Saturday, March 26, 2011

Journal Entry 3/28

While visiting downtown KC, the Power and Light District, and the Westbottoms, I noticed a lot of typography. Here are some pictures of what I saw:
















Sunday, March 13, 2011

Journal Entry 3/14

Little and Co asked 30 designers the same two questions... “What single example of design inspires you most?” and “What problem should design solve next?”


JESSICA HISCH: The work that other students inspires her most. She just recently graduated in 2006, and she feels like she has grown so much since then, and she can't imagine how others have grown, and that both intimidates and motivates her. She thinks that designers need to prepare for the decline of print design, primarily unnecessary print, and she thinks that everyone needs to be aware that digital will be the primary form of design, and artists shouldn't get paid awfully just because of that.


TONY HAWK: Apple products have inspired him most. They have taken what use to be a business product only and turned it into something that is easy to use and you are proud to display. They have done this time and time again with music products and phones. They took an idea and make it less intimidating. As our technology advance,s it becomes more intimidate, and we need to embrace it and make it easy and fun to use.


STEFAN BUCHER: Hummingbirds have inspired him the most. They have shown that evolution has an excellent of humor. He said"they are evolution showing off" There is a whole range of birds, but the hummingbird is so elaborately simple. Also,hummingbirds eat huge amounts of energy, but they do it with style. Mid air refueling is the most impressive, and doing it in a state of iridescence. They are needlessly ambitious. Design should inspire to that sort of complexity. Designers should "make the fucker shimmer."

GEORGIA CHRISTENSEN: She thinks it is impossible to pick just one example of design that inspires her. Things such as Phillip Johnson's glass house, to a Jill Sander coat are all beautifully designed and made. She showed us a chimney that her father designed and said it is purposeful and well designed. Design needs to tackle public transportation, primarily trains: from the lighting to the interiors and they need to be energy efficient.


AMI KEALOHA: She thinks about a rubber band a lot. It seems simple but then when you look closely at it, it has so many uses. It is a simple principle and it has tons of applications. Ami would like to see design solve noise and light pollution in our rapidly urbanizing world, and also design to tackle health problems such as water availability. Designers should strive to make the world a better place, not just add to consumerist products.

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Journal Entry 3/7




Jonathan Harris is an artist and code writer. He said he's always had an underlying schizophrenia in his life between physical stuff and digital stuff. He kept tons of sketchbooks that he worked in daily, and painted every chance he could. At the age of 22, Jonathan was robbed and gun point and the bad they took contained a sketchbook that had about 8 months worth of work in it. He stopped keeping those sketchbooks and started creating art on the computer because he didn't want his stuff to be destroyed. He turned to his training in computers science to create various informational graphics. He talked about how he got so wrapped up a project called "I Want You to Want Me" he hardly felt human anymore, and after this project was completed, he went into a bad phase of depression.

He read the audience something he wrote about a quote Hemingway said. He talks about how to live life boldly is difficult because when you write code you can't really live life. He felt like he was serving the computer, not the computer serving him. Everyone is smart and ambitious, but no one seems to be wise anymore. Our world is sadly too wrapped up in technology to interact with each other in a personal way. No one has really stopped to think about what this technology is doing to us has humans.

He talked about the mind of a programmer. Just like a computer, the human mind only has so much space and memory. When you are a programmer, one must visualize the program and know where everything is. This, in time, will fill up the whole brain, leaving no room for personal interactions. So in a way, there is a trade off of either being a good person and a person with feelings, and having those personal moments, or just letting technology control your life with no feelings.

The web use to be a place of experimentation; everyone had weird things and diverse. Gradually, more and more people began to come on the internet, but weren't sure how to "build their home in this space." Companies swept in and provided places for these people. He used the analogy of everyone having a huge, free apartment in this new condominium.

Ideas are not the goal. The goal is the goal. The outcome. Idea is just a technique. As designers, we often get too wrapped up in how cool and sexy an idea is.


The digital world is becoming the world.


I completely responded to this video. Unfortunately, I get so frustrated and tired of using computers. I get so wrapped up in my work that I sometimes do feel inhuman. Everything he said, while I didn't relate to everything he was saying, I did understand how the art of code could take the emotion out of a person.

Magazine Spread Information

For my Typography class, our next project is to design a magazine spread. Our solution must be type only, no images. We must use typographic grids to control the visual organization of the page space by supplying a particular kind of structure developed for typographic organization.


For this project we must complete some research. By reading The Mac is not a Typewriter, I was able to learn many things, and was able to answer the following questions:


What are the advantages of a multiple column grid?

It allows for the use of multiple columns, which will add interest and variety to the page.


How many characters is optimal for a line length? words per line?

Between 45 and 65.

Why is the baseline grid used in design?

Baseline grids keep continuity across the page. If all texts sits on a baseline, thenthe space between lines and the margins are equal or at least proportional.

What is a typographic river?

Typographic rivers are gaps appearing to run down a paragraph of text, due to a coincidental alignment of spaces.

From the readings what does clothesline or flow line mean?

Flowline: Horizontal intervals that separate columns of a grid to create alignment throughout the page.


How can you incorporate white space into your designs?


By not filling up the entire page, and by allowing negative space, white space can be incorporated into the design.

What is type color/texture mean?

type color refers to the weight or boldness of a typeface and is used by designers and typographers to describe the visual tone of a mass of text on a page.

What is x-height, how does it effect type color?

X-height refers to the distance between the baseline and the mean line in a typeface. The difference in x-height affects the typographic color of a page. The smaller the x-height, the darker the typographic color.


In justification or H&J terms what do the numbers: minimum, optimum, maximum mean?


The computer must decide how much to adjust the space between the letters and words. These terms mean the minimum, maximum and optimum amount of space used to justify this text without making it look bad.

What are some ways to indicate a new paragraph. Are there any rules?

New paragraphs are usually indicated with an indentation. Other ways are to highlight part of the new paragraph with new color, font, size, etc. If you indent, do not space in between paragraphs.

What are some things to look out for when hyphenating text.

Never hyphenate a word in a headline.


What is a literature?


What does CMYK and RGB mean?

RGB are Additive colors while CMYK are Subtractive colors.
CMYK has 4 inks: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black
RGB has 3 inks: Red, Green, Blue.


What does hanging punctuation mean?


In justified text, the punctuation is sometimes allowed to extend into the right-hand margin area to make the margin look neater. This is called hanging punctuation.

What is the difference between a foot mark and an apostrophe?

They are simply different characters that mean different things. Visually, a foot mark is a straight dash while an apostrophe has a curve and a ball serif on it.

What is the difference between an inch mark and a quote mark (smart quote)?


What is a hyphen, en dash and em dashes, what are the differences and when are they used.


A hyphen is 1/3rd of an em dash. It is used to connect words, break syllables, and to connect two broken parts of a word when reading justified text. An en Dash is half of an em dash. It is used to indicate a range between to preceding and following words, or to substitute the word "to." An em Dash: The size of a capital "M," relative to the type face. Substituted for brackets or parenthesis, indicates a sudden change of thought or thought patterns, or to indicate a rest less strong than a period, but stronger than a comma.

What are ligatures, why are they used, when are they not used, what are common ligatures

Book Covers

Here are the book covers that I have designed for my Typographic systems class: There are two flaps, back cover, front cover and spine, as well as interior pattern, and a title page and chapter page for one of the covers.