Friday, September 18, 2009
Friday, February 13, 2009
Text Gone Wild Workshop
Virginia Kuhn
Associate Director
Institute for Multimedia Literacy
vkuhn@cinema.usc.edu
Faculty Workshop
013 February 2009
Taper Hall Labs
Text Gone Wild:
Words in Digital Environments
While much of the hype surrounding digital media centers on its ability to deploy images - both still and moving - as well as sound, this workshop examines the role of text in spaces where it is easily manipulated and therefore able to do more than the standard 12pt Times New Roman static presentation. Looking specifically at Buzzword, Wordle and several blogging platforms, participants will see the ways in which size, proximity, color and font impact textual meaning. Participants will then spend some hands-on time experimenting with modes of text of their own.
Wordle: application for producing word clouds: http://www.wordle.net/
Sophie (open source e-platform) http://sophieproject.org/
HELVETICA: Full length film about typeface, font, graphic design: http://www.helveticafilm.com/
Periodic Table of Visualization Methods:
Fonts: http://www.1001freefonts.com/
http://www.dafont.com/
Generally fonts for the page are serif since the little tails help the reader by linking the letters (Baskerville, Garamond and Times) while sans serif is recommended for computer screens because their thick lines and rounded edges are better shown in pixels (Helvetica, Futura).
Kerning and Leading: these are typesetting functions. Most people use the spacing of typewriters (single or double spacing) but MS Word allows you to adjust leading (space between lines of text) as well as the kerning (space between letters and words).
CRAP: Contrast Repetition Alignment Proximity
Since browsers often distort pages, the way you choose font size and style becomes relational. For instance: This looks big.
This looks big. BUT NOW, LESS SO.
Repurposing:
http://www.spreeder.com/
This is a tool for speed-reading but it can be used in other ways.
Buzzword: a “beta” Adobe application that allows easy manipulation of text:
Interesting new book:
Mediapedia: Creative Tools and Techniques for Camera, Computer, and Beyond (Knack, 2008: ISBN-13: 978-1599214016)
Exercises:
Word Cloud using Wordle
Surf to Wordle (http://www.wordle.net/). Type in or copy and paste a paragraph or so of text and create! You can then randomize or set font size, style, color.
Kerning using MS Word:
Open MS Word.
Type in any sentence.
Highlight the sentence.
Go to Format>Font>Character Spacing.
In the dialog box, mess around with Character Spacing—which will adjust the spacing between letters. Make a phrase and “condense” it to 1.4 points. Then expand the same sample by 2.0 points.
(Exercise courtesy of Mediapedia, p. 110)
Associate Director
Institute for Multimedia Literacy
vkuhn@cinema.usc.edu
Faculty Workshop
013 February 2009
Taper Hall Labs
Text Gone Wild:
Words in Digital Environments
While much of the hype surrounding digital media centers on its ability to deploy images - both still and moving - as well as sound, this workshop examines the role of text in spaces where it is easily manipulated and therefore able to do more than the standard 12pt Times New Roman static presentation. Looking specifically at Buzzword, Wordle and several blogging platforms, participants will see the ways in which size, proximity, color and font impact textual meaning. Participants will then spend some hands-on time experimenting with modes of text of their own.
Wordle: application for producing word clouds: http://www.wordle.net/
Sophie (open source e-platform) http://sophieproject.org/
HELVETICA: Full length film about typeface, font, graphic design: http://www.helveticafilm.com/
Periodic Table of Visualization Methods:
Fonts: http://www.1001freefonts.com/
http://www.dafont.com/
Generally fonts for the page are serif since the little tails help the reader by linking the letters (Baskerville, Garamond and Times) while sans serif is recommended for computer screens because their thick lines and rounded edges are better shown in pixels (Helvetica, Futura).
Kerning and Leading: these are typesetting functions. Most people use the spacing of typewriters (single or double spacing) but MS Word allows you to adjust leading (space between lines of text) as well as the kerning (space between letters and words).
CRAP: Contrast Repetition Alignment Proximity
Since browsers often distort pages, the way you choose font size and style becomes relational. For instance: This looks big.
This looks big. BUT NOW, LESS SO.
Repurposing:
http://www.spreeder.com/
This is a tool for speed-reading but it can be used in other ways.
Buzzword: a “beta” Adobe application that allows easy manipulation of text:
Interesting new book:
Mediapedia: Creative Tools and Techniques for Camera, Computer, and Beyond (Knack, 2008: ISBN-13: 978-1599214016)
Exercises:
Word Cloud using Wordle
Surf to Wordle (http://www.wordle.net/). Type in or copy and paste a paragraph or so of text and create! You can then randomize or set font size, style, color.
Kerning using MS Word:
Open MS Word.
Type in any sentence.
Highlight the sentence.
Go to Format>Font>Character Spacing.
In the dialog box, mess around with Character Spacing—which will adjust the spacing between letters. Make a phrase and “condense” it to 1.4 points. Then expand the same sample by 2.0 points.
(Exercise courtesy of Mediapedia, p. 110)
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