Don Quixote: Character Sketch

Our second project in Computer Graphics includes choosing a character from a quality literary work, creating a character sketch, and photographing ourselves as that character. I have chosen Don Quixote, a dynamic character that will allow me a creative base to create my photos.
Don Quixote is a retired country gentleman who gets caught up in books about chivalry and adventure that comes from being a knight. He believes in the very obviously false tales and lives within the stories he has read. He so believes in these stories that he goes on his own adventure, dubbing a neighboring farm girl his "lady love" and even renaming her. He then recruits a squire, Sancho, and goes off on some adventures, even fighting windmills he mistakes for his enemies.
Don Quixote lives in a false world that is filled with chivalry and the ideals of knighthood. He believes in the books he reads and so wants them to be true that he creates his own adventures.
My word for Don Quixote is Chivalry.

Carla Gannis

This week Carla Gannis was a guest speaker at Hofstra University. She is an artist/designer who works with photos and other media to create art. Carla's excitement and go-to-it attitude were infectious as she spoke about her various projects. Although she originally received her bachelors and masters in painting, Carla has since turned to new media and the computer for her various projects.
The information that most impacted me in her talk was that her knowledge is all self-taught or through internships. She has no formal schooling for what she creates. Although she is an artist, Carla's abilities to use computer programs are absolutely incredible.
From her most recent Jezebel to her I Dream series, Carla's ability to combine both history and modernity in her search for inner meaning is striking. She is very well aware of what she is trying to portray and does so effectively through her work.
Even though Carla freelances, teaches, and researches, she is always seeking more. She is never content to sit still and smell the roses. Instead she is off to discover some new art, some new idea, some new skill that she can use to explore her world and emotions.

Kindle by It's Cover

The Core77 Core-Toons Post "The Trapper-Kindle" addresses a problem I have never considered. The book cover has always been extremely important to the marketing of the book itself. Even though you are told not to judge a book by its cover, we can't help but be attracted to some designs. But now, with the advent of digital publishing and the kindle, covers lose their attraction. Yes, maybe when you buy the book online it is important. But when you are traveling on a subway in New York and you look at everyone reading on their Kindle (or other device), you have no idea what they are reading. And you don't get new ideas for what book to read next.

Books have always been sold best mouth to mouth through recommendations or by seeing what others are reading. When I interned at Penguin we were given books and told to bring them around on the subway or the train because this is invaluable marketing. Now marketers are going to have to work harder. Maybe these fake covers will help do the trick...

Books of the Future (pt 2)

In a previous post, I discussed the new Core77 one hour design challenge for the future of digital publishing.

The update features a design by Cameron called the Gutenberg Local/Global Bookmaker.

This design allows the reader to choose a book digitally and have it print out in tangible form. This brings together the digital and physical worlds and deals with problems of publisher distribution. But it does not address the benefits and convenience of having a digital reader. Not only is this not an environmentally friendly option because of the use of paper in the output, it is also large and cumbersome. The convenience of digital readers is that it is small and can be used everywhere. This idea is similar to having your own personal print-on-demand machine. In this case, I would choose digital reader or book before this.

POWERleap

Elizabeth Redmond has come up with a brilliant idea. She has designed tiles that will change the power made from people walking to electricity. These can be used for sidewalks or on dance floors, or even on roads.

This was posted on Core77 and it seems like a very promising technology. If we could replace sidewalks with these tiles and harness the energy we all do naturally, it help our environment tremendously.

Imagine using a technology like this in the NYC marathon where thousands of people walk in the space. Harnessing this massive amount of energy for something that can be used elsewhere in life is truly amazing. Design is truly amazing.

Class Notes

Definitions

highlights - the lightest part of a picture
bleed - allowing an image to go as far as it can be printed
weight - the thickness of the font
leading - the space between lines
kerning - the space between letters

Examples of San Serif fonts
Futura (1800s) Volkswagon uses it
Gill (1930) - is considered one of the most beautiful fonts. London underground uses it
Optima - is most assured of itself, most assertive font

Examples of Serif fonts
Garamond - used in art books (very old font)
Palatino - rather contemporary fond (from 19th century)

Piccells (inflatable furniture)

Winning fifth prize in the International Design Award, this inflatable furniture by Igor Lobanov was found on Core77's website. It represents and interconnected structure of cells and the shape can be changed based on what cells are inflated. It can also serve as a small coffee table.

I have never seen anything like this before and I wonder just how comfortable this would be to sit on. Air mattresses have always been very uncomfortable to me and I can't imagine this would be much better.

On the plus, though, it can be changed to fit your needs creating individuality and appealing to a wider market. I guess I would have to try it out to be sold on the idea.

The look and texture of it remind me of the rock formations in Zion National Park. As I drove through with my family, we could not resist stopping the car and touching the rocks because they looked so cool.

I guess it's a good thing this furniture (or the rocks) are not breakable...I definitely would not obey any look don't touch rules on this one.

Project 1 - Brochure

Above is my first project for Computer Graphics - a brochure about Philip Johnson.

Although I began with only black and white images of Philip, they were not of good quality and made the brochure look rather drab. After numerous searches online, I finally found photos that would work. They had to be of high resolution to work on the printed page.

With some help from my professor and photoshop (which will be our next project), the cover came out pretty well. By adding blue and speckle to the photo, and lightening the subject, the terrible picture was rescued for use in the brochure.

The heading font I used was Helvetica Bold. The body text is Palatino, a more modern font for a more modern designer.

In all it was a project that allowed me to work in Quark and get acquainted with what it can do.