Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Frost Design , The Chopping Block , Industrial Light and Magic

The Chopping Block

The Chopping Block is an award winning design agency, known for their visually appealing, cutting edge websites. The agency was founded in 1996 in New York, by Cooper Union graphic design graduates Tom Romer, Mike Essl, Matthew Richmond and Rob Reed, when the founders decided to make a company which collaborated all their different talents with all their clients sourced from freelancing. The company has now expanded to at least 9 team members- as well as the designers there are project managers and design technologists. All the team have formal university educations- it is preferred by the company as this way makes the company more credible. The Chopping Block is known mostly for their websites, but they also do print work, corporate identity, and also have an online store which sells t-shirts with their designs on them.
Portfolio:

- Chop Shop Merch:
It is their main product sold online. The inspiration for their work is all things nerdy or geeky, which can be defined by the obsessive nature of our culture rather than simply appealing to math and programming nerds.

- Consolidated Theaters:
We asked to rebrand the website with an elegant Hawaiian feel to it that doesn't come across to the average person as too over-priced.

- Me Ra Koh
Is a photographer on a mission to empower women through her images. Chopping Block created a simple but elegant Wordpress themed website for her, also with a simple identity.

- Phish Festival: "Save The Date"
Is an interactive website for the band Phish. It was done by creating an open map of the US and as each state was eliminated in the running for the band to play there, each state would be removed in a random and bizarre occurrence.

- Rachael Ray
Created a website that combined all things Rachael Ray into one go-to site.

- TBS
Created a game for the TV series, from one of the episodes "ten Items or Less". The game involves the latest programming 3D technology from Flash called Papervision, simulating a real life grocery isle and turkey bowling.

- They Might Be Giants
US band, created the theme and album cover for their first album "NO". They also created an interactive CD/ROM for the band.

- The Happiness Project
Website designed for Gretchen Rubin as an upgrade from her blog to put her theories into practice.

other clients and portfolio pieces have been:
Dilbert Identity: United Media
Qelavi Identity
Climate Central

The chopping block manage their own website utilizing a large amount of JavaScript to create an interactive website. Giving viewers the option to view their portfolio and their future projects. The chopping block also have their own blog linked to this page. Here they talk about their work as well as several other topics even some not related to design.

They also have their own online store where viewers can purchase any poster or print design shown. The chopping block helped with the design of websites such as Consolidated theatres, Me Ra Koh photography, Phish, Rachael Ray and many more. Their goal is to continually push the boundaries of interactive web.
The Chopping Block Design Studio which was established in 1996 relocated from their original location after September 11, to their current site in Broadway.

With a team of dynamic designers or design technologists as they call themselves, they create web sites with an unusual twist, advertising, brand identities, kiosk applications, print projects. Along with these design elements they also have a Chop Shop where they sell some of their creative work (this work manifests itself as t-shirts, typefaces, mugs and prints of their designs).

Being a fully serviced graphic design studio they have created unusual web sites for bands like Phish, Dave Matthews Band and They Might Be Giants and cutting edge interface design and programming such as creating a new online player for X Satellite Radio.

My Opinion
The Chopping Block Design Studio has a very unique way of creating web designs that are very interactive, they are hard to navigate around until you get used to them. Some of their work in their portfolio is very creative whilst other work obviously suits the clients. Their book covers show a depth of the designers ability to think outside the box and their t-shirts (yes I would actually wear some of their t-shirts) show a fun and unusual bent to them.



Thursday, May 19, 2011

Bauhaus School

History of Bauhaus School
The Bauhaus was one of the first colleges of design. It was founded by Walter Gropius in 1919 and was closed in 1933 by the Nazis. The Bauhaus holds a place of its own in the culture and visual art history of the 20th century, and has spread to far corners of the world. One of the main goals for the Bauhaus was to renew architecture.
The Bauhaus school bought together a number of the most outstanding contemporary architects and artists. The Bauhaus was almost the only to attempt to achieve reconciliation between the aesthetics of design and the more commercial demands of industrial mass production.
In 1923 Bauhaus turned its attention to industry as a result of works of aesthetically pleasing and useful were mastered by the means of design. The first major Bauhaus exhibition was opened in 1923 reflected the revised principle of art and technology a new unity spanned the full spectrum of Bauhaus work.
Throughout the 1920s The Nazi Party and other fascist political groups opposed the Bauhaus as they considered it a front for communists, especially because many Russian artists were involved with it.
The school was moved from Weimar to Dessau, from Dessau again to Berlin, and was closed on the orders of the Nazi regime in 1933.
Throughout decades following its closer the Bauhaus has had a major impact on art and architecture trends especially in Western Europe and the United States.

Founders
Walter Gropius was the man who founded the Bauhaus School in 1919 and was director until he stood down in 1928, when Hannes Meyer became director. He was fired in 1930, and replaced by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, who was director until the schools close in 1933.

Gropius was born in 1883 in Berlin. He studied architecture from 1903 until 1907. After this he worked in Peter Behrens' practice until 1910 when he opened his own. Around this time he became a member of the Deutscher Werkbund, a group whose aim was to promote creativity in design. He founded the Bauhaus School in 1919 and was director until 1927. He stayed in Europe and England until moving to America in 1937 to take up a teaching position at Harvard. In 1938 he opened a joint practice with Marcel Breuer. He died in Boston in 1969.

Meyer was born in 1889 in Switzerland. he took over as director of the Bauhaus school in 1928, and it was under his Communist beliefs and influence that many of the students followed, thus bringing unwanted political attention to the school. He was fired as director in 1930 by the Mayor of Dessau. After his sacking, he and several students formed a group whose projects included architectual structures and urban planning projects. He travelled a lot after this group was also forced to quit, but returned to Switzerland where he died in 1954.

Mies was born in 1886 in Germany. Before opening his own practice in 1912 he worked for several years at the practice of Peter Behrens, and studied his craft. He designed many buildings, including skyscrapers. He became the director of the Bauhaus School in 1930 and stayed on until the school was forced to close in 1933 by the new German Nazi Government. In 1937 he moved to Chicago where he became the head of Architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology. He also later designed this Institutes new campus, as well as many structures in his style of open space, steel and glass. He died in Chicago in 1969.

Style
Bauhaus was a Utopian driven school in Germany that believe in changing the world through design. Bauhaus means "build House". Bauhaus movement started in 1919-1933, it's main aim was to bring arts and crafts together to make a better place for people to live in. Walter Gropius the founder of the Bauhaus school was known to say " Form follows function and together let us

desire, conceive, and create the new structure of the future, which will embrace architecture and sculpture and painting in one unity” Walter Gropius http://thinkexist.com
The main influences to this movement was in architecture, future, and in typography. The style is referred to being spare, functional, and geometric.
Which appealed to the Western Europe.

The Impact of Bauhaus
In the decades following its end, the Bauhaus had a major impact on the trends of art and architecture in Western Europe, The USA, Canada and Israel. The style became one of the most influential currents in Modernist architecture and modern design. The Bauhaus had a profound influence upon subsequent developments in art, architecture, graphic design, interior design, industrial design and typography.

One of the main objectives of the Bauhaus was to unify art, craft and technology, and the exploration of fundamentals such as the material properties of wood and metal or how colours and forms operated within an image instead of recreating or imitating great artworks fo the past. Today’s “Basic Design” course comes from Bauhaus’ Vorkurs (“initial” or “preliminary course”), which is offered in architectural and design schools all over the world.
One of the most important contributions of the Bauhaus is modern furniture design. Many chair designs we see today are created in the Bauhaus style - sleek and geometric. Buildings and other architectural structures we see are also influenced by the Bauhaus style. The city of Chicago is probably one of the best examples of this.

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Tutorial results

Some parts quite challenging, some not... all quite impressive. found things in photoshop and illustrator i never knew existed..so that can only be a good thing, right?






Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Joshua Davis, Animal Logic, Ansel Adams

Joshua Davis
Joshua Davis is a New York based artist, designer, and technologist. He produces both public and private work for companies, collectors, and institutions.
Since 1995, Davis has been using technology and computers as a medium to create infinitely interesting projects, and he also utilized Chaos Theory () to establish a new, unique perspective on visual communication and creative expression which had been an otherwise unexplored area in graphic design.

Davis was strongly influenced by abstract expressionist Jackson Pollock, and incorporated Pollock's random technique of splattering paint and other items across large canvases into his coding. He was also influenced by his love of classic video games, such as Space Invaders.

In 1995 at the Pratt Institute David began to delve into HTML, working under Thomas Noller, and afterwards began to experiment with Macromedia Flash and ActionScript programming. Davis' work became influential in graphic and web design in the Y2K era.

In January 2001, Davis posted an autobiography in K10k.net which revealed subjects on his personal life in the NYC art/club scene in the early 90's, his drug addiction and how he overcame it to pursue his goal of being a full time artist. He aspired to be a writer and illustrator of children's books.

From 1998-2001, Davis worked with the web production company Kioken. When the company folded, he became an independent web designer and artist.

In 2002 Joshua Davis teamed up with developer Brandon Hall to form a media development studio, The Department of Notations Studios. It was disbanded in 2006, but despite this Davis and Hall continue to collaborate on various projects.

In 2003, Adam Jones from Tool asked him to take over their website. He designed an intro page, but the site has since been changed.

As of 2007, Davis resides in NY with his wife and daughter. He is a professor at the NY School of Arts, runs his own design studio, and continues to lecture and lead design workshops.

Joshua Davis STYLE is well known for his computational, generative-art known as Dynamic Abstraction. “ Most of his designs are generated with mediums like Flash and Illustrator. His unique style has a flavor of randomness. “Working this way allows me to generate an infinite number of compositions. I set the boundaries and the rules, but whatever comes out at the end is a surprise. It could look cool. It could fail. It could be life-changing.” (-Joshua Davis, 2007, Apple.com interview).

Operates -Joshua’s designs have taken him around the world as well as speaking at conferences and workshops, creating his own projects and as a professor at the School of visual Arts in New York City.

Davis has become a best selling author to “Flash to the core: An interactive Sketchbook”. One of Joshua’s more conceptual projects is “once-a-forest.com” this website show cases the works in a unity way, The art work moulds itself together with every piece added as you scroll through the pages.

If you have a love of illustrative art Joshua Davis is definitely an artist to look up to. His art has a unique randomness that is very appealing. You can see a lot of his work on Brands such as TOOL, BMW, Canon, Universal Records and many more.


Style
Joshua Davis has a very distinct abstract vector based style using geometric shapes along with the more commonly seen vector swirls and swishes. Joshua's artwork has that strong vector look using blends of colours to achieve extra dimensions to his work.
His design work appears on home decorating items such as bed linen, cushions, dinnerware and personal items such as backpacks and notebooks.
Joshua describes his work as being "dynamic abstraction".
Joshua sometimes calls his work a "beautiful accident waiting to happen".
His style may not appeal to everyone as it is a very abstract style, with colours not necessarily harmonious with one another.

Opinions
I personally don't mind some of his work, but I think that you would have to use it and view sparingly as it is very strong. On the other hand his work has obviously been emulated often so there is a flood of similar style art on offer around the world.
I enjoy the blends of colours and the combinations of colours that he uses. He really shows what you can do with colour when you don't restrict yourself to any rules.
____________________________________________

Animal Logic

Animal Logic was established in 1991, it quickly earned a reputation as on the worlds leading design, visual effects and animation companies. Animal logic continues to produce award-winning work for a diverse, international clientele, with studios in Sydney Australia and an office in Los Angeles California.

Animal logic has worked successfully with leading advertising agencies and television commercial directors which enabled Animal logic to expand into feature film work including, Babe, The Matrix, 300 and culminating in the release of Australia’s first digital animated feature Happy Feet.

Animal logic has done a lot of ads, some you might recognise as the Optus ad, the target colours ad, Honda jazz ad, Mars bar ad, Pure blonde ads, Carlton draught and Toohey’s ads. Animal logic is famous for their digital animation; I guess it’s why they are as famous and popular as they are. If I were to choose a company to do digital animation or commercials I would defiantly recommend animal logic.

Not only does the company Animal Logic have a vast client base throughout the world they also have a long history of developing and supporting software products. They have created and built on software products such as Mayaman, Maxman, Softman, PRman. By developing these programs and software animal logic has made 3D programs and software available to not only big businesses but one-man businesses from home.

Animal Logic has worked on many high end visual effects for commercials and television programs. They have worked and designed projects for clients such as Cartoon Network and Spicks and Specks they have worked on the award winning film Happy Feet. In November 2009 Animal Logic ranked 447 in the Top500 super computer sites.

Animal Logic's online presence is wide and varied. Information found on Wikipedia is the same as what is provided on their own website. Contact information is provided on the Fox Studios Australia website; filmography is listed on the Internet Movie Database (IMDB); and they have accounts for people to follow on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Their own website is quite impressive. It is a Flash based site with stills from movies and commercials they have made looping on the background; is quite interactive (particularly in the section where you can 'meet' some of the people who work there) and has a lot of images, film clips and information about the movies, commercials, designs, jobs and products (software) they develop.

Their style, based on their portfolio, is impressive, varied, interesting and memorable. Their work is different and 'outside the box' which is why is it is memorable, although most people would never have heard of them.

Animal Logic has several studios in Sydney, Los Angeles and Santa Monica.

Their work targets several different audiences from children with films such as happy feet, babe and legend of the guardians to adults with films such as 300, 28 weeks later and world trade center. It is hard to develop a single opinion on them as if there is something you don't like made by them then there will most certainly be something else that you would like. This is a result of several unique advertisements and filming effects that adhere to everyone's likes and interests.
_______________________________________________
Ansel Adams

Born on the 20th February 1902, in San Francisco and died 82 years later on 22nd April 1984 in Monterey, California. Adams first interest was in music and he was a pianist before he became a photographer and an environmentalist.
Adams came from a conservative family both socially and emotionally causing him to be naturally shy, he had problems fitting in school mostly caused by the events of the earthquake in 1906 which left him with a broken nose which was a distinct feature of his entire life.
He became interested in photography when he first visited Yosemite National Park in 1916. Music influenced Adams photography greatly as it taught him to have substance, discipline, and structure. He loved nature and spent a lot of time exploring his surroundings.
In 1928 he married Virginia Best in Yosemite and had two children, during this time he lived in Yosemite and took many pictures of Yosemite National Park. He was encouraged immensely to pursue photography by Paul Strand, Adams work were based on landscapes and Nature.
Adams invented a method called the zone, which helped him divide the light of a scene into different zones. By doing this it allowed him to separate black and white and blend grey to give him his desired effect on his pictures.

Ansel Adams is best known for his black and white photographs of the American west. He is also known for developing the zone system. The zone system was a way of determining the proper exposure and adjusting the contrast of a final print. It is a way concluding the development and control for black and white in a photograph using 9 different variations of shade varying from black to white. These are called zones.

Ansel had a different way of looking at the process of taking photographs. One of his mottos was “as far as photographs are concerned beauty comes first”. He also advocated the idea of visualisation, which is seeing a photo in the minds eye before taking the photo in achieving all together unity and aethetics. Ansel has also received many awards including a doctor of arts from Harvard and Yale. He has recently been inducted into the California Hall of Fame. Some of his photographs such as the Yosemite national park images are one of the most recognisable pictures in the world today.

type treatment 1 - truth, universe



















Friday, May 6, 2011

Motel Project

List of things wrong with information given, and solutions to each problem:

Problems:

- photos poor quality.

- Spelling mistakes.

- Too many photos for a DL flier.

Solutions:

- ask if client has other photos that are better quality, if not, offer to take photos yourself (at an extra cost)

- Offer to fix mistakes at an extra cost.

- Ask client to narrow selection of photos down to a limited amount set by you.


Email sent to client explaining problems and offering solutions:

Dear Mrs Greentree,

Thank you for supplying the information and photographs for your flier. I have unfortunately run into some issues and I need some input from you.

The photos you have provided are of unworkable quality, and I am unable to use them. Perhaps you have the same photos that are larger in size and higher resolution that I may be able to use? If not I could provide a photography service to you.

I have also notices a few spelling mistakes, I could fix them for you if you agree with my findings.
Also, there are quite a few photographs you have chosen to use, and given the amount of text there will be no need for at least half of them. Perhaps you could chose the ones you would most like on the flier and not worry about the rest.

These extra services i can provide for you will come at a small cost, which we could discuss later.

Hope to hear from you soon.

Regards, Nicole Walsh, 123 Design Agency.


Intellectual Property questions

1. What is intellectual property and is it the same as copyright?

Intellectual property is a term which covers several areas of the law regarding the creation of an item; and is different to copyright because copyright falls under the category of intellectual property along with others such as moral rights and trademarks.

2. How would you register your design for copyright and how much would it cost?

There is no need to register a design for copyright because it is automatically covered when a design is created. There are no costs involved. Where copyright is free and automatic - you need to register and pay for trademarks and patents.

3. I have an idea about a logo design, is it covered by copyright?

An idea isn’t covered by copyright until it is actually made, going from an idea to a design.

4. What is the name of the federal legislation covering copyright law in Australia?

The Act which covers copyright in Australia is the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth).

5. What does Copyright protect?

Copyright protects artistic, dramatic and musical works (including compilations and sound recordings), films, publications, text material, and computer programs.

6. What is the Copyright notice and its purpose?

The copyright notice - © - is the symbol which is used to let people know that a piece of work has a copyright owner. An example of its use would be- ©Nicole Walsh 2011.

7. What evidence could you provide to a court to prove you’re the copyright owner of a logo you’ve designed?

When designing a logo you would need to keep the original sketches or files that show working from the beginning (an idea) to the end finished product.

8. If an artwork appears in an Art Gallery, does the Gallery own copyright for that item?

No they don’t, they only own a licence to use the artwork.

9. If I’m employed by a company as their in-house graphic designer, who would generally own the copyright?

The company would own the copyright of the works you produce for them.

10. If I’m working as a freelance Graphic Designer and create a logo for a company, who would generally own the copyright for the logo?

You would generally own the copyright of the logo, unless the contract you both sign stipulates the copyright belongs to the client.

11. How much of an artistic work can I safely use without infringing on copyright?

You can use a little bit as long as it isn’t a majorly recognisable element of the design, or an important part of the design. It is never a good idea to use copyrighted material without permission anyway.

12. If you’ve done everything in your power to identify the copyright owner but they won’t contact you back, is it ok to use the work without permission as long as you use a ‘good faith notice’ stating you were unable to contact them?

‘Good faith notices’ do not count for much because if you use the work you are still breaching copyright, so it is not particularly a good idea to go ahead and use it without knowing for sure.

13. Who is VISCOPY and what might they come in handy for?

VISCOPY (the Visual Arts Copyright Collecting Society) are a rights management organisation who represent Australian and New Zealand visual artists. They can come in handy if you come across an artwork you want to use and are unsure if the artwork is copyrighted.

14. What are moral rights?

Moral rights are the creators rights, weather or not they own the copyright. These rights allow them to challenge the copyright owner if they believe they have changed or misused a design of theirs.

15. How would you go about obtaining copyright clearance for an artwork you want to use that you’ve found on the internet?

You could contact the web host, or the owner of the site, to find out who owns the copyright of the artwork. If that doesn’t work you can contact associations such as VISCOPY, Aboriginal Artists Agency, Australian Commercial and Media Photographers, AGDA, Craft Australia, Australian Institute of Professional Photography and NAVA. These associations may be aware of the art you are trying to use and know who to contact to get permission.

16. What is a Trademark and how do you register one?

A trademark is something you can register (a logo, image, smell, etc) which your business uses that is an integral part of your identity. You register one by going to www.ipaustralia.gov.au and paying a fee.

17. What does a Patent protect?

Patents protect invention methods, techniques and processes, as long as the invention is new, innovative, and is useful.

18. Define Defamation.

Defamation is when someone’s reputation has been tarnished by the actions (including designs and photographs) of someone else.

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Giambattista Bodoni, Soap Creative, William Caslon

Giabattista Bodoni
Giabattista Bodoni was born on the 16 of February 1740 in Saluzzo, Piedmont Italy. He was the son of a printer. Bodoni had done his first studies at the Regio Collegio Saluzzese. He died on the 29 of November 1813 at the age of 73 in Parma, Italy.
Giabattista was known as an engraver, type designer, typographer, printer and publisher. By 1780s Giabattista designed typeface called BODONI and it has been regarded as to be one of the first modern typefaces. He moved on to making another 2 main innovations in type design: he gave a vertical alignment to the sloped swellings in the bowls of the letters that derive from the down strokes in handwriting; he made all the horizontal serifs on the upper and lower parts of the letters very thin and uniform; and he increased the contrast between stems and serifs (Quoted-Art Encyclopedia-Grove Art, Oxford University Press). According to the Columbia Electronic encyclopaedia Giabattista was regarded as one of the leaders in originating pseudoclassical typefaces.
At the age of 18, Giabattista moved to Rome and was employed as a typesetter at the Vatican’s Propaganda Fide printing works; Giabattista had worked for Vatican’s for almost 10 years... After battling malaria Bodoni was hired by the Duke Ferdinand of Bourbon- Parma to organize a printing house this is where Bodoni got to work on a range of specimen books, which were very well received. Eventually Bodoni opened his own printing house called Officina Bodoni.

From 1768 Bodoni ran a printing house called Stamperia Reale, in Parma, Italy. After a while doing this he opened his own printing house called Officina Bodoni.

Bodoni's Internet presence is minimal. There is not a lot of extensive information about his life: some can be found on wikipedia.com, linotype.com and other typography websites. His fonts can be purchased from sites such as myfonts.com, fontshop.com, itcfonts.com and adobe.com.

Why and what made Bodoni famous
Whilst working in the Vatican's Propaganda Fide printing house in Rome, Bodoni impressed his superiors with a willingness to learn, he had a mastery of ancient languages and types.

Bodoni achieved an unprecedented level of technical refinement, allowing him to faithfully reproduce letterforms with very thin "hairlines".

Bodoni designed and personally engraved 298 typefaces.

Bodoni did away with old style letters and introduced a new clear simple type - the modern typeface. In his influential Manuale Tipografico of 1818, he laid down the four principles of type design, which were: regularity of chracters, cleanness, good taste and charm.

His master piece was Homer's Iliad.

Bodoni was the most successful early proponent of what is referred to as the "modern" typeface, distinguished by a strong contrast between thin and thick strokes.

His coldly elegant books where made to be admired for the typeface and layout and not to be studied or read. (Proof reading was not his strong point).

• In his manuale tipografico (two volume works) contains about 142 roman alphabets, numerous script and exotic typefaces and a striking collection of flowers and ornaments.
• Bodoni emphasized the use of good paper and strong ink.
Our opinions of Bodoni
Although Bodoni is regarded as a "modern typeface", I feel that Bodoni would be more suited to that of a display font and used sparingly. Although in saying this a combination of his typeface and ornaments would create a very clean piece of artwork.

I admire the use of thin and thick strokes throughout his type as I feel that this gives the type a unique definition.

Formal yet fun with thick and thin strokes.

Bodoni has created a classic type face with letters very thin and uniform; and he increased the contrast between stems and serifs.

_____________________

Soap Creative
Soap Creative is one of Australia's leading Digital Agencies. Soap Creative were named number Digital Agency by AdNews Magazine in 2010.
Soap started out with three guys sharing an office in 2002, and have since grown to company with over 50 staff members spread across offices in Sydney and Los Angeles.
Soap describe themselves as specializing in delivery innovative, hight creative ad strategy-focused campaigns across websites, games, content, social media, widgets, electronic direct mail, standard and rich media, viral and metrics and reporting.
Soap creative have clients that include Unilever brands LYNX, Streets, Bushells, Impulse as well as 3 Mobile, FOXTEL, 20th Century Fox, Activision and Marvel.

You could say that soap has a work hard play hard culture, their claim to fame is that they host weekly BBQs, take their entire team to remote locations for Skiing lessons. Each ember has a soap-o-hero alter ego which they get to choose and illustrate them and place on their business card. They say this is great for client meetings and pitches as it sets them apart from other agencies, it also creates a 'tribe" and creates unity among the staff. The culture of the soap-o-hero is extended through the office where they have different meeting rooms " the hall of justice", emergency meeting room " the scape pod" and mystery room "x".

Big gamers and at the moment have three active gaming clients activision, unilever and naughty dog.

This agency is absolutely amazing!
Soap Creative has had many clients over their nine years of business, including a vast collection of widely recognised companies such as 20th Century Fox, ABC New Media, Activision, Ben & Jerry’s, Dick Smith, Foxtel, KFC, Lynx and Marvel.
Soap Creative offer services in screen-based media such as websites, mobile phone applications, tools and games (including online and CD-Rom). This agency has also created tshirt prints for Bubble-O Bill, and a card game called the Meeting Game.
Their work is very clean and professional its very groovy and all the content that I have viewed has all been very awesome, I never felt negative when interacting or viewing the content it was very attention catching and fun.

The lynx content was a bit sexist however it is targeted towards men and sex does sell as there statistics show, I wasn’t offended it just didn’t hold my attention as the rest did.

They have many notorious clients and deal with a broad medium from games to videos and websites that are all targeted towards a variety of audiences.
___________________

William Caslon
Career:
In 1716 he built his own type foundary in London, which produced some 16 years later his most famous typeface Caslon. He first started out in his business as an engraver of gunlocks and barrels and as a bookbinders tool cutter. He later established contact and encouragement through the printers William Bowyer and John Watts that lead to cutting type punches for various presses London.
In 1720 he designed an “English Arabic” typeface used in the New Testament. Soon after in 1722 he released his first typefaces, which were based on seventeenth century Dutch old style designs and were used extensively in England because of their practicality. 1726 was when the typeface Caslon was first used and soon after it’s release he received loans and sufficient trade, which enabled him to complete the setup of his foundary. Up until the 1780’s there were few books that weren’t printed in one of his typefaces.
In 1735 his typefaces spread all over Europe and American colonies that lead to the font being used to print the American Declaration of Independence. His son William Caslon II soon joined the company and in 1745 became partner and took over the family business after his death.
Achievements:
William Caslon designed a number of serif typefaces in his lifetime, some of which are still used today. The first three fonts by William Caslon were Arabic, Hebrew and Koptic. He also designed typefaces such as Caslon 540, Caslon Bold, Caslon Old Face, Big Caslon, Caslon Open Face, Williams Caslon Text and most likely in any other that has the name ‘Caslon’ on it.
The United States Declaration of Independence was set in Caslon type, which would have to be one of William Caslon’s greatest accomplishments.
The name ‘Caslon’ comes from the 18th Century typeface that was designed by William Caslon. This serif typeface was printed in the earliest English language texts and is also know to the typeface used for the New Yorker Magazine.
William Caslon’s typefaces immediately became popular and were used for many important printed works. Caslon’s type became so popular that the expression about the typeface choice, ‘when in doubt, use Caslon,’ came about.After William Caslon’s death in 1766, his typefaces fell out of favour but were revived in the 1840s, some of which are widely used today.
Biography:
William Caslon was born in 1692 in cradley, Worcestershire, England. In 1706 at the age of 13 he began a seven-year apprenticeship as an engraver with a London harness marker. In 1716 he became a self-employed engraver of gunlocks and barrels, and as a bookbinders tool cutter. In 1721 the society for promoting Christian knowledge commissioned Caslon to cast Arabic alphabets where his font became an instant success. In around 1720 William Caslon founded a typeface foundry called the Caslon Foundry. That foundry became the leading English typeface foundry of the 18th and early 19th centuries. He died in 1766. Caslon is cited as the first original typeface of English origin.
Caslon’s font is characterized by its short ascenders and decenders, bracketed serifs, moderately high contrast, robust texture and moderate modulation of stroke. The Caslon’s typeface has become one of the most famous typefaces in the world today. The first copy of the declaration of independence was printed in Caslon. There are many typefaces that have been derived from Caslon’s font in existence. Caslon’s type is now considered a good, readable type

Portfolio Websites

LIKES
Scarlet Gothica
i like how the works are categorized into their themes and mediums. i also like how the style of the site mirrors this artists style of art.

Jessica Castro
this site is engaging and exciting the moment you click on it. i like how there are previews of the work that you click on to see bigger, and the parts where the photos are big enough on the screen it is easy to navigate with next and previous buttons.

Rachael Greene
nice colours and logo, easy viewing of the works... clean and simple, doesnt distract viewers attention away from the art.

jeremy bechtel
again...simple, nice colours that dont distract the viewer, easy to use interface... i particularly like how when he is showcasing a website, the website image comes up on a computer screen.

matt keyes

i like how this one is so simple, there is nothing to distract the viewer from the art. you see the art as soon as you click onto the site and there are the next and previous buttons again.

DISLIKES
Claudia Dose
this site serves its purpose as allowing artists to showcase their works but the style doesnt change, and isnt 'editable'

Monday, May 2, 2011