Type Reading

What are some ways to indicate a new paragraph?

The most frequently used is indenting the first line of writing. Other options are: hanging or reverse indent, indenting more than an em dash width, a full line of white to separate two paragraphs.

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

The most important "gap makers" on the edges of text are the hyphen and dash.  Try to leave at least 2 characters on the line and 3 following, avoid hyphenating proper nouns.  

Define font hinting. Why is it necessary? 

Font hinting is using a rasterized grid to display letter forms that look right to the human eye. At low screen resolutions, hinting is critical for

producing a clear, legible text.

What is letterspacing/tracking? How do you track in Illustrator or InDesign?

Tracking is the process of loosening or tightening a block of text by adjusting the size of the text height. To manipulate tracking in Illustrator or InDesign, type or select a numeric value for Tracking (looks like A over A) in the Character panel.

Define kerning. Name 8 kerning pairs. How do you kern in InDesign or Illustrator?

Kerning is the process of adding or subtracting space between specific pairs of characters. You can automatically kern type using metrics kerning or optical kerning. Metrics kerning uses kern pairs, which are included with most fonts. Kern pairs contain information about the spacing of specific pairs of letters. Some of these are: LA, P., To, Tr, Ta, Tu, Te, Ty, Wa, WA, We, Wo, Ya, and Yo. To kern in Illustrator or InDesign, type or select a numeric value for kerning (looks like A V) in the Character panel.

What is wordspacing?

Word spacing is the use of white space between words.

Explain DIN

DIN, an acronym for the German Deutsches Institut für Normung (German Institute for Standardization), and the name of an increasingly large realist sans-serif typeface family. The design was based on a 1905 typeface for the Royal Prussian Railway Administration and was originally used for schematics and blueprints. As the typeface grew in popularity, it was released as a metal type, made into stencils for use on vehicles and in train yards, and used for street and building signage. DIN's structure has been accredited as an early forerunner of the typographic grid and widely used by signage and corporate identities around the world.

What is a baseline grid?

The baseline grid is an imaginary grid upon which the type sits.  The baseline of a piece of type can be forced to 'snap' to this grid to maintain continuity across the pages of design.  

How many characters per line is optimal? Is there a range? 

The optimal range is 40-80 words per line.

 

Define aesthetic text alignment (optically hanging punctuation)

Hanging punctuation controls the alignment of punctuation marks for a specific paragraph. Paragraph alignment determines the margin from which the punctuation hangs. 

What is a typographic river?

A typographic river appears in a justified text block when the separation of words leaves gaps of white space in several lines.   The river effect is created when the separation of words align throughout the body of text.

What is a widow?

A widow is a lone word at the end of a paragraph.

What is an orphan?
An orphan is the final two lines of a paragraph separated from the main paragraph to form a new column and should be avoided at all costs. 

VISC 204 Album Art

I have chosen to design the album art for rock and roll singer, Buddy Holly's The Apartment Tapes.

Some info I found on the album:

On December 1958, Buddy Holly bought an Ampex tape recorder from Norman Petty. Buddy Holly used this tape recorder in his New York City apartment to record rough takes of new songs that he was writing. In February 1959, as we all know, Buddy Holly died in a plane crash along with Ritchie Valens and J.P. "Big Bopper" Richardson. Many people believe that "It Doesn't Matter Anymore" and "True Love Ways" were Buddy Holly's last songs.
  After his death, Buddy Holly's tape recorder was located in his apartment building. On this tape, there were 14 full songs that Buddy Holly recorded. The songs were, in general, very clear and very personal. Most were just Buddy Holly and his acoustic guitar. These songs were truly Buddy Holly's last songs.
  The original tapes were given to two producers, Jack Hansen and Norman Petty. Both producers used the recordings and overdubbed them with a full band so the songs would be more radio-friendly. These versions of the songs were released to the public, and some of the songs even became hits. But the original raw recordings Buddy Holly made in his apartment never saw an official release.

POSSIBLE CONCEPTS:

-Focus on his death/ the plane crash/ slightly morbid
-photo of the ampex tape recorder that was used for recording
-buddy holly's iconic glasses
-retro 50's tacky look, snapping fingers

On Newsstands

Who is Herb Lubalin? Partner in publishing the 1960's magazines: Eros, Fact & Avant Garde. Lubalin was given free reign in the design.
Why was Esguire important? First lush style magazine published for men. Art direction is richly storied with designers like Paul Rand and Milton Glaser.
Who is Alexy Broadavich? Designer hired to help revolutionize the design of the magazine.  Broadavich took pleasure in the white space and finely tuned pacing of text and image.
What did Hoefler-Jones do for Harper"s? Introduced the magazine's Didot type family.
Who is Gail Anderson? Fellow art director for Rolling Stone, offered some of the most venturesome double-page spreads of the 1990's.
Who is David Carson? Inaugural art director for Ray Gun. His pages were kinetic and engaging.
Who is Tibor and what is M&Co? Tibor is the designer for Colors magazine.  He directed a unique magazine with little design to give emphasis to the photography and content. M&Co was his New York studio that he closed to move to Rome and focus entirely on Colors.
Who is Neville Brody? Art director for The Face, instituted a highly expressive design.  Introduced a custom typefaces.  Contorted letterforms.  Mixed typography with graphic symbols.
What is Speak? A magazine that sought to cover thoughtful writing on culture, loosely covering music, fashion, literature and art. First issue released in 1995. 

Photogs

After perusing all 50 photographers, I found myself liking all the same styles.  Hard to narrow down. Here are the six finalists:

Horst P. Horst

 

Horst P. Horst (most often known as just Horst) was a photographer best known for his photographs of women and fashion taken while working for Vogue. Horst rented an apartment in New York in 1937, and while residing there met Coco Chanel, whom he called "the queen of the whole thing". He would photograph her fashions for three decades. Horst is best known for his photographs of women and fashion, but is also recognized for his photographs of interior architecture, still lifes, especially ones including plants, and environmental portraits.  His method of work typically entailed careful preparation for the shoot, with the lighting and studio props arranged in advance. His published work uses lighting to pick out the subject.

some Horst bio    bio and photos

Mario Testino 

Testino has become one of the world's most well known and celebrated fashion photographers. His work has been featured across the globe in magazines such as Vogue, Vanity Fair and V and he has crafted and contributed to the imagery of leading fashion houses such as Burberry, Gucci, Versace, Calvin Klein, Dolce & Gabbana, Salvatore Ferragamo, Estee Lauder, Hugo Boss, Miu Miu, Shiseido and Michael Kors, among many others. As well as having published nine books of his work and edited one other dedicated to contemporary art and artists from his native Peru, Mario Testino has had many successful exhibitions in galleries and museums around the world.
his page      some work


Terry Richardson

Terry Richardson is an international celebrity as well as one of the most prolific and compelling photographers of his generation. Known for his uncanny ability to cut to the raw essence of whomever appears before his lens, Mr. Richardson's vision is at once humorous, tragic, often beautiful, and always provocative.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Richardson   http://www.terryrichardson.com/bio.html


Tim Walker

Tim Walker is a photgrapher based in London. Tim’s interest in photography began during work experience at Condé Nast where he set up the Cecil Beaton archive.
http://visualstreak.com/2008/06/07/tim-walker-fashion-photographer/   http://www.timwalkerphotography.com/ 

William Eggleston

William Eggleston (born July 27, 1939), is an American photographer. He is widely credited with increasing recognition for color photography as a legitimate artistic medium to display in art galleries—which, until the 1970s, often tended to privilege work by photographers making black-and-white prints. 
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1206729/bio   http://www.egglestontrust.com/ 

Yousuf Karsh

Karsh was a master in the use of studio lights. One aspect of Karsh's portrait is the emphasis on the lighting the subject's hands separately. He photographed many of the great and celebrated personalities of his generation. Journalist George Perry wrote in London's Sunday Times that "…when the famous start thinking of immortality, they call for Karsh of Ottawa."

http://www.biographybase.com/biography/Karsh_Yousuf.html   http://www.karsh.org/

 

VISC 204 Infographics

Finally completed my series of infographics and construction! Check it out on my Behance

http://be.net/rachroth

Letter Fountain Reading

What are small capitals? How are they different than something set in ALL CAPS?
Does your font have small caps? If not name a font that does.
Small capitals are smaller versions of capitals. They are not reduced capitals, but separately designed small capitals with an x-value that is generally higher than the lowercase letters. The stem weight is adjusted to suit the lowercase. They are used for texts containing lots of initials, abbreviations in capitals or words in capitals. From what I saw, Rockwell does not have small caps.

What are ligatures? why are they used? when are they not used? what are common ligatures? Does your font have ligatures? If not name a font that does.
Ligatures are fixed character combinations, used to avoid unattractive overlapping in normal print work of characters that could collide. If extra letter spacing is used in a text, ligatures aren't used and combinations of characters have to be set separately. Rockwell has ligatures.

What is the difference between a foot mark and an apostrophe?
An apostrophe is similar in form to a comma but placed higher and used to indicate the omission of one or more letters in a word, to indicate possession, or to indicate plurals in numbers. A foot mark is used to indicate measurement in feet.

What is the difference between an inch mark and a quote mark (smart quote)?
 An inch mark is used to indicate measurement in inches. A quote mark is placed at the beginning and end of a word, quotation, piece of dialogue, or phrase use to indicate that the words do not originate with the narrator.

What is a hyphen, en dash and em dashes, what are the differences and when are they used. A hyphen is used as a symbol to break words. It is used to prevent big gaps and ugly breaks in a block of text. An example is 'pre-school.' An en dash is longer than a hyphen and is used to demarcate a parenthetical thought or to indicate a sudden change of direction. An em dash is used to demarcate parenthetical thought in English texts and the dashes are unspaced.