Make a Deep Impression

It is no secret that I love the tactile experience of letterpress. My dream retirement would be a refurbished vandercook and I cranking out beautiful type and lino-cuts. My LetterMpress app is great, but it is nothing like the real thing.

Created by a Savannah Red Top 

Muhs Home by Passing Notes

By Ray Fenwick

This blog shows the process that went into making this card. I can practically smell the ink through my screen.

Type is Process

Design is one of those careers that everyday is practice, type especially. Anyone can plaster Helvetica in all caps on a page, but type takes year to be a true master. Type takes into consideration various details of type style, kerning, leading, word spacing, type size, and alignment. Mastering typography is not easy, and it will be something I will be working towards the rest of my life. Today is just another day of practice.

"Proper" kerning is to make consistent spacing between letters, visually, not necessarily measurable spacing. Line spacing is something else that is also considered in its best form when consistent through a paragraph and optimized for best legibility. Both of these terms come from back in printing press days. Leading, is the bars of lead that is used between lines of text.

In metal typesetting

The word kerning is a cognate of corner (that is, the two words have a common root). In the days when all type was cast metal, a corner was notched to a consistent height on one or both sides of a letter-piece. Such notched pieces were only set against one another, not against unnotched ones, which had straight sides. The corner allowed for a character's features to reach into the area normally taken up by the next character, for example the top bar of the T , or the right diagonal stroke of the V to hang over the top left corner of an a . Reference.com

Best Apps for Designers (at least for me)

My husband pulled a big surprise on me this Christmas...he got me an ipad. I have spent just a short time exploring the App Store, but I still have discovered some favorites. Of course there are all of the adobe apps I would love to to get my fingertips on, $9.99 per app adds up quickly, so I will be waiting for some iTunes gift cards for Adobe Photoshop Touch, Adobe Ideas, Adobe Collage, and Adobe Proto for quick design on the go.

Two apps that I did buy and love:

IFontMaker: this app does just what it sounds like, you can make your own fonts! This is really awesome if you are geeky like me. I enjoy being able to customize the brush to enhance the letterforms, and I think I will find greater control once I buy a stylus. $6.99

LetterMpress: this my favorite app ever! It is also the app that made me want an iPad (...since I discovered that this app was exclusive to iPad my husband had been secretly saving up to get me one...isn't he sweet?!) The imagery, texture, paper ink, even the sounds remind me of my days in the letterpress room. It can never replace the joy of running a press, but it is a lot of fun to layer your prints and share them. $4.99

Type of the Season

'Tis the season the for decorative and script typefaces. This is year I definitely have a favorite, Black Jack, designed by type designer Ronna Penner. It's not a traditional script and has some whimsy to it, which makes it perfect for me. It looks more like a natural hand written type than the calligraphic type of Shelley or Kuenstler. So add some whimsy to your holiday season this year.

 

 

Happy 12/12/12!

Taking Inspiration from Others

Last week I attended an AIGA event, and the above image is just a sample of one of my spreads during the speaker Tad Carpenter. Plus, I threw in some of his illustrated buttons, did you know how much I love buttons? Being introverted it is an acheivement to go to an event where there will be tons of people I don't know. Going to public events takes a lot of my energy. I am no where near voluntarily enter the discussion, but it is baby steps.

Tad Carpenter is very passionate about his work, and that is infectious. Love What You Do. Shit Happens. Have Passion Projects. Exercise. Take Risks.

I have a hard time accepting any of those qualities, which is maybe why I have been so bummed out lately. Doing a complete 360 is out of the question, but maybe I can incorporate some of these and the rest will follow. I got to accept that for my day job sometimes my work will suck, but if I take the time to take on passion projects will let me know the joy of being in love with my work again. Something else that would lift my endorphin levels is exercise. It has nothing to do with design, it would just be good for me. Taking Risks? Now that is something that has never been easy for me. I will probably put that off, and save to take some more secured risk (is that a real thing)? Risk is scary, but as Tad said there is never a good time—you just have to take the leap.