Design Fundamentals for New Media

Inside the Black Budget

2008-04-06T10:53:00.000-07:00

Source: By WILLIAM J. BROAD
New York Times
Published: April 1, 2008

Skulls. Black cats. A naked woman riding a killer whale. Grim reapers. Snakes. Swords. Occult symbols. A wizard with a staff that shoots lightning bolts. Moons. Stars. A dragon holding the Earth in its claws.

No, this is not the fantasy world of a 12-year-old boy.

It is, according to a new book, part of the hidden reality behind the Pentagon’s classified, or “black,” budget that delivers billions of dollars to stealthy armies of high-tech warriors. The book offers a glimpse of this dark world through a revealing lens — patches — the kind worn on military uniforms.

Click here to read rest of article and see slide show.

How Google Got Its Colorful Logo

2008-03-31T12:24:00.000-07:00

By Sonia Zjawinski
Source: Wired (Click to read full article and see gallery)

In just a few short years, Google's logo has become as recognizable as Nike's swoosh and NBC's peacock. Ruth Kedar, the graphic designer who developed the now-famous logo, shows the iterations that led to the instantly recognizable primary colors and Catull typeface that define the Google brand. Kedar met Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page through a mutual friend nine years ago at Stanford University, where she was an assistant professor. Page and Brin, who were having trouble coming up with a logo for their soon-to-launch search engine, asked Kedar to come up with some prototypes. "I had no idea at the time that Google would become as ubiquitous as it is today, or that their success would be of such magnitude," Kedar says.

Banksy Was Here

2007-05-10T08:05:00.000-07:00

The invisible man of graffiti art.
by Lauren Collins, New Yorker Magazine, May 2007

“Show Me the Monet,” spray-paint and oil on canvas. Denise James, a project officer with the anti-graffiti organization Bristol Clean & Green, calls Bristol “the graffiti capital of England,” but admits a grudging affection for Banksy. “I like the one where he’s got a picture of a stream and a bridge and he’s just dumped a shopping trolley in there,” she told Lauren Collins, referring to this image in the style of Monet. “I can relate to that, because we’ve got a problem with shopping trolleys.”

Whoever he is, Banksy revels in the incongruities of his persona. “The art world is the biggest joke going,” he has said. “It’s a rest home for the overprivileged, the pretentious, and the weak.” Although he once declared that “every other type of art compared to graffiti is a step down,” in recent years he has produced his share of traditional works on canvas and on paper, suitable for hanging indoors, above a couch. His gallerist in London, Steve Lazarides, maintains a warm relationship with Sotheby’s, authenticating Banksy pieces that the house offers for auction, and thereby giving Banksy’s tacit endorsement of their sale on the secondary market. In February, Sotheby’s presented seven works by Banksy in a sale of contemporary art. “Bombing Middle England” (2001), an acrylic-and-spray-paint stencil on canvas, featuring a trio of retirees playing boules with live shells, was estimated to bring between sixty and a hundred thousand dollars. It sold for two hundred thousand. (“Bombing” is slang for writing graffiti.) Last month, a painting titled “Space Girl and Bird” sold at Bonham’s for five hundred and seventy-five thousand, a Banksy record. Ralph Taylor, a specialist in the Sotheby’s contemporary-art department, said of Banksy, “He is the quickest-growing artist anyone has ever seen of all time.” Banksy responded to the Sotheby’s sale by posting a painting on his Web site. It featured an auctioneer presiding over a crowd of rapt bidders, with the caption “I can’t believe you morons actually buy this shit.”

Read the full article by clicking here.

Eyetracking points the way to effective news article design

2007-04-28T14:57:00.000-07:00

OJR's design experts review usability research and offer suggestions on how you can make your online articles better connect with readers.
By Laura Ruel and Nora Paul
Posted: 2007-03-13
When one of world’s best-known usability experts, Jakob Nielsen, conducts eyetracking research to test what his usability work has shown, the results generate some beneficial tips for online editors. This is what happened in late 2005, when Nielsen and Tara Pernice Coyne, the Nielsen/Norman Group’s director of research, conducted an eyetracking test with 255 people in New York City.

With a little more than half of the participants (63 percent) ages 30 to 49, the test generated results applicable to the target audience for most news sites. Additionally, 20 percent were 18-29 and 16 percent were 50-64. Fifty-eight percent were female, 42 percent were male. Every test subject was given 50 tasks to complete. Sessions with each test subject lasted about one to two hours.

Coyne (who we interviewed for this column) stresses that crucial to understanding the testing results is an awareness of the user’s motivation or goal behind each task. Some of the testing scenarios included asking the user to "read the news" or "read/learn", making a number these results particularly helpful to journalists. She said eyetracking is valuable in these cases because it indicates not only where our users look, but where key usability problems exist.

"[With eyetracking] we can see that a user may navigate the page of an interface that houses the info she wants," she said, "but if the text is poorly presented, or the navigation is cluttered, or there are too many superfluous images so she cannot easily find what she needs. This is a lost opportunity."

We’ve featured three of the more interesting journalistic study results below.

Click here to read the rest of the article.
Source: USC Annenberg Online Journalism Review

The Meliorist Redesign Gallery

2007-04-16T15:30:00.000-07:00

Allen Bevans

Brendan Coffey

Katherine Friesen

Click here to view her brochure in lieu of newspaper design.

Job Charumbira

Fedro Harahap

Jarett Sitter

Niyanna Hitchens

Justin Oborne

Scott Kovacs

Josh Paul

Tamara Craft

Job Charumbira

Connor McCord

Nathaniel Dekens Waganaar

Dave Gerhart

Nick Jamieson

Clint Lunde

Julie Bailey

Graphic Designers

2007-04-10T12:32:00.000-07:00

Frank Kozik
Frank Kozik was born in Madrid, Spain in 1962. At the age of 14 he moved to the United States and settled in Austin, Texas. Credited with single handedly reviving the "lost" art of the concert poster, Frank's creative career grew largely out of his enthusiasm for Austin's growing underground rock scene in the mid-eighties. Starting with black and white flyers for friends' bands posted on telephone poles, his reputation grew as an artist whose work was graphically compelling as well as culturally gripping.

Kozik is an artist currently based in San Francisco, California, where he produces artwork and graphics, and formerly managed his own record label, Man's Ruin as well as Rise Records.

His work is well known to devotees of album-cover art and concert flyer art. He has produced artwork for musicians such as Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, George Clinton, Green Day, Beck, The Offspring, The Melvins and many more.
Information from Wikipedia

Shepard Fairey
Frank Shepard Fairey (born February 15, 1970 in Charleston, South Carolina) is a contemporary graphic designer/illustrator. He usually goes under his middle and last name, Shepard Fairey. He is most noted for being the artist who, while attending the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in 1989, created the "André the Giant Has a Posse" sticker campaign, which has evolved into the "Obey Giant" campaign, and can now be seen all over the world. The campaign has become, in Fairey's words, an "experiment in phenomenology."

Fairey has cultivated an aesthetic of Western currency, using moire patterns and large portraits of famous figures like Richard Nixon. A series of works contains the line, "This is your God," referring to money. Fairey frequently uses wheatpaste to affix his large, propaganda-like posters to billboards, and his followers do the same to buildings.

Fairey graduated from Wando High School in 1988. He graduated from RISD in 1992 with a Bachelor of Arts in Illustration, and currently resides in Los Angeles, California. Using the slogan "The Medium is the Message" borrowed from Marshall McLuhan, Fairey has become one of the most well-known artists of the early 2000s. Originally partners in the BLK/MRKT graphic design firm with fellow designer and artist Dave Kinsey, Fairey split away in 2003 to found the design firm Studio Number One.

Kyle Thompson, aka Fattie B. of Steez
Fattie B., of Burlington, Vermont, has been a DJ, MC, record producer and artist for over 10 years.
Click here for more information on his biography.

Wes Wilson
Robert Wesley Wilson (b. July 15, 1937) is an American artist and one of the leading designers of psychedelic posters. Most well known for designing posters for Bill Graham of the The Fillmore in San Francisco, he invented a style that is now synonymous with the peace movement, psychedelic era and the 1960s.

Koichi Sato
Born in Takasaki City, Gunma Prefecture, Japan in 1944. Graduated from the Department of Industrial Arts (presently known as the Design Department), Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music. He began to work as a free-lance designer in 1971 after working for the publicity section of Shiseido Co., Ltd. He has been a professor at Tama Art University since 1995. Pieces of his works are in the collections of various museums around the world including The New York Contemporary Museum. He is a director of Japan Graphic Designers Association (JAGDA), a member of Alliance Graphique Internationale (AGI), Japan Design Committee, Tokyo Art Directors Club (ADC) and Tokyo Typo Directors Club
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László Moholy-Nagy
László Moholy-Nagy, July 20, 1895 – November 24, 1946) was a Hungarian painter and photographer as well as professor in the Bauhaus school. He was highly influenced by constructivism. He was a strong advocate of the integration of technology and industry into the arts.

In 1923, he replaced Johannes Itten as the instructor of the preliminary course at the Bauhaus. This effectively marked the end of the school's expressionistic leanings and moved it closer towards its original aims as a school of design and industrial integration. The Bauhaus became known for the versatility of its artist and Moholy-Nagy was no exception. Throughout his career he became proficient and innovative in the fields of photography, typography, sculpture, painting, and industrial design.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Saul Bass
Saul Bass was a celebrated graphic designer, and spent much of his early career doing print work for film ads in Hollywood, starting up his own design studio in 1950. The true beginning of his ascent to fame however, came after collaborating with director Otto Preminger on the movie poster for his 1954 film Carmen Jones. Preminger was so impressed with Bass’ work that he enlisted him to produce the title sequence as well. Bass became notorious in 1955 after designing the controversial opening sequence for the equally controversial film The Man with the Golden Arm, also directed by Preminger. The film was about a musician struggling with a morphine addiction, and the opening sequence features long thin shapes, evocative of the image of a hypodermic needle, jutting onto the screen, and culminates in on of these shapes taking on the form of a paper cutout of a somewhat gnarled arm, which is a strong image tied to drug addiction. This was one of the first instances of title sequences truly being integrated into the theme of a movie, and to this day it is still considered one of the best designed examples.

By the end of his life, he had created over 50 title sequences for directors such as Preminger, Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, John Frankenheimer and Martin Scorsese. His last title sequence was the hauntingly macabre one of Robert De Niro falling through the sinister neon lights of the Las Vegas Strip to symbolize his character’s descent into hell for Scorsese’s Casino. It was occasionally said that after seeing one of Bass’s title sequence, it was safe to leave the theater because he was able to choose a single image that was accurately representative of the films themes and main ideas. Martin Scorsese once described his approach as creating: "an emblematic image, instantly recognizable and immediately tied to the film".

In addition to his film work Bass also is credited with designing some of the best-remembered, most iconic logos in North America, including both the Bell Telephone logo and the subsequent AT&T globe, as well as the logos for the Girl Scouts, Kleenex tissues, and United Airlines.

My reason for choosing Saul Bass as an inspiration stems from his often simple aesthetic, which could be described as minimalistic, especially when compared to some of the more modern designers, whose styles I often find overly busy. This style lends itself very well to logo design, where his gift for divining a single image that could symbolize an entire set of ideas would be an asset. Additionally, I greatly appreciate what he did for the film industry. Before Carmen Jones by taking something that was initially so tacked on and uninteresting that theater projectionists would only pull the curtain after they had finished. However, because of his influence, title sequences have become an art form of their own, and can be used along with the movie, to convey what the director envisions, and I’m sure directors appreciate having an additional avenue through which to communicate their ideas.

For my poster, I began by taking the movie poster for the film that was likely Saul Bass’ most famous work, The Man with the Golden Arm. I traced all of the blocks, and colored them appropriately according to the appearance of the poster. Additionally, I traced the lettering for “the man with the golden”. Early on, I had decided that the title of this pretend exhibition would be “The Man with the Golden Design” so I took what letters I could from the main headline, as well as the names of the cast members, and synthesized the rest, repeating the process for the location and dates near the top and the sub-headline, “the works of Saul bass”. Then I decided that I should change the hand to be holding a pencil, while still retaining the cardboard cut-out style of the original. Since the original poster had an image of each of the three stars of the movie I decided that I should replace them with something. I replaced the movie’s leading man, Frank Sinatra’s face with that of the exhibition’s leasing man, Saul bass himself, auto-traced to retain the style. Replacing Eleanor Parker and Kim Novak with additional pictures of Bass would have been a poor choice, so instead I chose to use some of Bass’s work, I wanted something emblematic, but not recognizable as a logo, so I searched through his works and picked out a couple more cut-out style images. I changed them from black to white so they would be easily visible, and I added them to the poster.
Essay by: Cody Herauf

Alphonse Maria Mucha
Alphonse Maria Mucha (1860-1939) is most often remembered for the prominent role he played in shaping the aesthetics of French Art Nouveau at the turn of the century. As a struggling and relatively unknown artist of Czech origin living in Paris, Mucha achieved immediate fame when, in December 1894, he accepted a commission to create a poster for one of the greatest actresses of this time, Sarah Bernhardt. Though the printer was apprehensive about submitting Mucha´s final design because of its new unconventional style, Bernhardt loved it and so did the public. ´Le style Mucha´, as Art Nouveau was known in its earliest days, was born. The success of that first poster brought a 6 years contract between Bernhardt and Mucha and in the following years his work for her and others included costumes and stage decorations, designs for magazines and book covers, jewellery and furniture and numerous posters. Mucha returned to Czechoslovakia in 1910, where he dedicated the remainder of his life to the production of a an epic series of 20 paintings depicting the history of the Slav people, the Slav Epic.

Storm Thorgerson
Storm Thorgerson (born 1944 in Potters Bar, Middlesex) is an English graphic designer. He was a key member of the British graphic art group Hipgnosis, and designed many of their most famous single and album covers. Perhaps his most famous designs are those for Pink Floyd.[1] His design for Dark Side of the Moon has been called one of the greatest album covers of all time.[2][3] Many of his designs are notable for their surreal elements. He often places objects out of their traditional contexts, especially with vast spaces around them, to give them an awkward appearance while highlighting their beauty. Several books have been devoted to surveying Thorgerson's work over three-plus decades.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Klutsis and Kulagina
Klutsis, is a pioneer of photomontage in the Soviet Union and an acclaimed graphic designer and poster producer. Unlike the work of fellow artists in the Soviet avant-garde such as Aleksandr Rodchenko and El Lissitsky, the breadth of Klutsis's extensive and groundbreaking output has been relatively unexplored. Valentina Kulagina, Klutsis's wife and colleague, is also an innovative poster, book, and exhibition designer.

Klutsis was born in Latvia in 1895. Following two years of art school, he was drafted into the Russian Army, and took part in the 1917 overthrow of the Tsar. In 1919, Klutsis resumed his art education in Moscow in the studio of Kazimir Malevich. Acclaimed for his spatial constructions, as well as for his designs of practical structures like kiosks, tribunes, and radio-orators, Klutsis became a professor of color theory at the Constructivist school VKhUTEMAS (Higher State Artistic and Technical Institute) in 1924. In addition to being an accomplished Constructivist, by the early 1920s, Klutsis became a pioneering developer of photomontage, a method of cutting and pasting together photographs. This process, eagerly adopted by other Russian avant-gardists, was used for a variety of artistic and graphic purposes, mainly supporting the ideology and programs of the emerging Soviet state.

In 1920, Klutsis encouraged Kulagina, then a young painting student at the State Free Art Studios, to enter VKhUTEMAS, where he taught. The following year, the two artists married. Throughout the 1920s, they lived in the school's headquarters, which also housed artists Aleksandr Rodchenko, Varvara Stepanova, Sergei Senkin, and poet Aleksei Khruchenykh. In 1928, Kulagina joined October, an artists' group whose members included Klutsis (who was in charge of the photomontage section), Rodchenko, Boris Ignatovich, and Lissitzky. That same year, she designed parts of the Soviet Pavilion of the landmark Pressa exhibition in Cologne. After graduating from VKhUTEMAS, she worked for IZOGIZ (the State Art Publishing Agency) and VOKS (the All-Union Society of Cultural Relations with Abroad), receiving domestic and international commissions for posters and exhibition and book designs. Kulagina's work combines drawing with elements of the photomontage style developed by her husband.

Brought together, Klutsis and Kulagina's work from the 1920s through the late 1930s serves as one of the strongest examples of the post-abstract Soviet avant-garde. Both of their styles and techniques, and the purposes to which they were put, will be examined within the scope of the exhibition.

Derek Riggs
Derek Riggs is a contemporary British artist best known for creating the heavy metal band Iron Maiden's mascot, Eddie. He is also well known for working with the heavy metal band Gamma Ray and the all female tribute band The Iron Maidens who he designed and created their self titled debut album cover (of the female version of Eddie called Edwina), and he titled the piece LA Maneater.

His claim to fame is indeed of Eddie, Iron Maiden's mascot. Quite by accident, the original character "electric Matthew" was a painting Riggs did in symbolization of the rebellious punk movement of the early 1980s in the United Kingdom. Iron Maiden's management came across the painting, and realised they had something. Asking for a new version with some added hair on the figure, they acquired their first cover for the Iron Maiden album, released in 1980. His final artwork for Iron Maiden was the concept of the cover of their Brave New World album in 2000, after which he gave up designing for Maiden. He also worked with Stratovarius for their album 'Infinite', and did the cover for Artension's 2004 album Future World.

Paul Rand
Paul Rand (1914-) is one of the most influential figures in American graphic design. He explored the formal vocabulary of the European avant garde art movements and developed an unique and distinctly American graphic style which was characterized by simplicity, wit and a rational approach to problem solving.

Educated in New York at Pratt Institute from 1929-1932, Parson's School of Design from 1932-1933 and the Art Student's League from 1933-1934, Rand was a major force in editorial design. He was art director of Esquire and Apparel Arts (later GQ:Gentleman's Quarterly) from 1935-1941 and designed covers for the Directions cultural journal between 1938 and 1945. Rand has been influential as a design consultant, as well, developing identity systems for major corporations such as IBM and Westinghouse.

From 1956-1969 and beginning agin in 1974, rand taught design at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Rand was inducted into the New York Art Directors Club Hall of Fame in 1972.

Ralph Steadman
Ralph Steadman (born Wallasey, May 15, 1936) is a British cartoonist and caricaturist.

Born in Wallasey, Cheshire, and brought up in Towyn, North Wales, Steadman attended Ysgol Emrys Ap Iwan (high school), Abergele, East Ham Technical College and the London College of Printing and Graphic Arts during the 1960s, doing freelance work for Punch, Private Eye, the Daily Telegraph, the New York Times and Rolling Stone during this time.

Steadman is renowned for his political and social caricatures and cartoons and also for illustrating a number of picture books. Awards that he has won for his work include the Francis Williams Book Illustration Award for Alice in Wonderland, the American Society of Illustrators' Certificate of Merit, the W H Smith Illustration Award for I Leonardo, the Dutch Silver Paintbrush Award for Inspector Mouse, the Italian Critica in Erba Prize for That's My Dad, the BBC Design Award for postage stamps, the Black Humour Award in France, and several Designers and Art Directors Association Awards. He was voted Illustrator of the Year by the American Institute of Graphic Arts in 1979.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Josef Müller-Brockmann
Josef Müller-Brockmann, (May 9, 1914 – August 30, 1996), was a Swiss graphic designer and teacher. He studied architecture, design and history of art at both the University and Kunstgewerbeschule in Zurich. In 1936 he opened his Zurich studio specialising in graphic design, exhibition design and photography. From 1951 he produced concert posters for the Tonhalle in Zurich. In 1958 he became a founding editor of New Graphic Design along with R.P. Lohse, C. Vivarelli, and H. Neuburg. In 1966 he was appointed European design consultant to IBM. Author of the 1961 publications The Graphic Artist and his Design Problems and Grid Systems in Graphic Design, and the 1971 publications History of the Poster and A History of Visual Communication.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ed Fella
Ed Fella is an artist, educator and graphic designer whose work has had an important influence on contemporary typography. He practiced professionally as a commercial artist in Detroit for 30 years before receiving an MFA in Design from the Cranbrook Academy of Art in 1987. He has since devoted his time to teaching at the California Institute for the Arts and his own unique self-published work which has appeared in many design publications and anthologies. In 1997 he received the Chrysler Award and in 1999 an Honorary Doctorate from CCS in Detroit. His work is in the National Design Museum and MOMA in New York.

His recently published book "Edward Fella: Letters on America, Photographs and Lettering" gives insight into his idiosyncratic world by combining and juxtaposing examples of his unique hand lettering with his photographs of found vernacular lettering.

David Carson
David Carson is principal and chief designer of David Carson Design, Inc. with offices in New York City and Charleston, SC.

Carson graduated with "honors and distinction" from San Diego state university, where he received a BFA degree in sociology. A former professional surfer, he was ranked #9 in the world during his college days. Numerous groups including the New York Type Directors Club, American Center for Design and I.D. magazine have recognized his studio's work with a wide range of clients in both the business and arts worlds. Carson and his work have been featured in over 180 magazine and newspaper articles around the world, including a feature in Newsweek magazine, and a front page article in the new york times . London-based Creative Review magazine dubbed Carson "Art Director of the Era." The American Center for Design (Chicago) called his work on Ray Gun magazine "the most important work coming out of America." His work on Beach Culture magazine won "Best Overall Design" and "Cover of the Year" from the Society of Publication Designers in New York.

Peter Max
Peter Max is a multi-dimensional creative artist. He has worked with oils, acrylics, water colors, finger paints, dyes, pastels, charcoal, pen, multi-colored pencils, etchings, engravings, animation cells, lithographs, serigraphs, silk screens, ceramics, sculpture, collage, video and computer graphics. He loves all media, including mass media as a "canvas" for his creative expression.

Paul Frank
Paul Frank Sunich (born August 29, 1967) is a graphic and fashion designer. Paul Frank's creations adorn clothing and other products produced by Paul Frank Industries, Inc. Julius the monkey is one of Paul Frank's best-known characters.

Noel Martin
NOEL MARTIN studied drawing, painting, and printmaking at the Art Academy of Cincinnati, where he later became an instructor. He is self-taught in typography and design which are now his main activities.

Designer for the Cincinnati Art Museum since 1947, Martin has been a freelance graphic designer and art director. His clients have included Champion Papers, Federated Department Stores, Xomox Corporation, Dreyfus Corporation, New Republic, Hebrew Union College, and many other industrial, educational, and cultural organizations. He has taught at the Art Academy of Cincinnati and was adjunct professor at the University of Cincinnati, and he has had major one-man exhibitions in the United States and Canada.

His work was included in the exhibition, "Four American Designers," at the Museum of Modern Art, New York City, in 1953, and in a one-man exhibition at the American Institute of Graphic Arts, 1958. Foreign exhibitions have included those of the U.S. Information Agency in Europe, Latin America, and the U.S.S.R., and also at the Gutenberg Museum, Mainz; Musee d'Art Moderne, Paris; and the Grafiska Institute, Stockholm. Martin's work is represented in public collections in New York, Boston, Washington, Cincinnati, and Amsterdam.

He has lectured at the Smithsonian, the Library of Congress, Aspen Design Conference, and schools and organizations throughout the country. Among his awards are the Art Directors Medal, Philadelphia, 1957, and the Sachs Award, Cincinnati, 1973.

Architectural.Deconstruction Gallery

2007-04-02T10:18:00.000-07:00

Alternative Culture & Design Briefs

2007-04-02T10:07:00.000-07:00

Skater Style

Skateboarding was, at first, tied to surf culture. As skateboarding spread across the United States, to places unfamiliar with surfing or surfing culture, it developed an image of its own. For example, the classic film short Video Days portrayed skateboarders as reckless rebels who don't give a fuck about society.

The image of the skateboarder as a rebellious, non-conforming youth has faded in recent years. The rift between the old image of skateboarding and a newer one is quite visible: magazines such as Thrasher portray skateboarding as dirty, rebellious, and still firmly tied to punk, while other publications, Transworld Skateboarding as an example, paint a more modern, diverse, and controlled picture of skateboarding stars. Furthermore, as more professional skaters use hip-hop music accompaniment in their videos, many urban youths and hip-hop fans are drawn to skateboarding, further diluting the sport's punk image.

The general public is opposed to skateboarding, attempting to ban it from public areas. Skateboarders just want to be able to skate public spots such as handrails and sets, which wrecks the paint on the rails. This forces skaters to sneak into spots, tresspass, and avoid the police just in order to skate.

Clothing and fashion is a personal skater choice. One can be gangsta (baggy clothes, fitted baseball caps, high top shoes), hesher (striped sweaters, tight clothes) or somewhere in between, someone who just rocks jeans and tshirts that fit.
Submitted by: Chris Pecora

BDSM

New Wave

New Wave is a term that has been used to describe many developments in music, but is most commonly associated with a movement in Western popular music, in the late 1970s and early 1980s inspired by the punk rock movement. New Wave music was initially marketed as a more commercial or chart-friendly version of punk.

The cover of Blondie's album Parallel Lines depicts the band wearing classic New Wave fashions.New Wave fashions were a conscious reaction to the hippie styles of the 1960s, which had spilled over into the mainstream by the late 1970s[citation needed]. Thus, flares and long hair for men were replaced by more body-conscious clothing and shorter, often spiky, hairstyles. The tight-fitting suits and thin ties worn by Blondie on the cover of their album Parallel Lines epitomise the New Wave look, which harks back to the rock and roll styles of the pre-hippie era.

Another aspect was a desire to embrace contemporary synthetic materials as a protest and celebration of plastic. This involved the use of spandex, bright colors (such as fluorescents), and mass-produced, tawdry jewelry and ornaments, typified by the dayglo aesthetic of the band X-Ray Spex. As a fashion movement, then, New Wave was both a post-modern belief in creative pastiche and a continuation of Pop Art’s satire and fascination with manufacturing. An important offshoot of new wave fashion was the New Romantic movement, which emphasized androgyny and extensive use of synthetic-looking cosmetics for both genders.

New Wave revivalists are currently very popular in New York, Boston and LA (centering around nightclubs like New York’s Misshapes, Boston's Manray nightclub, and featured in art and fashion magazines like Visionaire). The style has also recently been a major influence in high fashion, for example in the most recent collections of designers like Scott Gerst and Hedi Slimane (Creative_director of Dior Homme.)
Source: Wikipedia

Folk Music

They enjoy both playing and listening to it. Folk music is music that has a heritage linked to the traditional music styles of a region. In most industrialized areas folk music is in decline except where it is seen as a badge of cultural identity. In mainstream music obvious examples of folk music include the work of singer/song writers Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell. Other popular examples include rap, country, jazz, and blues which originally were folk music traditions, but have evolved and changed to become different from their original style.

Celtic music traditions have had a large stylistic influence on what is commonly perceived as folk music. The Scottish ballads Bonnie Barbara Allen and Twa Corbies are relatively well known, as well as the works of Loreena Mckennitt.

Traditional music and World music are both terms that can be used to describe Folk music. However some groups that actively play music from living folkloric traditions use the term Traditional music to clarify the difference between what they are playing and what popular music calls folk music. World music is a term that is most often used to describe all non-Western music traditions.

Also check out: Vancouver Folk Music Festival
Submitted by: Niyanna Hitchens

Cosplay

Cosplay is an alternative culture originating in Japan. The word cosplay is a merge between the words costume and play. Started in Japan, cosplay is gaining trend in many parts of the world including North America.

Cosplay is essentially a subculture on dressing as characters from anime, manga, video games, or Japanese pop/rock bands. Cosplayers in Japan wear costumes and gather in public places to show off their handmade creations, take pictures, and sometimes participate in best costume contests.

Although cosplay has quite a number of followers in North America, at this point they mostly parade their costumes at exclusive events like anime conventions.
Submitted by: Fedro Harahap

Metalheads

Metalheads are a broad subculture that encompass a large variety of sub-genres including thrash metal-heads, traditional metal-heads, glam metallers. groove metallers, nu metallers and doom metallers. Since heavy metal music began in the 1970's with bands such as Black Sabbath (shown below), Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin, the traditional metallers, often referred to as the "true metallers" were the first to don the fashion (black, leather, wifebeaters, cuffs, tattoos and skulls), grow the hair out (ideally into a mullet!) and show the devil horns with the "Corna" hand gesture. (see above). Metalheads are often mislabled as goths, satanists, dim-witted (think Beavis and Butthead), or punkers but these attritibutes only apply to a few subgenres as there are many extremely intelligent, happy, and non-satanic metalheads who all share the passion of busting out some mean air guitar now and then and rocking out to Metal. Heavy Metal itself is heavy riff-driven music with lots of electric guitar and bass, often very fast (thrash metal), and usually with semi-shouting to screaming vocals.

Over the years, metalheads, like most subcultures, are becoming increasingly harder to define. There are those who listen to the music but reject the image and those who embrace the image but are not really passionate about the music. The imagery portrayed in Metal can be based upon certain interests that metalheads have in common such as horror films, science fiction, occultism, politics, blood and gore imagery, weaponry (e.g. swords, knives, firearms etc) and militaria, fantasy (with particular attention to the work of J. R. R. Tolkien), and Celtic and Nordic culture and mythology. Some metalheads enhance this imagery for show (apparently Alice Cooper is an avowed Christian) and others have either naturally or synthetically disturbed minds. Regardless of the subgenre they belong to, metalheads can be very relatable and likable. I don't know anyone who doesn't make like Wayne and Garth and start headbanging when the heavy part of Bohemian Rhapsody comes on!

For more metal fun rent the documentary Metal: A Headbanger's Journey or take the quiz on youthink.com, "What Heavy Metal Band are you?".
Submitted by: Tiffany Pope

Goth

It all started in the United Kingdom around the mid 1980's, mainly revolving around the gothic rock scene, an offspring of the post-punk genre. Mainly identified by dress, it has spawned into many different types of "Goth", and varies from country to country. The type of music is also very identifiable, along with their so called style. Many attribute it to old gothic literature and through horror movies.

If you see heavy makeup... with chains, piercing and black attire, you can usually come to the conclusion that they are goth.
Submitted by: Clint Lunde

Nerds

The stereotypical nerd is generally depicted with thick rimmed or very "out of style glasses", a high prepubescent voice, a pocket protector loaded up with pens, very business like attire, and an overall lack of style. The nerd, although harmless and friendly, has consistently been pestered throughout time by it's one major enemy, "the jock". This is most likely attributed to the abundance of intelligence and lack of physical attributes. The nerds most likely favorite genre of movie/t.v is Sci-fi and comic books and video games are heavily practiced past times. The image above is that of one of the most recognizable stereotypical nerd Steve Urkel from the television show Family Matters.
Submitted by: Jordan Reimer

RIOT GRRRLS!

Riot Grrrls are part of a feminist movement in the third wave that is fueled by art/music/zines, etc. They use punk rock and other underground methods as a way to express themselves regarding feminist issues. Many women in this movement started bands regardless of their musical abilities and publishing their own zines to say exactly what they wanted to. Being hardcore seemed to be a fairly important part of being a riot grrrl which meant you had to be able to rock out and just kick ass in general.

The main issue that these feminists seemed to address was sexism and sexual abuse against women. It also tackled issues such as male dominance in the punk music scene. Most of the Riot Grrrl bands formed wrote their songs about these issues and looked for a change.
Submitted by: Julie Bailey

Mod

Originally the term mod meant a fan of modern jazz, as opposed to a trad, a fan of traditional jazz. The mod subculture began as a few groups of teenage boys with family connections to the clothing industry in London in 1958. They were generally middle classed and obsessed with new fashion and music styles. They took to wearing slim cut Italian suits, and listened to modern jazz and rhythm and blues. Were rivals to the rockers, and used scooters for transportation, as opposed to the rocker's motorcycles. After a law was passed requiring at least one mirror be attached to every motorbike, many mods added 4, 10, or even 32 mirrors to their scooters as a mockery of the new law.
Submitted by: Alec Regnier

Gangsta

The gangsta subculture exists in tandem with the musical genre of the same name. A derivative subgenre of Hip-Hop, Gangsta took off in the late 80’s and forged its niche with the help of musical artists like Dr. Dre in the early 90’s. The subject of Gangsta music often deals with the issues of inner-city life and the associated difficulties. Schooly D, a Philadelphia based artist is credited with introducing the term ‘gangsta’ in 1984 with his single “Gangster Boogie.” The early 90’s saw a majority of hip-hop and rap musicians moving into this style, quickly popularized for its hard-hitting, aggressive, and typically socio-political lyrics, usually revolving around street violence, poverty, and gunplay. Some of the early artists to forge in this genre were Ice T, Sir Jinx, Kool G Rap, N.W.A., and the Beastie Boys, although many tend not to classify them as true gangsta rappers.

The rise of the Bad Boy Records label signaled a key stylistic change in gangsta rap, as it morphed into yet a new subgenre of hip hop which was destined to become even more commercially successful. Notorious B.I.G. is seen by many to have contributed to the pop chart domination by gangsta rap, as he was the first hardcore gangsta rapper to produce albums as a calculated attempt to include both the gritty, realistic gangsta narratives and the more polished, catchy, danceable pop productions aimed at the clubs and at the mainstream pop charts.

Today, gangsta rap in the mainstream has experienced a decline in popularity, due heavily to the relentless aggression and ridicule directed at the depiction of women and the black community in this musical style.
Submitted by: Nickolas Jamieson

Grime

Grime is a subculture which is still developing and is relatively new, emerging only in the 2000s. The grime subculture primarily stems from hip hop, but also has roots in electric dancehall, drum and bass and dub culture. Emerging from the popularity of the UK Garage scene, grime music also referred to as “dub step”, or “two step” was born in East London. The music has a fast paced, electronic gritty sound.

The artists who make it usually rise to popularity by proving their abilities on an underground level which is due to its close connections with traditional hip-hop as well as pirate radio. The Grime scene caught the mainstream’s attention with the release of Dizzee Rascal’s “Boy in da Corner” album, in 2003. More recently Lady Sovereign has broken into North America’s public eye. The style of dress for members of the grime scene is usually very baggy clothing (hoodies and jeans).
Submitted by: Jarett Sitter

Gamers

Gamers as an alternative culture generally relates to those who spend the majority of their leisure time (and often even time that's not) playing games and probably talking about games, reading about games, listening to video game soundtracks, preparing for games or making games.

Traditionally this refers to those who play pen and paper Role-Playing-Games of the style of Dungeons and Dragons, but the population of defining games has grown to encompass a broader population of games such as video games and many other real-world games. This has, however, generated subdivions within the community of gamers, dividing the casual gamers from the hardcore gamers, the competitive gamers from the game hackers and the cyberathletes, video gamers from tabletop gamers and proxy gamers, and retrogamers from import gamers and standard gamers. All of these subdivisions can be divided by the type of games that they play.

In its infancy, the gamer culture was and sometimes still is far more restrictive in accepting those who spend less of their time devoted to gaming or casual gamers as "true" gamers. The style of gamers is generally defined by the games themselves, but uniquely identifying visual styles of the gamer culture includes the pixelated and 8-bit/16-bit/32-bit sprite look as seen in popular web-comics such as 8-bit theatre, which comes from the limited/pixelated visual representation generated by low resolution displays and has become associated with video games because these representations were most commonly seen by the public in the form of video games. Other visual styles identified with gamers are often identified as fantasy because of the style of representation used by the Wizards of the Coast in their Dungeons and Dragons material or as J-pop, Anime or Otaku because of the close relationship between the anime and manga style of representation used in Japan and the fact that a large majority of video games are from Japan and that this style translates into the games.

Gamer communities are generally centred around the games themselves but do include those that discuss the gamers and game industry in magazines and online such as in penny arcade.

Source: Wikipedia and personal testimonial.
Submitted by: Scott Kovacs

Cannabis Culture

As cannabis use has become more prominent in society so has the idea of a cannabis sub-culture. Cannabis culture has been shaped by pop culture, especially relating to film and music, and due to its ever growing wide spread use several political and parties and organizations have come to be affiliated with the cannabis culture. A vital point of the subculture is that is so wide spread as well as ethnically and gender diverse that it is difficult to call it a “sub-culture” as it is becoming more and more mainstream.

Due to marijuana being illegal in most parts of the world a unified “legalize it” trend has occurred and groups many pot users together. Criminalizing cannabis and cannabis users has been viewed as futile and senseless and has strengthened the group and culture. Cannabis culture emerged mostly out of the 196o’s free love and hippie era though its demographic has grown an pot smokers range from as young as 12 to as old as 80. It has even been legalized in situations for medicinal purposes.

In modern culture cannabis is related to many music genres and film/hip design trends. Stoner films and teen films all deal prolifically with marijuana and almost all rock, metal, rap, hip hop, r&b, Rastafarian, even jazz and blues musicians have all frequently admitted t smoking the drug. So cannabis culture is such a large and diverse group of people that many question how much longer it could be viewed as a sub-culture, and many eagerly await its universal legalization.
Submitted by: Nate Wagenaar

Body Modification and Tattoo

Photo credit: Tim Lambesis of As I Lay Dying

Today in society, this deeply personal form of self-expression has reached its own level of individuality, as unique as the tattoo artist and tattooed. Tattoos are one of the oldest forms of body modification.

Today, the collective view of contemporary tattooing is undergoing a change by American culture due to the efforts of committed individuals; this impression of tattooing is changing. It is beginning to be viewed as an art form centered in a minor art world with a clear relationship to the artistic endeavors of the larger social world.

Source
Submitted by: Brendan Coffey

Hippies

Born of the 1960's revolution against the norm, the speak when spoken to rhetoric that had existed for so many generations. Men suddenly began wearing long hair and growing wild beards; youngsters dressed like peasant folk and wore bright, psychadelic colours. everyone looked dirty and unkempt, bathing, afterall, was for the bourgeois.

The generation gap that was created between parents and children became immense, and no one above the age of 35 or so could even comprehend, even fathom the changes that were happening in popular culture and society. a new, gain-ridden grungy sound emerged in music, rock and roll took a turn for some of the most experimental periods in musical history. it came as no surprise that certain bands that had gained popularity earlier in the late 50's and early 60's were now changing their mindset to form to the experimentation in drugs and culture. The Beatles, Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton and Pink Floyd were all born and reborn in these hippy times, and some of the world's most wonderful music followed.

It all culminated to the summer of love, 1969, years of oppression and conformity were thrown to the wind so that the kids could be free. At woodstock, folk music and brazen guitar solos trumpeted out to the baked audienced, stewing in their own sense of purpose and a lot of LSD. the hippy lifestyle has no bounds, depends upon peace and love and caters only to those willing to take a plunge and explore your own mind's eye.

Then, all at once, as quickly as it came about, when the change was cemented and the society changed course, the hippy died, and the metal moved in. Fashion, music, opinion, interest; all of it changed forever because of the refusal of a small group of baby-boomers to follow in the steps of their mothers and fathers.

Many claim to be hippies today, but the title is as redundant in today's culture as the term "punk" or "ska" or "grunge". there simply are no hippies anymore, no room in this trendy and narcissistic culture we've come to know, and thats truly sad.

Trekkies

Trekkies are a subculture composed of highly enthusiastic, perhaps obsessive fans of the fictional Star-Trek universe. The term is thought to have been coined by science fiction editor Art Saha when he saw a few fans of the first season of Star Trek wearing pointy ears (a characteristic of the series’ Vulcan race) at a science fiction convention. Trekkies typically dress in outfits based those seen in the
series, ranging from simple Starfleet uniforms, to more outlandish Klingon costumes. Normally this occurs exclusively within the confines of various science fiction or Star Trek conventions, though there are exceptions (notably Barbara Adams, a juror who wore her Starfleet uniform to court.)

In many ways, Trekkies are a more specific subset of the nerd subculture, with an often encyclopedic knowledge of the series and a similar social stigma. Devoted Trekkies frequently learn to speak the fictional Klingon language to degrees varying from rudimentary knowledge of some key words, to full conversational fluency.
Submitted by: Cody Herauf

B-Boyz and B-girlz

B-Boys and B-girls are devotees of hip-hop culture, according to Wikipedia. It makes sense then that their visual sensibilities would be based on graffiti, African art, and other aspects of hip-hop culture. Unlike some hip-hop art, though, b-boy art always places an emphasis on the human form, usually depicting a b-boy or b-girl in a dynamic pose (like the one below).

Like all forms of hip-hop art, b-boy art readily borrows from other rising artistic movements, and adapts accordingly. For example, some current examples of B-Boy art show a strong Asian influence, as Asian culture becomes more main-stream in North America.
Submitted by: Allen Bevans

Cyber Culture

Cyber culture is a subculture which stems from various underground music and social scenes such as rave and goth. Cyber fashions are influenced by cyberpunk, rave and goth, with those leaning towards the goth end being referred to as "cybergoths" and those leaning towards the trance/hard dance music being referred to as "cyberkids". The subculture as a whole is characterized by an interest in fashion, clubbing, and electronic music. It is also characterized by an interest in emergent techonologies, as well as their effects on society.

Some common themes in cyber fashion include the use of high contrast colours, such as black and white, neon and UV-reactive materials, vibrantly coloured and stylized hair (often with extensions, braids and other paraphenalia), large shoes or boots, body mod, and superfluous accessories such as goggles. There is also usually a strong androgynous element, with cyberpunk and anime influences as well.

Cyber culture is primarily centred around the internet and nightlife, being closely associated with specific clubs in the UK and US.

All info was taken from Wikipedia.
Submitted by: Dave Gerhart

Bohemianism

Bohemianism is a term used to describe the non-conventional lifestyle of artists, actors, writers and musicians of the nineteenth century. Cafés, Music, drugs and alcohol were key activities associated with the Bohemian lifestyle.

“The term ‘bohemian’ has come to be very commonly accepted in our day as the description of a certain kind of literary gypsy, no matter in what language he speaks, or what city he inhabits .... A bohemian is simply an artist or litterateur who, consciously or unconsciously, secedes from conventionality in life and in
art.” (Westminster Review, 1862)
Submitted by: Tamara Craft

Conspiracy Theorists
AKA ‘conspiraloons, ‘tinfoil hatters’, ‘loonspuds’, ‘fruit’n’jobs’ etc.

The phrase “conspiracy theory” first appeared in the 1920s in an economic article, although it’s popularity did not arise until the 1960s (and added to the Oxford dictionary in 1997).

The term “conspiracy theory” itself is a termed used by popular culture to identify a type of folklore or urban legend. It is the idea that people (conspiracy theorists) try to identify causes of events or series of events usually political, social or historical.

“The term “conspiracy theory” may be a neutral descriptor for any conspiracy claim. To conspire means “to join in a secret agreement to do an unlawful or wrongful act or to use such means to accomplish a lawful end.”” (Wikipedia)

Famous conspiracies include;
- JFK murder
- NASA’s moon landing
- Area 51
- 9/11
- Mars; the ‘face’ hill
- and some of the oldest being the Illuminati or Freemasons

In the past decade the idea of conspiracy theories have hit mass media (especially movies). ‘Conspiracy Theory’ (1997), ‘National Treasure’ (2004) and ‘Da Vinci Code’ (2006) to name a few.

10 Characteristics of conspiracy theorists

1. Arrogance. They are always fact-seekers, questioners, people who are trying to discover the truth: sceptics are always "sheep", patsies for Messrs Bush and Blair etc.

2. Relentlessness. They will always go on and on about a conspiracy no matter how little evidence they have to go on or how much of what they have is simply discredited. (Moreover, as per 1. above, even if you listen to them ninety-eight times, the ninety-ninth time, when you say "no thanks", you'll be called a "sheep" again.) Additionally, they have no capacity for precis whatsoever. They go on and on at enormous length.

3. Inability to answer questions. For people who loudly advertise their determination to the principle of questioning everything, they're pretty poor at answering direct questions from sceptics about the claims that they make.

4. Fondness for certain stock phrases. These include Cicero's "cui bono?" (of which it can be said that Cicero understood the importance of having evidence to back it up) and Conan Doyle's "once we have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however unlikely, must be the truth". What these phrases have in common is that they are attempts to absolve themselves from any responsibility to produce positive, hard evidence themselves: you simply "eliminate the impossible" (i.e. say the official account can't stand scrutiny) which means that the wild allegation of your choice, based on "cui bono?" (which is always the government) is therefore the truth.

5. Inability to employ or understand Occam's Razor. Aided by the principle in 4. above, conspiracy theorists never notice that the small inconsistencies in the accounts which they reject are dwarfed by the enormous, gaping holes in logic, likelihood and evidence in any alternative account.

6. Inability to tell good evidence from bad. Conspiracy theorists have no place for peer-review, for scientific knowledge, for the respectability of sources. The fact that a claim has been made by anybody, anywhere, is enough for them to reproduce it and demand that the questions it raises be answered, as if intellectual enquiry were a matter of responding to every rumour. While they do this, of course, they will claim to have "open minds" and abuse the sceptics for apparently lacking same.

7. Inability to withdraw. It's a rare day indeed when a conspiracy theorist admits that a claim they have made has turned out to be without foundation, whether it be the overall claim itself or any of the evidence produced to support it. Moreover they have a liking (see 3. above) for the technique of avoiding discussion of their claims by "swamping" - piling on a whole lot more material rather than respond to the objections sceptics make to the previous lot.

8. Leaping to conclusions. Conspiracy theorists are very keen indeed to declare the "official" account totally discredited without having remotely enough cause so to do. Of course this enables them to wheel on the Conan Doyle quote as in 4. above. Small inconsistencies in the account of an event, small unanswered questions, small problems in timing of differences in procedure from previous events of the same kind are all more than adequate to declare the "official" account clearly and definitively discredited. It goes without saying that it is not necessary to prove that these inconsistencies are either relevant, or that they even definitely exist.

9. Using previous conspiracies as evidence to support their claims. This argument invokes scandals like the Birmingham Six, the Bologna station bombings, the Zinoviev letter and so on in order to try and demonstrate that their conspiracy theory should be accorded some weight (because it's “happened before”.) They do not pause to reflect that the conspiracies they are touting are almost always far more unlikely and complicated than the real-life conspiracies with which they make comparison, or that the fact that something might potentially happen does not, in and of itself, make it anything other than extremely unlikely.

10. It's always a conspiracy. And it is, isn't it? No sooner has the body been discovered, the bomb gone off, than the same people are producing the same old stuff, demanding that there are questions which need to be answered, at the same unbearable length. Because the most important thing about these people is that they are people entirely lacking in discrimination. They cannot tell a good theory from a bad one, they cannot tell good evidence from bad evidence and they cannot tell a good source from a bad one. And for that reason, they always come up with the same answer when they ask the same question.

Source: http://www.urban75.org/info/conspiraloons.html)

Websites:
http://www.conspiracyarchives.com/
http://members.tripod.com/mking60/conspiracies.htm
http://skepdic.com/illuminati.html
http://www.masonicinfo.com/conspire.htm
http://www.urban75.org/info/conspiraloons.html
Submitted by: Katherine Friesen

Wildstyle

Priz and Stan, Graffiti Artists, New York City

Wildstyle is a complicated and intricate form of graffiti. Due to its complexity, it is often very hard to read by people who are not familiar with it. Usually, this form of graffiti incorporates interwoven and overlapping letters and shapes. It may include arrows, spikes, and other "decorative" elements depending on the technique used. The numerous layers and shapes make this style extremely difficult to produce homogeneously, which is why developing an original style in this field is seen as one of the greatest artistic challenges to a graffiti writer. Wildstyle "pieces" are also known as "burners" -- meaning "hot" as fire.

Styles of the Wildstyle: Wildstyles commonly include a set of arrows, curves and letters which have been so transformed as to be rendered arcane to the eyes of non-graffiti artists. Many writers have different styles to add to their wildstyle, which gains that writer a good deal of respect within the underground subculture.

Source: Wikipedia
The Words: A Graffiti Glossary
Submitted by: Michael Jorgensen

Alternative Cultures & Design

2007-04-02T06:40:00.000-07:00

Priz and Stan, Graffiti Artists, New York City

Alternative culture is a type of culture which exists outside or on the fringes of mainstream or popular culture, usually under the domain of one or more subcultures. These subcultures may have little or nothing in common besides the relative obscurity of their culture, but cultural studies uses this common basis of obscurity to classify them as alternative cultures, or, taken as a whole, the alternative culture. Compare with the more politically charged term, counterculture.

The concept of alternative culture is rooted in the development of new views of adolescence during the 1950s in Western Europe and North America. This development, in conjunction with the emergence of the teddy boy and the release of the US films The Wild One (1953) and Rebel Without a Cause (1955), saw adolescents in North America and Western Europe collectively express a form of rebellion against the values of their parents and authority in general. The reasons for this rejection of traditional social codes and attitudes were usually personal, but were at the same time easier to define when asserted as part of a group.

The current understanding of alternative culture came about in the early 1990s, when strands of youth culture, counter culture, and various aspects of underground culture came together.

The development and social dynamics of an alternative culture
Despite all their cultural differences, all alternative cultures follow a similar process of origination, development, and decline. Alternative cultures also share several common values.

A subculture is usually formed by young working class people in a small region or a single city in response to a generally felt lack of proper fulfillment by the options available to that particular social group. This disenchantment is in reference to a wide range of things, from acceptable codes of public behaviour to the likelihood of decent long-term employment. The result is a rapid evolution of an externally displayed attitude and an accompanying visual style (regarding art, dress, et cetera) and soundtrack. The factors that necessitate the creation of a subculture often forge the elements that make it unique and give it some form of cultural legacy in retrospect. For example, the hippie movement of the 1960s is remembered, although not exclusively, for its championing of the concept of "free love", which was a fairly successful attempt to break away from the perceived social frigidity of the previous two decades. Hip hop culture allowed poor African-Americans to express themselves creatively when they had minimal access to musical instruments and very little chance of having their work displayed in art galleries. It meant that the turntable, normally only used to play music produced by others, was used as an "instrument" in its own right and that public areas became substitute canvasses for a style of art known as wild style.

During the point that these subcultures enjoy their "peak", they are simultaneously the subject of much negative attention from the media. This is often due to objections to the subcultures' disregard for the legality of their activities, the physical appearance of their members, their anti-establishment and/or anti-consumerist values and their frequent indulgences in sex and drug use. (Not all these points apply to all subcultures, a good example being the fact that members of the "straight edge" hardcore punk scene were completely teetotalers). However, it is this publicity which often drew more young people into each subculture, usually, but not always, because they were attracted by its apparent dissident nature.
There is often a period that is considered to be "pure" in terms of what defined each subculture in various ways. This is the point between the complete development of its unique characteristics - where it has an ideology, a style of dress, a new genre of music to call its own, et cetera - and the point where publicity has caused a large influx of new members into the community and various business interests have begun to co-opt its unique aspects. The grunge subculture (although according to its original member, it was not a culture as such, but rather a fan base for alternative rock) is a particularly interesting case, as its conception was to some extent deliberately self-conscious of the factors that could skew its original intents. Grunge was a regional off-shoot of DIY culture, which focused more on its members being cynical "slackers": an outlook publicly exemplified best by the band Dinosaur Jr - and, as the popular phrase was at the time, over-educated and under-paid. (A phrase which was, incidentally, lifted from Douglas Coupland’s novel Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture [1991]). Although these were all myths that originated from the media, of which participants in the grunge scene treated with some suspicion. Still, in the wake of the massive success of the album Nevermind (also 1991) by Nirvana, the media and the marketing industry popularised and mass-marketed "grunge" clothes, music and such. However, the nature of the culture meant it resisted glamorization and it was soon abandoned by the media, leaving the scene to wither as a result.

The current state of alternative culture
Alternative culture has stalled somewhat since the mid 1990s.[citation needed] The major factors behind this can be largely attributed to the prevalence of homogenised "top-down" culture, which is where young people tend to have taken to consumerism as a source of identity and recreational facilities. This runs counter to alternative cultures' tradition of innovation, geographical diversity and communal self-sufficiency. It has become regular practise to attribute this to the members of Generation Y - (people born roughly between the mid 1980s and late 1990s) - having grown up with different values than those before them. For rather than a subculture being perceived as something that could be contributed to, it has become accepted by people of this generation that being part of an "alternative culture" is something which requires little beyond personal styling. On the other hand, people of this generation have, in some ways, broader tastes than their elders and thus they incorporate various elements that they like from a range of subcultures, while never claiming to be a member of any, or if they do, then they often lack the occasional narrow-minded preferences of the group's original members.

Due to subcultures of this nature being in a constant change, they often splinter off into niche groups. They often develop an "old skool" crowd who tend to resist "polluting" elements and carry on as before until inevitably evolving themselves. Take the UK's rave scene, which suffered very badly from tough legislation aimed at it in the mid 1990s, leading to its discrete continuance on a smaller scale, before manifesting itself again on the large scale in the form of the teknival, which retains many of the principles of the original acid house culture.

Source: Wikipedia

Grunge

Anti-establishment values; poorly-photocopied collages, deconstructed typefaces, Courier, layered graphics, rough-hewn textures. Closely related to postmodern design

Design Project - Get Grunge, by Jeremy Wright. Click here to see a tutorial on creating the grunge style.

Assignment
Value: Part of your Participation Mark
Deadline: Wednesday, April 4

Research the following alternative cultures. Write one or two paragraphs on the key points about the alternative culture, and find an image which best represents the subculture and its style.

Upload to your blog journal.

Bailey Julie A. (Julie) Riot Grrlz
Bevans Allen L. (Allen) B-boys
Bolso Gregory B. (Greg) BDSM subculture
Charumbira Job Biker gangs Hell's Angels
Choi Eric J. (Eric) Blingers
Coffey Brendan M. (Brendan) Body modification and tattoo subcultures
Craft Tamara D. (Tamara) Bohemianism
Dekens Wagenaar Nathaniel R. Cannabis culture
Friesen Katherine A. Conspiracy theorists
Gerhart David A. (Dave) Cybers
Haftani Farzaneh () Disco
Herauf Christopher C. (Cody) Emo
Hitchens Niyanna M. Folkies
Jamieson Nickolas Gangstas
Kovacs Scott A. (Scott) Gamer
Li Zhongxu (Zhongxu) Geek
Lunde Clinton W. (Clint) Goth subculture
McCord Luff Connor O. Grungers
Oborne Justin L. (Justin) Hip hop culture
Palmer Todd A. (Todd) Hippies
Paul Josh C. (Josh) Hipsters
Pecora Christopher M. (Chris) Leather subculture
Pope Jessica T. (Tiffany) Metalheads
Regnier Alec P. (Alec) Mods
Reimer Jordan L. (Jordan) Nerd
Sitter Jarett L. (Jarett) New Romantics

Bonnie Fuller: 'It's All About Knowing the Reader'

2007-03-31T19:06:00.000-07:00

Fast and Fearless: The Life and Times of Bonnie Fuller
CBC Documentary, March 3, 2005
Click here to view two brief video clips showing Fuller at work

Provoking celebrities, confounding critics and colleagues and turning the unabashed world of tabloid media upside down, high-profile magazine editor Bonnie Fuller’s shameless embrace of sex, fashion, celebrity and gossip has attracted scores of readers and equal measures of scorn and admiration in the industry.

Fast and Fearless: The Life and Times of Bonnie Fuller, is a candid, behind-the-scenes look at the infamous editor at work. The film portrays her mercurial journey from a self-confessed geek in suburban Toronto to the very top of New York’s ultra-competitive magazine elite. Told through honest interviews with Bonnie, family members, old friends and high-profile colleagues, including the original ‘Cosmo girl’, Helen Gurley Brown, Bonnie Fuller’s story is revealed for the first time ever, warts and all, up-close and personal.

Purists may complain that the ‘Fuller formula’ has dumbed-down every magazine she's touched. Former staff recount that she's virtually impossible to please. Her ex-bosses have learned that she's probably more ambitious than loyal. What then makes Ms. Fuller such a commodity in New York’s merciless world of magazine journalism? By tapping into the average American woman’s obsessions, the ex-Torontonian and former editor of Flare, YM, Marie Claire, Cosmo, Glamour and US Weekly has been credited for her remarkable ability to post hefty circulation gains. So it’s no surprise that Bonnie Fuller’s reputation is on the line again.

As newly-appointed editorial director of American Media Inc., and responsible for more than a dozen high-profile tabloids, including The National Enquirer and The Globe, how will she fare trying to turn Star Magazine, a dying tabloid, into a popular mainstream consumer title?

_______________________________________________________
The editorial chief of American Media says magazines must reach readers "both visually and textually." Editors may know what readers want, but if they're unable to "sell it on every page [they're] going to be in trouble."

By Patrick Phillips, I Want Media, 03/25/04

Bonnie Fuller is the editorial director of American Media Inc. (AMI), the publisher of magazines and tabloids including Star, Men's Fitness, Shape and National Enquirer. Fuller, a veteran of the leading women's magazines YM, Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan and Glamour, joined AMI last year in a widely publicized jump from Us Weekly, the celebrity title she revived and transformed into a hot read.

The widespread attention given to Fuller's move to AMI "confirms her as the closest thing the magazine world has to a celebrity editor," observed Advertising Age. Her hot streak may have contributed to her appointment as 2003 Media Person of the Year in an online poll conducted by I Want Media and The Week magazine.

In a chat in her office at AMI, Fuller spoke about America's love of celebrities, Myrna Blyth's women's-magazine-bashing book, her advice for newspaper editors, and what the future may hold for Martha Stewart's magazine.

I Want Media: In our annual poll for Media Person of the Year, you were voted as the figure that had the most impact in the media in 2003. Do you believe that you've made an impact?

Bonnie Fuller: I really don't like to sit and sort of pontificate about how I did this or I did that. But in terms of the last couple of years, I did have an impact on creating a new category -- celebrity weekly magazines. We created a new habit for women.

This new category is important because it marries celebrity news with fashion news, beauty news -- even health news -- in a way that women never had before. The reader no longer has to wait. You can watch the Oscars and fall in love with Cherize Theron's makeup on Sunday, and by Wednesday you can pick up Star magazine and find out exactly how to get the look. You don't have to wait for a monthly, which won't come out until many weeks later.

The newspapers weren't even covering this -- the award shows and the red carpet functions -- in the same way before this exploded as a weekly category. This is a whole new thing.

IWM: Us Weekly editor Janice Min said recently that "celebrities have infiltrated our media in a way you haven't seen even five years ago." Has American culture become more celebrity-obsessed?

Fuller: It has, absolutely. We all need role models. We all need fantasy. And people like to gossip. Once you leave high school, you don't have people to gossip about in common any more. But everybody can gossip about celebrities. You can go to a cocktail party, and if you don't know somebody you can still go, "How about that Brad and Jen, can you believe that they blah-blah-blah?" And everybody can chime in.

Celebrities are more beautiful. They're richer. They date more beautiful people. They wear gorgeous designer dresses and outfits. And they do have body flaws, unlike 17-year-old models. There are celebrities of different sizes and ages that everybody can relate to. It's fun to have a glimpse into a more fabulous life.

IWM: What is the difference between the new glossy Star magazine and other celebrity titles?

Fuller: Star breaks news every week. In the last few months we've broken the biggest celebrity stories. We broke the news that Courteney Cox is pregnant. We broke the news of the Uma-Ethan divorce. We were the ones to break exactly when the Ben and J.Lo nuptials were supposed to happen. If you want to know celebrity news, you come to Star.

IWM: The new glossy Star is available only in New York and Los Angeles and doesn't go nationwide until April. But are you happy with the results so far?

Fuller: All we're hearing from the readers is that they love it. And we're getting younger readers and higher-income readers. They're becoming addicted to it. That's really important.

IWM: What is your mission at AMI?

Fuller: To grow magazines, to start magazines, to help give birth to magazines. And we will be acquiring magazines. It's really to help David [Pecker, AMI CEO] fulfill his vision of growing a very large print media company. And I think David would like to see brand extensions into broadcast media. It's really exciting.

IWM: Which AMI magazines need the most reinvigorating?

Fuller: Star was the first project. We're also in the midst of doing a redesign for National Enquirer. National Enquirer is a hugely important brand to us. We're going to be introducing a new design and glossy paper stock in April. We want to grow new readers for Enquirer.

IWM: Many of the Weider bodybuilding and fitness titles, such as Men's Fitness, which AMI acquired last year, would seem like a departure for you, given your background in women's magazines. Are they particularly challenging?

Fuller: I see everything as a challenge. Men's Fitness is interesting because it has a new way of talking to men. Its entry point is through fitness, but it also deals with emotional issues, and I can relate. It's a close equivalent to Cosmo, Glamour and Marie Claire.

IWM: Rodale is reportedly unhappy with how much the redesigned Men's Fitness looks like its Men's Health. What's your response?

Fuller: If I had a penny for every time one magazine said another looks like they do, I'd be a happy camper, as many magazines have more than liberally taken ideas I've done in other magazines throughout my career. Men's Fitness is well on its way towards the success that AMI has always envisioned for it.

IWM: AMI is planning to launch a new shelter magazine this fall. How will it be different from existing shelter titles?

Fuller: It's going to have a lot more service. It will be much more about how you get the look. It's aimed at couples in their twenties and thirties. It's for the guys as well as the women. A lot of couples do their homes together.

House Beautiful and House & Garden are very decorator dependent. Most of their stories are about a decorator helping somebody. But not many women can afford a decorator. They have their own ideas, but they don't know how to complete them. Women are used to that approach in fashion magazines, so why wouldn't they be open to it in a decorating magazine? I think there's a real need here.

IWM: You have a reputation for pumping up the circulation of your magazines. What are you doing that maybe other magazine editors aren't?

Fuller: It's all about knowing the reader. And it's important to be able to communicate to readers both visually and textually. The physical package has to attract them. You can know what readers want, but if you can't communicate it to them and sell it on every page you're going to be in trouble.

IWM: How do you stay in touch with the reader? Do you think you have a lot in common with your readers?

Fuller: Well, clearly I'm not a key demographic for Men's Fitness, but I'm a key demographic for who we're trying to reach in Star. I am that demographic, physically and mentally.

IWM: You recently gave a talk on how to attract younger readers to newspaper editors at a luncheon of the Associated Press Managing Editors. What did you tell them?

Fuller: I think newspaper editors need to think of their Page 1 as like a [magazine] cover. It's there to draw the reader into the pages of the newspaper. I also think it's important to not only have local news. I mean, when you're traveling, and if you can only get a local paper, you really feel like, "What's going on in the world?" You're hungry for the New York Times or USA Today.

IWM: Do you think most articles should be shorter? A lot of the articles in Star magazine are like captions.

Fuller: No, they're not.

IWM: Most of the articles in Star are less than 500 words.

Fuller: Well, they're not 5,000 words. I'm not saying that it's The New Yorker, but there is a lot to read in Star. And there are different ways of reading. A lot of readers at first are only going to dip in and read the captions or the first couple of hundred words. If you're interested in all of the stories, there's enough in there to take you a long time.

IWM: The individual who nominated you for Media Person of the Year (who wishes to remain anonymous) says that she admires your success and regards you as an inspiration. Do you see yourself as a mentor?

Fuller: I've worked at a lot of places, and I've had a lot of great people working for me. Many of them have gone on to become editors-in-chief. Like Kristin van Ogtrop, the editor of Real Simple. Atoosa Rubenstein, the editor of Seventeen. Keith Blanchard, the editor of Maxim. Quite a few. Cindi Lieve at Glamour. Janice Min at Us Weekly, of course. And Donald Robertson, who is now the creative director of Cargo. There are so many I'm leaving out.

IWM: What's your take on "Spin Sisters," the new book by Myrna Blyth, which claims that many traditional women's magazines are run by liberals and exploit readers' fears?

Fuller: I haven't read the book, so it's hard for me to comment. I know Myrna, and I respect her and think she's smart. But I certainly don't think there's been any kind of conspiracy. Women have made great strides in the last 40 years, and in that time women's magazines have been huge cheerleaders. They basically say, "Go do it. Here's how." They give women a lot of tools to help them widen their opportunities.

Assignment 10 - Newspaper.Design

2007-03-30T15:51:00.000-07:00

Value: 15%
Production Timeline: Two Weeks
Due Date: April 16

Newspaper design includes considerations of color, typography, design psychology, information architecture, typographical and content hierarchy, word/story counts, and how the design and content reflect one another. As a result, it is a complex mixture of design challenges, especially because you are dealing with multiple pages. The design must be considered from both macro and micro perspectives: from the design of the whole publication to individual page layouts. A style guide must be implemented to maintain visual continuity to each page.

In this assignment, you will utilize your accumulative knowledge from Design Fundamentals for New Media, by redesigning three pages of the University of Lethbridge student newspaper "The Meliorist." These will include:

The front cover
- redesign "The Meliorist" logo, tagline, publication date and masthead
- base cover design on a feature article of your choice
- include titles and page numbers to other articles found in the issue

A double page spread of one or two inside feature article pages
- depending on the length of the article, you may use one long feature article, or an additional short article
- analyze the best way to present the content of the article - use pullout quotes, inset boxes with additional information, pictures and graphics, side stories
- you may do additional research to provide extra content to the article, or edit the article and pull out information from it to present away from the main body copy of the article
- illustrate key points with graphics or illustrations
- all your design choices - images, fonts, colours, layout approach, visual style - must visually match the content of the article
- keep in mind your audience - their ages, interests, etc.
- your compositions must show understanding of typographical hierarchies and information design, in addition to design principles
- include page numbers, a section logo, publication date and name of newspaper on each page

Ensure that your spelling is accurate, that hyphenation doesn't occur on more than two consecutive lines, and there there are no widows or orphans at the end of paragraphs. Use no more than two fonts, and create typographical variety with the use of different weights, sizes and styles.

Articles can be found on The Meliorist web site: http://www.themeliorist.com.

Deliverables:

Research newspaper design on the web or at the library, and provide three samples of design approaches and layouts which inspired your final design. Write a few paragraphs on which elements you used from each.

Layout on 11x17 paper, with a 1/2" margin around all edges.

Print in full colour, on card stock paper.

Upload a jpg of your assignment to your blog and provide comments on your creative process. Make an Adobe Acrobat "PDF" file available on your class folder.

Evaluation will be based upon the following criteria:

- Has the student followed the assignment directions?
- Does the design reflect an understanding of the principles explored in the class sessions?
- Is there an interesting or innovative approach to the design?
- Is there an attention to detail and level of precision in the graphical artwork?
- Is the information legible and appropriate?
- Does the design faithfully reflect the audience?
- Did the student invest an adequate level of time and energy in completing this assignment?

Click here to open a slide presentation on newspaper design.

Click here to download the Illustrator double page spread template.
Click here to download the Illustrator cover template.

Technicolor Dreamcoats

2007-03-30T13:06:00.001-07:00

Psychedelia is making a triumphant return. But in the updated Age of Aquarius, data is the new LSD.

It’s become a catchall label, but psychedelic design can be roughly defined as transcendental patterns of form and lettering juxtaposed with dominant “hot” colors like purple and red. Yellows, blues, greens, oranges, and pinks can fill up the patterns as well, and—at least in the ’60s—usually formed curvilinear shapes. The form reached its peak with Heinz Edelmann’s Yellow Submarine animation, Martin Sharp’s album covers like Disraeli Gears, Andy Warhol’s Exploding Plastic Inevitable, Peter Max’s cosmic imagery and softly rhythmic lines, and Victor Moscoso’s almost unreadable San Francisco posters for Janis Joplin’s Big Brother and the Holding Company.

Thirty-five years later, “psychedelic” is a loaded word conjuring up VW microbuses, free love, and the fervent hope that sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll could overturn the existing order. But today, the Age of Aquarius has been reincarnated without the overt politics and peace signs. The neo-acoustic “freak folk” scene has taken off, metal bands channel the repeating chord structures of experimental composer Terry Riley, and cool kids play bluegrass standards on the banjo. Even the pop-hit-making team Gnarls Barkley claims that its most recent record, which spawned the summer hit “Crazy,” draws on psychedelic bands of yore. Mind-expanding music videos and backdrops to live shows are common, as wild as Uncle Frank’s trip and engineered as carefully as the sound.

Click here to read rest of article.

Banksy

2007-03-30T12:51:00.000-07:00

High-flying artist? Man of the streets? Whoever Banksy wants to be, he’s keeping it a secret for now.

By James Gaddy

Banksy, the most famous street artist alive, is waffling. I don’t realize this until I’m flying back to JFK from LAX, suspended in the air somewhere over the Ozarks. I had gone out to L.A. to see “Barely Legal,” his first major U.S. show, where I was hoping to find him, talk, and try to understand his appealing mystique. (And hey, maybe cut some stencils together.) I was curious to see what Banksy, an artist who is himself suspended in midair between cult figure and bona fide star, would have to offer this time. What would he do next?

But let’s start with the headlines, because for many, that’s where he begins and ends. “Animals Sprayed by Graffiti Artist,” BBC News declared in July 2003. The report claimed that a young man, whose real name was Robin Banks, had tagged a cadre of pigs, cows, and sheep, enraging the local animal-rights activists (and farmers). He had already sneaked into the London Zoo and sprayed “We’re bored of fish” in the penguin cages. In October 2003, “Graffiti Star Sneaks Work Into Tate,” sang the BBC headlines. Having stenciled “Mind the Crap” on the steps of the Tate Modern in time for the 2002 Turner Prize ceremony, Banksy had gotten inside this time. “I thought my work belonged in there and I got tired of waiting,” he had said. In July 2004, the London Evening Standard published his photo and identified him as Robert Banks, from East Bristol. But the photos were never fully verified.

Click here to read the rest of the article.

Happy Birthday Helvetica!

2007-03-28T18:46:00.000-07:00

The ubiquitous sans serif font celebrates it's 50th birthday this year. To honor the great typeface director and producer Gary Hustwit created Helvetica, A Documentary Film. It opened to a packed house this week (March 17) at the South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin and will tour around the world. Hustwit brings together renowned designers to talk about their work, the creative process, and the choices behind their use of type. In doing this he delves into the history of graphic design.

Click here to visit the web site of Helvetica: A Documentary Film, by Gary Hustwit. Make sure you look at the clips.

Helvetica is a feature-length independent film about typography, graphic design and global visual culture. It looks at the proliferation of one typeface (which is celebrating its 50th birthday this year) as part of a larger conversation about the way type affects our lives. Helvetica will screen at film festivals, museums, design conferences, and cinemas worldwide, followed by the DVD release this fall.

__________________________________

Helvetica (shown in red) was developed by Max Miedinger for the Haas Type Foundry in 1957 and by the early 1960s became part of the worldwide craze for Swiss design and the International Style. Arial (shown in blue) came into being as desktop computers were developed by designers at Microsoft in 1982. Is one of these fonts more attractive and more legible than the other? Although designers certainly get passionate about the topic (almost always siding with Helvetica) Arial is now a common system font and is often the default for web pages. Perhaps the better choice for on screen viewing is Tahoma (shown in violet) which was designed by Matthew Carter for Microsoft in 1996. It has a larger x-height, more narrow shape and tighter letter spacing making it an attractive on screen font.

Type/Image Homage Gallery

2007-03-26T09:41:00.001-07:00

Architectural Drawings

2007-03-25T01:39:00.000-07:00

Photo Credit: Paris Opera Facade, Pencil, Pen and Ink and watercolor on laid paper, 2004

ArchiTech is a historically comprehensive commercial gallery of architectural art, opened in Chicago's River North gallery district in 1998.

They specialize in original drawings by architects and industrial designers, as well as original prints, drawings and photographs by artists inspired by the built environment. Prominent in the ArchiTech collection are lithographs from Frank Lloyd Wright's Wasmuth Portfolio of 1910, original plans and construction documents from the architectural firms of Daniel H. Burnham, and archives from the estate of Alfonso Iannelli, Chicago's greatest industrial artist.

From 18th Century etchings by Giovanni Piranesi to 19th Century drawings by the Parisian firm of Viollet le Duc....from masterworks by architects of the American Prairie School to original designs by the leading decorative and industrial artists of the 20th Century, ArchiTech brings nearly 300 years of architectural art to corporate and private collectors today.

For more information on Architectural Art, please view their Archives and Artists pages. Click here to visit their web site.

Assignment Zero

2007-03-25T01:32:00.001-07:00

Assignment Zero is a collaboration between Wired magazine and NewAssignment.net that asks the general public to participate in the process of writing news stories. Called "crowdsourcing," the experimental project combines the open-source tactic of Wikipedia with traditional journalism. Users can voluntarily take on assignments from the newsroom and upload their content, which is reviewed and tweaked by news editors. According to Wired's editor Chris Anderson, “This is an experiment in doing things differently, and maybe better. It doesn’t invalidate the way things have been done, but it allows us to bring in some nontraditional sources and approaches.”

Collaborative Visual Arts: Online art communities like Deviant Art, which give people a place to make and share online art, have already been crowdsourced for business purposes. Assignment Zero examines how the net allows artists to collaborate on a single work together -- where a product, traditionally produced by a single artist, is done by the crowd. They've collected a list of projects which are pushing the boundaries on collaborative art.

Click here to visit Assignment Zero.

Assignment #8: Architectural Deconstruction

2007-03-21T08:06:00.000-07:00

Value: 10%
Duration: 1 week
Due: April 2

This project takes as its basis an important or influential architectural structure, from which you will derive an abstracted aesthetic design. As with the previous assignment, you will need to do a small amount of research to locate images and details such as the proper building name, the architect, the year of completion, and a few descriptive notes. See examples available on the course blog.

You will be creating a poster that celebrates this structure, but the graphic design need not emulate the time period in which it was built. You may choose to represent the building in its entirety, or simply use a very characteristic detail. Alternatively, you may break down the structure into a series of details, which can then be reorganized into a new configuration. Whatever approach you adopt, the final result should bear a resemblance to the building’s external appearance.

Photo Credit: Burj al-Arab, Architect Tom Wright

Begin with a selected photo(s), and begin tracing out the forms in Illustrator. Begin by simplifying details, discarding unnecessary information, and cropping /rotating the image. You may wish to flatten the structure into pure planes and lines, or attempt to simulate 3D areas. You might also consider taking an architectural ornament or detail and create a pattern. Consider paring down the range of colours to about 3 solids (plus black and white) to create a much bolder impact. Think about contrast, tension, and scale when arranging the text and supporting elements.

The poster must include the building and architect names, the year of construction, your design credit, and a brief 2-3 sentence description of its significance. You must also be conscious about parallels and alignments when orienting the individual graphic elements.

Deliverables:
- 11”x17” colour print on cardstock or photo paper (the Copy Centre on level 6 has ledger size cardstock available for printing)
- *.pdf file labeled with your name and the assignment number (i.e. firstname.lastname_8.pdf) and placed in your class folder on the “S” drive
- upload your poster to your blog journal and write comments about your creative process
- please be prepared to present your work during the class session

Evaluation will be based upon the following criteria:

- Has the student followed the assignment directions?
- Does the poster reflect an understanding of the principles explored in the class sessions?
- Is there an interesting or innovative approach to the design?
- Is there an attention to detail and level of precision in the graphical artwork?
- Is the information legible and appropriate?
- Does the design faithfully reflect the design of the building?
- Did the student invest an adequate level of time and energy in completing this assignment?

Click here to download an MS Word document of the assignment.
Click here to view class notes on assignment.
Click here to see a list of architects and architecture.
Click here to see a sample project.

Photo Credit: Burj Dubai

Visual Onomatopeia | Logos Gallery

2007-03-19T09:39:00.000-07:00

Visual Onomatopeia

Logos

Assignment #8 - Type/Image Homage

2007-03-12T12:04:00.000-07:00

Assignment #8: Type/Image Homage
Value: 10%
Duration: Two Weeks
Due: March 26

This project involves both research and production aspects. To begin, you are asked to select an influential 20th/21st century graphic designer whose style you admire. If you need suggestions, please ask me for possible resources. You will then conduct a reasonable amount of research on the selected individual, sourcing biographical information, major projects, and examples of their work.

Having located sufficient resources, you will design a poster advertising a fictional retrospective exhibition of the designer’s work. Carefully deconstruct representative samples of his/her practice, and develop a composition that seamlessly integrates with the designer’s personal style. If you will be integrating photographic imagery, it must be from original sources. You may borrow or adapt samples of the designer’s work to use in the overall scheme (logos, graphics, type samples, etc.), but be sure to provide credits in your documentation. The poster should include, at a minimum, the designer’s name, the title of the exhibition, the location/address, dates/duration of the show, a brief description (1-2 sentences), and your design credit.

In addition to the poster, you will produce a brief written summary of the designer’s legacy and achievements, as well as a personal reflection on why you appreciate their work. The final section will provide an overview of how you have attempted to emulate elements of the designer’s personal style. Be sure to include sample images of the designer’s work to illustrate your paper. The final length should be approximately 750 words.

Deliverables:
- 11”x17” colour print on cardstock or photo paper (the Copy Centre on
level 6 has ledger size cardstock available for printing)
- *.pdf file labeled with your name and the assignment number available on your "S" drive
- written research and reflective paper summarizing the designer’s achievements,
your interest in him/her, and how you have tried to emulate their style (approx.
750 words, with illustrations).
- please be prepared to present your work during the class session

Evaluation will be based upon the following criteria:

- Has the student followed the assignment directions?
- Does the poster reflect an understanding of the principles explored in the class sessions?
- Is there an interesting or innovative approach to the design?
- Is there an attention to detail and level of precision in the graphical artwork?
- Is the information legible and appropriate?
- Does the research paper explore the designer’s work in more than a superficial way?
- Did the student invest an adequate level of time and energy in completing this assignment?

Click here for a list of possible designers to research.

Click here to download a MS Word document of the assignment.

Deconstructing Visual Styles

2007-03-12T11:49:00.001-07:00

What Pat Steir's paintings from the 1980s clearly demonstrate is a deconstruction of visual styles. By dividing a canvas into a grid pattern, and painting each section in a different style, she shows how colour, paint application, mark making and the other abstract principles of design come together to create a new visual style. Educated as a graphic artist, Steir moved into her own post-modern, deconstructivist, painterly style.

Like all well trained graphic designers of today, she was able to recognize the elements that make up a visual style, and was able to replicate them, often to profound results.
____________________________________________________________________

Pat Steir’s complex paintings, prints, and drawings, encompass a lexicon of marks and signs. Born in Newark, New Jersey, in 1940, Steir developed an interest in art at a young age. She began her formal art training in 1956, studying graphic arts at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, where she eventually received her B.F.A. in 1962. There, she was influenced by her teachers Richard Lindner and Phillip Guston, who encouraged her to find her own style rather than following popular ideas and techniques. It was Steir’s training in graphic arts and illustration that allowed her to develop her eclectic visual vocabulary.

Steir rejected traditional forms of composition in favor of seemingly unrelated shapes and forms. She composed her works in combinations of random brushstrokes, grid lines, color charts, signs, color fields and pictorial elements to create canvases that display a self-conscious symbolism. Drips of paint in the works can refer to the actual process of painting. Within her works there is no fixed meaning, as the artist allows her viewers to draw their own inferences based on their personal history and associations. In process, Steir starts with a mark that is developed into a unit of signs and symbols.

During the 1960s, Steir pursued her art while also working as a freelance book cover designer and as an art director at the New York publishing house, Harper & Row. In 1964, she had her first solo exhibition at the Terry Dintenfass Gallery, New York, and continued to show sporadically throughout the decade. Her work of the late 1960s was more figural, using male nudes juxtaposed with animal heads. Produced during a time when minimalism and conceptual art was the norm, these dramatic works demonstrate Steir’s single-minded pursuit of her own style.

In the early 1970s Steir introduced the use of an X-mark into her visual vocabulary, and it is frequently seen in her images. Her marks are notations in paint. Their relationship to other marks and colors in her compositions often form discrete compositional elements, some referring to each other through similarity of stroke, size, or color, others contrasting with each other and emphasizing differences. Whether abstract or figural, the elements reveal her interest in expressive and painterly touch. Steir’s work promotes an awareness of her paintings as “made works,” the product of the artist’s hand and eye. This is apparent in the Phillips’s Long Chart, Large Chart, which consists of four oblong horizontal panels, distinct from each other and stacked at exact intervals on the wall, playing off solid and “void,” painting and support. The separation among the panels asserts their individuality, but the palette and use of common colors, although different in design, proportion, or scale, suggests their relationships.

Over the years Steir has been involved with feminist magazines such as Heresies and Semio-Text. Steir’s work continues to win her recognition and wide-acclaim.

Reference: american art

ART: PAT STEIR'S 'BRUEGHEL SERIES'
By MICHAEL BRENSON
Published: December 14, 1984
Click here to view article from New York Times

''THE BRUEGHEL SERIES (A Vanitas of Style)'' is the culmination of Pat Steir's career to this point. Steir has been painting flowers since 1981, she has used panels almost from the beginning and she has consistently painted paintings about painting. This two-part, 80-panel, floor-to ceiling work, at the Brooklyn Museum through Feb. 18, also seems to be a realization of a lifelong ambition, expressed last year to the art critic Frederick Ted Castle, to produce a notebook from which others could learn.

Steir's inspiration was a 17th-century still life by Jan Brueghel the Elder, in Vienna, in which a vase and flowers against a dark background are framed on top by two perched butterflies and on the bottom by a variety of busy insects, including a testy ladybug and a scavenging grasshopper. In a brochure accompanying the exhibition, Steir wrote that for her the Brueghel ''is almost like a visual crossword puzzle with hundreds of connections between artists, styles and times.'' ''Vanitas'' is a term identified with 17th-century Dutch genre painting, in particular with flowers and the transience not only of their beauty but of life.

Van Gogh/Goya

White Chrysanthemum (Painting for Ann)

The Character of Type Gallery

2007-03-07T09:04:00.000-08:00

Everything Old is New: Typographic Styles

2007-03-06T16:24:00.000-08:00

Timeline of Historical Movements
1840-1900 Victorian
1850-1900 Arts & Crafts
1890-1905 Art Nouveau
1905-1925 Expressionism
1910-1925 Cubism
1910-1945 Futurism
1915-1925 Dada, De Stijl
1915-1930 Constructivism
1920-1935 Bauhaus
1925-1940 Art Deco
1925-1945 Surrealism
1930-1970 Modern
1945-1970 New York School
1950- International
1960-1970 Pop, Psychedelia
1970- Basel
1975-1990 Punk
1975-1990 Postmodern
1990- Global

Click here to view the class notes, courtesy and copyright of Prof. Christopher Moore.

Assignment #7: Visual Onomatopoeia or Logos

2007-03-05T07:38:00.000-08:00

Value: 10%
Duration: One Week
Due: March 12

In this assignment, choose one of two options:

Visual Onomatopoeia
The concept behind this assignment is to merge written and visual languages. In the English language, onomatopoeia is a word that, when pronounced, sounds like the concept it represents. For example, the word “splash” imitates the sound produced by a solid object dropped into a liquid. This project skews the idea away from sound similarities to visual similarities.

You will initially select an adjective or adverb to illustrate as a logotype. Through modification of existing typefaces and the inclusion of additional graphics, you will attempt to create an image that can be read either visually or phonetically. Think about the associations created by your selected word. What qualities does this word posses, and are there any existing/standard graphical representations for this concept? What typeface best represents the idea—extremely light and airy or ultra-black and condensed? Is this a bold image to be represented in high contrast, or something which should virtually blend into the background?

You might consider shaping the text into a larger form, or extending parts of the letterforms out into recognizable shapes. Can the individual letters be stacked, overlapped, or otherwise separated without losing the overall legibility? Will the image be rendered in solid black, grey tones, gradients, outlines, or patterns?

Logos
In this option, redesign an existing logo of your choice. Using a combination of text and symbol or pictogram, construct a logo that works at any size (from business card size to billboard), and in black and white and colour.

The type of logo you select defines your design direction: corporate, retail, non-profit, brand name, etc. Consider the appropriate approach for each, while selecting font, colour, symbol or pictogram the best communicates the company, organization or product. Use the abstract principles of design, including negative space, proportion, rhythm and balance so that the logo’s formal qualities are strong and effective.

Provide both a colour and a grayscale version.

Deliverables:
Please format your presentation as an 8.5”x11” colour print. Please appropriately label the work with your name, a title, and short description.
- 8.5”x11” colour print on cardstock or photo paper
- *.pdf file labeled with your name and the assignment number (i.e.
logo.pdf) made available in the class folder on the “S” drive
- upload your assignment to your blog journal and provide comments on
your creative process

Evaluation will be based upon the following criteria:

- Has the student followed the assignment directions?
- Do the compositions reflect an understanding of the principles explored in the class sessions?
- Is there an interesting or innovative approach to the compositions?
- Has the student clearly identified a message/theme, and is this readily understandable to viewers?
- Is there an attention to detail and level of precision in the graphical artwork?
- Did the student invest an adequate level of time and energy in completing this assignment?

Click here to download a MS Word document of the assignment.

Click here to see an example of an online logo design company's portfolio.

Trademarks and Logotypes

2007-02-26T08:14:00.000-08:00

Trademarks

industrial revolution and the intro of packaging and brand name advertising stimulated business’s use of identification marks
Definition: any name, symbol, or visual device - or combination of these - used by manufacturers to identify their products and distinguish them from other products

Service mark

a mark used by an organization offering a service (insurance company, or appliance repair)

Signia, seal or emblem

a mark used by a nonprofit organization

Collective Mark

a mark used by a trade association (APA)

Certification mark

a mark used by a testing company to show that a certain product is of a particular quality (Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval)

Trade name

a name used to identify a product (Liquid Plumber)

Trademarks:

Indicate the origin of the product
Guarantee the quality consistency: tells the prospective buyer that the product is the same as an earlier unit bought
Serve as an advertisement: simple enough to catch attention, complete enough to tell a story, persuasive enough to move the viewer to action, an ad in miniature

Trademarks:

used on company stationery, invoices, statements, purchase orders, labels, checks, all advertising, trucks, buildings, etc.
because the trademark is so widely used and for many years, it is reasonable to spend months on design and testing

Symbolic:

trademarks range from the literal to the symbolic
symbols wear better than words in trademark and say more
even by checking state and federal registers of trademarks a designer cannot be sure that a new mark, or something close to it, is in use

Logotypes (logos):

the type or lettering, carried at the bottom of the ad, that names its sponsor
incorporates a trademark or insignia into its design
gothics of discount houses
elements may include store name, address, phone number, hours and slogan

Logotypes (logos):

Redesign occurs over time when logo appears outdated
A poorly designed trademark that is fully used is more effective than a beautifully designed trademark only half used
The main goal of the trademark is to be recognized

Click here to view lecture notes, courtesy and copyright of Prof. Christopher Moore.

Creating consistent and effective themes

2007-02-15T13:48:00.000-08:00

The diagram shows how to create a consistent and effective design theme throughout an advertisement or a web site page.

1. Identify your target audience. Once you have done so, then brainstorm and come up with a theme that is appealing to your target audience, and the message you wish to communicate.

Who is your target audience?
Consider their age range, education, gender(s), occupation, needs, aspirations, interests.

3. Brainstorm on what kinds of images and words come to mind when you think of your topic/theme

4. Make each element of your advertising consistent with your theme, and make sure each is appealing to your target audience.
These elements include: artwork, headling, copywriting, slogan, colour scheme, logo, page layout and typography. Each choice you make in these elements should reflect your theme.

Illustrator Techniques - Convert to Outline, Text Wrap

2007-02-14T09:33:00.000-08:00

To wrap text around an object:

Select the object or objects around which you want the text to wrap. This is called the wrap object.

In the Layers palette, make sure that the wrap object is above the text you want to wrap around it.

Important: If the layer contains multiple type objects, move any that you don’t want to wrap around the wrap object either into another layer or above the wrap object.
Choose Object > Text Wrap > Make Text Wrap.

The Text Wrap Options dialog box appears. If you wish, set the following options. Then click OK.

Offset: Specifies the amount of space between the text and the wrap object. You can enter a positive or negative value.

Invert Wrap: Wraps the text around the reverse side of the object.

To convert type to outlines

Converting type to outlines creates a compound path that you can modify.

Select the type object.

Choose Type > Create Outlines.

Before saving your document as a PDF for printing, SELECT ALL (CTRL A), then Choose the TYPE pulldown menu, and select CREATE OUTLINES.

The Character of Type - Assignment #6

2007-02-14T07:57:00.000-08:00

Assignment #6: The Character of Type
Value: 10%
Duration: Two Weeks
Due: February 28

Check out the Type Gallery for some inspirational approaches to the art of typography.

This project explores the personalities of type. Each font is a member of a family, with its own class, cultural, social, commercial and art historical references; each type has its own unique characteristics, functions, purposes and personalities. It communicates something unique and individual.

In this project you will choose a specific font; research its family, purpose, personality; and using the elements of design create a poster composition that illustrates and conveys its unique character and the essence of its personality.

This kind of poster is usually used for design trade shows, to show off the talents of the font’s designer and to sell it for use in the marketplace.

The posters must be 11”x17” and use full colour. You must provide a headline or display text capturing the essence of the font, as well as some body text elaborating on its use (either literally or suggestively). Consider using appropriate quotes from popular culture, literature, slang, or even foreign language and set it in your poster using the font.

Be sure to show the all the font’s characters in your design, as in a keyboard layout.

For the main image develop a composition using the type, paying attention to its shape. You may use original or stock images to convey the font’s character, but these should not be the focus of your composition.

When possible, give credit in your poster to the name of the font designer and where the font may be purchased (company name, web site).

Refer to the designer’s checklist during your design process and before you hand in your final project.

Before converting your Illustrator file into an Adobe Acrobat file for printing, convert all fonts to outlines.

Deliverables: - one 11”x17” colour print on cardstock or photo paper
- one 11”x17” black and white print on regular weight paper
- one *.pdf file labeled with your name and the assignment number (i.e.
firstname.lastname_6.pdf) - make available in the class folder
- upload your project to your blog journal and write comments on your creative
process

Evaluation will be based upon the following criteria:

- Has the student followed the assignment directions?
- Do the compositions reflect an understanding of the principles explored in the class sessions?
- Is there an interesting or innovative approach to the compositions?
- Has the student clearly identified a message/theme, and is this readily understandable to viewers?
- Did the student reveal the character of the font?
- Did the student invest an adequate level of time and energy in completing this assignment?

Additional Notes:
If you’re working from home, feel free to use shareware fonts available from web sites on the internet, such as www.dafont.com. Unfortunately you won’t be able to install shareware fonts onto the computers at the University of Lethbridge.

Check out the typography links on our course blog, and do a google search for more information on typography, fonts, etc. when doing your research.

How to FTP into your P Drive

2007-02-09T11:21:00.001-08:00

If you are working at home on a project, and wish to transfer it to your P (personal) drive at the University, this is how.

Using Internet Explorer:

Open Internet Explorer and make sure the Enable FTP option is turned on. This is found under Tools, select Internet Options and click on the Advanced tab and make sure that the Enable Folder View for FTP Sites is checked and click on OK. Now go to the Address bar and type in:

ftp://username@files.uleth.ca

This will get you into your P (personal) and W (web) drive.

You can now simply drag and drop files from your hard drive to your P drive.

Assignment #5 - Your True Colors

2007-01-29T15:04:00.000-08:00

Deadline: February 7, 2007
Value: 5%

Color combinations tend to evoke certain reactions based upon cultural and personal experience. Being aware of your senses, memories and experiences helps you to create colour combinations that tell a story. That's what excellent color design strives for: palettes that tell a story.

Use the template and text provided online to construct 6 color palettes. You're permitted to use your choice of colors, but do so within your interpretation of each theme:
1. The colors of Southern Alberta
2. The colors of my body
3. The colors of my favourite scent, perfume or cologne
4. The colors of my favourite fruits
5. My favourite colors
6. The colors of my favourite memory

Give the CMYK and RGB values for each color, and a name which evokes their color personalities. Choose a Subordinate or Base Color, a Dominant Color and two Accent or Highlight Colors.

Deliverables:
(2) Two 8.5” x 11” color prints (cardstock or photo paper), labelled appropriately with your name.
Please follow the template exactly.

Evaluation will be based upon the following criteria:
• Has the student followed the assignment directions?
• Do the color palettes reflect an understanding of the principles explored in the class sessions?
• Is the assignment professionally printed and presented?

Click here to download an example of the assignment in Illustrator format.

Click here to download page 1 of the assignment template.
Click here to download page 2 of the assignment template.

The Hyphen, the En Dash and the Em Dash.

2007-01-29T13:52:00.000-08:00

As a professional designer, you must know the difference between the hyphen, and the en and em dashes. While this article is written for web design, it is equally true for print design.

Click here to read about hyphens and dashes.

2007 Color Trends

2007-01-29T13:27:00.000-08:00

Come and meet the mood-evoking personalities of today's color palettes. Images and text from Sherwin Williams. Click on subtitle to read more, and use the online color palette generator.

Balanced Living Color Trend Palette

There's nothing black and white about green. The renewed appreciation for a balanced, healthy lifestyle is evident in organic living and mindbody workouts. Natural fibers, recycled materials, simple furnishings - these are just a few of the touches to create balanced living.

Sultry Origins

From the fashions of Beverly Hills to the street couture of New York City, global ethnic influences are turning up everywhere. Bold, spice-infused colors. Intricate handcrafted quality. Clean, simple lines. A distinctive, Old World feel - these express the essence of sultry origins.

Understated Elegance

Today's neutral palettes are sophisticated. Warm tones blend with cool. Natural materials add depth and character. A pendant lamp adds luster to textures and finishes. Artisan pottery compliments exquisite furniture. It's luxury made affordable. Understated elegance for all.

Virtual Re-mix

Nostalgia is booming. It's the integration of past and present, the visual equivalent of a greatest hits CD, a tendency to mix rather than match. You can see it in all things retro and vintage, from a '60s pattern on a bathroom mat to a claw-foot tub that harkens back to days gone by.

Kinetic Contrasts

Look to fashion and advertising and you will see the impact of kinetic contrasts. It pulsates with energy and style. Intense color accents, spare minimalist backgrounds, geometrically shaped furniture and contemporary art help create this wow factor.

Pantone Designer Paint Colors 2007
When we asked the designers to translate their spring 2007 fashion colors to interior paint colors and describe the room, this is what they said:

Pantone Spring 2007 color trends

Click on subtitle to read more.

More Color Trends 2007

Fashion Trendsetter, online fashion and color forecasting website today announced the release of the Spring/Summer 2008 color trends as two editions; Vol.II and Vol.III. For the summer 2008, two different stories and four sub trend cards are prepared for each color trends... Click on subtitle to read more.

Tricks for Copying Anything off the Web

2007-01-25T13:49:00.001-08:00

1. PRINT SCREEN
Here's a technique that probably no one ever told you. Sometimes web sites try to protect their content by barring you from right clicking and downloading their images. Here's how get around this problem.

With the web site on your screen, press CTRL, SHIFT and PRINT SCREEN on your key board. Your computer has just copied what you see on screen and put it on your paste board.

Now open up Photoshop, to go FILE pulldown menu, select NEW, create a new document (the size will automatically be set up correctly), then PASTE. You will see the image in your Photoshop document. Now you can crop it, select areas and copy, etc.

Mac users often have a program called "Capture" that allows you to do the same thing (just a little easier).

Use wisely - don't forget there are copyright laws and protections.

2. Using Internet Explorer to Download a Web Page
With the web site showing in your browser, go to FILE, SAVE AS, and select "Save as Type: Web Page, complete." The html file and a folder with the images will download. Now you can open up the web page with Dreamweaver, and study how it was constructed.

Assignment #4 - Typographical Hierarchies

2007-01-24T10:49:00.000-08:00

Deadline: January 31, 2007
Value: 5%
Assignment #4: Typographical Hierarchies
When working with text as a designer, it's your challenge to take text and develop a hierarchical system using typographical and layout options, in order to make the page legible and increase readability. Order and divide the elements of text which include:
• a headline
• a byline (i.e. author of article)
• call out text
• subheads
• body copy.
Arrange them appropriately and in terms of importance so that the reader's eyes are guided through the composition by design.

Use the template and text provided online to construct 5 compositions. You're permitted to use your choice of font, but use it consistently in each composition. As well, you have the option of varying spacing, adding indents and rules (lines).
1. Single font, no change in point size
2. Single font, variable point size
3. Single font, variable weight
4. Single font, variable style (upper case, all lower case, or upper and lower case, italic, underlined
5. Any combination of the above.

Deliverables:
(5) Five 8.5” x 11” black and white prints (cardstock or photo paper), labelled appropriately with your name. Please follow the template explicity.

Evaluation will be based upon the following criteria:
• Has the student followed the assignment directions?
• Do the compositions reflect an understanding of the principles of typographical hierarchies and layout explored in the class sessions?
• Is the assignment professionally printed and presented?

Click here to download an MS Word document of Assignment #4.

Click here to download an Illustrator template for Assignment #4.

Type Gallery

2007-01-22T11:54:00.000-08:00

Check out the Type Gallery for some inspirational approaches to the art of typography.

Assignment #3: Graphic Primitives

2007-01-22T10:50:00.000-08:00

NMED 2005 – Design Fundamentals for New Media
Instructor: Michael Jorgensen
Deadline: Monday, January 29, 2007
Value: 5%

Create a series of compositions exploring contrast and balance. Use only circles, then rectangles, then triangles to produce 3 separate studies. Each page will be divided into 4 frames expressing the following:
• High contrast
• Low contrast
• Symmetrical balance
• Asymmetrical balance

Use as many or as few shapes as you wish. Do not mix shapes. Use only black and white (no greyscale values or colour or gradient fills).

Deliverables:
(3) Three 8.5” x 11” black and white prints (cardstock or photo paper), labelled appropriately with your name.
Upload to your blog journal as a jpg or gif.

Evaluation will be based upon the following criteria:• Has the student followed the assignment directions?
• Is there an interesting selection of subject matter?
• Do the compositions reflect an understanding of the principles explored in the class sessions?
• Do the separate compositions relate to one another on the page in a pleasing manner?
• Is the assignment professionally printed and presented?

Click here to download an MS Word document of Assignment #3.

Click here to download an Illustrator template for you to use. Make sure you save one orginal version, then resave it three times - one for circles, rectangles and triangles.

The Fine Print: Typographical Hierarchies

2007-01-22T08:35:00.000-08:00

Click here to view powerpoint slides. Notes are copyright and courtesy of Prof. Christopher Moore.

Click here to read A Brief History of Type.

Categories of Type

Oldstyle

Slab Serif

Modern

San Serif

Script

Decorative

Bitmapped Fonts

A bitmap font is one that stores each glyph as an array of pixels (that is, a bitmap). It is less commonly known as a raster font. Bitmapped fonts are particularly useful for small type in digital media when used as a gif or jpg image on web sites or in flash animation, because they do not require rastering for the curves as with standard typefaces. Since the characters are made up of square pixels, the typefaces do not look blurry at small sizes and remain sharp appearing.

The Point System
Points
• 72 points (pts.) to the inch in height, 36pts = 1/2", 18 pts = 1/4”
• used for measuring type size
• refers to the height of the capital letters

General Rules
• do not use more than 2 typefaces in an ad or document
• do not use more than 1 headline face or body copy face
• the types you use should be either very similar (harmony) or very dissimilar (contrast)
• for readability, headlines are often sans-serif and body text is serif, avoid all caps, and use even spacing
• the bigger the type face, the wider the column
• 39 characters of lowercase letters, break long portions of text into columns
• flush left is usually easier to read because letter spacing is more even
• fully justified is often used in books and newspapers
• flush right is usually used for small portions of text
• never ad extra kerning to copy - only use kerning on short headlines or subheadlines of one or two words
• avoid punctuation in headlines
• avoid capitalizing each word in headlines - only capitalize the first word or proper names
• using all lower case on headlines and subheads associates the company or product with creativity
• be careful with word emphasis and end of lines
• the negative letter space is important to appearance and readability

Orphans and Widows: Finetuning

Do you leave readers dangling? Words left hanging leave readers in the dark. In desktop publishing, widows and orphans are those words or short phrases at the end or beginning of paragraphs that are left to sit alone at the top or bottom of a column — separated from the rest of the paragraph.
Click here to read the rest of the article by Jacci Howard Bear from About.com.

Finetuning
• reduce kerning up to -2 pts using the tracking option in a paragraph
• reduce width of text by up to 90% - preferably as little as possible

Online Illustrator Tutorials

2007-01-18T13:33:00.000-08:00

There are some free Adobe Illustrator tutorials available online. Click here to view.

The free tutorials include:
Introduction
What is Illustrator? (02:49)
What is New in CS2? (04:14)
What are Vector Graphics? (03:34)
A Tour of the Interface (05:00)
Managing Palettes (05:10)
Getting Assistance (04:54)
Resetting Preferences (04:16)
Working with Documents
Creating a New Document (04:28)
Using Document Setup (04:03)
Saving Native Format (04:29)
Saving EPS and Templates (04:55)
Exporting (04:37)
Saving for Web (05:00)
Printing Fundamentals (04:39)
Drawing Fundamentals
Drawing/Selecting/Scaling (03:50)
Stroke/Fill/Color Basics (04:36)
Stacking Order and Layers

Here are a few more online Illustrator Tutorials - check them out. Click here to visit site.

Intro
Intro Demo
What's New Demo
Vector vs. Raster Demo
Artboard Demo
Menu / Window Basics Demo
Navigating Palettes Demo
Tools Palette Demo

Pen Tool Techniques
Pen Tool / Anchor Points Demo
Creating Basic Shapes Demo
Direction Lines / Handles Demo
Convert Anchor Point Tool Demo
Finishing and Selecting Paths Demo
Direct Selection Tool Demo

Basic Concepts & Techniques
Selecting Objects Demo
Lasso Tool Demo
Assigning Fill and Stroke Demo
Assigning Colors Demo
Preferences Demo
Keyboard Shortcuts Demo
Stacking Order Demo
Group Selection Tool Demo
Magic Wand Tool Demo
Bounding Box Demo

In addition, you can do a google search for "online Illustrator tutorials" and find several other sites with excellent information.

Room to Breathe: Whitespace, Contrast + Balance

2007-01-15T10:21:00.000-08:00

Click here to read notes on Whitespace, Contrast + Balance.
Notes are copyright and courtesy of Prof. Christopher Moore

Click here to see examples of print ads that employ white space techniques.

New Media News: Apple Introduces Revolutionary Phone

2007-01-14T13:17:00.000-08:00

It's a widescreen iPod, mobile phone, and "internet communicator" all in one using a touchscreen navigation. Only one button, the home button. Thinner than any smartphone. Comes with full-featured internet browser, integrated Google search and maps, free Yahoo push IMAP email (like BlackBerry), runs OSX, widgets. Shipping in June in $499 and $599 models, exclusively with Cingular.

Assignment #2: Composing with the Camera

2007-01-12T13:10:00.000-08:00

Value: 5%
Duration: One Week
Due: January 22

For this assignment you are asked to use the camera view-finder as a compositional tool. Rather than beginning from scratch with a blank page, you will capture and edit imagery from the world around you. Taking into consideration the classical means of spatial division presented in the class session, select architectural details, abstracted 3D forms and/or corners of rooms as your subject matter. Please avoid recognizable objects, and focus on geometrical (preferably linear) forms. You should have approximately 10 digital images saved and available to work with during the lab session.

From these initial photos, select four of your favourite compositions to work with. Using the Adobe Illustrator template (provided online on our course blog), place and scale your images to fit within the 4 frames. Modify the title information with your name and personal information. Create a new layer and lock the previous two. Using the pen tool, trace the forms in your photographs, eliminating details and embellishing others, until you have a strong composition. You may want to crop, scale, or shift your reference photo to achieve a particular layout. Modify the fill colours for each form, using only greyscale values.

Once you are pleased with your design, delete or hide the layer with the photographic source. Save the file as a .pdf, and have the document printed in black and white on 8.5”x11” cardstock or photo paper (this can be done at the Copy Centre on level 6).

Deliverables:
- 8.5”x11” black and white print on cardstock or photo paper (labeled
appropriately)
- save for web as a jpg, and upload image to your blog journal
- please be prepared to present your work during the following class session

Evaluation will be based upon the following criteria:

- Has the student followed the assignment directions?
- Is there an interesting selection of subject matter?
- Do the compositions reflect an understanding of the principles explored in the class sessions?
- Do the separate compositions relate to one another on the page in a pleasing manner?

Click here to download the Adobe Illustrator Template.

Click here to download a PDF of detailed instructions.

What the hell is the Fibonacci Sequence?

2007-01-10T13:44:00.000-08:00

Click here to view an excellent flash animation how the Fibonacci Sequence works, and is related to the spiral and golden mean.

Textbook & Readings

2007-01-10T11:06:00.000-08:00

Make sure that you purchase the correct textbook for NMED 2005 (in the bookstore it's in the wrong section). It looks like this:

The Elements of Graphic Design: Space, Unity, Page Architecture, and Type

Please read Introduction, Chapter one for Monday, January 15, 2007.

Golden Proportion In-class Exercise

2007-01-10T10:44:00.000-08:00

Here's some guidelines for doing this in-class exercise on golden proportion and the principle of thirds.

What artist does this remind you of?

Piet Mondrian.

Assignment #1 - Data.Body | Blog Journal

2007-01-10T10:25:00.001-08:00

ASSIGNMENT #1: DATA.BODY
VALUE: 0%
DURATION: One week
DUE: January 15

Your first assignment is create your own blog journal, and to provide the instructor and the rest of the class with information related to your interests, goals, and media preferences. Please refer to class handout for more details.

Please use Blogger to create your own blog journal and upload your data.body onto it.

Once you've completed Assignment #1, please send me an email with your blog journal address (URL) and I will put it on our course blog.

The World is Flat: Points, Lines & Planes

2007-01-10T07:58:00.000-08:00

Click here for notes on "The World is Flat: Points, Lines & Planes."

The notes are courtesy, and copyright, of Prof. Christopher Moore.

Safety Procedures, Richard Fenwick

2007-01-07T17:10:00.000-08:00

Click here to see video.

What Barry Says, Simon Robson

2007-01-07T17:04:00.000-08:00

Click here to see video.

Kinetic Typography: Sky

2007-01-07T17:01:00.000-08:00