Blog/Research for Spreads Project

What are the advantages of a multiple column grid.? A multiple column grid, obviously allows for the use of multiple columns, which will allow flexibility add variety and interest to a page and allow for more complex layouts with more interesting compositions of visual elements.

How many characters is optimal for a line length? words per line? Between 45 and 65 characters is optimal for a line length. This is approximately 10 to 11 words with an average of five letters.

Why is the baseline grid used in design? The baseline grid maintains continuity across a page and within a design. When text sits on a baseline grid, the space between the lines and the margins are equal or proportional

What is a typographic river? A typographic river is created from the large gaps that run down a paragraph of a text. This is due to the alignment of spaces often caused by justifying text.

From the readings what does clothesline or flow line mean? Flowlines are the horizontal intervals that separate columns of a grid to create alignment throughout the page.

How can you incorporate white space into your designs? White space is created by not filling up the whole page and by creating negative spaces or margins between objects and or text on the page.

What is type color/texture mean? Type color refers to the weight or boldness of a typeface. It is used by typographers and designers to describe the visual tone of a mass of text on a page. Type color can also be the spacing and line measurement used.

What is x-height, how does it effect type color? X-height refers to the distance between the baseline and the mean line in a typeface. The differences in x-heights on a page can affect the typographic color. The smaller the x-height is, the darker the typographic color is, and vice-a-versa.

In justification or H&J terms what do the numbers: minimum, optimum, maximum mean? Minimum, maximum and optimum amounts of space are used when justifying text and to prevent bad rivers or gaps between words. The minimum word space is usually a fifth of an em.

What are some ways to indicate a new paragraph. Are there any rules? There are many different ways to indicate a new paragraph. New paragraphs are typically indicated by an indentation. Other ways to highlight a new paragraph are with a new color, font, or size, ornaments, droplines, pilcrows, boxes, bullets, and outdentations. One rule is that when you indent it is not necessary to put space between paragraphs.

What are some things to look out for when hyphenating text. Some things to look out for are to never hyphenate a word in a headline, to hyphenate proper names as a last resort, and avoid more than three consecutive hyphenated lines.

What are ligatures, why are they used, when are they not used, what are common ligatures? A ligature is when two or more letters are combined into one character. Ligatures used to improve the appearance of type are usually character pairs or triplets that have features that tend to overlap when used together. Ligatures create a smooth transition and connection between characters by removing dots over the j, by connecting crossbars or otherwise altering the shape of the characters. Common ligatures include ff, st, ft, ch, ct, qu and Th

What does CMYK and RGB mean? RGG are additive colors that have 3 inks: Red, Green and Blue. CMYK are subtractive colors that have 4 inks: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black

What does hanging punctuation mean? Hanging punctuation is used in justified text when the punctuation is allowed to extend into the right hand margin area to make the margin look neater. Typically this would be quotation marks hanging outside the text.

What is the difference between a foot mark and an apostrophe? A footmark is a straight dash, while an apostrophe has a curve and a ball serif

What is the difference between an inch mark and a quote mark (smart quote)? Inch marks were common in type writers. They are straight quotation marks. Quote marks are the marks that should be used, not inch marks.

What is a hyphen, en dash and em dashes, what are the differences and when are they used.

An em dash is the size of a capital M relative to the typeface. It is substituted for brackets or parentheses and indicates a sudden change of though or though patterns. It is also to indicated a rest, less strong than a period but stronger than a comma.

An en dash is half of an em dash. It is used to indicate a range between preceding and following words such as dates.

A hyphen is 1/3rd of an em dash. It is used to connect words, connect two broken parts of a word when reading justifies text and to break syllables.

BOLD + cold. (journal #5)

Johnathan Harris's Ted talks at the AIGA Gain Conference.
Jonathan Harris makes projects that reimagine how humans relate to technology and to each other. Combining elements of computer science, anthropology, visual art and storytelling, his projects range from building the world’s largest time capsule to documenting an Alaskan Eskimo whale hunt on the Arctic Ocean. He is the co-creator of We Feel Fine, which measures the emotional temperature of the human world through large-scale blog analysis, and created recent projects about online dating, modern mythology, anonymity, news and language.

Johnathan's thoughts:
Empathy: A good person makes a bad programmer
Rational Beings: Always one in code but not in real life
The Act of Expression: Layers of abstraction make it hard to express yourself
Resistance of the medium: Your first vision will always be wrong
Individuality: It is possible for technology to help with self reflection not just self promotion.
Housing Crisis: Dealing with individual places/spaces/pages on the net.
Outcome over Ideas: Ideas are way of getting to your goal, but your goal is the goal.

Question to ponder: Is the thing you are making, making life better for people as humans, not just people as consumers?