Points in Typography

_ What are the advantages of a multiple column grid.?
Allows you to easily organize large amounts of text, room to experiment with the typography, clean

_ How many characters is optimal for a line length? words per line?
40 to 50 characters (including letters, punctuation, spaces)

_ Why is the baseline grid used in design?
Establishes as ordered system that is uniform through out the layout unifying multiple sizes of type.

_ What is a typographic river?
The sting of gaps created with justification

_ From the readings what does clothesline or flow line mean?
The horizontal line created to carry the eye through the page...where the text hangs

_ How can you incorporate white space into your designs?
Ragging the text instead of justification, little things that are called out (used with justification), adjusting type size and leading/tracking

_ What is type color/texture mean?
Bold, weight, size, leading and tracking, column width

_ What is x-height, how does it effect type color?
The hight of lowercase character sans any ascenders or descenders

_ In justification or H&J terms what do the numbers: minimum, optimum, maximum mean?
Restrictions on the spacing between the letters

_ What are some ways to indicate a new paragraph. Are there any rules?
Do not indent the first line, when indenting – no use .5 indent but less, (equal to leading) do not indent if there is a space between paragraphs

_ What are some things to look out for when hyphenating text?
No have two letters left behind (de-sign), words that are four letters two syllables, no hyphenate names. Lonely words on line above (the, of, in)

_ What is a literature?
two letters that will become physically combined into one letter (fi, tt, ffi)

_ What does CMYK and RGB mean?
additive v. subtractive (internet is RGB, just stay consistent)

_ What does hanging punctuation mean?
text aligns and punctuation hangs out

_ What is the difference between a foot mark and an apostrophe?
Foot mark is straight

_ What is the difference between an inch mark and a quote mark (smart quote)?
Inch mark is straight, quote mark is curved/angled

_ What is a hyphen, en dash and em dashes, what are the differences and when are they used?
shouldn't have three hyphens in a row – something is wrong, avoid completely in call outs, en dash is used in dates and breaks of thoughts with a space on either side, em dash is the longest – option shift dash with no spaces

Cold : Bold

Jonathan Harris is an artist/designer and expert of computer science and code. He used his technological savvy as a gateway for creating art on the web. In this video, Harris gives a presentation that discusses in part the his recent work and the his thoughts on the current evolution of technology and how he believes it affects the human race. He explains his overwhelming concern that the advancements in computers is diminishing humans' connectedness with their emotions and essentially their humanity. Harris also goes on to discuss what he refers to as physical vs. digital and professional vs. personal schizophrenia and the difficulty that comes with divulging himself in computer code (something that for him can become so dehumanizing in that he thinks in code rather than emotion or instinct) while also becoming a working artist.

I really enjoyed this video and I definitely responded to the points made by Jonathan Harris. I think the underlying messages of his presentation relate strongly to graphic design and the different battles that I face between the digital and physical media. More and more we here about the posed threats of technology and our increasing dependency on it – how it begins to use and have control over us instead of us having control over it, a point that I believe to be true. In the graphic design field, so much of our work relies solely on computers. It's unfortunate I think that the art of craft by hand is dying and becoming obsolete. Coming from someone who has spent years as a fine artist, I think art created without the help of computers is so much more expressive and personal. It captures the essence of emotion and humanity that lacks from that created by technology. Like Harris, I believe that there is possibility for a marriage between physical and digital media to exist but has yet to be achieved. This is actually a goal of mine personally as an aspiring graphic designer. I hope for my experience and increasing expertise as a fine artist can be integrated successfully in the world of computers thus creating a medium between illustrator and graphic designer.

My Mantra

Keep moving.
The market and its operations have a tendency to reinforce success. Resist it. Allow failure and migration to be part of your practice.

I chose this mantra because I felt it is very reflective of my processes in design and my tendency to get overly discouraged by from error. However, I realize that strong success is spawned from failure, as long as you can allow it to help you up rather than bring this down.
This point was made by Bruce Mau, the Chief Creative director of Bruce Mau designs. Mau has used design and optimism to originate, innovate, and renovate businesses, brands, products, and experiences. Some of his well known clients include Coca– Cola, McDonald's, MoMA, and MTv. He is a recognized award winning author and publisher and was the focus of the recently released book GLIMMER: How Design Can Transform Your Life and Maybe Even the World. Mau's design's are fresh and innovative and are definitely a source of inspiration for a young aspiring designer like myself.