T's Thoughts: 2011

_ What are some ways to indicate a new paragraph?

Color change, indent, exdent, symbols, type style (i.e. all caps), size change

_ What are some things to look out for when hyphenating text?

How the text is read (where the natural breaks are); Avoid widows and orphans; Avoid hyphenating names and proper nouns; Leave at least 2 characters on the line and 3 following; Avoid beginning and ending consecutive lines with the same word; Avoid ending lines with the words: the, of , that, by...

_ Define font hinting. Why is necessary?
Hinting is defining bitmaps for low resolution rendering, usually on monitors and displays. For the reproduction of small types on screens or mobile telephone displays.

_ What is letter spacing/tracking? How do you track in Illustrator or InDesign
Letter spacing is the amount of white spacing between letters (a.k.a. functional white).

Adjust tracking

Select a range of characters.
In the Character panel or Control panel, type or select a numeric value for Tracking .

_ Define Kerning? Name 8 kerning pairs. How do you kern in InDesign or Illustrator?
The placement of characters in a typeface in relation to each other.

1)Av 2)Aw 3)FA 4)OY 5)Tw 6)LV 7)PA 8)Wo

Use metrics kerning

Set the text insertion point between the characters you want to pair kern, or select text.
In the Character panel or Control panel, select Metrics in the Kerning menu.

To avoid using the built-in kerning information of a font for selected text, choose “0” in the Kerning

menu.

Use optical kerning

Set the text insertion point between characters you want to pair kern or select the text you want to kern.
In the Character panel or Control panel, select Optical in the Kerning menu.

_ try the kerning game (link). how did you do?
Averaged around 80%

_ What is word spacing?
The space between two words. The word space is about a fourth to a third of an em-space.

_ Explain DIN.
Fixed formats used for paper size. The sizes of the sheets of paper supplied by paper manufacturers are based in DIN A sizes, with a bit added for trimming, the gripper margin of the printing press and finish.

_ What is a baseline grid?
A grid of virtual lines upon which letters stand and which define the line interval on a page.

_ How many characters per line is optimal? Is there a range?
10 to 12 words, or 60 to 70 characters.

_ Define aesthetic text alignment (optically hanging punctuation).
Allowing punctuation marks to extend beyond the text frame.

_ What is a typographic river?
The wide gaps that occur in badly spaced block text (usually justified text). Also known as rivers of white. They are especially visible as an undulating line when the text is held upside down.

_ What is a widow?
The last line of a paragraph standing alone in a new column or on a new page.

_ what is an orphan?
The first line of a paragraph at the bottom of a column or page.

Dorthea Lange:
Dorothea Lange was born in Hoboken, New Jersey, in 1895 and studied photography in New York City before the First World War. In 1919, she moved to San Francisco, where she earned her living as a portrait photographer for more than a decade. During the Depression's early years Lange's interest in social issues grew and she began to photograph the city's dispossessed. A 1934 exhibition of these photographs introduced her to Paul Taylor, an associate professor of economics at the University of California at Berkeley, and in February 1935 the couple together documented migrant farm workers in Nipomo and the Imperial Valley for the California State Emergency Relief Administration.
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/fsahtml/fachap03.html

http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/lange/index.html

Ed Burtynsky:

Edward Burtynsky is known as one of Canada's most respected photographers. His remarkable photographic depictions of global industrial landscapes are included in the collections of over fifty major museums around the world, including the National Gallery of Canada, the Bibliotèque Nationale in Paris, the Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Reina Sofia Museum, Madrid, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in California.

Born in 1955 of Ukrainian heritage at St. Catharines, Ontario, Burtynsky is a graduate of Ryerson University (Bachelor of Applied Arts in Photography) and studied Graphic Art at Niagara College in Welland. He links his early exposure to the sites and images of the General Motors plant in his hometown to the development of his photographic work. His imagery explores the intricate link between industry and nature, combining the raw elements of mining, quarrying, manufacturing, shipping, oil production and recycling into eloquent, highly expressive visions that find beauty and humanity in the most unlikely of places. In 1985, Burtynsky also founded Toronto Image Works, a darkroom rental facility, custom photo laboratory, digital imaging and new media computer-training centre catering to all levels of Toronto's art community. Mr. Burtynsky also sits on the board of directors for: Toronto’s international photography festival, Contact and The Ryerson Gallery and Research Center.

http://www.edwardburtynsky.com/

http://www.treehugger.com/culture/ed-burtynsky-on-the-gulf-oil-spill.html

Edward Steichen:

b. 1879 Luxembourg, d. 1973 West Redding, Connecticut
photographer
American

"The camera is a witness of objects, places, and events.... The technical process simply serves as a vehicle of transcription and not as the art."
--Edward Steichen

Edward Steichen became interested in photography at age sixteen. Influenced by the atmosphere of moonlight that came to characterize his early Pictorialist photographs, he also painted. Upon turning twenty-one, he left for Europe by way of New York, meeting Alfred Stieglitz, who purchased three of his photographs. On returning, Steichen set up a studio specializing in portraiture at 291 Fifth Avenue, a space that later became part of "291," Stieglitz's celebrated Photo-Secessionist gallery. Steichen became a founding member of the Photo-Secession group in 1903. In 1923 Steichen went to work for the Condé Nast publications Vanity Fair and Vogue , where he photographed celebrities and fashion. From this he received advertising commissions; he once also made photographic designs for silk fabric. Steichen closed his New York studio in 1938 and embarked upon a new, more spontaneous photographic phase. During World War II he joined the Navy to head up a unit of photographers. Steichen was the first curator of photographs at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, where he curated the famous "Family of Man" exhibition in 1953.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Steichen

http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1669998_1460672,00.html

Lori Nix:

I am interested in depicting danger and disaster, but I temper this with a touch of humor. My childhood was spent in a rural part of the United States that is known more for it's natural disasters than anything else. I was born in a small town in western Kansas, and each passing season brought it's own drama, from winter snow storms, spring floods and tornados to summer insect infestations and drought. Whereas most adults viewed these seasonal disruptions with angst, for a child it was considered euphoric. Downed trees, mud, even grass fires brought excitement to daily, mundane life. As a photographer, I have recreated some of these experiences in the series "Accidentally Kansas".

I began my photography career in college, working for the college newspaper. I started out as the darkroom printer and eventually became the photo editor. As the editor, it became quickly obvious that I was not much of a photojournalist. I didn't have the gift of being at the right place to capture breaking news. I'm also horrible at portraiture as I am unable to capture the essence of the sitter. In college I studied ceramics and photography. With ceramics, you're always building the object from scratch. This translated well in my photo studies, where my desire was to construct the image rather than find an existing one. Since my earliest days I have always worked with fabrication, either through darkroom manipulations or even room sized installations. My strength lies in my ability to build and construct my world rather than seek out an existing world. Inspiration comes from reading the daily newspaper The New York Times, science fiction paperbacks and magazine articles. I get most of my ideas during my morning subway commute from Brooklyn to Manhattan to go to my day job. Something about the morning light, the rocking of the subway, seeing the cityscape pass by opens my mind up to inspiration. I then research my ideas on the internet, buy reference books, then start sketching out the diorama. Sometimes I let months pass before beginning work, other times I start immediately. It all depends on how fully defined the image is in my head. Sometimes I see the final image immediately, other times I do a lot of research before committing to building the model.

In my earliest work "Accidentally Kansas" I relied heavily upon manufactured models for railroad hobbyists. I used a shallow depth of field to give it a dreamy quality, like the fuzziness of memories. It also helped to hide my lack of good painting skills. Building landscapes was still new to me then.

http://www.lorinix.net/about.html

http://laughingsquid.com/the-surreal-dioramic-world-of-photographer-lori-nix/

Philip Lorca Dicorcia :

Philip-Lorca diCorcia (born 1951) is an American photographer. He studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Afterwards diCorcia attended Yale University where he received a Master of Fine Arts in Photography in 1979. He now lives and works in New York, and teaches at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut

DiCorcia alternates between informal snapshots and iconic quality staged compositions that often have a baroque theatricality.

Using a carefully planned staging, he takes everyday occurrences beyond the realm of banality, trying to inspire in his picture's spectators an awareness of the psychology and emotion contained in real-life situations. His work could be described as documentary photography mixed with the fictional world of cinema and advertising, which creates a powerful link between reality, fantasy and desire.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip-Lorca_diCorcia

http://runway.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/11/q-a-philip-lorca-di-corcia/

Steven Meisel:

Steven Meisel (born 1954) is an American photographer, who obtained popular acclaim with his work in US and Italian Vogue and his photographs of friend Madonna in her 1992 book Sex. He is now considered one of the most successful fashion photographers in the industry, shooting regularly for both US and Italian Vogue, and lately W (also published by Condé Nast).

One of Meisel's first jobs was to work for fashion designer Halston as an illustrator. He also taught illustration part-time at Parsons. Meisel never thought he could become a photographer. He admired photographers like Jerry Schatzberg, Irving Penn, Richard Avedon and Bert Stern. He felt that illustration was a thing of the past and found photography as a lasting medium. Later on, while working at Women's Wear Daily as an illustrator, he went to Elite Model Management where two girls working there allowed him take pictures of some of their models. He would photograph them in his apartment in Gramercy Park or on the street: on weekdays he would work at Women's Wear Daily and on weekends with the models. One of them was Phoebe Cates. Some of these models took their pictures to Seventeen magazine to show their model books and the people at Seventeen subsequently called Meisel and asked if he wanted to work with them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Meisel