Project 4 definitions

-The advantages of a multiple column grid are: Room for flexibility when designing layouts due to the increased number of columns. The designer is able to create tension and rhythm, achieve consistency when lining things up, and also explore a variety of different layouts by using a multiple column grid.

-Characters optimal for a line length,words per line? 45-75 characters per line,don't want to have a lot of lines that are 75 characters because that is pretty long. 65 characters is considered ideal, and for a multi-column grid 40 to 50 characters is ideal.

-The baseline grid is used in design because: the imaginary grid that type sits upon forces the baseline of a piece of type to 'snap' to this grid, which maintains continuity across the page of design.

-A typographic river is: Typographic rivers generally occur in justified text blocks when the separation of words leaves gaps of white space in several lines, creating a river effect where the white space aligns through the text.

-What is a flow line or clothesline mean? The horizontal alignment across the page, draws the viewers eye from left to right.

-How do you incorporate white space into your designs? By adjusting the size of margins or gutters, and by leaving modules on the grid empty.

-What is type color/texture mean? Type color is used to describe the tonal density and texture created by type when set as continuous running text upon the page, more specifically it describes the degree of variation or contrast in weight btw. thick and thin strokes. Choice of typeface,size,leading,tracking,word spacing, and line measure effect the texture and color(tonal value) of text setting. The variation ranges from the minimal color, which is created from consistent weight of line (mono line) fonts, to pronounced color, which results from extreme contrast of thick and thin stroke widths.

-What is x-height, how does it effect type color? The x-height is the median line that defines the top of the lowercase letters-specifically the height of the lowercase x. The x-height varies btw. typefaces, and effects the type color by the relation btw. the x-height and ascenders and descenders. A font with a tall x-height will appear darker.

-In justification or H &J terms, what do the numbers: minimum, optimum, and maximum mean? The specific amount of space between words,the minimum being the least possible, the optimum being just right, maximum being the most.

-What are some ways to indicate a new paragraph? are there any rules? Indenting, color, rules, leading, breaking, running indent, hanging indent, or on-a- point indent.

Rules: Don't indent the first line of the beginning paragraph in an article, it should be flush left.

The indent should be equal to the leading.

-What is a literature?

-Difference btw. a foot mark and an apostrophe? A foot mark ( ' ) is a straight mark, used for showing a measurement, and an apostrophe is curved ( ’ ) and is used to show possession, for contractions, and to omit letters in some cases. Option shift ] is how you access the apostrophe.

-Difference btw. an inch mark and a quote mark (smart quote)? An inch mark is two marks ('') that are straight and mean inches. A quote mark is curved in ‘‘ ’’ and are used to quote material or a person. Option ] and Option shift ] will create the quote marks.

-What is a hyphen,en dash, and em dashes, what are the differences and when are they used? a hyphen( -) is used for hyphenating words or line breaks. An en dash(option hyphen – ) is the width of a capital N, and is used btw. words indicating duration or when you have a compound adjectives and one of the elements is made of two words or a hyphenated word. An em dash( option shift hyphen — ) is twice as long as an en dash, and about the size of a capital M. Em dashes indicate a stop in thought, or used when a period is too strong and a comma is too weak.

-Things to look out for when hyphenating text: avoid more than two hyphenations in a row,and too many in one paragraph. Never hyphenate a heading. Break lines sensibly

-What does CMYK and RGB mean? Cyan Magenta Yellow Black, used in subtractive color printing, and Red, Green, and Blue,which is an additive color model.

-What does hanging punctuation mean? It means placing the quotations marks outside of the text block in order for the text to align along the vertical edge.

-What are ligatures? When are they used? When are they not used, what are common ligatures? A single form incorporating two or more letter parts which might otherwise touch or overlap. An example is the letters fi or fl. Ligatures are featured in many serif and sans serif fonts. They are used to create variation and a desired visual effect, they can be seen in many fonts that have calligraphic influences. Some common ligatures are fi,fl,ffi, or ffl. Ligatures should be avoided when using special spacing, and are not needed in some typefaces that are designed to eliminate problems that ligatures take care of.

Project 4 Article

On Creativity

by Andy Ruthledge

March 4, 2008

Published in: Creativity

Unless I change my mind again, 'On Creativity' by Andy Rutledge is the article I decided to use for project 4.  

Summary:

The author of this article challenges readers/designers 'concept of creativity and the role that it plays in work and professional communication.'  Creativity is referred to as a tool, which does not convey skill, and is also described as technical and analytical. Ruthledge says creativity can be used effectively by considering timing (when creativity is used during the design process), and also by starting with the "un-creative" facts, which become familiar to the designer during the design process. Ruthledge also points out that no design project begins with creativity, and instead begins with the client/context discovery, and of course, lots if research to become familiar with the "contextual landscape" of the project before committing time to an initial creative impulse. Approaching design creativity from a different view or "sideways" angle can enable designers to find clever solutions to the challenge at hand as well.  The constraints of design projects are designers "best friends" according to Ruthledge, and present designers with half of the solution.

Another issue the article addresses, is the use of creativity in the business world today. Businesses think that creativity is a 'magic bullet,' and is available for free from anyone, ranging from business staff to customers. Unfortunately, few people understand how to use creativity effectively, which leads to a backlash on the design profession, since we are considered to be the "custodians of creativity." People don't realize that creativity 'has little to do with effective design.' Therefore, it's important that designers distinguish themselves from the general public who all possess some sort of 'creativity,' by representing our value to clients by showing them our design competence and foundational skills( verses talking about ourselves in terms of being 'creative'). In doing this, Ruthledge says we can help create a perception of how creativity fits into our work,' before someone else does it for us.

This article was especially interesting to me because of Ruthledge's take on the constraints of projects in the design profession. I found that part to especially relate to projects that we work on now as students, which have a set of parameters to follow and objectives to meet. The process along the way is how we come up with our final solution to the design 'problem,' and the constraints we are given can be used as a tool to helps us, instead of being viewed as restricting our creativity. I also agree with his statements about how research and getting to know the 'landscape' of the project is essential before just coming up with some random 'creative' idea that may or may not solve the problem.

Main points:

The main points made throughout the article, which are touched on in the summary as well are:

-Defining creativity and using it effectively

-Using creativity in the design process, and working with constraints we are given

-The 'mythconception' of creativity

-Representing value to clients through design skills verses 'creativity'

*Andy Ruthledge is the head and chief design strategist of Unit Interactive, which is a successful website that develops companies brand name, logo,website, and application design. Ruthledge's personnel website, Design View, features articles he's written about professionalism and design.

My Flash Animation

Here is my Franklin Gothic website/animation.

HINT: The white circle in the right corner of the scene with the k is a button.

Flash

"Flash is a multimedia platform that is currently developed and distributed by the Adobe systems. Flash can manipulate vector and raster graphics, and supports the bidirectional streaming of audio and video."

Designers can use flash to animate web pages and make them an interactive experience for the viewer, to create animations, advertisements,and to integrate video into web pages.

These are some flash animations I enjoyed and thought each showed a different purpose for using flash:

Veer Type City:

-I enjoyed this animation because it really allowed to viewer to have an interactive experience by letting them navigate their way through the animation with the arrow keys, and also stop and click on what they wanted to know more about. I also thought it was really interesting how they created a sense of depth as you went 'through' the type city.

Wonder Wall:

-I thought this was a good example of a company using flash to make their website interactive, creative, and a a lot more interesting than just presenting images of their design work. I liked how the images change and became 3D when you move your cursor over them, and also how they presented the content of each design in an interactive way that was easy to navigate.

Lemon-powered clock:

-This animation was really fun and made something that can not only be boring, but hard to understand, into a simple and entertaining 'experience.' This was a creative way to present instructions instead of just typing a list and posting it on a website. I thought the music was great and went well with the style and feel of the animation. The use of real images, flat graphics, and buttons worked nicely together, and definitely helps viewers understand the content by giving a realistic visual and then allowing them to interact by having 'buttons' to click to move on to the next step.

Survey-Please take!

Please take my survey, I'll take yours too!

Thanks!

Infographics Readings

I thought this was a nice example of how an info graphic can be simple and effective when it comes to the use of technology to display the information. These photos are meant to reveal the 'invisible' bonds of friendship, envy, and unfamiliarity between these children. The blue strings represent who they would most like to be, the red strings connect them to who they would invite to a party, and the yellow strings connect them to the kids that they don't know as well. These images not only show how people connect to one another in an interesting way, but it also shows that when representing particular data, it is important to consider which method is appropriate and most effective to use to clearly communicate the story you want to tell. This data would have been less effective if it was done as a graph or chart, connections are about emotions so the use of children is an effective way to represent those relationships.

Franklin Gothic

Info on my new font: Franklin Gothic (From Alice Shrum's blog)

Fraklin Gothic Characteristics:

Franklin Gothic is a single-weight, San Serif Font.
Although, it does has some interesting characteristics that are not typical of a Sans Serif.
Lowercase "a" - Two Story with terminal and final.
Lowercase "g" - Two Stories with a close loop and right facing ear.
(These characteristics above are not traditional characteristics of a Sans Serif font.)
Letter "k" - Leg extends from the arm.
Letter "c" - Has no barb (typical Sans Serif) and angular cuts to for the "C."
Number "4" - Connects at the top forming an apex.
Uppercase "Q" - Tail descends below baseline.
Uppercase "M" - Vertex extends to the baseline.
Uppercase "W" - Apex ascends to cap-height line.
Uppercase "G" - Has a spur that descends.
All apexes and vertexes have flattened joining points.

Franklin Gothic: Morris Fuller Benton

Designer: Morris Fuller Benton, Milwaukee, Wisconsin (Nov. 20, 1872–June 30, 1948)

Designs Franklin Gothic in 1902.

Classification: Realist/Transitional, Sans Serif

Transitional: They are relatively straight in appearance and have less line width variation than Humanist sans-serif typefaces. Transitional sans-serif is sometimes called "anonymous sans-serif" due to its relatively plain appearance.
Similar Fonts: Standard, Bell Centennial, MS Sans Serif, Highway Gothic, and Arial.

The typeface is one of over 200 typefaces designed by Benton.
Including: Benton, Broadway, and Canterbury Old Style.

The early 1900’s in America:
1900
* George Eastman makes first portable camera that's affordable and open to the public
1901
* President Mckinley is shot dead by Leon Czolgsz
* Electric typewriter is invented
* Teddy Roosevelt is elected President
1902
* The U.S. Navy installs the first radio telephone aboard ships
1903
* Henry Ford founds Ford Motor Co.
* Orville and Wilbur Wright take the first test flight in their plane at Kitty Hawk, NC
* The first World Series is held, Boston vs. Pittsburgh
1904
* The first comic book is invented
* George M. Cohan, the creator of many patriotic songs and musicals creates his first musical, Little Johnny Jones
* The answering machine is invented
1905
* The first Yellow Pages is invented
* The Jukebox is invented with 24 songs.

In 1902 American Type Founders’ release of Franklin Gothic introduced the young Morris Fuller Benton. Morris Fuller Benton (November 30, 1872 – June 30, 1948) was an influential American typeface designer who headed the design department of the American Type Founders (ATF), for which he was the chief type designer from 1900 to 1937. He graduated as a mechanical engineer from Cornell and went to work with his father in the newly established type design department of the American Type Founders Company, which his father (Linn Boyd Benton) had established. (Linn Benton was a type-founder and the inventor of the matrix-cutting machine, which revolutionized printing.)

When Morris Benton entered the American Type Founders he was facing a welter of typefaces available from the resources available to him, none of which he was particularly fond of, so instead Benton chose to originate his own new designs. He completed at least twenty-three series, approaching a design a year, the heart of American type design for the first half of the twentieth century. Benton designed more than 200 typefaces, ranging from revivals of historical models like ATF Bodoni, to adding new weights to existing faces such as Goudy Old Style and Cheltenham, and to designing original designs such as Hobo, Bank Gothic, and Broadway. Benton’s large family of related neogrotesque sans-serif typefaces, known as ‘gothics’ as was the norm at the time, includes Alternate Gothic, Franklin Gothic, and News Gothic. All were more similar to, and anticipated, later realist sans-serif typefaces such as Helvetica than did the other early grotesque types of his contemporaries.

Franklin Gothic was originally designed as a typeface with a single weight and only two variations in width. Franklin Gothic can be distinguished from other sans serif typefaces, as it has a more traditional two-story g. Other main distinguishing characteristics are the tail of the Q and the ear of the g. The tail of the Q curls down from the bottom center of the letterform in the book weight and shifts slightly to the right in the bolder fonts. Franklin Gothic has an extra bold weight with a combination of subtle irregularities, tapering of strokes near junctions, in its roman form. Franklin Gothic has several widths and weights including Franklin Gothic book, medium, demi, heavy, condensed, and extra condensed. In 1979 Victor Caruso at International Typeface Corporation increased the Franklin Gothic series to four photocomp weights, Light, Medium, Bold and Black, all with italics. In 1991 David Berlow added four widths, making up a complete new series released in 2007. On a survey of the top 100 commercial fonts, and is also listed as number 12 on the 100 best fonts of all time!

Final Poster Series