Friday, March 4, 2011

question on typography

What are the advantages of a multiple column grid.? place more text and get more information unto the page in an organized manner

How many characters is optimal for a line length? 66 character line is ideal words per line? - 9-10 words per line

Why is the baseline grid used in design? one reason is to print double sided and the lines match up and that each line matches up with the next in parallel fashion

What is a typographic river? gaps that run down a paragraph of text due to many words matching up together, then can occur regardless of use but usually show up when the font is justified or a monospaced font is used.

From the readings what does clothesline or flow line mean? is a measure that is horizontal that divided the page into spatial divisions and allows for the help of more alignments of added visual elements.

How can you incorporate white space into your designs? by drastic indentions or meaningful breaks in lines to create a space for the rest.

What is type color/texture mean? the kerning between the letters or the weight of the line widths of the letters allow more or less white space to show through creating color with type

What is x-height, how does it effect type color? The x height is the height to which the letters are measured and the x height is simple the height of the lower case x of that certain font

In justification or H&J terms what do the numbers: minimum, optimum, maximum mean? Maximum is the space adjusted to make it justified n the line optimum is the need to fit the most words on a line and minim refers to the least amount of words before and after a hyphen

What are some ways to indicate a new paragraph. Are there any rules? rule - don't indent the first paragraph. you can chose to do a running indent a hanging indent

What are some things to look out for when hyphenating text. leave at least two characters behind and take three forward on to the next page, avoid leaving any word shorter than 4 letters at the end of a line, avoid more than three consecutive hyphenated lines, hyphenate proper names only as a last resort unless they occur with the frequency of common nouns, hyphenate according to the conventions of the language

What is a literature? Literature is a noun and represents the art of composition in prose or verse. It also can be used as a term to represent the whole body of literary compositions or may be by language or a particular subject. It is matter that is regarded as printed or may be referred to as literary matter.

What does CMYK and RGB mean? cyan magenta yellow black, -- red green and blue

What does hanging punctuation mean? the quotation mark hangs outside of the quotes

What is the difference between a foot mark and an apostrophe? an apostrophe is a single closing quotation mark, and a footmark is for measurement and it has no difference in weight of the mark

What is the difference between an inch mark and a quote mark (smart quote)? quote is words and inch mark is for measurement and it has to do with the weight from top to bottom of the mark

What is a hyphen, en dash and em dashes, what are the differences and when are they used.An en dash is approximately the size of of the width of a capital N. It is used between words indicating a duration, such as hour time or month or year, use it where you might put the word “to.” There can also be a small (not a full) space on both sides of the en dash. Also an en dash is used when you have a compound adjective and one of the adjectives is made up of two words or a hyphenated word.

An em dash is twice as long at an en dash and is about the size of a capital M. Used in the same way as a color or parentheses, or it indicates a change in thought. It can also be used as a period if a period is too strong and a comma is too weak. It is equivalent to a double hyphen.


What are ligatures, why are they used, when are they not used, what are common ligatures: a special word that combines two maybe three letters into single characters. look better and help fix the problem of letters touching each other at weird angles. they are used only with extreme care and only to fix line spacing, common ligatures are fi, fl, ff,

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Journal entry 5

Jonathan Harris - Cold and Bold

kept very elaborate sketch books (photos sketches watercolor, ticket stubs) use new skill set of thought to have the same humanity level as sketch books word count, and 10x10 metaphor of an apartment building - typography system consisting of 3d lights and person in each apartment inside -- concept been taken and had to go back to scratch and learn new solution to problem - wrote a program (large and complicated) create a project for love and self. I have to live to work. That’s what Hemingway used to say computer program a beautiful thing small and smile and can turn into a nightmare. total rationality of the computer program can be traced back to the problem and can be fixed, the act of expression code hard to express yourself act of expression then a painter of sculptor. Resistance of the medium. the code that is resisting to the way in which you want it to work and being sensitive to the media. The web is a new program of the early 90's then the housing idea came into play with many companies home pages and navigation that are lost in transition between designer and company. outcomes over ideas - idea is not the goal but the goal is the goal the idea i how you work your way up to the outcome - how does the outcome make you feel?

Friday, February 25, 2011

Journal entry 4

Who is Bruce Mau ? Bruce Mau is a designer who uses innovative unique was to create brands for many well known companies such as Coca-Cola, McDonald's, MTV. As well he is a author of books and uses words to help in his designing of life.

What has he done?Created brands for Coca-Cola, McDonald's, MTV, Arizona State University, Miami's American Airlines Arena, New Meadowlands Stadium, Frank Gehry, Herman Miller, Santa Monica's Big Blue Bus. Wrote books, Mau’s Incomplete Manifesto for Growth guides thousands with his articulation of design strategies and motivations for unleashing creativity.

Why is he interesting? He uses his words and creativity together to create innovative design that is both pleasing to the eye and creates an aesthetic feel to the viewer.


Mantra - 5. Go deep.

The deeper you go the more likely you will discover something of value.I chose this mantra because if you just stretch the surface you will never challenge yourself to create that amazing solution instead of just a solution you have to push yourself and think of the impossible and then think how you can make it possible.

Saturday, February 19, 2011

Journal entry 3

Stefan Sagmeister shares happy design – happy experiencing design – example the authors photos on the back of the design or covers photographs of their faces show the happiness of their design. Pieces about the visualization of happiness and not about happiness. 3 designs that have happiness signs about safety created to make someone happy or intriguing creating an interesting visual for viewers to look at. Another example is a square room that opens up and insides watching the changes in to color of the sky and the reaction that people see when they can see the beauty of the sky changing. Another is speech bubbles and people go and fill them in and get to express their feelings and create joy to others worrying without pressure trying to brake out of the studio and work in other areas and see different angles of life and enjoy the end results of your art. Everything I do always comes back to me and to allow the design of your work to reflect the work, and everything always works out for me. How do you think about the materials you use for the words?

Alwar balasubramniam: Art of substance and absence – open and aware of our surroundings. Explore the character of the past is what makes up what you are today. Creating art about how you feel and creating something that feels like oneself. How are there ways to capture an object and are there many ways to capture objects. Try to understand the trace of something then when we try to understand what it is we interpret them from our old interpretations. Are we trying to understand what it is or what we think it is, like a joke many interpretations for one thing. What we see is just what we think and most of the time we don’t think what it is but it is just our perception of something. Meaning doesn’t exist its just created by the mind by what we have been taught. Anyway to capture the thought into a visual art. We see the source of the light and when it is bouncing but we don’t see the light rays in between. We don’t see dark and light and gravity and electricity. What made you think of using your body as the mold?

Vik Muniz makes are with wire, sugar – entertainment design - created to make people enjoy design and art. Using materials around to make art a piece of joy and laughter. Cloud work – cloud can mean anything you want – lump of cotton. Make creatures out of cloud – working with sculptures. Simple line drawings into wire art. Line drawings and shaded drawings used with thread and other materials. Departing from lines he went to points to depict black children’s faces. Pictures of chocolate that are entertaining face goes into texture. Picture of blocks of color and create a pixilation and mosaic pictures of large photos. Using different materials to create art. What made you so interesting and how do you come up with the materials you use to work with? Not about impress but about giving someone a measure of their own belief

Sunday, February 13, 2011

personas

Audience personas (3)

Lindsay is a 16 year old girl who lives in a upscale two-story house. She drives a 2010 jeep wrangler and attends a private school. She hangs out with friends and boys and homework isn’t the most important factor on her mind. She is boy crazy and wants to be the most popular in her class. She has blonde hair and blue eyes and sometimes dies her hair to her mood of the month. She owns a toy dog and is the youngest of three siblings. She would choose top brand over off brand any time and her favorite hangout is the mall. She is athletic and can hold her own in sports activities and is very competitive in compositions. She would drink pop over water and would choose the beach over the mountains. Loves a chick flick over an action movie but would stand scary unhappy endings once in a while. Her room is a beach theme with blue walls and giant murals of the ocean on them. she usually will dress up for any occasion and loves the in fashion. Would chose high heels over tennis shoes.

Jonathon is a 21 year old in his senior year of college majoring in finances. Is very cautious with his money and makes smart decisions in money making most of the time. He would shop at Wal-Mart for everything and if need be look online to try to find the best price for things. He would never do anything that was unnecessary and off his schedule her is a very type A personality but is very social. He would choose a healthy quick restaurant over a sit down expensive meal. He is from a family of 6 kids and is the oldest from his family. He drives a Toyota Camery and lives in a apartment by himself. He enjoys adventure and action movies as well as once in a while comedy. He chooses not to have a girlfriend at this moment and he hopes to land a job in a big corporation after graduation. He style is sophisticated yet classy. He would wear jeans and a nice button down or polo out with some sperrys not too fashionistic but still is classy in what he wears. His apartment is the minimal style with less things in it and more expensive of the things he has. He has a dog that is trained well and lives in the upper floor of an apartment complex.

Heather is a mother of two and a wife to a lawyer. They live in a middle class to upper class neighborhood and are young for that area. She is 30 years old and plans events for people. She would shop at the Merk for everything and is very into organic and natural based food not into the processing plants of many companies. She is very talkative and can easily hold a conversation. She owns a suburban car and her husband has a convertible. They attend church every Sunday and their children are both in a private school. She doesn’t need to work but wants to because of her interest in her job. She would stop by Starbucks every morning to grab a coffee. She watches her weight and cooks very healthy meals for her family. She colors her hair blonde and keeps up on her nail appointments every 2 weeks. she is a traditional style mom but would wear sweats over nice clothes out and about. her house is some what organized yet there are things here and there. zebra print is her theme and color is her dream any chance to add color she will do it.

Saturday, February 12, 2011

20 design rules


  1. have a concept – have a reason to design something and a purpose for your design solutions to a plan. Have a path to go with and be able to stay on track. No message story idea then it will become flat nor purpose to designing.
  2. communicate don’t decorate - limit to flourishes and over excessiveness of materials and mood and feelings and layers of design to present your concept
  3. speak with one visual voice – one idea that gets placed on everything and keep in same color and feel throughout to make the project cohesive
  4. use two typeface families maximum. Ok, maybe three – staple rule one san serif and one serif have rule with two fonts and possibly a display font for small text that is easy to read – just a guide
  5. use the one two punch – hierarchy given the point quickly see and understand it
  6. pick colors on purpose – make a point to your color have a reason behind your work
  7. if you can do it with less than do it – simplify design and clear and easy to read without to many generic symbols or flourished symbols
  8. negative space is magical – create it don’t just fill it up – break for the eyes and clear hierarchy
  9. treat the type as image as though it’s just as important – dominate type as image and use symbol and color
  10. type is only type when it is friendly – does it compete or work together
  11. be universal remember its not about you – design for universal demographic and create to everyone’s best interest
  12. squish and separate – group together and pull the white spaces out
  13. distribute light and dark like firecrackers and the rising sun – contrast of colors
  14. be decisive and on purpose or don’t do it at all – have a reason for everything and create to a specific purpose
  15. measure with your eyes – grid and look at how it looks visually see where things need to be to rest the eye and relax it and make it cohesive in a way
  16. create images don’t scavenge – from images and manipulate them on photoshop and create the mood and town of your book with color and tone
  17. ignore fashion seriously – fit within the trends but still design to your liking
  18. move it static equals dull – make it moving and wanted to be looked at
  19. look at history but don’t repeat it – aware of what is happening get a reference but then create your own work and design from your own mind
  20. symmetry is the ultimate evil – off balance is good more interesting

Most important – have a concept, a reason, distribute light and dark – make it cohesive, symmetry is the ultimate evil, make it unbalanced and visual appealing

Need to work on – use two typefaces, measure with your eyes, speak with one visual voice

Want to ignore – squish and separate, ignore fashion seriously, type is only type when it is friendly

journal entry 2

10 design rules : Good design is innovative – changing creating making something new and different there are so many categories still to be explored. Good design make a product useful - meaning that your design has a purpose and a function that is the best that the function can be and the most efficient for what that design is doing. Good design is aesthetic – we are going to see these objects all the t time and they will be encountered by others in our lives as well. We want them to go with our system and flow of the look we are going for in a certain setting. Good design makes a product understandable – easy to use and readily available for everyone is a very much need aspect to design. Good design is unobtrusive – in a way that it is accessible for all and it is useful and easy for all. Good design is honest – does what it is supposed to-do and the necessary requirements it is supposed to have. Good design is long lasting – it has a purpose and will last and keep its purpose and now wear away. Good design is thorough, down to the last detail – Everything put into your design is for your purpose and meaning and nothing is just because it looks good. Good design is as little design as possible – keep it simple and as mush as you need but nothing else.

3 ways good design makes you happy

beautiful, functional and reflective, happy things work better because you are more creative biology – like bright colors (fruit plants) dislike bitter taste loud sounds un symmetrical face

-- choice of type fonts or red for hot or an old car – water bottle buy because of the bottle visual and behavioral is subconscious - automatic, skilled behavior – design feeling and control. Communicates – motion about acting understanding the world