YUMMY SWIPE for those of you who are still working on the type specimens

Here's some swipe I thought you guys might find useful and inspirational.
The owner of this beauty is Alexey Brodovich. Look him up if you're interested in his style.

Bookbinding resources

Here's 2 great places where you'll be able to find everything on bookbinding:

http://www.talasonline.com/

http://www.centerforbookarts.org/

List of ideas for the next project:

BLOCK PARTY
BIKE-KILL
LOCAL FILM FESTIVAL
BIG APPLE FESTIVAL
SMOKE-UP DAY AT WASHINGTON SQ. PARK
ARTS AND CRAFTS SALE
STOOP SALE
YARD SALE
LOCAL DANCE COMPANY
LOCAL MUSIC FESTIVAL
LIBRARY BOOK SALE
UNION SQUARE PARK HAPPENINGS
5 BOROUGH BIKE TOUR


The subject is open and if anyone has anymore ideas they want to share, let me know.

Hello!

Just wanted to introduce myself...

I'm Olga and I'll be your TA for the next couple of weeks while Ayca is gone.

My e-mail: olga.vladova@yahoo.com

Contact me in case you need feedback on your work or if you feel like you need someone to talk to :)

THE SLOW MOTION SHOW

Hey ya'll Genevieve and I were thinking of taking a trip to this awesome show/event next week during the class. We'll take it back to class in time for the crit. What do you guys think?

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=130886960268091

The Slow Motion Show Opening Night Event!

Date:	Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Time:	6:00pm - 8:00pm
Location:	Visual Arts Gallery
Street:	601 West 26 St. (between 11th Ave & West Side hwy)
City/Town:	New York, NY

The Slow Motion Show is a thesis collaboration between three design students:
Kirstin Huber, Louis Liu and Kevin Wang.

The show contains several self-curated, self-produced art pieces.

Please join us for the opening night event of our thesis show! We've been working on this for almost a year and now all of our hard work (and your help!) is about to pay off!

The Slow Motion Show is a synthesis of different points of view and forms of design thinking. The content of the show interprets slow motion as a device used to reveal the unnoticed. The purpose of this show is to present a broader viewpoint of simple moments, in order to better understand their importance.

The pieces in the show range in medium--from video projections, to hand-written letters, to performance art. We've revealed some interesting interpretations of "slow motion" in an unexpected way.

If you can't make it to the spectacular opening night event--your loss--but the show will be up until August 14, so please stop by the next time you're out in Chelsea!

Thanks again to everyone who contributed to our Kickstarter to help make this event possible! ♥

----- [[ UPDATE ]] -----

Website for The Slow Motion Show has officially been launched!

http://welikeitslow.com/

10 Kisses Of Death for a Resume

Resume writing mistakes that ruin your chances

Listen. Is that your phone not ringing? And after sending out 100 resumes, each of them four pages long, powder puffed, enveloped in coral green and sealed with a wax stamp? Maybe it’s time to take stock of that all-important document, and make sure it’s not stumbling around out there with its figurative foot in its mouth. Here’s 10 kisses of death, classic mistakes made in writing a job resume that have been known to keep phones from ringing.

1) Missing Contact Information

You’d be surprised how many people leave off their phone number on a job resume, or ignore the opportunity to include an email address in the heading. And on that latter point, make sure your email address is stable, long term, and professional sounding. Skip the one you use with your friends, PartyGirl@loadsofun.com, and opt instead for something that won’t raise eyebrows.

2) Too Long

If your job resume is over two pages, you’d better be a world-class CEO with instant name recognition. Then again, if you meet that description, you can get by with a single page, can’t you? Regardless of your real or imagined worth to a company, limit your job resume to two pages max, one page ideally. With regards to all the valuable ‘stuff’ you’re leaving off the job resume, be happy you’ll have something to talk about during the interview.

3) Over The Top Design

Ignore your impulse to write a white-text job resume on black paper, or include a scratch-and-sniff perfume spot on the page. Limit your font selection to one or two. Use the traditional and popular New Times Roman if you prefer lettering with a serif, or consider Arial, Helvetica or Verdana if you want a clean, more modern san serif font. Go easy on the bold and the underlining. And limit your paper selection to white or beige with a weight of 22 or 24 lb. Black type.

3) Misspellings; Poor Grammar

Nothing signals an inattention to detail like a misspelled word on a resume. The job resume, the one document on which you intent to present yourself to your ideal company, and you’ve misspelled achievemints. Well, you won’t be adding to your list of achievemints with that company.

4) A Photo on a Job Resume

Never, never, never include a photo on your job resume–unless you’re applying for a job in Germany, or as a fashion model. U.S. companies outside of the modeling industry will trash your resume immediately to avoid any future accusations that they might have discriminated in a hiring decision.

5) Personal Information Not Relevant To The Job

You may be the Friday Night Dart Champion at Willie’s Bar, but leave it off the job resume. Likewise don’t mention your marital status, number of children if any, social security number, height and weight, hobbies, and sports–unless you’re an avid golfer applying to Titleist.

6) Missing Dates, Missing Employment Information

The hiring official doesn’t like to be left guessing how you acquired your superhuman talents, or where you acquired them, or when. If he is left guessing, you’ll be left guessing why you never get a response.

7) Hard To Read

Long, dense paragraphs are tough slogging. Make use of bulleted points. Don’t crowd your information. Weed out extraneous details and know what employers are looking for–which leads to the next point.

8) A Focus On Job Descriptions vs Accomplishment

It’s implied that a job in outside sales involves calling on customers and following leads. Don’t waste space and readers’ patience spelling that out in minute detail. Rather, get on with the actual accomplishments from the job. Increased territory sales 20% the first year. Initiated order bundling system saving $40K annually in transportation costs. You get the idea.

9) One Too Many Weasel Words

Weasel words are adjectives or action verbs that sound impressive as you’re typing them (extraordinary communication skills, vitally participated in conference XYZ, demonstrated ability to extricate donut from bag with minimal disturbance to icing) but to the trained eye (i.e., the eye of the hiring official) they are indicative of a desperate fellow scrapping the bottom of the barrel for anything positive to say about his time spent at Acme Wingnuts.

10) Functional Resume

Many hiring officials have come to associate the functional format with a candidate seeking to hide some aspect of his work history. And for good reason–many are trying to do just that; hiding gaps in their work history, hiding too many jobs in too short of time.

While it can still be an effective resume, know that choosing a functional format will send up a red flag in the eyes of many employers, something your resume will have to overcome from the get go.

BOOK COVER DESIGN CONTEST No.4

This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen
PURPOSE
The purpose of the contest is to foster interest in the relationship of literature to the visual arts through the design of a hypothetical book cover for Tadeusz Borowski’s remarkable collection of concentration camp stories This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen. This is an ideas competition only: as of this writing there are no plans for the winner’s work to be featured on a forthcoming edition of Borowski’s work.

ELIGIBILITY
This international competition is open to anyone 18 years or older. Graphic design students and professionals are especially encouraged to enter. ONLY ONE ENTRY PER PERSON IS ALLOWED.

DEADLINE
Entries must be received by Friday, July 30, 2010.

See competition details here.

a.

Kerning Type

KERNING

The term kerning refers to adjusting the space between two letters. If letters in a typeface are spaced too uniformly, they make a pattern that doesn’t look uniform enough. Gaps occur, for example, around letters whose forms angle outward or frame an open space (W, Y, V, T, L). In metal type, a kerned letter extends past the lead slug that supports it, allowing two letters to sit more closely together. In the digital typefaces used today, the space between letters is controlled by a table of kerning pairs, which specify spaces between different letter combinations.


KERNING LARGER SIZES

Because the space between characters expands as the type size increases, designers often fine-tune letterspacing when working with large letters. As the word “rub” gets bigger, the gap between u and b grows more obvious.

via thinking with type
a.

Assignment

Finish up your type specimens.
GUIDELINES
Make sure you kerned every display type properly. Hyphenate text blocks. Take your design to the next level. Add color or image or both. Think about the binding. Think about the pacing of the signature. Try to make it as exciting as possible. Print and bring to class.

Think about 4 assignments you would like to do in addition to your type specimen and your personal id.
We understand that most of you want to design good portfolio work. So suit your work to your particular job interest. research the firms you'd like to work at and look through their works. You'd want to show your design/type skills along with your conceptual thinking skills and let them see how your mind works.

Here are a few examples:

• Set of 4 PSA (public service announcement) posters.
• Entire book or set of 3-4 mini books.
• Book jacket
• Magazine layouts
• Corporate id
• Business card/website
• Packaging design (CDs, sauces, wine,toılet paper, etc)
• Skateboards
• T-shirts
• Store id

If you come up with a subject that is not on the list that's fine too.

Research your topic well.
Identify and speak to your target audience when designing.
Post everything on your blog.
a.

Chip Kidd short talk

*The Scholastic Design Forum Presents*
“The Closest Thing to a Rock Star in Graphic Design Today” – /USA// Today/


*Chip Kidd*
Wednesday, June 23 @ 3 PM
The Scholastic Auditorium
557 Broadway

Chip Kidd, top Knopf book designer will appear in the Scholastic Auditorium and will give a short talk, then an exhibit, and reception afterwards. Past lecturers included Milton Glaser, Steven Heller, Ellen Lupton, Richard Wilde, and Maurice Sendak.

Admission is free.

Jonathan Hoefler & Steven Heller On “Please Explain: Typography”

Leonard Lopate Please Explain: Typography
WNYC 93.9 FM and AM 820 are New York’s flagship public radio stations, broadcasting the finest programs from National Public Radio and Public Radio International, as well as a wide range of award-winning local programming.

Every Friday afternoon Please Explain – the weekly feature on The Leonard Lopate Show – gets to the bottom of one complex issue. The latest Please Explain is all about typefaces and typography. Typeface designer Jonathan Hoefler, type designer and president of Hoefler & Frere-Jones and Steven Heller, co-chair of the MFA Designer as Author program at the School of Visual Arts and author of the VISUALS column for the New York Times Book Review, explain how typefaces are created and why typography is important to communication and design.

Guests: Steven Heller and Jonathan Hoefler.

Highlights from this conversation:

Type Styles Abbreviations

Overview of common type styles abbreviations:

Rm | Roman
It | Italic
Obl | Oblique
Sl | Slanted

Th | Thin
Lt | Light
Rg | Regular
Nr | Normal
Bk | Book
Md | Medium
Dm | Demi Bold
Sm | Semi Bold
Hv | Heavy
Bd | Bold
Blk | Black

Ex, X | Extra
Ult | Ultra

Comp | Compressed
Cond | Condensed
Nar | Narrow
Wide
Ext | Extended

via FontFeed by Yves Peters , "Styles, Weights, Widths".
Read other articles on FontFeed-- a daily dispatch of recommended fonts, typography techniques, and inspirational examples of digital type at work in the real world.
a.

Type Specimen Inspiration

AIGA holiday wrapping paper
Garamond and Trade Gothic

Assignment Q&A

typeface anatomy

Q: What are the differences between Display and Text fonts?
A: Display type refers to the use of type at large sizes, perhaps 30 points or larger. Some typefaces are considered useful solely at display sizes, and hence are known as display faces. For typefaces used across a wide range of sizes, in the days of metal type, each size was cut individually, or even if panto-graphically scaled would often have adjustments made to the design for larger or smaller sizes, making a "display" face have distinct differences....

....When digital fonts feature a display variation, it is to accommodate other stylistic differences that may benefit type used at larger point sizes. Such differences, which were standard in metal type, are rare in digital type, outside of the very high end of type design. They can include: a lower x-height, higher contrast between thick and thin strokes, less space between letters, and slightly more condensed letter shapes.

Decades into the desktop publishing revolution, few typographers with metal foundry type experience are still working, and few digital typefaces are optimized specifically for different sizes, so the misuse of the term display typeface as a synonym for ornamental type has become widespread; properly speaking, ornamental typefaces are a subcategory of display typefaces.
via Wikipedia - Typeface

Q: Does the layout of the specimen have to be one page large point sized display copy and the facing page to be the same font in smaller point sizes in text blocks form?
A: No, it does not have to be like that. This is David Berlow's type specimen for Font Bureau which is down-loadable as a PDF. It is just an example. If you can not decide where to start for this project it serves as a starting point. Please, examine his specimen and see how he keeps track of each weight he uses for every typeface and how he kerns every display copy properly.
As a substitute for 16 pg signature you could design a poster, a scroll, a motion graphic, etc. Your type specimen could take different forms. Think of it as a portfolio piece. Be creative with the format and laying out of the typography.

Assignment - Type Specimen

Design a 16 page signature type specimen book.
Use your own text. An essay, a poem etc...

Pick 15 typefaces that are relevant to your topic.

• 3 serif display
• 3 sans serif display
• 3 serif text
• 3 sans serif text
• 3 decorative

NOTES:

• Set your type properly and kern all your display text. Read Ellen Lupton's InDesign crash course for tips.
• Be inventive with the form and binding of your signature. Check out "type specimen inspirations" posts.
• Design your specimen in black and white.
• Print to size, bound and bring to class.
  
• Post on your blog.
  

Q&A:

Q: Why are we doing a type specimen book?

A:

1. Typography is the basis of good design
2. So that you discover and learn how to use at least four to five basic fonts that can be applied to many different projects
3. Make a portfolio piece that shows off your typographic skills
4. Assess your knowledge base and skill level so that we know how to proceed from here with course assignments

Not looking to see a lot of funky fonts that can only be used once in a design career.

We are looking for a solid understanding of the use of typography as a graphic design element--a basic that can not be gotten around.

work hard,
a.

Required Book for the course

Thinking with Type by Ellen Lupton
Read the first 2 chapters, it's a great resource.
You can find it on amazon.com, strand, barnes and noble...
a.

All Things Typographic

Everything you didn’t know you didn’t know, typographically speaking! -- TypeTalk: You ask, we answer -- Typography for Signage -- Typo Tips from Erik Spiekermann -- Cheese or Font? -- Bring Gourmet Typography to your company, school, or organization -- The Type Studio now on Twitter

TypeTalk: You ask, we answer ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Q. Is there an optimum column width for text settings that makes the text easier to read? Check it out... Q. How can I avoid importing the formatting in a Word document when I place the text into a design program? Check it out...

Typography for Signage ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Signage must make its point as quickly as possible, whether it is promoting a product, providing directions, or previewing a brand. Typography — the right faces used appropriately — holds the key to readability and memorability. Read on...

Typo Tips from Erik Spiekermann ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ With the invention of desktop publishing, designers found themselves setting type on their computers for the first time. Until then, they had made type specifications for typesetters and left the job up to the professionals. As a result, you can still see classic inaccuracies in typesetting, even in top-quality printed matter. Here you will find some tips from Erik Spiekermann, co-author of Stop Stealing Sheep, and a FontShop founder, which will prevent some of the more obvious blunders. Read on...

Cheese or Font? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Fonts and cheese — what could they possibly have in common? Perhaps more than you think. Play this fun game and find out how well you really know the difference between these two incongruous items. Check it out...

Bring Gourmet Typography to your company, school, or organization ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In today’s competitive market, you need all the edge you can get. Whether you are a student or a professional, having strong typographic skills should be at the top of your list. Bring Gourmet Typography Training right to your company, school or organization! Workshops are customized for groups of any size and designed to fit your specific needs. Sessions are scheduled for your convenience — daytime, evenings or weekends. We will design a program customized for your particular requirements. SUMMER DISCOUNT: $300 off workshops scheduled June thru August. SCHOOLS & UNIVERSITIES: Special pricing, call 203.227.5929 for details. “I want to thank you for the great workshop last Friday. You dusted off and reinforced all of those typographic rules that I have — and have not — lived by in all my years as a graphic designer. Your down-to-earth approach to type made the session breezy and fun, and I couldn’t help but visually re-spacing all the headlines I had the time to linger on during my bumper-to-bumper drive back to home. Thanks again for reigniting my spark for type!” For more info, click here or call 203.227.5929.

The Type Studio now on Twitter ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Yes, I gave in to Twitter pressure. It's no longer your teenager's social networking tool, but a valuable source of education and information for students, educators and professionals of all kinds. Follow me at Twitter for the best of typographic rants, raves, reviews, and releases.

Type Specimen Samples

Nikelle Orellana's Bodoni Type Specimen
featuring an essay by Thomas Carlise,
" Signs of the Times:The Mechanical Age"

Clockwise from top left: Yutt Wattanapanich, Ramon Tejada, Talmud, Talmud, Alice in Wonderland, Herb Lubalin

In Design Crash Course - Ellen Lupton

Helpful InDesign and type tips.
a.

Type Samples

Here are the Type Samples we discussed during class on Tuesday.
The examples shown under each category are pretty old. We want to replace them with contemporary ones.

As an exercise; try to find more recent/contemporary examples for each category or as many you possibly could. Post on your blog.

As you identify various design elements, you'll start to develop an understanding of what good design is and once you understand you'll start to make more educated decisions in your own designs.

good.

have fun,
a.

Welcome Summer 2010 Class - First Assignment

Your first assignment is to design a Type Specimen Book.
A 16 pg signature or the equivalent in motion if you want to do motion.
The type specimen will be comprised of 3 serif text, 3 sans-serif text, 3 serif display, 3 sans-serif display and 3 decorative typefaces.


For this assignment this week do research:

• Create your own content.
  A short story, an essay, some content you relate to. Do not use song lyrics or poems of famous poets
• Collect swipe for inspiration.
  Aesthetic, typography, color palette that inspires you. Check out our inspiration links on the blog.
• Create color palette in swatches.
  Use Kuler.com or take color form images you like
• Post everything on your blog and print and bring to class.

For inspiration check out:
AIGA Design Archives
Non-format
Poster Cabaret
M/M Paris
Hatch Show Print
Aesthetic Apparatus
Mucca Design
Luise Fili
Grain Edit
Swiss Miss
April Greiman
ffffound.com
Smashing Magazine
Vignelli Associates
Typographic Posters

have fun,
a.

LOST silkscreen posters by Ty Mattson

for all the LOST geeks still recovering from the end of the show -
these silkscreen prints by Ty Mattson are available for purchase at abc.com

Chermayeff & Geismar Collection

at the Milton Glaser Design Study Center and Archives












Ivan Chermayeff and Tom Geismar initially formed their partnership in the late 1950s and went on to revolutionize the field of visual communication and build one of America’s most influential graphic design firms. Together they have created more than 300 corporate identity programs for companies such as Mobil Oil, Xerox, Chase Manhattan Bank, PBS, Univision, and Pam Am. Their work extends from logos to posters and publications to major exhibitions including the United States Pavilions at the World’s Fair in Montreal and Oksaka, Japan. The Chermayeff & Geismar collection includes 325 posters, 340 letterhead samples, and more than 1,000 printed samples (including graphics manuals, annual reports, brochures, book and album covers, and packaging).