flight, and the NASA managers gave the go ahead that led to disaster.

DaVinci of Data:
Years later, enter the "daVinci of data" as the NYTimes calls him, Edward Tufte (hello, new nerd crush, this guy's work is awesome!)

Edward Tufte is renowned for taking data and turning them into visual displays that are one, and most importantly, conherent and bursting with vital information and two, beautiful.

Visual heirarchy:
He took the information that was sent between the Thiokol engineers and Nasa managers and reworked them. He figured out what was important and what was less so. Here's the graph that Tufte came up with:

I apologize for the low resolution. But the y axis is "amount of damage in O ring", and the x axis is "temperature increasing." And it becomes VERY OBVIOUS, with the data they have, that as the temperature goes down the O rings damage increases.

The data points are from like 53 degrees F to 84 degrees F, roughly. At the lowest recorded temperature, 53 degrees, they recorded the most damage to an O ring (level 4). This being the case---how could you launch a shuttle when it was only 26 degrees F outside?

The graph shows the "story" clearly and immediately. Good design saves lives. Tell that story the next time a lousy client belittles the significance of your profession.

The Great Divide

2009-06-04T13:37:00.006-04:00

A few days, as part of my I'm-a-professional-so-I've-got-to-start-working-on-my-branding etc etc, I joined Twitter. Yup, Twitter that name dropping social networking thing. I justify it on the basis that Twitter, from what I've been told, was like made for the graphic design industry. Or maybe this is how everyone in the industry justifies jumping on the band wagon?

Anyway. There are two things that I wonder about. 1. Isn't Twitter just another social fad? We have Twitter, and before that Facebook, and before that Myspace, and before that AOL Instant Messenger, and before that ICQ. Ahh the good old days of ICQ.

What is interesting is the relationship these all have to each other. AIM and ICQ were direct chats. But, as we become adults and are time frames are no longer consistently in sync like they once were when you and all your friends were in high school. And as a result, we can't be online at the same time. (Although, I question this, because people are now connected at much more ease and thus for longer time frames even if not fully engaged with the activity of being online) Thus, we use social media like Facebook and MySpace to leave messages.

So, what is the improvement of Twitter over these other social media? The fact that people must articulate themselves in less than 140 characters--do we no longer have anything real to say to each, or has our communications devolved into a grunt-and-point, err click, system? Perhaps, users like that there is less spamming? Although, commercial entities are trying to jump onto the social networking bandwagon--it's like parents trying to be their kids' best friends--you're not fooling us, you're not really a friend. But that's another aside.

What is it that makes Twitter a better social outlet then Facebook, MySpace or plain old blogs? Is it because it gives us the impression that we're chatting and thus connecting to people? Recently, it was noticed that men follow other men on Twitter. Normally on social media sites, men follow women. I'm not about to take a gender stance on this, but rather want to say, that maybe the popularity of Twitter has to do with being able to follow someone without needing their permission/approval/acceptance. (Although a user can always block another user from following them, but street is initially one way.) Any other ideas, anyone? I suppose in a few months, I can report from the field with some brilliant new insights.

2. While, I don't know if Twitter has an inherent value, I plan to give it one to suit my needs. My Twitter account is now my professional resource. I follow other designers and I want them to follow me. I post design posts/blogs on Twitter. I plan to make with the nerdy talk about typefaces and spatial organization. This way I can let Twitter represent the professional me and maintain a social self as well on Facebook. "Funny" photos or discouraging words about work are better left for the inner circles of my friends and family who aren't going to judge (i.e. stop paying me) because of them. I plan to reposition my relationships in this new way, and hope no one will take offense. Of course, I'm willing to allow some leeway for those who fall in both worlds.

I just don't think it's fair for people to be fired for writing, work is boring, on their Facebook page. It's a common sentiment and what company could be so insecure and so dehumanizing at the same time. (This happened to a girl interning.) Plus, it does help to keep the online profiles organized. It's a minor way in which to keep my public information in check, not everything is for everyone. And I think it'll be better for each respective audience, my family doesn't care about the latest design trends, nor do my colleagues and clients care that the sushi place around the corner gave me wicked neaseau.

Here I Go Again

2009-05-18T12:59:00.002-04:00

Wow, March 10th. I knew it had been a long time, but really two months? Yikes. I suppose I should be glad it hasn't been longer. I'm not hear to promise more updates. With summer school, a full-time job, and ya know, a life, it's hard to keep up.

I am here to tell you that although you may not get detailed reports on what I'm doing, I want to assure you that I am doing stuff. (I guess this is just a reassurance to myself.) I'm working on my website design, as well as other business collateral. I'm doing fun and exciting freelance projects. I've even been writing a bit, here and there. The ideas are churning and I am doing my best to keep up with them.

So check back, and I promise to do the same.

Someone to Look Up To

2009-03-10T09:51:00.003-04:00

I can't say I have a lot of heroes or know a lot of people that I aspire to be like. (I love my parents, but I don't exactly want to follow in their footsteps professionally.)

But then I read an article about Marissa Mayer in the NYTimes.com. While, I find the idea of being "the gatekeeper of Google's homepage" probably one of the most flattering compliments ever, it's actually the fact that she seems ridiculously meticulous about displaying a consistent face of Google that makes me swoon.

She's the type of woman to say, "I don’t like the words ‘invite’ and ‘view,’ ” she says. “Those two words are recreational. It feels too informal and lighthearted." She knows that Google uses Google not we, that italics are hard to read on screen and that to make a design simpler--take away a typeface, a color or an image (NYtimes). It's not that she knows these fundamentals of design, it's that she adheres to them with a vehemence. Her and her team are creating a style manual for Google that will no doubt influence the future design of the Web. (I'm hoping this leads to less used-car-salesman type looking sites.) It makes me think web design, and doing business on the web, is about to get a swift kick in the ass.

Mayer says, "Once I let up, then something gets by." I appreciate someone who understands the horror and consequences of just letting some tiny thing get by.

The other half of the article goes on to talk about Mayer in a personal light: as a woman who like fru fru things, as personality or mild celebrity etc, things I don't really care about. What impresses me most about this woman, what makes me look up most to this woman, is that she does her job damn well and that the Google higer-ups (although, there aren't many higher up than Mayer) know how important she is to the Google machine.

Would You Pay to Read This?

2009-03-02T08:00:00.000-05:00

I recently had the pleasure of listening to Patrick Coyne, editor of famed Communications Arts, give a talk about the history of CA. During the Q&A portion, there were several questions about the consequences of the economy and the design industry. There were several things said of note, but what I want to talk about most is his comment of, since when do people expect information for free? Good point, Mr. Coyne. Is the world turning into one giant public library?!

In context, he began speaking about how online news sites, he mentioned the likes of the NYTimes.com have considered introducing a micro-pay system--essentially, you'd pay for each article read--although, I'm sure they could make it much more complicated with all sort of packages and inclusions than that. But Coyne basically suggested, why do people (consumers) expect labored over content and information for free? CA has always been a pricey magazine, and people pay for it because they know the content is worth it. And they at CA charge a fee because they too think it's worth it. There is an understood value to the product. That seems to be the bottom line: people pay for things that are worth it. People pay for cable, fios, HD-whatever TV hookups even though the internet has many shows and movies for free. Although, usually illegally free. And some honest, ethical people even pay for their media consumption (TV and music) online.

I expect the online as the free medium model currently in place will soon disappear. More sites will offer more content at a high quality for a paid rate. And why shouldn't they? I would much prefer to pay a bit for NY Times journalism than have to get my news from... well, from some place, un-researched, biased and crappy. I foresee that commercial entities will start asking for payment, and more and more people will begin to pay. For example: I pay for Netflix more for the instant online stream of movies than the 1 unlimited movie I receive in the mail. I'd probably even be willing to pay a bit more if their online streaming movies included even more selections and more recent selections. (Did you get that Netflix?) But some users will continue to pirate material, but those numbers will decrease and the action will become very socially unacceptable--the Seinfeld of the future could do an episode about people stealing media off the internet. Eventually the copyright, digital and entertainment laws will catch up with the internet explosion of the mid 90s, and laws will be set in place, and paying for well done, well communicated information will be commonplace.

However, inevitably, we'll pay a low and fair price for our online consumption, and they'll raise the prices (those greedy jerks) and a new technology will come forth that disseminates great information in a new way for free, so we switch to the new technology because we all feel ripped off by the providers of the old technology, until.. yeah you can guess what I think will happen next. But I'm a cynic.

I've noticed this pay system taking root in the design industry. Such "smaller" (I don't know how I'm quantifying that) design reference sites such as PSD Tuts and Web Designer Wall have opened up for shop. (Although, PSD Tuts has always maintained a, you get more if you pay, mentality. Much like the design standards company Adobe and their Layers magazine and information. They give you a little tease but don't expect them to put out without the cash.) PSDTuts and WDW have opened up Graphic River, "a graphic art department at your fingertips," and Icon Dock, a free stock icon site, respectively. Similarly, some of the best design tutorials on the web are from Lynda.com, and yup, you have to pay for them. iStockphoto.com has recently introduced audio files to broaden their market.

I believe this trend is going to continue. Now, some would go so far as to say that I'm cheap. I proudly consider myself thrifty. I don't buy something, unless I really think it's worth it. But I also believe in ethics of creative property ownership, and I pay for media information that I may use in my designs, such photos and flourishes etc. (Just don't ask me about my online television consumption). I'm not trying to throw stones. I'm really not. I just think that people should reassess the question, is the product I'm buying worth it? Do I want the quality of this to continue to be worth it? Because in a few years, you and your wallet will be forced to address these questions.

But be on the look out for this, and I'd be interested in hearing of more examples.

The Meaning Behind The Commercial

2009-02-25T09:59:00.009-05:00

Recently, I've reentered the world of television. I was a given a little 11 inch (?) TV with antennae and sure enough I've found myself turning it on for the news and then getting stuck watching for an extra hour. Well, I'm noticing a trend in commercials... mainly that they haven't changed at all when it comes to portraying men and women. Take for example this recent, innocent Yoplait yogurt commercial:

Let's break this down: a perfectly healthy looking woman is on a diet. And it's so difficult to keep her mind off snacking that she goes crazy knitting to keep herself busy. The male in the commercial is introduced only for humor--he comes in with a knitted basketball jersey and says, honey this is too hot. Now, this guy looks like you're average guy--he's a bit on the chubby side. But you don't see him knitting like an idiot, frazzled because of some stupid diet, instead he's dressed up ready for a game of basketball. There were several ways to approach this comic relief--he could have entered wearing a knitted sweater and been like, honey, you know it's July right?--but instead Yoplait chose to reinforce gender stereotypes that women diet and suffer and that men are active and sports minded.

The real culprit is the recent Volkswagen car campaign. In it, different people are driving around in different cars and they're all playing off the same logo. Okay, fine. (I'll post it as soon as I can find it online.) In one scene, a woman asks her (presumably) boyfriend, "Am I high maintenance?" To which he lovingly replies, "No," only to look back at the camera with a look on his face to say, of course she is high maintenance. I think both men and women should be offended by this. Women: stop asking trivial questions that you should know the answer to. How not self-aware must you be, if you don't know the answer to: am I high maintenance. Men: You all are apparently liars. You wonder why women constantly have to berate you over the same thing? Do you like my haircut? Are you sure? You mean it? You do like it right? Really? It's because of commercials like this that constantly depict you as lying. How are we supposed to trust you when every media outlet portrays men who are untrustworthy. Stop being so whipped that you can't give an honest opinion. And equally important--why would you put up with a woman who is high maintenance if you find it so unappealing? These two lines of dialogue add nothing to the commercial or ad campaign. They only serve to subscribe to conventional gender stereotypes.

Both commercials are a real disappointment.

The Wastelands of the Internet

2009-02-18T20:05:00.002-05:00

I was recently pondering the vast, infinite(?) waste that exists in cyberspace. Sure enough, I was able to find a very broken down version of a home page (all personal web sites were called home pages back then. I built using one of those freebie hosting companies--remember Tripod and Angelfire? (Believe it or not they still live on with Lycos' help. Although, I wonder in what condition.)

There are so many broken and dead links that I wish some cybernet cleaning crew would come in and erase all of that defunct data. I mean sure, if you search mustaches on Google you get 700,000 plus results... but who cares? If searchers rarely go past the second page of results... really, who's ever gone looking on the 285th page of results for real information and not just amusement? Why keep that extra non sense around?

However, this easily dances around the idea of censorship. I mean if things are going to get cleaned up (i.e. deleted, removed, ex communicado) who gets to decide what? I propose it being time based. I propose, if a site hasn't had activity (either maintenance or a visitor) in over a decade you have to wonder if it is still relevant in our demanding, instant gratification, hyper time-sensitive, time is the new money, era.

Now some people might counter with the notion that maybe you want information about what mustaches were like back in the 1990s and visiting one of those sites is the best way to get authentic (I use that term loosely) information. Quite true. However, even if you were able to discern information with the broken imgs with no alt tags and the repeating, eye sore of a background with yellow text... you don't think you could find that same authentic information in a fancy, updated site?

That's the beautiful thing about the internet. Not its waste, but its regurgitation--okay, that's actually quite annoying if you're like me and are checking for new things every few hours--but really, that regurgitation of information occurs both linearly and vertically in the time continuum. You'll still be able to find your info on mustaches in the 1990s and this time, chances are the images will have been updated and the design much more user friendly.

Thus, no need for those forgotten sites. Except pure nostalgia... and I certainly wouldn't want to deny anybody their right to open up their space of internet to pull out chain letters and fanfiction and muse about how wonderful the good old days were. Because I guess it's true, our memories are no longer physical movie stubs and passed notes folded up like cootie catchers. Instead, in 15 years, we'll find long forgotten tweets about waiting for your luggage at BWI and archived e-mails, casual notes sent to ex-flames professing how you can't wait to see them or how such and such was funny.

I suppose I'm torn on the issue. These online wastelands are back alleys of tiled, but not seamless backgrounds, full of shady animated gifs lurking from the shadows if not lying decrepit on the concrete like a bum in his own soiled waste, the smell of decayed information wafting in the wet air... but to me or you, to someone that waste is the drive past an old home, looking in to see if the wallpaper has changed but glad to be driving past.

Okay, enough with the poetic analogies. Check out this article from the NY Times which is somewhat relevant: Do We Need A New Internet? They consider whether the need for better Internet security will cause a gated community mentality in a sense to protect users and businesses and governments. (I understand the need for this for all governments and/or financial institutions... but beyond that?) People working on this endeavor believe that new software and hardware will come out that will, sort of reroute you into a safer internet--no doubt only if you're willing to pay for it. We've all seen the urban decay as rich, wholesome folk moved from the cities into the suburbs. I wonder what damage will be inflicted upon the many who will be left out in the ghettos of cyberspace. How come we only come up with ways to make it easier for the people who already have it easy?

Front Page News

2009-02-16T08:00:00.000-05:00

A Professor sent me this link and I think it is really quite incredible. (Uses Flash)
Newseum: Front Pages

I really liked it from a news media outlet perspective, but also design wise. Being able to see so many front pages of the same day is quite remarkable. A few days ago, after a plane crashed in Buffalo, NY, I checked the site, and it was clear which papers thought that was an important news story and which ones (like papers in NYC) thought it was an article better saved for the inside sections. Just a great resource to keep an eye on things whenever you're feeling like you're out of options on how to design a piece--remember, hierarchy.

Thievery Corporation Poster

2009-02-09T08:00:00.000-05:00

The group, Thievery Corporation is coming to Rams Head Live in Baltimore soon. They [Rams Head and/or TC] were ever so kind to invite students to participate in making a poster/art for the show. Below is what I've been working on. Any thoughts, please? Black or white? Does it fit the band? Is there anything to add? Things like that would be helpful.

Concert Poster

2009-02-03T18:39:00.003-05:00

I do a lot of design work for local jazz ensemble, Quartet Offensive. For those in Words & Images, the first project (profile), I did the Rolling Stone article about their bassist.

Most recent poster done for them:

It's Good to Be Home

2009-01-31T21:38:00.002-05:00

I'm sure this has been much anticipated by my faithful followers, and I am pleased to announce ::sweeping low bow and gesture:: I'M BACK!

All jokery aside, I am returning to write for the Gray Suite. I've been busy in my absence, writing for film review site: www.womenonscreen.com (go take a look, but please excuse the disgusting decor and design, not my fault), as well as maintaining the simple and low-brow humor of 24 year olds at telephonepictionary.wordpress.com (not for the easily offended.) So feel free to visit those, or just curl up with me here in front of a roaring fire and ultra cool, faux bear rug (because killing animals is wrong.)

For those who don't know my plans here they are: I plan to develop a fabulous site designed to all these me and design. The Gray Suite will be transitioned to that site when it's up and running. However, considering I only have designs of the new site on paper in pencil, it won't be any time too soon. Since I enjoy manual labor and getting my hands dirty, I've decided that I'm going to build it myself rather than hire a developer (although, I'm sure I'll have help from friends--right? please?).

In the mean time, I'll be keeping you up to date with some of my work, the site's design and thoughts about whatever I might think up.

So, check back soon.

Come back again!

2008-12-21T20:15:00.002-05:00

Dear Guests,

Thank you for visiting during the semester to read my writings and leave your comments. I hope you found your stay inviting and thought provoking. It’s been quite an enjoyable experience for me as well, so much that I will continue to keep the house open even though the class assignment is over. I’m taking a hiatus to update the site (perhaps switching hosts?) and to determine a new purpose… I’m sure it will remain as a design/writing haven.

So, if you’d enjoy your stay at the Gray Suite, please come again. I should be back up for business after the New Year, hopefully with a new a look. I’ll be sure to send out a note for those interested. If you have similar aspirations to continue your blog, please let me know in the comments, so that one, I can continue reading, and two, so that I can (with your permission) keep my suite linked to yours.

Once again, thank you, and see you soon.

Your host,
Heather Van De Mark

!!! >:O

2008-12-19T16:08:00.006-05:00

F*******************

********************

******************CK

FUCK!

Due to my USB not being that great, I have to erase it every time I transfer files on and off it, otherwise it says there is no room and I can't add new/updated files to it. Well, I just erased my 80% completed revision of Project 4: Classification. I previously posted images of this revision in a state of about 30% revised, so you can imagine how different the final revision was going to be.

AND I JUST DELETED IT ALL!!! At 4p.m. the day before it's due. To make matters worse, I'm subject to the lab hours, so it's not like I can pull an all nighter to redo it. I either attempt to cram it in the next 4 1/2 hours--starting from almost scratch--or let it go, that A grade I tried so hard for, painfully slipping from my grasp.

Fuck.

Ugh, my blood is rushing. The muscles in my upper body are pulsating. Ugh. I think I know when I'm defeated.

Take a Break and Laugh

2008-12-18T00:42:00.006-05:00

While we all manage through that final push, I thought I'd post these just for laughs. And I think they're fantastic design. Well, the condoms are.The bear is just funny art. I don't really expect anyone to be checking this, but in case you've fallen into that routine of procrastination of checking everyone's blog before doing any work (not that I do anything like that), then well, here you go, just for you:

Show & Tell: Collections

2008-12-15T19:25:00.006-05:00

A little late is better than never... I made that up myself. I wasn't sure if scanning my precious, stuffed Elephant was a good idea, so instead I have these cute odds (not the ends) from my collection.

One is a beer coaster for Delirium Tremens, playing on the idea of the pink elephant which is quite witty for a beer company. The other is a bracelet from the Buffalo Zoo in NY that reads, I (heart icon) Elephants (elephant icon). Other things in my elephant collection:

Statue from Thailand
Statue from the Dominican Republic
Wooden candle holder
Photo of an obelisk that had an elephant at the base of it in Rome, IT
Photo of me with a large elephant statue outside of a famous museum in Paris, FR that I can't remember the name of
And a tiny little plastic statue that I think came from a gumball machine

I'm amassing quite the collection from people (most of the above were gifts), although I urge them that I'm much more interested in live elephants and not replicas, but they just don't listen.

Project Green: Blogs

2008-12-12T09:46:00.003-05:00

I was looking over the weekly handout about project green. I thought this is as good a place as any to get my thoughts together.
Here are some professional sites I enjoy:
Smashing Magazine
The Dieline
These sites function in highlighting design inspiration and techniques, but also serve as a platform to make themselves important players in the design industry. I'm drawn to them because they are routinely updated and include a variety of works--SM highlights creative inspiration posts right next to useful CSS tools next to Photoshop brushes; and The Dieline focuses on all types of packaging from labels to inventive repackaging (a re-useable, recycled-paper, water bottle!). I can't think of much that I don't like about them, which is probably why I go them everyday.

Also great blog, undesign related: 101 Cookbooks very clean layout and simple layout, but it really adds a calming feel which I think she is purposely trying to go for.

However, musician blogs I find tend to leave the most lacking. Everyone and everyone is supposed to have a blog. Yet, many people miss the point of a blog when they only update every few months. I feel that blogs are supposed to gain a regular readership and that'll only happen if there's something to read. For instance Kimya Dawson, her "News" page should act as a professional blog of anything newsworthy, however it went a whole year without being updated. I know she was not completely newsworthy from 2007-2008. But her diary--not for professional purposes--is updated with complete regularity. So, I guess that's something that irks me. You'd think they would want to really utilize this tool to maintain a strong fan base.

I really enjoyed doing this, because keeping a blog is something that I've been intending to do, but hadn't gotten around to it. I think there are three main divisions of things I post--intellectual curiosities, examples and personal work. I will probably redesign this blog with that in mind. I'm also considering switching to a different platform, or really looking more into Blogger, because there are some layout/design things that I'd like to fix. Nothing has really been difficult in maintaining this, I'm surprised that I've always found something to post about... maybe lack of readership/comments is disappointing. I'd like to have more of an ongoing conversation, but are blogs really conversations or just one sided presentations with a small Q&A (usually just questions) at the end?

Revision: Project 4 (Categories)

2008-12-08T20:04:00.007-05:00

Hi everyone. I figure we're all feeling that last push in the semester. Maybe it's early for that... maybe it's just contractions at the moment? I'm starting the revision process, which I was crossing my fingers I wouldn't have to do, but the numbers (letters) just aren't going to add up otherwise. And I'm particularly invested in revising Project 4, because as Prof. Pointer pointed (ha!) out, I have a weakness when it comes to designing with a lot of information. My grid and hierarchy skills leave something to be desired. And for peace of mind, I just can't have that. Below are my revisions, any specific comments you could make I would greatly (!) appreciate-particularly regarding white space, hierarchy and grids. Or anything at all. Thanks!

Show & Tell: Unnecessary Process

2008-12-05T19:07:00.003-05:00

Recently, I saw the new Jose Cuervo ads for their Living Notoriously Well campaign. On first watch, I found them really entertaining. There have been differing opinions on their entertainment value posted on various blogs, but I'll let you decide. To watch the ads go here: livingnotoriouslywell.com Enter your birthday and then click on the right under televised notoriety and watch the two commercials. I thought these were unnecessary processes, particularly How To Negotiate because one of the steps is: have a back up plan. What sort of process negates its worthiness by saying, this may not work, have a back up a plan. It's as if the step to a cake recipe was, buy cake from store just in case. I know it enhances the humor in the ad so I do understand its purpose, but generally speaking, I feel like a well written process should cover all your bases in a way that you'd be successful in the end... but that's just me.

And here is what I am bringing to class, because I found it amusing. The steps show (1) a hand crumpling this piece of paper, (2) the hand hanging the waded paper onto a christmas tree.

TV and Web Harm Kids

2008-12-03T23:49:00.002-05:00

I read this article on Reuters the other day: Lots of TV and Web harms kids' health.

Essentially, a bunch of credible institutions compiled data from studies going back to the 80s to the present, and tallied the information. The studies focused the health effects between children and technology/entertainment, specifically television, but also video games, films, music, computers, and internet use. The findings showed consistency that children who consume high amounts of media have poor health, "The studies offered strong evidence that children who get more media exposure are more likely to become obese, start smoking and begin earlier sexual activity than those who spend less time in front of a screen." Some people have drawn the conclusion that it isn't quality but quantity that is the issue. But, what really got me was the Reuters article constructed the issue like this, "Three quarters of them found that increased media viewing was associated with negative health outcomes." I mean, wow. Three quarters of studies say that our chosen field, effective communication and technological mediums cause NEGATIVE health incomes. Yikes! It really makes you wonder the consequences of the messages you're sending out there, as well as the consequences of the absence of the messages you're not sending out there.

Project 5, Phase 4: Movie

2008-12-01T22:01:00.004-05:00

Hello again. If you don't mind repetitiveness, since you'll have to watch this on Saturday, would you mind taking a look at my Phase 4 movie and leaving me a comment for those points where the text goes by too fast or goes by too slow. I'd welcome any other feedback, but this is my biggest concern at the moment. Much appreciated. And, if there is music/sound effects do your best to ignore them, because they're not right at all at the moment. Thanks again.

Project 6, Phase 3 - TEXT

2008-11-30T19:08:00.002-05:00

Hello, class. I'm having trouble reaching the 300 words for Project 6 (Packaging). Below is my content so far. Hopefully, you'll understand what I'm doing by reading it, but in case you don't, I'm re-purposing bricks as book ends for a haughty home furnishing line. If you have suggestions for things you'd like to read about that would fit along the lines of what I've written, please comment!

General audience:
Well off home owners that prefer simplicity and understatements (or even natural antiquity) to opulence and luxury in their home decor.

Text so far:
Brick Ends
from No Mortar … building great design brick by brick

Uncomplicated design need not connote unattractiveness. At No Mortar, we prefer a minimalist approach to house furnishings. Our authentic class B engineering bricks in fire red will enhance your rugged, exposed brick walls or be a well-crafted juxtaposition to your home décor. This brick set are perfect shelf ends for the minimalist, au naturel or artisanal home.

Built for strength, this brick set is capable of holding books, heavy or oversize books, magazines, records, CDs, DVDs and other items in an erect position on shelves or mantels. Each brick has a unique texture with shallow caverns and pin-hole chasms. The three-hole pattern in each brick not only lightens the weight to prevent excess strain on its ledge, but also adds dynamic visual depth.

Remove the wire holders with scissors to release your brick ends.

Class B engineering bricks
Fired clay, water and sand
2 dimensions
2.7 kg per brick
Made in the U.S.A.

No Mortar’s Home Collection includes well crafted, minimalist home furnishing made from the earth’s most natural sources of clay, sand, stone, wood and water. www.nomortar.com

Week 10 Reading: Insights

2008-11-27T20:27:00.006-05:00

Here are two things that I noticed from this reading, that I'd like to point out because I'm not sure if I could make sense of them in class off the top of my head:

One of the follow-up questions to Jacinto Jesus Cardona's "Bato con Khaki's" is "Why is bato 'too bold' a word for the speaker's 'mother's blood?" (339). Then, right after that, in Jamaica Kincaid's essay "Girl," a dominate voice, probably female (perhaps a mother, older sister or older family friend) speaks to a girl about how to grow up appropriate. The connection between the two pieces highlights how it is the responsibility of the mother/female to raise the next generation both male and female, which is probably obvious because it falls into that domestic sphere.Then, wouldn't it also be presumed, that those children's failures are automatically projected onto the mother? It becomes the mother's responsibility (and shame) when her son becomes a bato or her daughter a slut. Considering all of the outside influences that act upon children--media, technology, peers, other adults, history, it's quite unfair that females are forced to bear this responsibility alone. Katha Pollit supports me (or I guess, I support her), when she wrote "They let parents off the hook--no small recommendation in a culture that hold moms, and sometimes even dads, responsible for their children's every misstep on the road to bliss and success" (399). And isn't unfair to fathers that they aren't given (more) credit for the responsibility or shame that they bear for their children's futures?

Although McQuade and McQuade do a reasonable job to separate gender and race into different chapters, race is still a significant factor to consider when talking about gender (some people debate that it is completely inseperable when speaking of gender). I thought Judith Ortiz Cofer's "The Story of My Body" hit the nail on the head at the end, when she writes,

In college, I suddenly became an "exotic" woman to the men who had survived the
popularity wars in high school, who were now practicing to be worldly: They had
to act liberal in their politics, in their lifestyles and in the women they went
out with (349) [emphasis added].

The questions of exoticism and exploitation are really interesting. Conversely, in "How to Write A Catchy Beer Ad," when the ad makers were filming the ad, they wanted women "to look hot but approachable, someone I wouldn't be scared to talk to" and thus went with twins who were "All-american and real" (391). (Funny--of course they're real, they picked living, breathing humans?! And what does it mean to be All-American?!) They wanted women who were similar to themselves, but "approachable" which could be read as non-threatening, subservient, less than. And are exotic women thus oppositely viewed as other and scary?

Week 10 Reading

2008-11-27T20:05:00.003-05:00

Yes, I am posting on Thanksgiving. Some people may make a big deal out of this, as in this isn't much of a holiday if I'm doing school work, but what's a better way to chill out and digest than blogging? Probably watching a movie, but blogging it is.

I was anticipating this week's reading, because I have a vested interest in gender studies (I wish more people did). Mainly I tell people I have my degree in English, but I doubled, and also have a degree in Feminist Gender Sexuality Studies. Try not to let the F-word scare you.

More or less I found that McQuade and McQuade had good insights and asked several important questions. I highly suggest:

p. 343 Judith Ortiz Cofer's "The Story of my Body"
p.353 Marjane Satrapi's excerpt from "Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood" - if you haven't seen the film from this graphic novel, Persepolis, Netflix or rent it IMMEDIATELY. It's brilliant (and entertaining) and showed me a world vastly different from the few stereotypes I had in my head about Iran.
p. 366 Jane Slaughter's "A Beaut of a Shiner"
p. 370 Portfolio: Nancy Burson
p. 378 Susan Bordo's "Never Just Pictures"
p. 390 Chris Bollard's "How to Write A Catchy Beer Ad"
p. 398 Katha Pollit's "Why Boys Don't Play with Dolls"
p. 402 ARMY ad "There's Something About a Soldier"

I don't have a highlight this week, however I will post a few insights I had (immediately following this post--yes one rock, two birds.) But I will end with this food for thought from Pollit's "Why Boys Don't play with Dolls."

Every mother in that room had spent years becoming a person who had to be taken
seriously, not least by herself.

Web Accessibility

2008-11-19T21:43:00.003-05:00

Tonight, I went to the lecture regarding Web Accessibility for blind persons presented by Anne Taylor, director of access technology, Wesley Majerus, access tech specialist, and another gentleman whose name I didn't catch. These individuals were representatives from the National Federation of the Blind.

It was an interesting talk, and here are a few key points in no particular order:

To make an accessible web site, you need to understand how screen readers works (which I don't, and still don't quite get after this talk), and you need to do user ability testing with blind persons.
Blind persons have to invest a lot of money (a minimum of $2,500) in screen readers (even more money if they're deaf and blind), so they expect web sites to function accordingly to meet their needs (quite understandable.)
They don't believe in text-only pages on the basis that separate is not equal. Reasons against separate text-only sites: they're not maintained as well, they tend to be boring and plain, and it's not a cost effective solution for a company to run two sites.
Apparently, Flash sites and PDFs can be made accessible if they're labeled appropriately. (Unfortunately, she didn't get into how to do that--maybe it's a given?)
In the next 20 years, the market demand for accessible websites is going to increase rapidly--all those baby boomers who know how to use computers will want to continue to use them in their declining eyesight, old age.
Other reasons why you should go out of your way to improve accessibility: by improving accessibility you will automatically improve usability, it differentiates your company as one with particular values, and to avoid legal litigation (the NFB just settled with Target.com for $4 million, an amount she said could have been avoided with about $50k worth of accessibility redevelopment to the site!)

I wish she had gone into more detail as to what needs to be precisely done in the coding and what not. Rather than being a tech informational lecture, it was more of an tech advocacy lecture, which is fine, just not what I was expecting. Although, she said much information could be found at their website: The National Federation of the Blind. They also do website certification that is somewhere above federal 508 compliance, which is the sort of thing I'd want to see as a norm.

Choosing to attend this lecture, I missed out on the Bringhurst/language talk at UMBC. If anyone went to that, please post about it or let me know how it went. Thanks.

Call to Action Posters

2008-11-19T15:05:00.004-05:00

I feel like these campaigns, sort of put us all to shame... ahh, back to the drawing board. Check it out: Design as a Force of Good from PSDTUTS.com

Week 9 Reading: READING ICONS

2008-11-17T19:24:00.008-05:00

I'm going to do this week's recap of the reading a little differently. I was surprised (and yet, not surprised) that the icons the chapter chose to use and questions it asked, were icons I had seen in the past week and questions that had been asked in other design forums. I found this very coincidental, and expected, they are icons after all and chances are their "easily determinable meaning" is often parodied and reconstructed for that very reason.

So, to go along with the bathroom icons on pages 499-505:
I like this design very much, particularly for the angles of their heads. However, if could easily be misinterpreted as one bathroom being for well, number one, and the other bathroom for number two. Nevertheless a good try. And much better than the image of the dog's face on p. 504 from Hong Kong, which I don't understand at all... anyone?

Then to go along with p. 508, Grant Wood's "American Gothic." Which I've seen parodied a hundred times, but really knew nothing about, and was very glad to read Guy Davenport's "The Geography of the Imagination" for insight, I present:

This chapter's Profile is of Tibor Kalman, who altered the racial identities of high profile people, pages 546-556. In true Kalman style, someone/some people altered the racial identities of Barack Obama and John McCain--who to give credit to, I'm not exactly sure:

To sum up, I'd like to look at the Mercedes ad on p. 520-21. It says "Glimpse at them for a split second, and you know exactly what they mean." I feel like the reason we redesign and parody iconic images, is because as message makers we understand that NOTHING has a definitive meaning, icons change according to audience, culture, time, place etc. I'll admit I might be putting words into people's mouths, but this is the way I'd like to see the world: We, as image and message makers, toy with these icons because as much as we create design and images to market, persuade and sell ideas, we'd much prefer to market and sell to an astute and interested audience who would rather read messages and interact with images, rather than "glimpse at them for a split second."

Show & Tell: Favorite Words

2008-11-16T12:09:00.004-05:00

Here are some of my favorite words:

RE words: revelation, reactionary, revolution
*These words sound strong and round.

Words whose synonyms I detest: flatulent, skivvies
*I loathe the word fart. And dislike the word underwear. I'm also not crazy about diaphragm, like... and others I will add when I think of them.

Words with a story: wonderful, via
*The first time I saw the movie from the Lemony Snicket (sp?) books, I remember being so content when I left. I loved how it was so imaginative and there was so much child like wonder. And then I realized it was full of wonder aka wonderful. The meaning of the word really hit home in that very moment, and I realized it wasn't just a synonym for good or hapy or pleasant. A character from Jitterbug Perfume (by Tom Robbins) argues, "There are no such things as synonyms!"
*The story for via (pronounced the British Vie-a, not V-a) is that I heard someone talking on NPR and they say vie-a and it took a moment to register what they were saying and it was probably the first time I was aware of the differences of English and the significance of the pronunciation.

Words I mispronounce: mountain (moun'in) or any word with a strong 't' in the ending syllable, it tends to get skipped or rounded out to a 'd', when (win), pillow (pellow). I find it funny that I mispronounce them, so I don't mind at all, unless I'm talking to someone academic/scholarly and then I feel a bit like a joke.

My disdain for filmmaking

2008-11-14T19:43:00.004-05:00

I'm not crazy about this movie project. In fact, I've been dreading it since the Profs. mentioned it way back when we had the week off. I don't know why, it's just another project like any other. I thought because my thinking isn't very linear, it may make it extra difficult... but then I remembered my few interactions with film... and I'm still cringing.

In early middle school, I remember some boys who I went to elementary school with, coming up to me one day to tell they had been over to Josh's house and were watching their old soccer games. Well, apparently, there's a video of me playing goalie and one of the other boys (who was of course, the most handsome, charming, funny, soooo cute boy in the sixth grade and a neighbor of mine) running up to the goal and kicking the soccer ball... into my face. I was told I cried. I was told it looked like it hurt. And then they laughed. I didn't remember it at all, but at that moment, I absolutely hated technology that could record past events to be replayed unbeknownest me.

Then, in seventh grade, everyone had to make an "ad" in Social Studies. A friend and I made one for a trip to D.C. that the school was having. I played the Star Spangled banner on my sax for the soundtrack and we acted out a ridiculous script. Oh, the laughter that ensued. The tape of my saxophone playing was way too loud in the background to hear anything that was being said. And too loud to not notice the all too often errors. (I was never much for practicing.) It's like being in a ball park and the singer of the anthem is just too bad that you just want it to end. Well, it's 10x worse for the singer. I wanted it to end too. But no, the three minutes dragged on. How was I supposed to know that you have to actually adjust sound levels? Wouldn't it just tape the way it was playing out in my head?

I quit saxophone and stayed out of the spotlight for most of high school. Until senior year, when in one last show of bravada, some friends and I created a dance routine for Moulin Rouge's "Lady Marmalade" to perform as part of Air Band (essentially an end of the year hurrah where everyone lip syncs to silly songs in front of an auditorium of people.) Mid song I manage to forget most of my dance movies. was much more interested in observing the audience observing me than in actually performing. Well, unfortunately, during the senior week breakfast morning, they decided to have viewing of the evening's performances in case anyone had missed it. I slunked so far down when my group's song came up, I might as well have been lying on the floor.

There also may be a story about an educational video for Spanish class, but I'm not ready to open that Pandora's box. (Did you know Pandora actually had something more like an rounded sort of jug/vessel/vase thing, not a box? Box was just a word a writer chose because it sounded better.)

There's something about film and me that I equate with humiliation. But, hopefully this time it will be better--because I'm not in it, I'm behind it. Nevertheless... please keep your giggles to a minimum... or else I will never work in film again. That's a promise.

On a side note: after this project, I have an increased respect for moviemakers. I've always been impressed by the thoughtfulness of it all: the angle of shots, shooting scenes out of order, creating an ambience, multitasking in every aspect of life (sound, light, movement, time, etc.).

So, props to all you filmmakers out there.

Project 5 -Narrative

2008-11-11T14:07:00.005-05:00

This iMovie project is definitely going to be not my best work, so to speak. I have no idea how to use iMovie and more own thinking isn't very linear, so this whole thing is going to be difficult. Not to mention, I'm just using jpgs, everytime I want someone to movie I'm working with same still and moving a limb or an eyebrow just a bit again and again. But anyway, that's not what this post is about.

There's something to be said about people who go through the trouble of stop-motion videos. Here's a great one (I don't know if there is sound or how it looks with sound, I don't have sound currently...): They used over 3,000 images.

London (harder, better, faster, stronger) from David Hubert on Vimeo.

[Update 11.12.08]
Here's another cool video (not a stop-motion)--again, no sound, so I don't know if the music is any good. I like the concept. It starts to lag, but watch til the end, the credits part is pretty cool.
I wonder if they hired a hand model?

KRAAK AND SMAAK squeeze me from FunkySpaceMonkey on Vimeo.

Show & Tell: Narrative

2008-11-10T21:41:00.005-05:00

For last week's class, I brought a Tretorn ad that was a photograph of a boy chasing a girl on a bike. I thought it might constitute a narrative, but it turns out the image itself isn't a narrative, it's a visual snippet, and as the viewer I create the narrative (he catches the elusive girl). Although, I think it was close to a narrative because it did show action . I think the main thing that prevents it from being a narrative is the fact that it didn't show a progression of time. I suppose that's the difference between vignette and narrative. Vignettes are snippets. Narratives include time.

I guess an important thing to discuss is to define what narrative is. Dr. Gisbon says it has to include two characters, conflict, time... maybe some other stuff. The dictionary defines narrative: a story or account of events, experiences, or the like, whether true or fictitious. So I think the most important part of narrative is that it's an account of events (plural!). So not characters, conflict, etc., but time.

Which brings me to this Candian Club whiskey ad, which is one of my favorite ads. I think this is a narrative because we see the images as retelling events, and the headline "Your mom wasn't your dad's first" is the thread between the images. With both these elements there is a narrative within the ad, rather than being supplied by the viewer--although, the viewer could easily add more to the narrative with some imagination.

Week 8 Reading

2008-11-05T20:06:00.005-05:00

Real quick, some good parts from Chapter 3 in McQuade & McQuade.

Tom Brokaw's "An Ode To Loved Labors Lost" p. 253, mainly for the sentence "and sensing for the first time in my young life the genuine excitement of wrestling with big ideas, and the force of intellectual curiosity." I heart that excitement.
"The First Thanksgiving" by Sarah Vowell, p.256
"Fish Cheeks" by Amy Tan, p. 261, Amy Tan can break my heart with words.
Art Spiegalman, p. 300. He wears an upside down peace pin (p. 302), I wonder if he's turned around yet.
"Vivian, Fort Barnwell" by Ethan Canin, p. 323. My brother has a photo on me and him on his wall as kids and I think it's really sweet, (he's pretty separated from the family), that I didn't have the heart to tell him it wasn't us--or at the least not me. I think it was some family friends--also biracial asian kids.

There's a lot of good stuff in this chapter. Highlight: Savulich's portfolio, p. 274-278. I'm interested by the fact these images have captions. I'm not one for gruesome things or heartbreaking things (like watching a jumper on a hotel roof), so I'm wondering about his need to include captions. He says that he feels he's "recording something that's really happening." which I definitely understand. There is action and a story in those photos, so again, why use the captions? Is he just concerned that we interpret the "correct" story?

A new beginning in sight

2008-11-05T15:04:00.008-05:00

The news that Barack Obama will be the next President of the United States is momentous. I am exhilarated (and grateful that devastation isn't the only emotion there is post-election poll results, I was starting to worry.) I think The New Yorker cover is stunning and sums up so much so simply. [Update 11.06.08: Brian Stauffer was the artist of this cover.]

I like design because....

2008-11-02T18:19:00.004-05:00

I teach creative writing girls to some high school girls on the weekends, and I was helping them with their college essays. And a girl remarked that in an interview they asked her why she liked theater, and she was completely unable to articulate her passion. I thought that was the root of why her essay wasn't effective. So we all took some to write about what we love/like. Here's what I wrote:

I like design because it combines art with emotion for an effective purpose. It makes you feel something through well crafted visuals and can make you have an "ah-ha" moment and usually all subconsciously. Design is thoughtful and enticing, always a mystery of details--why is that there in that way in that color in that font in that medium? Why do I want to look at it and touch it and interact with it? Design is the tangible creation of my curiosities.

I like this concept and feel like I articulated it well. I found a common theme in being able to speak about your passion: define--and not in a dictionary definition sort of way, and say how it relates to you specifically.

I'm curious what your interests are and how you would answer, "Why do you like...."

Spring 2009 Classes

2008-11-02T11:01:00.001-05:00

I was checking out what classes are going to be available next spring and I was wondering if any of you knew anything about the following professors or classes:
Editorial Style - Arthur Magida
Typography - Dina Wasmer or Max Boam
Publications Management - Cathy Lips

Any insights would be greatly appreciated or any professors/classes you strongly recommend would be fantastic, thanks.

Show& Tell: Typography

2008-11-01T20:29:00.006-04:00

For show & tell this week, I brought in Mark Danielewski's "House of Leaves." There's a lot going on in this story, and the different typefaces help distinguish between the three concurrent narrators.

In addition, the typography begins to get crazy as the events within the house become crazy. Sometimes words will run up and down a page to mimick movement along a staircase, or only a single word will be on a page so you feel the narrator's increasing isolation, or the type will be backwards to show his movement through a place. This treatment is always a thoughtful decision that reflects the story--it's never done as a decorative element, it's done because it adds to the story. In addition, there is a page of braille, there are crossed out lines in red, missing text, text overlap, etc.

It's very fascinating and even though it can get tedious to read a footnote that extends into a story on the following pages, and then turn back several pages to get to the original story that had the footnote; and to turn the book 360 degrees while reading, it's quite the experience that adds to the act of reading. I suggest reading and trying it to see how it effects you.

REDESIGN, Project 3: Call to Action

2008-10-30T00:10:00.012-04:00

I'm a strapped for time this week. But I had an epiphany and am now redesigning my phase 4 comps for Project 3. While I like where I'm going with this, I'm wondering if I've "been in the monkey house too long" and can't smell the stink.

So here are the before and afters. Please let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions--if you don't like the new ones, please say so, considering the professors won't hesitate to point out everything wrong, I'd rather not walk into class disillusioned that I had a good idea, but then again, maybe you'll like them...? I'd greatly appreciate comments, although understand, again with the time budget, I don't know what changes, if any, I'll be able to get to. But thanks!

Magazine ad:

Post card: the redesign isn't quite finished, and I forgot to make a jpg of the old version--but it was horizontal and it had a picture of the movie poster and book cover and it said VISION.

Design Ethics: Shepard Fairey

2008-10-29T13:30:00.005-04:00

I was meandering on the web, when I found myself in the art section of the Obama store. If you scroll down to the sold out, iconic red, white and blue image of Obama and CHANGE poster at the bottom, you'll see Shepard Fairey was the artist. What made me think twice about him was in his quote he wrote, "I know I have an audience of young art fans," which I think is an interesting statement and I wanted to know more about him.

Well, it turns out he's the designer behind my favorite fashion line (OBEY)! And let me clarify by "my favorite fashion line," I mean, my favorite shirt is an OBEY shirt, and it's the only one in the line own, but I do heart it a lot and as a result OBEY is probably one of the only fashion lines I can name. But to continue on...

I was super excited to find out more about Mr. Fairey's company, past, art skills etc. (a la Wikipedia), but then I came upon this page: Obey Plaigerist Shepard Fairey. Essentially, the article claims that Fairey has pilfered the majority of his works from dead and living artists. He reappropriates art and imagery into a new context, but usually changes very little or none of the art itself, and he mass markets it under the presumption that it is his own work--never giving credit to the original artist or piece. [The side by side comparisons in the article are quite incriminating. Some look like exact replicas.] And, as the article points out, not only does he do this--he profits from it. Essentially, the article claims, he is stealing both art integrity and money from the original artists.

I'm just curious where people stand on this. Is Fairey a hack who has crossed the ethical design line? Has he cut ethical corners like any other business man does? Can he claim it as his own because he has created it in a new context? If it's not copyrighted and in the public domain--either because it's too old or was never registered--is it fair game? Is Fairey taking advantage of the fact that is hard to patrol and penalize art/idea theft? Does the belief, that an artist has a moral obligation to other artists to respect their work, exist in other career fields or is special to the art field because our creations are personal?

I'd like to know what you all think on any of this. Also, if you read my previous post on Foundation for a Better Life, you'll see that a similar thing happened to me--I love something, google it, then find obscure article blasting it. And like in real life, I'm having trouble finding the final Truth on the subjects on the Web. Ahh, elusive Truth, where have you gone?

Week 6 Reading: Bang!

2008-10-23T20:07:00.004-04:00

I really liked and really disliked this book. I thought it accomplished what it set out to do, but I had the occasional disagreement. (And what's with the cover? According to her writing, the way the white pops insinuates that she is the most important thing--I would have thought the title. And why the "mediation" configuration? I suppose the centered-ness makes the reader focus on it longer, but it feels much less dynamic.)

Dislikes:
Her word choice/tone. Example: the word "innards," the story of her art prof. on p. 52, referring to "drunken blood shot eyes" in a kid's book (I'm going on the basis that this is intended for kids b/c that's where the library shelves it). I think she's trying to be casual (or un-intellectual), but she kind of comes off as a know-it-all. Her over explaining gets tedious. Her redemption was flipping the page and reading, "The wolf looks stupid now..." (p. 34). That was laugh out loud hilarious.

Likes:
I thought her Little Red Riding Hood images were successful. Principle #9 was helpful, to paraphrase, we associate things of the same color as being together more than things of the same shape. I also enjoyed the image constructed by the 8th grader at the end of the book.

Highlight:
The images on page 82-83. To paraphrase again, some pictures are contained within their space and the viewer is left outside of it, but when our eyes notice an object within the picture, we move into the picture. I though the corresponding images to this idea were perfect. As a beginning designer, I see (and make) some really bad design, but am not sure what it is that's missing, why it feels so amateur, and now I realize that usually it's because the viewer wasn't brought into the design, the piece existed in its own space without the viewer. Being aware of this is going to be helpful.

Show & Tell: Classification

2008-10-20T21:36:00.008-04:00

It's not super exciting, but my classification this week was from Real Simple. The article classified things that cause you to lose your focus: lack of sleep, stress and anger, age and genetics, and modern distractions. Then they tell you how to regain your focus in each of the categories. I liked that they weren't classifying objects, but more so, I really liked their photos that went with the spread. They're done by photographer, Nato Walton (the article is by Kristyn Krusek Lewis). I like these photos because they augment the article's concept. It's very subtle, but look what being distracted causes: mismatched shoes, pouring salt instead of sugar and burning your ironing. It's just that the placement of the pull quote makes you see the mismatched shoes. The circle on the coffee mug makes you see the salt stream, and you see the red dress first but then you see the burn mark pointing to it. So it's all very subtle but it works.

(Side note, man I dislike how the photos display/layout in this template blog.)

Project 4: Classification

2008-10-14T16:41:00.003-04:00

So, I want to classify humanitarian causes to make people realize that it's better to be more passionate about one unjust cause than to feel overwhelmed by them all and do nothing.

Classifying international humanitarian causes
The principle: Classify by cause/crisis

Genocide/mass murder - Darfur,
Famine/Hunger (would vegetarian/vegan issues fit under this?)
Disease - AIDS, bird flus, STDs, doctors without borders
Environmental - stopping climate change, government regulation, areas impacted by natural disasters
War - Iraq, Afhganistan (should this be under genocide?)
Domestic Issues - US-specific causes
Civil Liberties - slave trade/racism, sexual slave trade/sexism, rights to all people regardless of class, creed, age, sex etc.

The categories are fairly broad--which I think is ok?--but the "classes" aren't parallel exactly, does that matter? Wondering what you all think, if some might work better than others and if I left anything major out? I'd like to cover a wide spectrum.

Week 5 Reading

2008-10-13T15:42:00.004-04:00

Here are a few gems from this week's reading in McQuade & McQuade, Chapter 5: Tip, don't skip the reading pieces this week.

"How to Live" by Annie Dillard, p. 426-428
"Coming into the Country" by Gish Jen, p. 434-436
"Cool like Me" by Donnell Alexander, p. 440-443. I really fell for this one, when I read, cool is "about making a dollar out of a 15 cents." I think this could be a starting point for a discussion on the connection between the current "hipster" cool that steals from low-class culture--trucker hats, flannel/plaid shirts and mohawks/mullets. Originally I thought an article on cool was going to be, well, lame. But Alexander really does understand cool. The synthesis of difference and living by it, not just wearing it or speaking it, but being it.
"24 People for whom I haven been mistaken" by Roger Shimomura, p.474-475
"National Museum of the Middle Class Opens in Schaumburg, Il." by The Onion. p. 488-89. What was greatest about this piece is their decsribing the middle class workers work week--eight hours a day, five days a week, and weekends off, and it makes it so clear that this is NOT the way we, people, have to live their lives. It's how we choose to or are made to choose to. The work week is just a construct and I think everyone's lives would be a lot better if the system would reevaluate what is best for the people and the economy regarding the balance of work and life. (I strongly support afternoon siestas and shutting down for the month of August. Ohhh France!)

Pick of the Week: Nikki Lee's collection from p. 407-419. The images were fairly intersting in their own right, but when I was reading her bio and realized that it was her in every image, that she had worked her way into each of the different subcultures, I was blown away. Mostly, I'm curious about how she infiltrated these cultures. She altered her "hair, makeup, clothing, body language, and even weight to fit in." It seems and makes me question the level of deception. Did her new friends know nothing about her project, did they know anything of her when the make-up and clothes were off? If so, how did they feel? If not, how did they feel when she was suddenly no longer a part of their lives? (I'm making the assumption that if she didn't tell them, she must have removed herself from them, because how could she maintain so many facades simultaneously.) The photos ask who are you and what makes you you? But they also seem to be answering that you are shaped wholly by your environment. Perhaps, if we were provided with her personal feelings regarding her experience, we could see the role that nature (ie genetics, ethnicity etc) played and/or intertwined with environment.

Show & Tell: Call to Action

2008-10-11T16:40:00.008-04:00

My calls to action are from the Foundation for a Better Life.
I'm a huge fan of these billboards. They tend to hit home in the heart area.

The call to action is gentle. Pass it on. Be a better person. But I really like having this reminder amid the masses of McDonalds billboards and cheap motels along the highway. I don't think people are inherently good--well I do sort of--but I think people should still put the efforts into actually being good people as in, actually doing good things. And I feel like what the Foundation considers "good" is in line what I think is good.

However, recently, I found an article that said the FFABL was listed to some rich oil tycoon: article here. Thanks for crushing my hopes Portland Indymedia. I haven't fully read it yet, so I'm not sure how or if it will change how I view these billboards. Can bad people do good things? Is it deceptive that these ad campaign, perhaps comes from someone who does not represent them?

And interesting enough, I received this quote in my inbox today:

Journalism is publishing what someone doesn't want us to know, the rest is propaganda. -Horacio Verbitsky

which I thought was interesting/relevant, because Portland Indymedia calls the ads propaganda.

Bad Ad

2008-10-09T18:26:00.008-04:00

I wasn't sure what I was going to post for my second post this week, until I found this bad ad:

I'm don't think it's my preference that I think this is bad. I understand that sex sells and some provocative ads sell well. But I think this doesn't work because the creators have misunderstood the audience. I found it in Rolling Stone magazine from a few months ago. I feel like Macy's was like, hmm, Rolling Stone, yeah, lets be edgy and racy and raw and we'll use the youthful, sex angle. But it still feels like a mall shopping store ad that happens to be using a naked person. They completely lost the fantasy world that usually emanates from a sexy ad--although, they try to incorporate it with that reflective mirror effect. which feels creepy and inauthentic. It's as if they thought, just throw in a naked woman, as if that makes something sexy or provocative or compelling. I just found it interesting because this is one of the first times where I've seen an ad and known why it was bad contextually rather than because I didn't care for the design.

I wrote a poem

2008-10-08T10:22:00.004-04:00

Ever since I've switched gears to focus and learn graphic design, my writing has been nearly non-existent, which is unfortunate because I'm trained in and love writing (particularly poetry). Well, I was watching a film and had some inspiration and I wrote a poem. ::Pat on the back::

This poem directly references the movie, but I'm curious how it works for those who haven't seen or don't know what the movie is... Special bonus points to you if you can guess the movie. I have a series of poems that do this, reinterpret visual cues into written words. I'm very interested in the connection between the two mediums-film and language.

But it's obvious how excited I am to be writing again, because I'm being so upfront in sharing a draft, that I undoubtedly will think is junk in three months. But I'd appreciate any critiquing, what you get and what you don't get, what works and what doesn't. A fresh perspective is always helpful, thanks.

::Warning, may include disturbing images--it was a violent movie::

The Wolf
For Lou Ellen and Carla Jean

i. A cowboy kills with precision.
A sheriff kills with a conscious.
The lobo kills.

ii. Have you ever watched
a deputy struggle to death—
kicking up shoe scuffs as if it was a dance?
Have you ever watched a handcuffed man
take away the breath of a peace keeping man,
the chain on the handcuffs
ripping paper cuts
across the flesh of his neck?

Would you talk to death before you die?
Would you put out your life story?
You don’t even know what you’re saying,
the wolf mocks you. You stammer,
who are you, what is that; you
try to blot out his voice—
a voice that throws you to your knees
praying it’s not the last thing you hear on earth—; you
wonder why there is suddenly
a trembling fear in your voice.
Not knowing what hits you
is a courtesy he gives you.

iii. The cowboy escapes his tango
with the wolf, and oozing wounds
make him brave which means foolish
and he turns the tables desperately
and goes on the hunt with a fury in his eyes
and a fire in his heart, but our hero dies too.
The legends of cowboys are just stories.

He sits where the man
who he is hunting sat when watching TV,
The sheriff chasing him
sits where the hunter sat watching his reflection.
The milk jar is sweating, a beaded ring
on the table—are you
hoping to catch him, or glad
you just missed him?
Do you die, veins full
of piss and vinegar, or do you retire
and fill your nights with desert dreams
of your deceased father?

iv. Arriving home in mourning you
set down your keys and you
pause at the open window and you
sigh and you know. You
nudge the bedroom door ajar with your finger tips—
his presence permeates
like poison gas billowing—you already know
he sits in the wicker rocking chair, still,
in the corner, as if he’s been waiting all this time for you
to come to him.

It's a Software Premier!

2008-10-04T13:39:00.002-04:00

I watched this on ilovetypography.com. It's cheesy funny, but I love that the reviews are from xheight.com and ascender weekly, lol.

BraveFont from ilovetypography.com on Vimeo.

Week 4: Reading

2008-10-01T15:25:00.012-04:00

This/Next week's reading had a lot of great stuff that focused on visual literacy. Some selections:

Amnesty International's "Imagine" series p. 600-602
Nick Hornby writing on Richard Billingham's photos p. 618-623
Regarding the Pain of Others by Susan Sontag p. 652-656, although I'm not sure if this excerpt does justice to the book which is very thought-provoking
p. 672, p. 673, John Kerry and Photo of the Year respectively

Standout: Frank Fournier's photograph of Omayra Sanchez, and corresponding essay by Isabel Allende and Interview with Fournier. I really appreciated the interview excerpt with Fournier, because like most other people, as he says, I wondered why the hell he wasn't helping her. Realizing that she was a goner by the time he got to her, mildly eases my discomfort regarding his judgement to photograph her.

I think it's interesting that the Chapter opens talking about Visual Literacy, and how in this age, "information, indeas and epistemology are given form by television, not by the printed word," according to Neil Postman. But I think the photo of Omayra relies on the words to tell the truth--I know that word is red flag. Really, I wasn't even sure what I was looking at when I first saw the photo, I knew something was wrong but had no real context. I gathered the information and ideas from the following texts. Although, we may be in an age of visual consumption, we can't assume that it wholly satisfying.

I'm also touched by the Fournier photo and interview and Allende's text because it makes me think of a plot point in the book: House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. For those who have read it, I'm thinking of Will Navidson and his photo of the girl (what is her name?!). For those of you haven't, read it, it is an amazing, chilling, challenging book, and should be of interest to any book designer purely because of it's form.

Week Off

2008-09-30T22:17:00.003-04:00

Wow, it's a really great thing W&I isn't meeting this week.
With a slip of the hand, I deleted my entire "project 1: profile" folder. Ack. Sigh. So, I'll be spending a good few days redoing it. Thankfully, the project is already handed in. But I feel like I might still need it.

On another note... I'm also spending this week off from W&I figuring out what to do for project 3. I'm thinking on something about reading more/literacy. Or something from The Foundation for a Better Life, because I love this organization and their ads. They have about 30 different values to choose from, so I'm thinking about reading up and then choosing one... but I'm thinking that I might love them too much to redo it well. So, we'll see...

Show & Tell: Favorite Sentence

2008-09-26T19:55:00.004-04:00

My favorite sentence comes from my favorite book, Nadja by Andre Breton.

She told me her name, the one she had chosen for herself: "Nadja, because in Russian it's the beginning of the word hope, and because it's only the beginning."

This is a great sentence because it has the same whimsical tone that the book does, that it is all just the beginning (Breton began the surrealist movement in writing.) He easily could have written, she told me her name was Nadja, she said it was the beginning of the word hope in Russian. Breton's sentence has rhythym. I heart this book. The premise is, a lot of rambling followed by about thirty pages of Breton meeting this woman Nadja in Paris (an actual account from his life) and the following few days they spend together going to cafes and such, again followed by more rambling. One of the major questions surrounding the book is, is Nadja real or did Breton make her up? Knowing this, makes this sentence doubly interesting because, is this the name she chose for herself or did Breton name her? I lean towards her being the subconscience of Breton.

Some runner ups:

Gradually, however, we are devoured by parents, gulped by schools, chewed up by peers, swallowed by social institutions, wolfed by bad habits, and gnawed by age; and by the time we have been digested, cow style, in those six stomachs, we emerge a single disgusting shade of brown. from Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins

Although, I don't care for Robbins' books, I'm not sure why I don't like them, I am very aware that that man knows how to turn a sentence.

She was only the dead-leaf echo of the nymphet from long ago - but I loved her, this Lolita, pale and polluted and big with another man's child. from Adrian Lyne's film, "Lolita" based on Nabokov's novel of the same name

This movie quote is derived from multiple, long sentences in the book. I prefer this succint version. I love the description of a "dead-leaf echo."

Design for Democracy

2008-09-25T21:36:00.004-04:00

I went to go see Marcia Lausen's talk entitled "Design for Democracy: Ballot and Election Design" at Towson University tonight. Although it was fast-paced, she covered a lot of interesting things.

Basically, she aided in the redesign of ballots and election materials in, so far, Chicago and Oregon. Lausen, along with an undergraduate graphic design class, an undergraduate industrial design class and election officials and committees took on the challenges of several problem areas, created solutions, designed materials, tested materials and are dispersing this information for free (AIGA Design for Democracy gives away A LOT of free materials regarding voting and the election). They gained increasing national attention and were showcased in several countries in Europe.

What I strongly appreciated is that Marcia Lausen isn't using this platform to pat herself on the back. She's advocating for the design profession. Working with people (election officials, government officials) who don't understand what design is or don't see the need for it, and making them understand that poor design has consequences (e.g. Florida in 2000) and that good design makes for more voter retention (she actually had a great chart on this) which ultimately serves to better our democracy. Likewise, she told officials that the jargon on the election ballot needed to be rewritten, and when they said no (for fears of being sued and what not), she asked them, do you even care about the voters? Audience!

Other really great things: apparently, there are laws about ballot design such as all names of candidates must be entirely capitalized. She had to go to court (?) and have this overturned, she convinced them that correct capitalization with lowercase letters is more easily distinguished than straight caps. She didn't know at the time that she should have been arguing for the grey background in the prototype too, apparently, that is also legally defined.

Lausen and her class overcame a lot of heirarchy of information problems by simplifying text sizes, weights and fonts. In addition, they created an overall identity for the materials: "red for instruction, blue for information" was a solid component. When voters recieved something in the mail 3 months before the election, it looked like the information given to them on the day of election. (Previously, voters would recieve a how-to brochure in the mail with 4 steps, and then on election day be given a how-to (for the same procedure) that had blown up into 11 steps and a completely different design.)

All and all, it was an interesting talk on a subject that I wouldn't have thought could be interesting. And it really provided a real life example for anyone who thinks design doesn't matter or is easy (Lausen worked on this project, and subsequent book, for eight years).