Making Books in 1947

After visiting a Graphic Arts, an area printing company, today for class, I was really in awe at the technology that goes into materializing books and other print media. Actually, I was really impressed that this company is as advanced as it is, with state-of-the art printing presses that honestly blew my mind.

In stark contrast, I just now saw a post on boingboing that shows the creation of books in 1947. It is amazing how far the field has come.

more about ““Making Books” video from 1947 – Boin…“, posted with vodpod

Filed under: Design , books, Design, printing

More thoughts on color

Being a designer in a global economy, it has become more and more important to understand the value and implications of the use of color. Culturally, we assign meaning to color.  Here in America, we see  red as blood, violence, anger, love, or passion, while in the east, it can be symbolic of mourning, success, triumph,  good luck, and celebration. 

These values can be critically important in getting your message across internationally, if the wrong color is used, you could be implying a completely different message. It is important to realize this and take it into consideration in design.

Here are a few links on the use of color and cultural implications:

Symbolism

Color & Culture

Color Psychology 

Filed under: Design , color, Design

Oh the colors – which one to choose

 

The addition of color to a design piece generally livens up the work and provides a sense of energy. Although working with color can help  bring your concept to life,  the addition of color presents a design problem. Which colors do I use? To any non-designer, this probably wouldn’t seem so bad, but as a classmate said, “There’s just so many colors to choose from.”  A lot of research should go into developing a color scheme, but more often than not, the designer is left trying to discern which colors best complement a chosen color without taking away from its meaning.

Here are a few useful programs that take some of the trouble out of picking a color scheme:

The Art Director’s Toolkit has a variety of tools that are useful for both web and print production. The color picker has many different options that allow you to pick multiple colors, blend, and adjust them. The toolkit also provides a swatch catalog full of pantone colors. Along with this, there is a numerical conversion utility that allows for easy resizing of images and conversions into pixels, picas, etc. There are many other features that I’m leaving out, but this program is definitely worth a try.

Shades is a simple add-on to Apple’s color picker utility. It is extremely easy to use and provides a quick and easy display of different shades and tints for each color.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Adobe Kuler is a great utility for choosing tried and true color palettes. Many different user submitted schemes are available to use and rate. The program is easy and simple to use as it provides countless possibilities  for color selection.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ColourLovers is essentially a more basic version of Kuler. Arguably, Adobe ripped ColourLovers off, but if you’re interested in a simple, less-corporate version of Kuler, this is the way to go.

Filed under: Design , color, Design

Information Design

As the information age continues to grow, expand, and diversify, it becomes more and more difficult to understand, grasp, and realize how much information is readily available. Even more-so, it becomes increasingly difficult to comprehend and visualize the complexity of this data in a form that we can all value and understand. This being the case, information design and data visualization are rapidly becoming an integral factor in the way we understand and assign value and meaning to mounds of information and data.

Edward Tufte, a forerunner, expert, and author has written several books on information design. His website, edwardtufte.com presents an array of his studies and works on information design and data visualization. 

Another site, visualcomplexity, also hosts an abundant amount of information on data visualization in a variety of fields and applications.

Filed under: Design , data visualization, Design, information design

Tokyo’s Solution to a Growing Problem

I’ve been doing a little invention research in order to apply modern technology to objects that we use everyday. Although having too many bikes and not enough space isn’t really an issue where I’m from, here’s an interesting approach to Tokyo’s rising bike parking problem.

original post from gizmodo

Filed under: Design, Technology, Uncategorized , Design, Technology

Kinetic Typography

Just a few kinetic typography pieces I use to get me going for type class.

 

Filed under: Design , Design, Typography