So this happens to me all the time.
I'm sitting over here thinking that I have nothing to do for Halloween. People ask me,"Hey Marcie what are you doing for Halloween?" And I'm like, "I don't know of anything going on." The next day I sign into my Facebook/ e-mail and I have like forty million even invitations. I always think to myself What is this!?!?! These people need to STOP inviting me to crap!! And OF COURSE it's Halloween parties. I always instantly dismiss things because of a preconceived notion. It kind of sucks at times. I mean I just got genuinely annoyed when I saw that I had two event invitations. I have ignored a lot of them. GEEZE. I really need to stop doing that.
RANDOMNESS
I was in class the other day and this girl seriously said to my TEACHER, "Hey I need some ideas for this project." My teacher looked at her like "did you really just ask me that question?" She did say, "That's not my job to give you ideas."
But like seriously WHO asks that sort of question when it's a project. Brain dead much? The teacher isn't going to give you the ideas, as a design student.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Monday, October 26, 2009
Project 3
We are doing a type specimen poster. I choose Futura (Std Light). For obvious reasons, a. its a GORGEOUS font, b. it's used on the LOUIS VUITTON website, c. it's also used by ULTA, my favorite makeup store of all time. It's also used by Shutterfly, a website where you can upload your digital photographs and then get them printed off; you can photobook etc. the possibilities there are endless. I decided to Google Futura, just that word, and one of the results was a website where there are tshirts for it! O M G I almost ordered one but the one I really wanted was going to be like 40$ and I don't see spending money like that for a shirt. It was a nice shirt, but I'm broke. :) It was such a cute t-shirt too! I need to stop talking about it.... It makes me WANT it.
The requirements of the project are that you have to have at least 150 words of body copy, max. 300 (it'd be a novel otherwise, & who wants to read that much body copy on a poster?) It has to include Upper & Lower case alphabets, and all of the #'s. It doesn't HAVE to include anything about the designer because the main focus is on the typeface but I decided to make it noticeable.
I didn't use color because I read in a book that Paul Renner believed that color was a way to cover up a flaw in the composition. So that is why I decided to only use Black Whites & Grays. The whole layout is at a 55 degree angle. I am just in love with this typefaceeee. It's amazing to me how often it is used but how little the majority of people know about it. I really like the simplicity of the typeface as well.
During class, mind you we had to have our first drafts completed at the beginning of class, this guy asked me if we had to have our body copy done. REALLY? How can you do a design if you don't have body copy? The design should reflect what you say in your body copy so how could he even have any drafts? Maybe I'm just weird but I don't think that his process is being done correctly, but HEY it's his grade not mine.
The requirements of the project are that you have to have at least 150 words of body copy, max. 300 (it'd be a novel otherwise, & who wants to read that much body copy on a poster?) It has to include Upper & Lower case alphabets, and all of the #'s. It doesn't HAVE to include anything about the designer because the main focus is on the typeface but I decided to make it noticeable.
I didn't use color because I read in a book that Paul Renner believed that color was a way to cover up a flaw in the composition. So that is why I decided to only use Black Whites & Grays. The whole layout is at a 55 degree angle. I am just in love with this typefaceeee. It's amazing to me how often it is used but how little the majority of people know about it. I really like the simplicity of the typeface as well.
During class, mind you we had to have our first drafts completed at the beginning of class, this guy asked me if we had to have our body copy done. REALLY? How can you do a design if you don't have body copy? The design should reflect what you say in your body copy so how could he even have any drafts? Maybe I'm just weird but I don't think that his process is being done correctly, but HEY it's his grade not mine.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Typography by Herb Lubalin
In my VIS113 Typography class we are doing Type Specimen Posters. I choose Futura because I really like the geometric look to it, but this girl in my class choose Avant Garde and my teacher was talking so passionately about Herb Lubalin and encouraged all of us to look at his work .. I want to be Herb Lubalin. He is amazing.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Defining design, usability, and accessibility on the web.
Design on the web is making a site that isn't boring but isn't too busy. As web designers we are limited to certain parameters and good design on the web is using those parameters to your advantage. Simplicity is an important thing to consider when designing. As stated in an article I read, too much or too busy of color can drain out/ ruin your design.
Design and usability are not the same thing. Usability refers to the ease of access of the site. Site maps are good for commercial type websites. Wal-Mart, for example, has so many products and other things on their website a site map is almost required. I agree with Derek Powazek when he said that your links should never take you to the same page you are currently on. I personally get really frustrated when a link takes me to the current loaded page. On the Yfactorstudio site I got so frustrated trying to find a gallery or SOMETHING besides that ONE link of questions. Finally, I found one to her contact information, but if we weren't doing it for a project I would have immediately been annoyed and gone elsewhere.
Accessibility is important to users. It should also be important to designers. In the video about Bruce Sexton suing Target for lack of vital tools for people with disabilities on their website, I thought that it was warranted. If a website as big as Target's doesn't have those kinds of things for those with disabilities how do they expect those users will respond? If I was using tools such as the ones mentioned and all it read back to me was HTML jibberish I would be pretty annoyed. I feel like its a bit disrespectful in a sense. I would feel almost like Target didn't care enough to make it easily usable for those types of tools.
Design and usability are not the same thing. Usability refers to the ease of access of the site. Site maps are good for commercial type websites. Wal-Mart, for example, has so many products and other things on their website a site map is almost required. I agree with Derek Powazek when he said that your links should never take you to the same page you are currently on. I personally get really frustrated when a link takes me to the current loaded page. On the Yfactorstudio site I got so frustrated trying to find a gallery or SOMETHING besides that ONE link of questions. Finally, I found one to her contact information, but if we weren't doing it for a project I would have immediately been annoyed and gone elsewhere.
Accessibility is important to users. It should also be important to designers. In the video about Bruce Sexton suing Target for lack of vital tools for people with disabilities on their website, I thought that it was warranted. If a website as big as Target's doesn't have those kinds of things for those with disabilities how do they expect those users will respond? If I was using tools such as the ones mentioned and all it read back to me was HTML jibberish I would be pretty annoyed. I feel like its a bit disrespectful in a sense. I would feel almost like Target didn't care enough to make it easily usable for those types of tools.
Friday, October 2, 2009
Web Typography.
Web Typography history basically starts when the first websites came out & designers were not able to control which font was displayed on their page. In 1995, Netscape introduced the font tag. It allows the designer to choose a font to be displayed on the designed site. Also, it allows the designer to have fall back fonts (Wikipedia, 2009). Which are fonts that are in the font-family list that if for some reason the viewer didn't have the listed font installed the computer would go to the next font on the list. This happens until there is a compatible font to display that the viewer has installed.
I do agree that there is an issue with legality. Designers could possibly use fonts that they do not have the license to. There is really no way to determine whether or not they do have the license without a thorough investigation of the computer itself. The font legality issue is same throughout not only web design but print design as well.
I think that web typography technology can only increase. I believe that one day the font that is specified by the designer is the font that will be displayed with no fall back fonts. Obviously, that is a while away considering that are umpteen amount of fonts out there and to have ALL of them on a computer is an unrealistic standard with a minimum a terabyte of memory. I can just see a time when a designer specifies a font and that's it. Considering how far we have come in other means of web typography such as the font tag in 1995; when previously there was no way to even specify a font. I will stress it one more time so I don't sound stupid for stating this, it is YEARS away until this POSSIBLY could happen.
I do agree that there is an issue with legality. Designers could possibly use fonts that they do not have the license to. There is really no way to determine whether or not they do have the license without a thorough investigation of the computer itself. The font legality issue is same throughout not only web design but print design as well.
I think that web typography technology can only increase. I believe that one day the font that is specified by the designer is the font that will be displayed with no fall back fonts. Obviously, that is a while away considering that are umpteen amount of fonts out there and to have ALL of them on a computer is an unrealistic standard with a minimum a terabyte of memory. I can just see a time when a designer specifies a font and that's it. Considering how far we have come in other means of web typography such as the font tag in 1995; when previously there was no way to even specify a font. I will stress it one more time so I don't sound stupid for stating this, it is YEARS away until this POSSIBLY could happen.
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