And here is my most recent DVD packaging...there is a lot here that I am going to be refining.
Monday, December 5, 2011
Thursday, December 1, 2011
type readings
_ What are some ways to indicate a new paragraph?
indents, exdents, color change, all caps, use of symbols
_ What are some things to look out for when hyphenating text?
Make sure they don't get confused with the en and em dashes. Hyphens are used as a symbol to break words. You have to be careful with text overflow and making sure it doesn't auto-hyphen it if you don't want it to be there.
from type to font
_ Define font hinting. Why is necessary?
_ Define font hinting. Why is necessary?
Hinting is defining bitmaps for low resolution rendering. It was important at the beginning of the digital era because monitors and printers had a low resolution. Now it is used for the reproduction of small types on screens or cell phone displays.
_ What is letterspacing/tracking? How do you track in Illustrator or InDesign?
Letterspacing is defining the "white space" on either side of the letters. In illustrator and indesign you can track by using the tools in the "character" window.
_ Define Kerning? Name 8 kerning pairs. How do you kern in InDesign or Illustrator?
Kerning is the space between each letter - sometimes space is made smaller if there is room between two letters. Exapmles: Av, yo, OW, Ya, Ty, Te, LV, PA. You can kern in indesign or illustrator with the same "character" window.
_ try the kerning game (link). how did you do?
80/100
_ What is wordspacing?
Spacing between words in a text - based off the bounding box on the lower case letter i in a font
Typographic Recommendations and Referenced
_ Explain DIN.
The standards for page sizes in books
_ What is a baseline grid?
A grid made up of the baseline of lines of text, equally spaced out. When using the baseline grid, all liines of text must lock to this grid.
_ How many characters per line is optimal? Is there a range?
about 40 or 50...yes there is a range depending on the the font size.
_ Define aesthetic text alignment (optically hanging punctuation).
Allows for some punctuation marks extend beyond the margins so that all text is aligned.
_ What is a typographic river?
What happens when the spacing between words in a block of text start to create lines from row to row, causing a "river" that can be distracting to look at when trying to read.
_ What is a widow?
a single word (the last word in a sentence/paragraph) that has it's own line.
_ what is an orphan?
a single word that has it's own line but up at the top of a row/column.
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
On Newstands
Who is Herb Lubalin?
Published magazines in the 1960s collaborating with Ralph Ginzburg
Why was Esguire important?
It was a men's magazine devoted to fiction, sports, humor, poetry, fashion and other elements of a lush lifestyle. It also had many notable figures on the design team, including paul rand and milton glaser.
Who is Alexy Broadavich?
He commissioned European artists and American photographers for the magazine "Harper's Bazaar
What did Hoefler-Jones do for Harper's?
They gave them the font Didot for their use in their magazine.
Who is Gail Anderson?
Art director for the Rolling Stone
Who is David Carson?
Became the art director and designer of Ray Gun, which had a rule-bending design approach targeted toward a mainstream audience.
Who is Tibor and what is M&Co?
Tibor was the designer for the magazine Colors. M&Co was Kalman's NY studio
Who is Neville Brody?
Art director of The Face, which was a magazine that included typographic exploration and the graphics that ensued.
What is Speak?
A magazine that showed thoughtful writing on culture, covering music, fashion, literature, and art.
:)
Published magazines in the 1960s collaborating with Ralph Ginzburg
Why was Esguire important?
It was a men's magazine devoted to fiction, sports, humor, poetry, fashion and other elements of a lush lifestyle. It also had many notable figures on the design team, including paul rand and milton glaser.
Who is Alexy Broadavich?
He commissioned European artists and American photographers for the magazine "Harper's Bazaar
What did Hoefler-Jones do for Harper's?
They gave them the font Didot for their use in their magazine.
Who is Gail Anderson?
Art director for the Rolling Stone
Who is David Carson?
Became the art director and designer of Ray Gun, which had a rule-bending design approach targeted toward a mainstream audience.
Who is Tibor and what is M&Co?
Tibor was the designer for the magazine Colors. M&Co was Kalman's NY studio
Who is Neville Brody?
Art director of The Face, which was a magazine that included typographic exploration and the graphics that ensued.
What is Speak?
A magazine that showed thoughtful writing on culture, covering music, fashion, literature, and art.
:)
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
photographers
I think my favorite is lori nix...
WILLIAM EGGLESTON
Eggleston's early photographic efforts were inspired by the work of Swiss-born photographer Robert Frank, and by French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson's book, The Decisive Moment. First photographing in black-and-white, Eggleston began experimenting with color in 1965 and 1966; color transparency film became his dominant medium in the later sixties. Eggleston's development as a photographer seems to have taken place in relative isolation from other artists.Eggleston's mature work is characterized by its ordinary subject-matter. As Eudora Welty noted in her introduction to The Democratic Forest, an Eggleston photograph might include "old tyres, Dr Pepper machines, discarded air-conditioners, vending machines, empty and dirty Coca-Cola bottles, torn posters, power poles and power wires, street barricades, one-way signs, detour signs, No Parking signs, parking meters and palm trees crowding the same curb." William Eggleston assumes a neutral gaze and creates his art from commonplace subjects: a farmer's muddy Ford truck, a red ceiling in a friend's house, the contents of his own refrigerator. In his work, Eggleston photographs "democratically"--literally photographing the world around him. His large-format prints monumentalize everyday subjects, everything is equally important; every detail deserves attention.
http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artMakerDetails?maker=1540&page=1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Eggleston
GREGORY CREWDSON
Gregory Crewdson's photographs usually take place in small town America, but are dramatic and cinematic. They feature often disturbing, surreal events. The photographs are shot using a large crew, and are elaborately staged and lighted. He has cited the films Vertigo, The Night of the Hunter, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Blue Velvet, and Safe as having influenced his style, as well as the painter Edward Hopper and photographer Diane Arbus. It was also in Lee that Crewdson conceived of his later Natural Wonderseries (1992–97), in which birds, insects, and mutilated body parts are presented in surreal yet mundane domestic settings. Photographs from Natural Wonder were shown in the 1991 exhibition Pleasures and Terrors in Domestic Comfort at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
In his next series, Hover (1992-97), Crewdson turned away from brightly colored close-ups to black-and-white bird's-eye views of strange situations (a man covering a street with sod, a bear gawked at by onlookers as it rummages through garbage) set in the streets and backyards of Lee. His Twilight series (1998-2001) introduced color and an enlarged scale"50 x 60 inches"to this surreal formula, resulting in decidedly cinematic images reminiscent of the films of Steven Spielberg. These recent photographs have become increasingly spectacular and complex to produce, requiring dozens of assistants, Hollywood-style lighting, and specially crafted stage sets.
http://metroartwork.com/gregory-crewdson-biography-artwork-m-61.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_Crewdson
RICHARD MISRACH
WILLIAM EGGLESTON
Eggleston's early photographic efforts were inspired by the work of Swiss-born photographer Robert Frank, and by French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson's book, The Decisive Moment. First photographing in black-and-white, Eggleston began experimenting with color in 1965 and 1966; color transparency film became his dominant medium in the later sixties. Eggleston's development as a photographer seems to have taken place in relative isolation from other artists.Eggleston's mature work is characterized by its ordinary subject-matter. As Eudora Welty noted in her introduction to The Democratic Forest, an Eggleston photograph might include "old tyres, Dr Pepper machines, discarded air-conditioners, vending machines, empty and dirty Coca-Cola bottles, torn posters, power poles and power wires, street barricades, one-way signs, detour signs, No Parking signs, parking meters and palm trees crowding the same curb." William Eggleston assumes a neutral gaze and creates his art from commonplace subjects: a farmer's muddy Ford truck, a red ceiling in a friend's house, the contents of his own refrigerator. In his work, Eggleston photographs "democratically"--literally photographing the world around him. His large-format prints monumentalize everyday subjects, everything is equally important; every detail deserves attention.
http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artMakerDetails?maker=1540&page=1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Eggleston
GREGORY CREWDSON
Gregory Crewdson's photographs usually take place in small town America, but are dramatic and cinematic. They feature often disturbing, surreal events. The photographs are shot using a large crew, and are elaborately staged and lighted. He has cited the films Vertigo, The Night of the Hunter, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Blue Velvet, and Safe as having influenced his style, as well as the painter Edward Hopper and photographer Diane Arbus. It was also in Lee that Crewdson conceived of his later Natural Wonderseries (1992–97), in which birds, insects, and mutilated body parts are presented in surreal yet mundane domestic settings. Photographs from Natural Wonder were shown in the 1991 exhibition Pleasures and Terrors in Domestic Comfort at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
In his next series, Hover (1992-97), Crewdson turned away from brightly colored close-ups to black-and-white bird's-eye views of strange situations (a man covering a street with sod, a bear gawked at by onlookers as it rummages through garbage) set in the streets and backyards of Lee. His Twilight series (1998-2001) introduced color and an enlarged scale"50 x 60 inches"to this surreal formula, resulting in decidedly cinematic images reminiscent of the films of Steven Spielberg. These recent photographs have become increasingly spectacular and complex to produce, requiring dozens of assistants, Hollywood-style lighting, and specially crafted stage sets.
http://metroartwork.com/gregory-crewdson-biography-artwork-m-61.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_Crewdson
RICHARD MISRACH
Richard Misrach (born in Los Angeles, California in 1949) is an American photographer known for his photographs of human intervention in landscapes. His works are represented in more than fifty major museum collections around the world.
Richard Misrach is one of the most influential photographers of his generation. In the 1970s, he helped pioneer the renaissance of color photography and large-scale presentation that are in widespread practice today. Best known for his ongoing series, Desert Cantos, a multi-faceted approach to the study of place and man’s complex relationship to it, he has worked in the landscape for over 40 years. Other notable bodies of work include his documentation of the industrial corridor along the Mississippi River known as Cancer Alley, the study of weather, time, color and light in his serial photographs of the Golden Gate, and On the Beach, an aerial perspective of human interaction and isolation.
Whether photographing a flooded town, a desert fire, an abandoned nuclear test site or the colors on the horizon emanating from a small town miles away, Richard Misrach draws the viewer into his world through his mastery of color. Ranging from beautiful lakes to secret military bunkers to speed racing on the Utah salt flats, Misrach's work chronicles mans involvement in the desert, while always paying homage to the intrinsic beauty provided by nature. It's through beauty that Misrach's social concerns are most revealed. By pulling the viewer into a glowing light or calm body of water, he presents situations which leave us asking questions about the American desert -- a desert which continues to heal and revive itself regardless of mans actions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Misrach
http://www.edelmangallery.com/misrach-bio.htm
ED BURTYNSKY
To describe Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky's work in a single adjective, you have to speak French: jolie-laide. His images of scarred landscapes -- from mountains of tires to rivers of bright orange waste from a nickel mine -- are eerily pretty yet ugly at the same time.Burtynsky's large-format color photographs explore the impact of humanity's expanding footprint and the substantial ways in which we're reshaping the surface of the planet. His images powerfully alter the way we think about the world and our place in it.
Nature transformed through industry is a predominant theme in my work. I set course to intersect with a contemporary view of the great ages of man; from stone, to minerals, oil, transportation, silicon, and so on. To make these ideas visible I search for subjects that are rich in detail and scale yet open in their meaning. Recycling yards, mine tailings, quarries and refineries are all places that are outside of our normal experience, yet we partake of their output on a daily basis.
These images are meant as metaphors to the dilemma of our modern existence; they search for a dialogue between attraction and repulsion, seduction and fear. We are drawn by desire - a chance at good living, yet we are consciously or unconsciously aware that the world is suffering for our success. Our dependence on nature to provide the materials for our consumption and our concern for the health of our planet sets us into an uneasy contradiction. For me, these images function as reflecting pools of our times.
These images are meant as metaphors to the dilemma of our modern existence; they search for a dialogue between attraction and repulsion, seduction and fear. We are drawn by desire - a chance at good living, yet we are consciously or unconsciously aware that the world is suffering for our success. Our dependence on nature to provide the materials for our consumption and our concern for the health of our planet sets us into an uneasy contradiction. For me, these images function as reflecting pools of our times.
http://www.edwardburtynsky.com/
http://www.ted.com/speakers/edward_burtynsky.html
KARL BLOSSFELDT
He is best known for his close-up photographs of plants and living things. He was inspired, as was his father, by nature and the way in which plants grow. Especially pansies.
Karl Blossfeldt (1865-1932) was a German instructor of sculpture who used his remarkable photographs of plant studies to educate his students about design elements in nature. Self-taught in photography, he devoted himself to the study of nature, photographing nothing but flowers, buds and seed capsules for thirty-five years. He once said,"The plant never lapses into mere arid functionalism; it fashions and shapes according to logic and suitability, and with its primeval force compels everything to attain the highest artistic form."
Blossfeldt's photographs were made with a homemade camera that could magnify the subject up to thirty times its actual size. By doing so he revealed extraordinary details within the natural structure of the plants. In the process he created some of the most innovative photographic work of his time. The simple yet expressive forms captured on film affirmed his boundless artistic and intellectual ability.
Blossfeldt's photographs were made with a homemade camera that could magnify the subject up to thirty times its actual size. By doing so he revealed extraordinary details within the natural structure of the plants. In the process he created some of the most innovative photographic work of his time. The simple yet expressive forms captured on film affirmed his boundless artistic and intellectual ability.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Blossfeldt
http://www.soulcatcherstudio.com/exhibitions/blossfeldt/
LORI NIX
I am interested in depicting danger and disaster, but I temper this with a touch of humor. My childhood was spent in a rural part of the United States that is known more for it's natural disasters than anything else. I was born in a small town in western Kansas, and each passing season brought it's own drama, from winter snow storms, spring floods and tornados to summer insect infestations and drought. Whereas most adults viewed these seasonal disruptions with angst, for a child it was considered euphoric. Downed trees, mud, even grass fires brought excitement to daily, mundane life. As a photographer, I have recreated some of these experiences in the series "Accidentally Kansas".
In my newest body of work "The City" I have imagined a city of our future, where something either natural or as the result of mankind, has emptied the city of it's human inhabitants. Art museums, Broadway theaters, laundromats and bars no longer function. The walls are deteriorating, the ceilings are falling in, the structures barely stand, yet Mother Nature is slowly taking them over. These spaces are filled with flora, fauna and insects, reclaiming what was theirs before man's encroachment. I am afraid of what the future holds if we do not change our ways regarding the climate, but at the same time I am fascinated by what a changing world can bring.
In my newest body of work "The City" I have imagined a city of our future, where something either natural or as the result of mankind, has emptied the city of it's human inhabitants. Art museums, Broadway theaters, laundromats and bars no longer function. The walls are deteriorating, the ceilings are falling in, the structures barely stand, yet Mother Nature is slowly taking them over. These spaces are filled with flora, fauna and insects, reclaiming what was theirs before man's encroachment. I am afraid of what the future holds if we do not change our ways regarding the climate, but at the same time I am fascinated by what a changing world can bring.
The twist is that Nix's photos aren't Photoshop manipulations -- they're real images of tiny, painstakingly detailed dioramas that Nix has designed just for these photographs. She built the 3-D scenes in her living room on nights and weekends with the help of an assistant, with each one taking anywhere from two to fifteen months to complete. Nix then shot the dioramas on normal 8x10 film, making her minuscule creations -- about 20 x 24 x 72 inchessmall -- appear nearly indistinguishable from full-size scenes.
http://www.lorinix.net/about.html
http://www.fastcodesign.com/1662890/lori-nixs-stunning-tiny-dioramas-depict-an-abandoned-world-slideshow
ANDREAS GURSKY
Visually, Gursky is drawn to large, anonymous, man-made spaces—high-rise facades at night, office lobbies, stock exchanges, the interiors of big boxretailers (See his print 99 Cent II Diptychon). In a 2001 retrospective, New York's Museum of Modern Art called the artist's work, "a sophisticated art of unembellished observation. It is thanks to the artfulness of Gursky's fictions that we recognize his world as our own." Gursky’s style is enigmatic and deadpan. There is little to no explanation or manipulation on the works. His photography is straightforward.
Andreas Gursky's large-scale color photographs of landscapes, buildings, and masses of people have been likened to paintings. Gursky studied with Bernd and Hilla Becher at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in the 1980s, where he honed his fascination with the ways people live in the world and how their existence impacts their surroundings. In the early 1990s he began using digital tools to heighten formal elements and circumvent the limits of perspective in his pictures.
Gursky (born 1955) first exhibited his work at Matthew Marks Gallery in 1997. The exhibition included 12 large-scale photographs, among them Rhein, a signature work. He has exhibited throughout Europe and the United States, and his work was the subject of a retrospective organized by The Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 2001, which toured extensively. The Kunstmuseum Basel mounted a major Gursky exhibition, and the Haus der Kunst Munich organized a traveling exhibition of works made by the artist between 1987 and 2007. The Vancouver Art Gallery, the Moderna Museet Stockholm, and the Kunstmuseen Krefeld jointly organized an exhibition of Gursky's work made between 1980 to 2008. Gursky lives and works in Düsseldorf.
Gursky (born 1955) first exhibited his work at Matthew Marks Gallery in 1997. The exhibition included 12 large-scale photographs, among them Rhein, a signature work. He has exhibited throughout Europe and the United States, and his work was the subject of a retrospective organized by The Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 2001, which toured extensively. The Kunstmuseum Basel mounted a major Gursky exhibition, and the Haus der Kunst Munich organized a traveling exhibition of works made by the artist between 1987 and 2007. The Vancouver Art Gallery, the Moderna Museet Stockholm, and the Kunstmuseen Krefeld jointly organized an exhibition of Gursky's work made between 1980 to 2008. Gursky lives and works in Düsseldorf.
http://www.matthewmarks.com/artists/andreas-gursky/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreas_Gursky
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
type posters
I've been struggling a bit with my type posters...for some reason I don't know why!!
But I think I'm getting closer to some final designs...here are 3 different sets that I refined, and I don't think they're all the way there yet, but I definitely think I'm closer than I was before!
But I think I'm getting closer to some final designs...here are 3 different sets that I refined, and I don't think they're all the way there yet, but I definitely think I'm closer than I was before!
type homework
_ What are small capitals? How are they different than something set in ALL CAPS?
Small capitals are smaller versions of capital letters: they are slightly bigger than the x-height of lower case letters, and they have a matching weight. They are also wider than capitals and are used for abbreviations or successive capitals. They are different than just ALL CAPS because they are not as large and don't draw as much attention (provide a better balanced appearance in cases where capitals would make the block of text look too heavy.)
_Does your font have small caps? If not name a font that does.
Meta does not. Monotype Centaur does.
_ What are ligatures? why are they used? when are they not used? what are common ligatures?
Combinations of characters that were designed because the overhanging ascender in the letter "f" would run into an ascender or the dot of an "i" in typesetting. They aren't used with most sans-serif typefaces. Common ligatures are "fi", "fl", and "fj".
_Does your font have ligatures? If not name a font that does.
Meta does not have ligatures. Garamond is a font that does.
option shift 5, option shift 6: fi, fl
_ What is the difference between a foot mark and an apostrophe?
An apostrophe is curved (has a serif?) and a foot mark is just a straight line.
_ What is the difference between an inch mark and a quote mark (smart quote)?
An inch mark is quotes that are straight lines as well (sometimes difference in stroke between top and bottom). A quote mark is like the apostrophe, it has a curved ball at the end (serif).
_ What is a hyphen, en dash and em dashes, what are the differences and when are they used?
A hyphen is a dash symbol used to break words. An en dash is like a hyphen, except for it is longer and is used to mark a parenthetical thought or to show a sudden change of direction. An em dash is even longer and is used to mark parenthetical thought in English texts, and has no spaces on either side of it.
A hyphen is a dash symbol used to break words. An en dash is like a hyphen, except for it is longer and is used to mark a parenthetical thought or to show a sudden change of direction. An em dash is even longer and is used to mark parenthetical thought in English texts, and has no spaces on either side of it.
hyphen, option -, option shift -: – —
:)
Thursday, October 27, 2011
more type posters (hopefully better)
Here is my newest and most recent set of type posters! I think, and I REALLY hope that they are in a much better direction than I was going in a few days ago, where I had wayyyy too much big type on my poster. I also printed it out tiled, full size, (22 x 34)...it's pretty big!
info for type-heavy poster
This is all of my info that will be on the next poster...it's not entirely organized yet, but this is what it will look like somewhat! :)
FF META AND
THE HUMANIST SANS-SERIF CLASSIFICATION
FF Meta is a humanist
sans-serif typeface family designed
by Erik
Spiekermann originally as a commission for the Deutsche Bundespost
(West German Post Office), but later released by Spiekermann himself in 1991
through his FontFont
library. According to Spiekermann, FF Meta was intended to be a "complete
antithesis of Helvetica,"
which he found "boring and bland." Throughout the nineties, FF Meta was
embraced by the international design community[3] with
Spiekermann and E. M. Ginger
writing that it had been dubiously praised as the "Helvetica of the
1990s."
FF Meta has been
adopted by numerous corporations and other organizations as a corporate
typeface, for signage or in their logo.
As the typeface
would be used repeatedly in small sizes, for identification (rather than copy), require two
different weights,
and printed quickly on potentially poor paper stock, the brief called for a
very legible, neutral, space-saving, and distinguishable (in regards to weight)
typeface with special attention to producing unmistakable characters. Whereas
traditionally, typefaces are designed to be viewed beautifully large, the goal
with this particular typeface was to produce a typeface which worked well for
its primary application.
The typeface
would have to be a sans-serif to match the client, narrow (but not condensed) to save space,
feature strokes thick enough to withstand uneven printing but also light so
that individual characters do not run together, contain clearly distinguishable
characters for similar shaped characters, versatile capitals and figures that
are clear but not obtrusive, and curves, indentations, flares, and open joins
to combat poor definition, optical illusions, and over-inking. In addition to
these demands, to meet Bundespost's needs, the family would also contain three
fonts: regular, regular italic, and bold.
FF Meta was originally conceived as a sturdy, basic sans
serif typeface, very legible for text at small sizes, with angled terminals and
other visual “noise” to give the face a pleasing, slight informality.
In FF
Meta, strokes have slightly varying width as the Spiekermann’s goal was
that in small sizes, thinner strokes should not “drop out” but, on the
contrary, become undistinguishable from the thicker ones.
On the other hand,
in compensation for the missing serifs, it has vigorously bent-off tips of
vertical strokes in letters like ‘d’ or ‘m’.
Both uppercase
and lowercase characters are narrower than in most other sans serif fonts. It
is an excellent example of how far it is possible to “humanize” sans serifs and
borrowing serif-specific features, while remaining within the sans serif
paradigm. Finally launched under the FF Meta brand name, it was one of
the most popular typefaces of the last decade, often referred as "the Helvetica
of the 90’s”.
In the
period 1991 to 1998 a larger typeface family was developed, adding small
capitals.
The Post Office,
who was using Helvetica
at that time, cancelled their commission at the last minute. Spiekermann's design
went into hibernation. Interestingly enough, the post office did eventually
change their corporate face—to Frutiger,
which they still use today.
Around the same
time as the founding of FontShop,
Spiekermann and several of his colleagues revived their dormant design,
creating FF Meta, whose first weights were released in 1991. Over the next 15
years, numerous more weights would be devised.
FF Meta is named
after the studio which Spiekermann headed at the time, MetaDesign. Meta is proud
of the face, calling it the Helvetica
of the '90s (quote attributed to Robin Kinross). Meta was designed for use at
smallish sizes, but became more widely used by designers looking for a
workhorse typeface with range.
One of the
defining characteristics of FF Meta — and FontFonts in general — was the
presence of hanging (or oldstyle) figures and additional ff-ligatures in the “regular”
Normal and Bold weights, while lining figures were found in the Small Caps
weight. The distinctive Meta arrow occupied the slots for the lesser-than and
greater-than symbols.
A very readable typeface
in smaller point sizes but also with enough detail to display in large
point sizes.
This category
contains typefaces in the humanist sans-serif classification. They first
appeared in the early twentieth century. Humanist sans-serif typefaces are
characterized by the presence of the hand, an uppercase similar in proportion
to the monumental Roman capitals, a lowercase similar in form to the Carolingian script, and an
overall more organic structure. Humanist sans-serif typefaces frequently have a
true italic rather than a sloped roman. This is most
often seen in a single-story lowercase italic a.
Traditional view
about sans serif fonts was they are not a good choice for body text because it
is very hard to read in a large block of type. Sans-serif was preferable
choice for headings and headlines only. Using them in paragraphs was not
considered as a good choice. But nowadays, as you all have noticed, the use of
sans serif fonts for text is trend. This is because they are getting more and
more readable and legible.
The Humanist types
(sometimes referred to as Venetian) appeared during the 1460s and 1470s, and
were modelled not on the dark gothic scripts like textura, but on the
lighter, more open forms of the Italian humanist writers. The Humanist types
were at the same time the first roman types. So what makes Humanist,
Humanist? What distinguishes it from other styles? What are its main
characteristics?
1 Sloping cross-bar
on the lowercase “e”;
2 Relatively small x-height;3 Low contrast between “thick”
and “thin” strokes (basically that means that there is little variation in the
stroke width);
4 Dark colour (not a reference to colour in the traditional
sense, but the overall lightness or darkness of the page). To get a better
impression of a page’s colour look at it through half-closed eyes.
Although the
influence of Humanist types is far reaching, they aren’t often seen these days.
Despite a brief revival during the early twentieth century, their relatively
dark color and small x-heights have fallen out of favor. However, they do
deserve our attention — our admiration even — because they are, in a sense, the great grand parents of today’s types.
ABOUT THE INVENTOR
Erik Spiekermann,
born 1947, studied History of Art and English in Berlin. He is an information
architect, type designer, and author of books and articles on type and
typography. He was founder (1979) of MetaDesign, Germany's largest design firm.
Projects included corporate design programmes for Audi, Skoda, Volkswagen,
Lexus, Heidelberg Printing and wayfinding projects like Berlin Transit, Düsseldorf
Airport and many others.
In 1988 he started
FontShop, a company for production and distribution of electronic fonts. Erik
is board member of ATypI and the German Design Council and Past President of
the istd, International Society of Typographic Designers, as well as the iiid.
In 2001 he left MetaDesign and is now managing partner and creative director of
Edenspiekermann with offices in Amsterdam, Berlin, London and San Francisco.
He redesigned The
Economist magazine in London for its relaunch in 2001. His book for Adobe
Press, "Stop Stealing Sheep" is in its second edition as well as
published in German and in Russian. His corporate font family for Nokia was
released in 2002. In 2003 he received the Gerrit Noordzij Award from the Royal
Academy in Den Haag. His type system DB Type for Deutsche Bahn was awarded the
Federal German Design Prize in Gold for 2006. In May 2007 he was the first
designer to be elected into the Hall of Fame by the European Design Awards for
Communication Design.
Erik is Honorary
Professor at the University of the Arts in Bremen and in 2006 received an
honorary doctorship from Pasadena Art Center. He was made an Honorary Royal
Designer for Industry by the RSA in Britain in 2007 and Ambassador for the
European Year of Creativity and Innovation by the European Union for 2009.
Throughout his
illustrious career as a designer and typographer, Erik Spiekermann has
created dozens of commercial typefaces (FF Meta, FF MetaSerif, ITC Officina, FF
Govan, FF Info, FF Unit, LoType, Berliner Grotesk) and many custom typefaces
for world-renowned corporations.
Erik and his wife
Joan, revolutionized the world of digital fonts twenty-two years ago when they
started FontShop—the first
mail-order distributor for digital fonts.
This year, he was
awarded the Federal Republic of Germany’s 2011 Design Prize for Lifetime
Achievements— a most noble accomplishment. The exhibition, Erik Spiekermann,
The Face of Type recently took place at the Bauhaus-Archive Museum of
Design in Berlin.
Spiekermann is an
Honorary Professor at the University of the Arts in Bremen, the author of the
Adobe Press title, Stop Stealing Sheep, and the originator of the colorful map
for the Berlin metro system.
During the 1970s, Spiekermann
wdeosrikgenderasinaLfroenedloance before returning to Berlin in 1979 where,
with two partners, he founded MetaDesign. In 2001 he left MetaDesign and started UDN (United Designers Network), with offices in Berlin, London and San Francisco. Since January 2009 he has been a director of Edenspiekermann, which has offices in Berlin and Amsterdam.
HISTORY OF THE
WORLD DURING THE 90’S
The 1990s,
also known as "the Nineteen Nineties" or abbreviated as "the
Nineties" or "the '90s", was the decade that started on January
1, 1990, and ended on December 31, 1999. It was the last full decade of both
the 20th century
and the 2nd
millennium.
The '90s is
often considered the true dawn of the Information Age. Though
info-age technologies predate the 1980s,
it was not until the late 1980s and the 1990s that they became widely used by
the general public. A combination of factors, including the mass mobilization
of capital markets through neoliberalism,
the beginning of the widespread proliferation of new media such as the Internet, and the dissolution
of the Soviet Union led to a realignment and reconsolidation of
economic and political power across the world, and within countries.
The 1990s is
often considered the end of Modernity
and the dawn of the current Postmodern age, even
though the first traces of postmodernity takes places as far back as the 1940s.[1] Living standards and democratic governance generally improved in
many areas of the world, notably East Asia, much of Eastern Europe, Latin America, and South Africa. The
economies and living standards of some countries such as South Korea and Ireland improved to such
an extent that they were considered 1st World nations by the decades end.
New ethnic
conflicts emerged in Africa, the Caucasus
and the Balkans, and signs of any resolution of tensions in the Middle East
remained elusive.[2]
The Congo wars
break out in the 1990s:
The Gulf War
The Chechen wars
break out in the 1990s:
The Kargil War (1999)
The Kosovo War (1998–1999):
In 1999, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO) led by the United States launched air attacks
against Yugoslavia
(then composed of only Serbia
and Montenegro) to pressure
the Yugoslav government to end its military operations against ethnic Albanian
separatists in Kosovo
due to accusations of war crimes being committed by Yugoslav military forces
working alongside nationalist Serb paramilitary groups. After weeks of bombing,
Yugoslavia submits to NATO's demands and NATO forces occupy Kosovo and later UN
peacekeeping forces to take control of Kosovo.
The Yugoslav Wars (1991–1995)
The Rwandan Genocide
Many countries,
institutions, companies, and organizations were prosperous during the 1990s.
High-income countries such as the United States, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong,
Taiwan, South Korea, and those in Western Europe experienced
steady economic growth for much of the decade. However, in the former Soviet Union GDP
decreased as their economies restructured to produce goods they needed and some
capital flight occurred.
SOURCES
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