Massive Font

My latest school project was to create my own personal font. I hand drew my font, scanned it and then recreated it in Adobe Illustrator. I have both upper and lowercase in regular and bold. I created numbers and punctuation as-well. Only problem I have is that we are suppose to research and find out how to upload it onto the web for others to use. I for some reason can not find a basic way to do this without downloading some type of program. 

I call my font Massive. The reason behind this name is to me this font just jumps out at you and edgy. It feels rough and artistic. It looks and feels hand drawn, which it was in the beginning. Tell me what you think about the font. Do you think it is useable for books and other layouts or do you feel it can only be used in some artistic form such as posters or paintings?

Mobile Web Viewing

This is more of a question. I know that you have to adjust your code in HTML and CSS to adapt a website for mobile devices, but from what I see , at least on my PDA you can still get most of the original website minus some flash and video. There are options to have the site fit in one column and you lose allot of the visual content. Are these adjustments to your CSS and HTML or is it something the mobile web browser does for you?

What is Computer Graphic Design?

Christopher Mock
01/12/2008

What is Computer Graphic Design?

"The creative process is not performed by the skilled hand alone, but must be aunified process in which head, heart, and hand play a simultaneous role".by Herbert Bayer

To understand computer graphic design, you must first understand the raw formof bringing something to life. By using color, light, sound, font, alignment andmuch more. Color for instance has been called visual magic, a language ofillusion. The colors that you perceive to see depend on the light that is around you.Color is reflective and as the light around you changes, the colors you see willchange as well. The type face or font you use within a design will also effect whatpeople see. Letters are very much alive and understanding the makeup andcomplexity of the alphabet will give you a much greater appreciation of what youread today. The first thing you should do when choosing your font is to considerthe legibility and your audience, if you want your message to be received.

Graphic design evolved from the early cave paintings our ancestors used tocommunicate with one another. These simple images had a purpose, a purpose tovisually tell a story or to convey a message. The size, color, shape and texture allhad meaning. It was the foundation of everything we do today as artists, writers,and designers. Egyptians used hieroglyphs ( a well advanced version of cave paintings).The Chinese developed a form of calligraphy that they still use to this day. The Chineseare also credited for the invention of paper and the discovery of printing. The face ofdesign would change again when the Romans began using illuminated manuscripts.As time went on, the importance of combining images and literature increased,paving the way for artists to express themselves to an audience with limitlesspossibilities. The invention of Typography in the mid 1400's by a German inventoris considered one of the greatest advancements in civilization. Printing came to Europeand a great demand for books exploded among the middle class, students and noblemen.Things would change once more by the late 1400's during the renaissance of graphicdesign. The beginning of the twentieth century came with change. The invention of themotor vehicle, the airplane, and modern day cinema sparked a revolution of it's own.Our social, political, cultural, and economic way of life was in a spin cycle.

Modern art, cinema, and technology have given us so many new ways to expressourselves. The information age of television, movies , and Internet gave us an opportunityto reach out to an audience world wide. The first wave of modern design from Europewas called avant-garde. You could see the influence of there designs in the Americangraphic arts by the 1940's. Europe design was more theoretical and structured whileAmerican design was more informative and enticing. Photography is a very importanttool when it comes to computer graphic design. You can take a photograph, and withcomputer technology enhance the image to create an exceptional work of art. Graphicartists in the twentieth century use computers as a tool to explore several ideas with greatspeed and detail. The ability to create 3D images and animate these images also makes theComputer Graphic Designer invaluable. Modern computer graphic design can be foundevery where you look. You see it on the soda cans you drink, the labels on your shoes,the print on your sons pamper box, the label of your finest bottle of wine. It is trulyeverywhere.

What is Computer Graphic Design? It is first and foremost an art of emotion. It is an abilityto take a concept and bring it to life. It can create beauty or hideousness. Computer graphicdesign allows the artist to assemble many things into one image or several images in orderto relay a message. Computer graphic design has many layers, layers such as colors,Typography, Photography, light, emotion, sound. It can be used to create web sites,commercials, movies, video games, product logos, bill boards, books, pictures. You seeit when you receive a speeding ticket. You sign it when you get married. You feel itwhen you shine your BMW logo on the hood of your car. You are amazed by it whena man gets interrupted on the john by a thirty foot T-Rex that rips him apart. ComputerGraphic Design is the smiley face on your fifth grade principles paddle. It is our modernday way of communicating with the entire world.

Resources used for information are:
The Education of a Graphic Designer
Communication Arts Magazine
Digital Color and Type
Designer's Survival Manual
A History of Graphic Design

Plagiarism

"Plagiarism" by Chris Mock 04/01/2009
To the tune of "Folsum Prison" by Johnny Cash
All Credit given to Johnny Cash
Song written for school project, not for recording purposes.

"Plagiarism. I wrote a song about. Like to hear it? Here it goes..."

I hear the police a comen
Their rollen round the bend
Their taking my computer
I'll never see it again

I was busted for plagiarism
Yes I am going down
My head keeps a achen
Within this cell I'm bound

When I was just a young one
My professor told me son
Don't copy others material
Your loading your own gun

But I did not want to listen
Who would surley know
Copyright Infringement
They say it is time to go

Make sure you read agreements
You never know for sure
The material you are using
May not even be yours

Well I thought I could sell it
But I was very wrong
One minute cash in my hand
the next it is gone

Looking back to what I did
I would make things right
I would not steal from others
I would of learned to write

I was busted for plagiarism
I sit in a cold cold cell
My head keeps a achen
This is a living hell

To code or not to code? Templates are the question.

Web. A large complicated jigsaw puzzle. You would think it would be as easy as my space. I am sure there are programs out there that build the site for you and make it really good, but someone is writing that code for you and getting paid to do it. I spoke with my instructor about how I was avoiding using templates to create my pages. I wanted to figure out myself how to code a functional website and considered using templates as lazy. Mr. Williams said to me that he actually encourages using templates as a learning tool. I never looked at it that way. You can use them as a tool by trying to understand how the template code is written and why it was written that way.

I have been struggling the past few weeks with positioning. Creating content for me is easy but placing the content where I want it to go is another story. The easiest way I have found so far when positioning is putting certain items in a div tag such as my top links, bottom links, images, and paragraph text, even my h1s and h2s. After I have those in divs I start to play with my css. I first assign margins to my body so all my content will be placed within a specific area on my page. Second I adjust my top, left, right, and bottom margin percentages of each one of my divs. I then go even further by adjust the individual content within my divs the same way. So far this has worked out pretty well for me, even more so now that I am introducing 2-3 column layouts to my pages.

You can see a big difference in my 2 live websites. The first one "Search Engine Optimization" is extremely boring and ugly. I struggled with positioning allot with that site. My second site "Writers and Editors" is a huge improvement and I have allot more control of the size, shape, and positioning of the elements in that site. Please feel free to give me your honest opinion on my sites.
http://www.tampabaycreative.com/skippy
http://www.tampabaycreative.com/editing
I typed in the web address due to the links I added are not showing up in my blog.

Are her eyes green or brown?

So I was told that no one truly has blue eyes. Huh? What? You have to be kidding me. I look at my son every day with his bright blue eyes. There has to be some mistake. So I take his picture and load it onto photo shop. WTH happened to my sons blue eyes? It's all about subtractive and additive color schemes. Whether you are looking at the eye in RYB or RGB. When you look at someones eyes with out using a camera or a digital monitor you see reflective light. This light is subtractive and takes away color giving it a feel that what you see is blue. Now take the same eye and load it onto a computer. Now you are looking at direct light which adds color giving it a totally different feel.

It sometimes becomes a task when you create an image on your computer and when you go to print it looks nothing like you thought it would look like in print. This is because the digital world is using Red, Blue, Green (RGB) Direct light when determining color and print uses Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black (CMYK) reflective light. You must think about this when you are choosing your colors on an image and adjust when needed. When ever possible use the Pan tone color formula guides to select which colors to use.

Color creates emotion in an image. I created a logo for a project in class. I researched the meaning of the colors that I used in the image. I wanted a warm and motherly feel when creating my logo. The main image was of the Phoenix. The image itself has a meaning of re-birth and the ability to heal. The colors I used were Yellow and Orange. These colors not only compliment each other, they both give a positive and comforting feel when you look at them. Yellow has a majestic, happy, and powerful feeling while Orange demands attention and represents the flow of change. Combined with image I feel it brought out the emotions in people I was looking for.

Colors can change the effect you have on an audience, so choose them wisely. Colors can give give an illusion of other colors depending on the light around them and how you are viewing them. Color is what makes this world such a wonderful place and color will continue to shape our world until the end of time. That will happen in 2012 BTW lol. Have fun and do some finger painting instead of watching TV for a change.

Search Engine Optimization

Every time someone creates a website for the first time, they have wild dreams that millions of people are going to see their site and that they will make a ton of money or raise awareness to a cause they believe in. Sadly this is not the case. There are allot of factors that go into building a website that determine whether or not your site falls into the "invisible web" or is seen by millions of people.

This is where SEO comes into play. Search Engine Optimization consists of many different techniques and combined increases your web sites visibility when someone uses a search engine like Google or Yahoo!. Fact is most people when searching for a specific subject, normally do not go past the 2ND or 3d page of search results. So how do we get up in rankings of a search engine? First off you do research. You check out the main sites you see on a specific subject and find out what they are doing to have such a high ranking. You will notice the placement of keywords, robots they use, there description in there title tag, how relevant the keywords they use pertain to the content of their web site.

Those concepts of placement of text and the order the search engine crawls your site, with robot txt giving importance to specific content it wants the search engine to crawl. I used all the possible techniques you listed, but my site still has a low ranking you say. Well allot of search engines for a fee will boost the ranking of your site. Also it is up to you to let the search engine know your site exists. Also the more number of hits to your site increases your search engine ranking.

USE VIRAL MARKETING! Just because we live in a world where actual human contact is no longer needed to live @.@ does not mean that word of mouth is dead. Use the people you know to your advantage. Have them help you generate a buzz about your site. Family members, close friends and co-workers are great tools to help get your name out there. Also have interesting content and encourage users to pass the virus of your website to others, for example, YouTube does a great job of this by adding a share button with every video posted on there site. This allows the user to send the video to others with YouTube name on it. Then that person can send it to others and so on.

There are helpful free tools out there from Google and Yahoo! that will assist you on optimizing your site. I strongly recommend you use these tools. It is not easy when creating a site for the first time, but use your social networking tools, friends and family, and keep track of your placement and content you use, plus with some good old fashion research, you will not be left wondering why your site never took off.