Reading through some articles found in Communication Arts' website, I found an article entitled, "Five Young Typeface Designers and Their Former Careers". It is presented in an easy to read format with examples of each of the designers' works, the link is found at the end of this blog.
Allen Haley, the author of this piece, explores the brief background of each of the 5 international typeface designers--which all but one had a graphic design background. He then has the designers explain their inspiration for their typefaces, which all mainly derive from either 1920 to 30's old type to literary figures such as Franz Kafka. Aside from being typeface designers with pretty similar backgrounds, they definitely shared one thing: passion. There was no large amount of money, or client involved with the designing of their fonts just pure obsessive passion for developing the look and feel for their own typeface. If you check out the link, you need to see Mister K--the designer even includes 600 pictograms. Definitely a labor of love!
Aside from being an interesting article, the designers' examples were in color and spaced throughout the article--which invites the reader to continue reading beyond the first paragraph so that you understand the connection between the article and the examples of font. The format was a blog style or vertical composition: paragraph then a picture in the center, and then right into a paragraph again--which allowed the emphasis to be on the picture. As in the previous piece I wrote about, the font is also grey and the type, while small, is easy on the eye and modern looking--it looks like the text is Verdana. Again, a very simple composition but effective for the reader for ease and for the piece itself because the focal points are the examples of typeface. The hierarchy of the article enforces this as well--small, muted-color, type gives way to the bigger, colorful, and crisp pictures.
Another good example of form and content.
http://www.commarts.com/Columns.aspx?pub=4239&pageid=1384
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Thursday, September 9, 2010
FORM&CONTENT I
While browsing Communication Art's website, I came across an article from Pantone announcing the color of Spring 2011. Honeysuckle. Pantone collects the forecasts of several prominent fashion designers, interior designers, and other fashion forward taste makers to determine the colors of the season and year. Along with honeysuckle, they have rounded out a very bright, springy palette consisting of warm and cool toned colors found in exotic locales such as Africa, India, Peru, and Turkey. Many of the designers had cited that these countries are the place to visit but other countries such as China and the Middle East are in our current events and, therefore, making an impact on our daily lives.
Even though the blurb about Pantone's spring color was unassumingly listed on the right side of CA's website, it was the word FASHION that caught my eye and made me click on it. (Fashion Week in NYC has started!) Plus the little blurb did not mention the color and it piqued my curiosity. I was directed to Pantone's website were there was the bright color of honeysuckle and the sketch of a model with a dress that made me click on the actual article. Bright colors command attention, making the viewer stop, if only for a second to look at what is sticking out amongst all the same, neutral, blah background. The article was actually created as a report, outlining the designers who gave their forecasts; one designer per page. Each "designer page" had the same format: a sketch featuring their signature piece on the left, and then a short interview-broken up into four sections-to the right, along with a profile picture in the middle. The background consists of white but the main text and borders were given a color from the spring palette, allowing each designer to have their own unique page while maintaining a consistent layout for easy reading for the viewer. Because Pantone is a color producing company and the report was about color, the designer had included color on each page and the text remained a soft grey in a pleasing Verdana font throughout the report.
It was through bright, pleasing colors, and an straightforward composition that caught my attention but kept me interested as well and made me read the whole report. Content and form were completely interdependent in Pantone's spring color report: it was the color that inspired the report and was used as the constant theme on each page.
Check out the full report at:
http://www.pantone.com/downloads/articles/pdfs/FCR_SPRING_2011.pdf
Even though the blurb about Pantone's spring color was unassumingly listed on the right side of CA's website, it was the word FASHION that caught my eye and made me click on it. (Fashion Week in NYC has started!) Plus the little blurb did not mention the color and it piqued my curiosity. I was directed to Pantone's website were there was the bright color of honeysuckle and the sketch of a model with a dress that made me click on the actual article. Bright colors command attention, making the viewer stop, if only for a second to look at what is sticking out amongst all the same, neutral, blah background. The article was actually created as a report, outlining the designers who gave their forecasts; one designer per page. Each "designer page" had the same format: a sketch featuring their signature piece on the left, and then a short interview-broken up into four sections-to the right, along with a profile picture in the middle. The background consists of white but the main text and borders were given a color from the spring palette, allowing each designer to have their own unique page while maintaining a consistent layout for easy reading for the viewer. Because Pantone is a color producing company and the report was about color, the designer had included color on each page and the text remained a soft grey in a pleasing Verdana font throughout the report.
It was through bright, pleasing colors, and an straightforward composition that caught my attention but kept me interested as well and made me read the whole report. Content and form were completely interdependent in Pantone's spring color report: it was the color that inspired the report and was used as the constant theme on each page.
Check out the full report at:
http://www.pantone.com/downloads/articles/pdfs/FCR_SPRING_2011.pdf
Photo Batch: Signs Part1
There is an incredible amount of time to spend taking pictures while waiting at a red light:
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