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October 05, 2004
Reading Images
VCU professor Ben Day is here for the week with us as we work on our Unfamiliar Place poster. We're picking images to go with other text for our poster, so he gave a talk on how to read images today.
There are multiple readings of any image; its content is slippery and malleable. A rope can signify a rodeo, nautical references, a hangman, etc. You should look for what Ben calls sign indexes: what the images are pointing to. A windsock is a way of capturing the wind. A cake at a wedding isn't food, it's content signaling celebration.
Gather your images, then start labeling them. Put down the pointers: where it comes from, what could it signify, what were your assumptions when you collected it, what could it mean metaphorically. Are there any contradictions or oppositions of content? So much of good design has to do with juxtaposition, Ben told us. Find interesting juxtapositions of images: explicit vs. implicit, before and after, time and movement, linear and non-linear.
Posted by Dan at 05:52 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 04, 2004
Payback's A Bitch
In 1987, my junior year of high school, I was faced with a choice when picking my classes for senior year. I had to take some sort of math class, but I'd barely made it through Algebra II. I could have taken trigonometry my senior year. Instead, I took a class in computers. When, I probably thought to myself, am I really going to use trig? Well, now I know: interactive graphics.
The mysteries of SIN and COS have come back to haunt me as I wade through code, trying to figure out the reams of math and logic when trying to make such programs as an abstract clock, a cute rubber stamp, and our latest assignment, an intermorphable alphabet. If I ever had any myths that I could have been an excellent programmer, this class is quickly dispelling them. Each exercise, and we get several a week, takes me hours of time. My thesis work has definitely taken a hit, time-wise.
Posted by Dan at 12:02 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 03, 2004
A Place You've Never Visited
Ben Day, co-author of Typographic Design: Form and Communication and communication design professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, is visiting CMU all next week and will be working my graduate typography course. We'll be creating a poster about a place we've never visited. It can be a real or imaginary place.
The poster is supposed to be very impressionistic. That is, we're not to get images of the actual place, but instead gather images and words about the texture, smell, architecture, and culture of the place. How we imagine it to be.
I've chosen a place I've always wanted to visit but have never gotten around to it: Iceland.
Posted by Dan at 12:38 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack