Erik Spiekermann

I found the interview with Erik Spiekermann very interesting.  Being brought into the typography world with today's technology and medium, I find myself to have a very different insight into the world of typography.  He made some good points on how page should be designed and what needs to be prioritized in order for it to be successful.

Then he moved on to the subject and talked about color.  He grew up in a time where using more colors meant it was more expensive.  Although today, there is no difference in cost between using one color or multiple, one should not use many colors just because they can.  

When asked if he uses his own typefaces, he replied by saying he does not because he knows them too well.  He tries to use a typeface he has not used before to familiarize himself to those typefaces.  He did mention that he does use his own typefaces, which benefits him by allowing more people to see his type and become potential buyers.  

He grew up using grids to design all his work throughout his life.  Using a grid is something that I'm fairly new to. I have done most of my design in the beginning without using grids to assist me, I have found that using grids is extremely beneficial on limiting myself and also allowing the design to work itself out.

Pinterest: Book Cover

I have created a Pinterest board containing 30 images that inspired me for my book cover project.

http://pinterest.com/joshiwashi0412/book-cover-inspirations/

JOURNAL 1: Chip Kidd & Paul Rand

Simplicity is what Chip Kidd and Paul Rand’s book covers seemed to have in common.  All of their book covers were good examples of how book covers can be simple, but leave a strong and lasting impression to the readers.  

Chip Kidd emphasized that it is the responsibility of a designer to meet the demands of the reader, the publisher, and also the author.  Most of his book covers’ main element was simplicity.  He explained if you are designing a cover for a book about an apple, you could either use an image of an apple or have a text that says apple, but not both.  He said having both would be treating the audience like they are idiots, but the main point he was trying to convey was that successful book covers can be achieved through simplicity and less is better.

Paul Rand was more experimental especially for his time.  He created textures by tearing papers, cropped photographs in awkward ways, and tried many other methods that other designers didn’t attempt to do at the time.  Whereas Chip Kidd’s covers were mostly directly related to the book, Paul Rand’s covers were a lot more abstract and required the readers to give them a little more thought.  Although their methods of designing were different, they both created great book covers that got the message of the book across to the reader.

Type 2: Expressive and Kinetic Typography: Final

For the animation portion of this project, I wanted to focus mainly on the rhythm and the tone of Harry S. Truman's speech.  I accomplished this by introducing the words to either fade in or slide into the screen at the right moments and also paying attention to how they were taken off the screen.  Although both the tone of his voice and the rhythm of his speech were demonstrated in both the book and the animation, I focused mainly on his tone for the book while focusing on the rhythm of his speech in the animation.  I accomplished this by giving the book a calm and dimmed feeling using textures and dark colors, with occasional bright colors to emphasize some of the strong words.  In the animation, I recreated his fast paced speech by using motion blur and having words pop in and out of the screen.

Title Openings

Saul Bass used moving lines and texts in three of his title openings.  He seems to capture the important elements from the movie and portray that through text transitions and imagery.

North by Northwest - Saul Bass started the opening with simple lines crossing the screen diagonally and vertically.  At first you don’t realize why the lines are placed the way they are, but then as the background image of a building wall fades in, its clear that the lines form the shape of the building windows. His vertical transition of texts could be seen as elevators moving up and down between floors of the building.  The upbeat music works really well as it reflects the face paced city life that surrounds the building. The background then changes to people walking in both directions on a sidewalk.  The text follows the motion of the people and sticks to the up beat and fast paced scene from the building.

Psycho - Similar to North by Northwest, Saul Bass uses lines moving in and out of the screen along with the text. The shaky and vibrating text and lines creates an uneasy feeling which fits well in with this horror movie.  The lines at one point reminds me of a prison cell, which might have to do with the movie “Psycho”. I also got the sense of violence although no colors were used. (RED)

Ocean’s Eleven - It took me a second to realize that the colorful dots Saul Bass used were resembling the city of Las Vegas, the city of lights.  The music creates a feeling of excitement and although this one was quite different from the other two title openings in terms of shapes and color, the transitions were similar in many ways.

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Marlene McCarthy’s way of introducing these movies were very different from Saul Bass’ videos.  While Saul used face paced music with shapes flying across the screen, she used quiet and subtle music and transitions throughout.  

I Shot Andy Warhol - The way Marlene McCarthy introduced this film made me feel disturbed and frustrated.  The tight leading of the texts in the beginning as well as the unexpected and violent texts popping in and out of the screen worked with the short and choppy music to make the audience feel uneasy and on their toes.  

Safe - I thought this title opening was the least interesting out of the ones I’ve seen.  It was nice how she placed the horizontal text that paralleled the dashboard of the car, but it failed to keep my interest.  I believe she used the quiet and slow background music along with the fading of the texts to reflect the introduction scene, which was a car driving through a quiet suburb neighborhood at night.

American Psycho - Although not much was going on with this title opening, I found it to be very interesting in a few ways.  The most interesting thing was the way she used colors to reflect violence as well as high class society.  The red blood that dripped in sync with the music changed to red sauce that decorated food.  The typeface used was also interesting.  I got the feeling of elegance but also violence from the sharp edges of the texts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sY4f_83t_rw

I chose the title sequence from The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

Even though this creepy movie introduction isn’t directly related to my Harry S. Truman speech about the atomic bomb, I felt there were a few connections that could be made between the two.  The confidence and fearless emotions from the speech were reflected in this movie introduction.  The cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song” with Karen O and Atticus Ross was a big factor that portrayed confidence and fearless emotions.  The video starts off with objects and people covered in oil, followed by fire and explosions.  I thought this matched well with how the speech started off with the outcome of the first atomic bomb that had already been dropped, then the threat to drop more atomic bombs if Japan does not surrender.

Storyboard

This storyboard is for the After Effects portion of the speech project.  

I attempted to keep it simple by keeping the background white and using a black geometric font.

I kept the beginning subtle and quiet by fading in and out the words.

Toward the middle, words appeared quicker to build up for what I think is the climax of the speech.

I switched to bold letters for the climax, then went back to fading the words to quietly end the speech.