I decided to make a color study as a landscape. I think of it as a particularly African landscape.
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Technology and the Arts Special: Art All Night Trenton 2013
Tag: Inkscape
Today, I decided to use Inkscape to play with type. When you type less than three (<3), you are expressing an emoticon for love, symbolized by a heart. It’s a straightforward, easy-to-use symbol. Two close friends or sweethearts might use it in SMS to express a little love.
Ampersand Greater Than (&>)
Melissa Brisbin and I have used an alternative to less than three to express not only that we are good friends, but that we exchange and share value in technology, libraries, and related interests. Â Ampersand greater than (&>) resembles a heart too, but indicates a togetherness, a bond. When we type it to each other, it’s a little reminder of our history. In honor of her birthday yesterday, I decided to work on the ampersand greater than as a typography muse.
I started by going through my font catalog and pulling out all the fonts that had interesting ampersand and greater than symbols.
Then I began pulling out the best combinations, angling the symbols, pulling them together into a single flowing shape.
Finally, I went back in and tweaked the finest points of the combinations. This was my result: nearly the final set.
And today, I decided to add some color, along with final tweaks to the pieces.
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A crash course in typography
This morning, I decided to build something hearty, savory, spicy, and warm for breakfast. I decided on an egg sandwich and did a few things to make it a little special. First, I got out a bagel and split it, some American Cheese, and some crushed tomatoes. I seasoned all of that with garam masala, salt and pepper, before putting all that in the oven for 5 minutes at 300° Fahrenheit.
Then I cooked an egg in an egg pan, covered on very low heat for 5 minutes, checking intermittently. I scrambled and seasoned the egg with garam masala, salt, and pepper as well. When it was done, I topped the cheese with the egg.
After bringing the sandwich together, I cut it so that it was easier to manage. The tomato was warm, a bit spicy and savory. The egg was clean, still a bit soft due to the low heat, and added a nice bit of protein. The cheese acted as a de facto sauce, creamy and cooling. The bagel was soft on the inside, but had a satisfying crunch on the outside. All told, the sandwich is about 450 calories, and a very delicious way to spend them.
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Desire lines are a development tool that a designer can use from the way that people actually interact with an interface, space, or object before finalizing features, paths, or navigation. It is often used in designing walking paths in a new space to help determine the best place to put a paved path. It is also used in interface design for software and industrial design for tools and other objects, but can be applied in lots of situations.
In this illustration, I made thin lines indicating paths (desire lines) that people used to get from one place to another in a space, and wider pathways reacting to the desired lines that most people chose that might be paved and formalized.
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Here is a final image of the workspace that I used to create the new Tame the Web (TTW) logo using Inkscape, with the help of Michael Stephens. Michael has been the heart of TTW since its inception, and wanted to have a logo to present his organization to a larger audience. He reached out on Facebook (where I get most of my work) and asked about logos on his page. He got some feedback, and in the process, Lori Reed decided to tag me, and I responded that I’d love to be involved in the logo if possible, and that I’d work for free. Michael contacted me and we began. I asked him to fill out the design brief on this site (it’s in the menu above) and when I got the response, I did this.
I tend to start logo work with the fonts. In this particular case, I used some of the information from the design brief to create a possible logo. In the brief, Michael talked about the past branding work that he had done and what had been present. He wrote that a heart symbol had always been a constant in identifying TTW. He also shared a palette, some quotes, and some clarifications in order for us to work through the logo. Michael understands brand. When he saw the image above, he said that the logo I proposed was beautiful, but that it was not the right feel. He said that it had a certain old-timey feel to it, and that he was looking for something a bit more contemporary. I understood, and decided to focus on fonts, as I usually do. He told me he liked a few of the fonts in the first submission, and I decided to focus on those.
In this revision, I took the fonts that Michael liked and tried a few subtle differences, including the pipe between elements,. the kerning, and the imagery. I never thought the whip would go very far. 🙂 I sent them to him, and he said that he loved the curve in the line, but that straight spoke to him more. He also liked the tighter kerning in some of the versions. He liked the horizontal version as well.
After he gave me feedback I focused just on the elements and kerning that he liked, and decided to incorporate the palette he had suggested, with deep blues. I grabbed one of my favorite deep blue palettes, and applied the colors to the elements. I sent it back.
But there was still the issue of the missing heart. I decided to play a bit with text and image to introduce hearts, which Michael enjoyed. We agreed that the solid blue heart worked best, and worked best ahead of the title.
Here are the final two versions of the logo, one horizontally aligned, and one block sized. I absolutely loved the opportunity, and I’m so grateful to work with someone like Michael. Even though I always have great, creative, and interesting clients, Michael was a standout.
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So, I decided to break with the design principles and do something kind of fun today. My friend Justin Hoenke, a fabulous librarian and one of my favorite humans ever, posted the selfie you see in the first quadrant. I recently saw a meme using Carlton Banks (of Fresh Prince fame), and decided to use Justin’s fun pic to do my own Carlton meme. I missed my post yesterday, so another will be coming soon today.
In the GIMP, I opened Justin’s picture, and sized it down to a quarter of the original image size. I brought it in again as a layer, sized it down less, moved it into place, and added a layer mask by selection for the second quadrant so that the rest of the picture was not overlapping any of the other quadrants. The same for the third and fourth, except that I started to munge his iris together to prepare you for the appearance of Carlton in the last quadrant. For Carlton, I added an elliptical selection the size of Justin’s iris, and made it into a layer mask, then played with layer styles and transparency until it looked like Carlton was inside Justin’s eye. Without the stamp tool to munge the iris, Justin’s pupil would have obfuscated parts of Carlton’s face.
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