Friday 30 November 2012

Quick Brown Fox


In the session we had to bring in the the typefaces we had printed for our partners to identify but typed out to say 'The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog' for each of the five fonts. 

The typefaces I chose were Rockwell, Comic Sans, Arial, Gill Sans and Chaparral Pro. A Mix of fonts I like and disliked. I had to choose the most readable from each typeface, trying out bold and condensed etc.

There were the examples of the fonts I found most readable, the Serif typefaces were alot more readable for me at 12 pt while the Sans-serif typefaces were alot more easy readable when they were at 24 pt. This is because they lack the distinctive structure that the serifs have to allow them to be read at lower point sizes. 










We then stuck up all of the fonts we had printed out up onto the wall in the studio, alot of conclusions came from this task, such as Roman typefaces like Times are alot more readable when they're in a smaller point size and on the other hand, Gothic work when they're slightly larger (24pt). This backed up what I had found when printing them out in the first place. Script typefaces also we found worked alot better when they were large because they were so intricate it was hard to read them when they were small. This proves why they're used alot for headlines as they're easier to read.





Birth of a Font: Images












Classifying Typefaces: Part 1 & 2

Part 1: Visual Literacy is the ability to construct meaning from images and type,
been able to read images of the present, past and from a whole range of cultures.
Producing images that are effective at been able to communicate a message to an audience.

Visual literacy is easily found when it comes to reading signs and understanding their meaning, the following example shows although these aren't the signs you would normally see you still have a rather clear understanding of what they mean or the point getting across at-least.



Visual communication is the different in that it's the process of sending receiving messages.
It's based on a level of shared mutual understanding of signs, symbols and signifiers.
It is affected by the audience, the context, media and the method of distribution.

An example of Visual communication is been able to communicate through sign language, and since sign language is regional only that group have a shared understanding of what each sign means. 


All that is necessary for any language to exist is an agreement amongst a group of people that one thing will stand for another.

Typography, it's the art and technique of printing with moveable type. The composition of printed material generated from movable type and the arrangement and appearance from printed matter.

Stone carving affected the way type looks because of the tools necessary to create the type.

In 1450, Johann Gutenberg invented moveable type and from there it has evolved ever increasingly. The most modern day type setting machine still relies on the same methods used by Johann Gutenberg.

History of type:

  • Classical / Old Style 


http://ilovetypography.com/2007/11/21/type-terminology-old-style/

  • Transitional


http://kevincote.wordpress.com/2010/02/02/baskerville/

  • Modern


http://ilovetypography.com/2008/05/30/a-brief-history-of-type-part-4/

  • Bauhaus / Swiss



http://duchessyork.wordpress.com/2012/01/30/bauhaus-und-die-neue-typographie/

  • Contemporary



http://behance.vo.llnwd.net/profiles3/94816/projects/212803/948161240099742.jpg


In class for  task we had to bring in typefaces, we then grouped them under the following:

Serif
Sans-serif
Script
Black-letter
Graphic


We were then to organise the typefaces by their modes of their possible production origins which includes:

Stone
Sable
Bone
Wood
Lead
Silicion


We then had come up with words to describe how the top typeface of each of the categories looked my group came up with:
  • Stone: sophisticated, well-made, old
  • Sable: rough, fast, fluid, crude
  • Bone: posh, feminine, elegant, modern
  • Wood: simple, elegant, modern
  • Lead: formal, fragile, mechanical, simple
  • Silicon: geometric, precise, bold, round

Thursday 29 November 2012

Photoshop Workshop




To begin in our Photoshop workshop we were shown how to create a document most efficiently, and were also introduced to the different presets: print presets and screen presets. The print presets been at 300 dpi and in CYMK (The different printing inks, subtractive [ink]) and the screen presets been at 72 dpi and RGB (The 3 colours emitted by screen displays to form all the colours, additive colour [light]). 

Also explained to why the resolutions are different, 300 dpi been the highest resolution possible where a increase in resolution wouldn't make a difference to the average eye, while 72 (or 96) dpi where the resolutions which are set for all screen displays. 


One of Simon's photographs he had taken of the Killers was incredible vibrant, but it wouldn't be physically possible to print it out like this because the colour mode is set to RGB, since cameras take photographs that are in RGB because they capture light, it makes it so what they capture is often impossible to reproduce in ink. To proof your images you go to View > Proof Colours.


This brings up the following image once you proof it, with Proof colours [ Command + Y ] and Proof setup on Working CYMK, the image now is what it'd look like if you were to change the colour mode to CYMK. It's visibly duller and not as powerful as it was originally in RGB. This is a non-destructive technique  Changing the colours modes is destructive because once you change the colour mode to CYMK from RGB you can't change to back to RGB and reverse the effects because that's a destructive method of editing.


With the image we had originally that was in RGB, a non-destructive way of finding out how it'll look when it prints out is to use the proofing alongside the Gamut warning, this while still in RGB shows the areas in grey which wouldn't be reproducible in CYMK, so the aim of this is to get rid of all the grey while still preserving the image fully as possible. 



One way to do this is by changing the hue and the saturation and changing the colours of the image, Red is a lot more easily reproduced in CYMK then blue is so it's often best to make a image red if it's like this. Changing the colours to red below gets rid of all the gamut warning grey, this is still in proof view as well in RGB. This image below is what it'd look like once it'd be printed. Although the colour is changed the image is still very much preserved from what it was like originally, just with a colour adjustment.


Another image of Simon's, we were asked how we were too increase the contrast on the mosaic on the ceiling of the image, people said to use the Image > Adjustments > Levels/ Brightness & Contrast etc. But all of these methods are destructive to an image, you can't pull them back off once they're applied.

 We were told to use the adjustments layers, these are accessed from the bottom right where you'll be able to apply a layer adjustment layer, these are all the ones found in Image > Adjustments just that they're a non-destructive method to creating adjustments to your images.


I applied a levels adjustment layer to brighten up image, but this brightens the whole image, to pull it back to the only bits I want to apply it too, I can paint onto the mask of the levels layer, this allows me to cancel out the adjustment layer that's applied onto the whole image. This way I can then change the levels adjustment layer levels without effecting the parts that are painted in black on the image.



We then tried this on another image, this time attempting it in two different methods.



First method was to use the quick selection tool to quickly select the statue using [ + ] to increase and decrease the size of the brush size. Once we had all the statue selected I then created a levels adjustment layer and it had only applied it to the statue only, this allowed me to play about with the levels to bring it out of the image and get it to stand out. Result below.



For the next method we created a levels adjustment layer then used the quick-selection tool on the sky instead, then applying a fill to it to achieve the same effect, this result was the same as the first but this was more inefficient than the previous. The first method is just so fast and easy.



We were then shown how to create a panorama using the Photoshop automate options, allowing photoshop to do the work for us instead of having to craft and blend all of the photographs together. This could be found here: File > Automate > Photomerge.


This brought up the following options, Auto is the default and combines the photographs you input automatically, Perspective adds a perpective to the images, making them seem a lot like how you turn in real life. Cylindrical adds a fish eye effect to the photographs. Spherical does a similar effect, collage brings the photographs together but allows you to rotate them. Reposition simply just lets you reposition the images about.


Using just the automatic I set Photoshop to combine them and this is the result below, to fix up the image even more I had to crop it, so i used that on it to achieve what's seen on the bottom image.





Thursday 22 November 2012

Message & Delievery: Distribution 2

Using the feedback I got in the critique: it wasn't a envelope and that the mailing list never included that it was a mailing list it's self. I acted upon these, as well as adding more description to the perforation writing, which was also a critique I was given. I generated ideas on how to now convert the existing design into a envelope to meet the criteria. 


To work out how I was to create the design it's self I created a mock up to then calculate the measurements from and then create the final piece without having do guess work onto expensive stock and be wrong. So I got that out of the way to be thorough.



I came to a resolution I was really happy with, It was the same design roughly just with an extra panel, this then allowed me to add tabs onto the end which then went into the other side. This then enveloped it's self, it was a real simple change to the design.


I then created this into illustrator, I added more text into the design to refine the message, this really helped the overall design. As well as that I added in the image of Pussy Riot to accompany the text to give it more context.


As well as that I added in a title to the mailing list, which was a simple change but much needed in the end.



I had one problem initially which was that the tabs where the wrong end which came as an error while I transcribed the mock-up into illustrator  I didn't realize the tabs got flipped to the other side of the lip so the tabs couldn't go in because they were too far away.


I resolved this and then they fit perfectly.


I printed out 5 more and recreated the whole set of them again from this.


As proof of concept, the speech bubble came out perfectly of this one, The perforator started to give up and barely perforate anymore after this one.