Helvetica

   During class, we watched a movie about the origin of Helvetica, a famous typeface. Helvetica originated in Switzerland in 1957. At first, Helvetica was known from a Latin word in Switzerland, pronounced “Helveticia.” Now, Helvetica is the common name of this typeface and means the Swiss. During the film, many different typeface designers talked about their work and the different fonts they had created. Helvetica brought the design style, Swiss design to popularity. Throughout the film, three different design styles are discussed; rational design, style movement and post modernism.  Many of the designers created these styles and have become famous for them. One of the most famous was Mossimo Vignelli. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massimo_Vignelli) He was born in Milan in 1931 and here he became a graphic designer and excelled in the creation of different typefaces.

Another designer that appeared in the film was Wim Crouwel.  In 1963 he was one of the founders of the design studio, Total Design. In 1967 he designed the typeface New Alphabet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wim_Crouwel

Matthew Carter as well was a type designer. His career transformed from physical metal type to digital type design. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Carter

Lastly, Rick Poynor is a British writer on typography and visual culture.

Poster

During our color theory lesson, we learned multiple things about the dynamics of colors, how they are made, and the different effects colors do to the human mind and how they can dramatically influence mood. We learned the three primary colors; red, blue and yellow. And the three secondary colors are green purple and orange. These colors are created by two primary colors mixing, which makes tertiary colors. Next, we learned that additive color occurs when visable light is produced from different light sources, and eventually that subtractive color appears when light that is removed from the visible spectrum and creates colors. From this lesson, I learned mnay things however I was very interested in the fact that color could change moods, and create the impulse to buy things. Pink is supposably very soothing while blue and green are found to be calming yet unappetizing. We also learned that colors can appear as different colors when they are next to each other. We saw and example of an checkerboard in which the gray looked darker compared to the white, while when it was next to the gray it wasn't as dark. We also learned that a grey scale image is one that is made up of only black and white and a monotone image has tints and shades of one color.

Here is an example of a grey scale image:  

Here is an example of a monotone image:

Here is an example of an image that uses complimentary colors

Flying Bird Animation

Animation

Color Wheel

Day of the Dead Skull

Elements of Design