I preferred Catherine's design brief 4.3 (dynamic) over her 4.4 (interactive) because it seemed to be more entertaining. I found that as a piece it worked better because of the fasshion which she used words and text to construct a skyline. The way she designed the buildins themselves (metropolis & commercial) were particularly effective. The only one I found was out of place was the 'diversity' building... I wasn't how that fit into the context of a building, however, I realize it does fit into the context of a metropolitain city.

The interactive piece wasn't as evoking after seeing her dynamic work. It involves moving around words to create your own metrolpolis, similar to her prior work. However, once the words are moved around by the user, I was expecting it to be dynamic in the same way as 4.3, but it wasn't leaving me a little disappointed.

Of all the pieces shown in this week's reading, 'For all seasons' (Muller) was my favorite. I thought it to be the most visually interesting and fun to interact with. Along with the visuals, the personalized anecdotes made the piece more intimate, and gave it more of an allure.

Of the four seasons, the 'winter' behavior appealed to me the most because of the serenity it instilled. The gentle falling of the letters made me think of the snowfall from when I was a boy. I felt that the complexity of the letterforms also reminded me of snowflakes, in that the sructure of each individual snowflake is a complexity in itself.

A special mention goes to 'fall' because it was the behavior most fun to interact with and visually interesting to watch. The fact that it sprang up from the text you had just finished reading added to the composition, unlike the 'spring' (dandelions) piece where the text faded out and went into the composition. (Also, I am wondering if it was the most difficult to code...)

'Summer' wasn't as fun to interact with, but was visually interesting because of the 'fishy' behavior of the words. And finally, my least favorite, was 'spring', where it didn't really engage me as much as 'fall' or 'winter'. I can't really explain why but I was a little bored of it after the initial 30 seconds.

As for the 'Letterscapes' piece, I enjoyed that one much more than his (Cho) other work 'Alphabet Zoo' simply because there was more interaction involved and was more visually appealing. Among my prefered characters in 'Letterscapes', Q and Z were the most fun to me. Z because it reminded me of an Atari trype of game, or much like Arkanoid from early gaming consoles (I'm still thinking of the Vintage Video Game Tournament!) and Q because it was fun to play with and is one of my favorite charcters within the alphabet.

Anyway, that is it for now... back to DB 4.

Ghina's DB 3

I believe that the idea Ghina has for re-making the title sequence for Memento is both interesting and captivating. As it stands, the intro sequence is terribly boring, but adding a thematic element, such as the photograph, which happens to be one of the character's crutches in his world, would add considerably to the effect on the viewer. The only hindrance I can think of would be the simulation of the kodak photograph developing before the viewers' eyes; moreover, I believe it may cause the viewer to lose interest if the 'development' is done in real time, where as it may lose the desired effect if done too quickly. I'm not sure what solution could be proposed to solve this problem, or if there is a middleground at which a compromise can be reached to keep interest and give the desired effect.

word: design

definition: A preliminary sketch for a picture or other work of art; the plan of a building or any part of it, or the outline of a piece of decorative work, after which the actual structure or texture is to be completed; a delineation, pattern.

This is the classwork I missed that week I was sick. The word and definition are from oed.com

Concerning last week's readings (Blackwell, Bellantoni, Wozencroft), I must admit I payed less attention to the writing, and more to the visual work. I cannot describe what I felt when viewing some fo those works except that it was (I want to say brilliant, but I'm not sure I am qualified to make such an assertion, so...) really good, and somewhat depressing. I am not sure I will ever attain a level where I am able to produce such interesting work. My understanding of design is not at the point at which I would like it to be, and I ponder whether or not that understanding may be somewhat instinctual.

I think the main idea within this week's texts (Bolter, Vanderlans & Licko) is, although we have access to this wonderful technology that can seemingly do anything we wish to enhance the visual appearance of a project, we still need a firm grounding in the essentials of design. Anyone can have access to the tools to produce brilliant work, but we need to know how to use them in an effective way. I am not sure I have learned that yet. I keep going to classes with professors trying to convey 'good design' but I sometimes think I have missed the point. I am still not sure what makes one piece I make work or not work. I am lost. And I am not sure I will have enough time to find myself.

The Drucker Reading (Visual and Literary Materiality in Modern Art)

I must confess that I found this reading challenging. It was difficult to get through because of the style of writing. However, I did manage to grasp some of the basic concepts the author was trying to discuss.

Some points that were of interest to me:

The first section that caught my attention was Mallarmé's, A Throw of the Dice, and how he positioned his poem on the page to representative to its meaning. An example of this is how he speaks of an abyss and arranges the text where it is descending portraying the falling into the aforementioned abyss. As I understand it, the reason Mallarmé started experimenting with text in this way was because he was tired of the block texts he kept seeing in newspapers, books, etc.

The Italian and Russian Futurists believed in 'absolute truth' of the text. From what I understand, what this meant was that each text, or even each character of a typeface was its own work of art. It didn't need to represent anything, but rather it was self-contained artwork, thus it needed no reference (like modernism doesn't reference the past).

The Dadaists were interested in separating the representation of the word from the signification of the word. They were trying make one re-think the representation of the word, its meaning and its effect. One pf the reasons for this was political where, they were trying to un-systemize the system through the un-education of language.

Finally, what was interesting is that this particular text dealt with the materiality of text, but only in the physical world. It didn't really discuss anything of the digital medium (I can only guess that it was written before it became a topic of discussion). It is hard to discuss the materiality of something that only exists on a computer screen, and cannot really be manipulated physically. I suppose one could argue that you can manipulate the screen or harddrive, but I'm not syre it is the same effect as directly working with the text.

Picture animation

So this is an animation of the picture/text exercise we did in class. The quality of the pictures isn't too great, but I kept them small for quicker access time. The originals will posted somewhere else (I haven't decided where yet).

-Q

I spent quite some time editing the html, trying ot get the proper fonts to work in this god-foresaken webpage. I finally gave up and just created a seperate link to another webpage containing the original fonts needed.

I hate blogger.

I have no experience in dealing with typography. I realize it is an important tool when dealing with design, but I have not had the opportunity to take a course on this subject matter.

Upon going over the readings for this week, I realize I know less about typography than I thought. I started out with the readings thinking I knew nothing and went on to discover I know less than nothing, a somewhat discouraging start. I now feel severely under-equipped for this course.

I suppose I'll just have to work twice as hard.

Firstly, upon preparing to write this response, I was going over which font I wanted to use. I was not partial to any this blogger has to offer, but I did notice some points:

Courier is so difficult to read, and seems very time-consuming. The letterspacing is too much.

Times gives the impression of being too regal, which is not the effect I wish to convey. The letterspacing (or tracking) seems too constrained and the kerning is quite odd in certain points (e.g. the space before 'c' when it is the first letter in a word). Also, I keep seeing this font everywhere, so it has begun to annoy me.

I finally decided on Georgia because it seemed like the font that was the most balanced compared to the choices this blogger offered.

(ps. I realize I shouldn't have used the bold and italic features for these effects, but rather fonts specifically designed with those attributes; however, this blogger is limited in fonts).

I did learn a great deal from the readings provided, especially with terminologies and how different fonts are constructed. The visual presentations on typeworkshop.com were of particular help. I feel I still have a long way to go, and in a short amount of time, before I am ready to experiment with text.

Sidebar: In commemoration of the 30 year anniversary of Star Trek, I wanted to showcase several fonts the series and movies have inspired.