Showing posts with label 2012. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2012. Show all posts
Monday, March 25, 2013
FONT FIGHT!!!!!
I found this video via YouTube. It was made by CollegeHumor. Lately they've been going downhill with their videos, but I really liked these two for obvious reasons.
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
Comic of the Week: "Happy New Year!!!"
Have a happy one!!!!
 |
| Illustration 2012 copyright Kara Muller. |
Remember to drink water tomorrow, as alcohol dries you out,
which is why your eyes are so red in the morning.
Monday, December 31, 2012
Typeface Review: "Crescendo"
What It Looks Like:
 |
| Picture available here. |
"Canada Type is an independent font development studio based in Toronto. The studio was founded in 2004 by Rebecca Alaccari and Patrick Griffin, as a means to perform professional type solutions to creative indviduals and departments all over the world." (Source #2)
What Type of Font It Is: Ornamental - "the form of the letter itself is determined by some decorative or figurative intention. The Ornamental form may thus be composed of foliage, rustic woodwork, the human form, or abstract elements. The majority of Ornamental faces from the 19th century are capital only, and necessarily designed for use at larger sizes." (Source #3)
 |
| Picture available here. |
Where You Can Get It: Available for purchase here: http://www.fontshop.com/search/?q=Crescendo.
Descriptive Terms For It: 1920s, art deco, art nouveau, book covers, decorative, display, flapper, poster, poster design, posters, logo, logo design, logos, and ornamental.
Sources:
-#1 - http://www.fontshop.com/fonts/downloads/canada_type/crescendo_ot/
-#2 - http://www.fontshop.com/fonts/foundry/canada_type/
-#3 - "The Complete Typographer: A Manual for Designing with Type" by Will Hill, 2nd Edition, p. 160
Examples:
 |
| Picture available here. |
 |
| Picture available here. |
Thursday, December 27, 2012
Comic of the Week: "We Didn't Die!"
I know this is late...but here you go anyway:
 |
| Illustration 2012 copyright Kara Muller. |
"The Island of Lost Maps" Book Review
The Island Of Lost Maps by Miles HarveyMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
"In 1995, a watchful patron alerted a librarian at Johns Hopkins University that another patron, a middle-aged and well-dressed man, was behaving suspiciously. The librarian called the police, who discovered that the man, a Floridian named Gilbert Bland, had cut four maps from a set of rare books. On investigation, the police were able to attribute dozens of similar thefts to Bland, thefts that had taken place at a score of the country's best-regarded - and, presumably, best-protected--scholarly institutions.
"Like countless other readers, Miles Harvey, a writer for 'Outside' magazine, encountered the news of Bland's arrest as a brief item in the back pages of the morning newspaper. The story stayed with Harvey, who wondered why otherwise law-abiding people behave so badly around antiquities.
"In 'The Island of Lost Maps', a wonderfully rich excursion into the demimonde of what might be called cartographomania, Harvey follows Bland's tracks from library to library, reconstructing the crimes of the man he deems the Al Capone of map theft, following the contours of Bland's complex, sinister character. Along the way, Harvey examines the history of cartography generally, and the ravenous market for old maps - once the quiet province of a few knowing collectors, now invaded by speculators. These maps are just another corner of the overpriced status-symbol commodity market--and one that richly rewarded Bland's nefarious work.
"Harvey's winding narrative, full of learned detours, adds up to a superbly rendered tale of true crime (and, many readers might object, of insufficient punishment), one that will appeal to book lovers and mystery buffs in equal measure."
- Gregory McNamee
*Warning: Use of profanity and, probably, spoilers.*
I originally picked this book up when it had just been published and I was a little girl. I liked it because of the book's size and shape and the cover was pretty without being overdone. I showed it to my mother who made me put it away, laughing "You would never read that." I did eventually get this book, this year actually, at a mini-golf while I was vacationing in Rehoboth Beach. ("Fye upon you, mother!") So, it is finally mine and after having read it I'm not quite sure if I would've enjoyed it at that age. I was always a weird kid though, so maybe.
I enjoyed this book. I found the information regarding cartography, maps and their many contributions to history very interesting. I love reading about those little bits of history. This would've been perfect as a History channel documentary or something. I never realized it before but those maps sounded beautiful and it was such a shame that you could only see bits and pieces of them in the book.
There were only a few problems that I had with this story. I didn't like the bad guy at all and he was the main protagonist. He was a dead-beat, a thief and a lousy business owner. The only reason to have included him in this at all would be to use him as an example of people that librarians and archivists need to watch out for.
I LOVE books and I couldn't stand it that he would cut them up, right in the library, like the useless douche that he is. I mean I can understand doing it for the artwork and stuff, if it's your book or if you have someone else more specialized in books do it so as not to needlessly harm the rest of the book, but to do that to nearly priceless works that you didn't pay for, I hope you loose your dick somehow. That's like cutting up a Monet for one flower.
Anyway, there were about a hundred other more interesting people that the author could've made the book about and still talked about maps and cartography on top of it, but he didn't. I mean, those explorers were far superior in their talents and goals and they were even better at being outright thieves: they got people needlessly killed just so they could look at mountains, steal gold and even steal other maps, off of ships! Gilbert Bland is a pathetic footnote in the history of maps and somehow he's the main protagonist. If he needed someone contemporary, he could've used the map dealer, W. Graham Arader III, he was interesting, colorful and very successful.
The other problem I had was with the author. He inserted himself into it, which is okay, but it is a bit jarring. This same thing happened in "The Pirate Queen: In Search of Grace O'Malley and Other Legendary Women of the Sea" by Barbara Sjoholm. They really ought to change the title of that book because it is blatant false advertising. I thought I was going to be reading about O'Malley but it was mainly little stories about Norse sea goddesses, which was interesting and I liked that. But then the author would break in and start talking about what is was it is like braving the Irish Sea today and it was like "no, the only thing that's interesting about you is your name and that was given to you".
I'd rather read about the maps and cartographers than about the author quite frankly. And I realize as a journalist he probably doesn't get to write himself into the story very often, because the editor would cut it out (because it was needless and doesn't help the story progress), so I can understand that he was "finding himself" (usually lost). But because he put himself in the story the book ran on too long. I would say that he could've taken those last two chapters out and it would've been fine, at the very least that last very pointless chapter needed to go.
It was enjoyable, but it could've been better.
Ironically, just came across this list of the "7 Must Read Books on Maps".
View all my reviews
Typeface Review: "Harrington"
What It Looks Like:
 |
| Picture available here. |
And although this next paragraph claims it was created by The Font Bureau, Inc. there is no acknowledgment of this typeface anywhere on that company's website. "Harrington is a decorative serif with ornamental flourishes. Harrington has playful flourishes in the letterforms that give it an elegant, distinctive appearance. Harrington contains 248 glyphs and was created by The Font Bureau, Inc." (Source #2)
 |
| Picture available here. |
How You Can Design With It: "Decorative and Ornamental letters are, by definition, display faces and seldom, if ever, suited to the setting of any more than a small number of words. An informed choice of text face to accompany these will take into account the conventions of text setting in the period from which the display face originates, in order to ensure compatibility." (Source #3)
Where You Can Get It: "A TrueType version of this font is provided free with the Microsoft Office Value Pack (Macintosh)." (Source #4)
Available for purchase at these sites:
Descriptive Terms For It: decorated, display, elegant, feminine, headings, legibility, logo, and sub-headings.
Sources:
-#1 - http://helz-design.com/2012/03/font-of-the-week-12-harrington/,
-#2 - http://www.ascenderfonts.com/font/harrington.aspx,
-#3 - "The Complete Typographer: A Manual for Designing with Type" by Will Hill, 2nd Edition, p. 160, and
-#4 - http://www.identifont.com/show?1ND.
Examples:
 |
| Technically, this is a different typeface, "Baroque", but it is reminiscent of "Harrington". Picture available here. |
 |
| Picture available here. |
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Salt Lake Temple Letterpress Poster
 |
| Picture available here. |
 |
| Picture available here. |
 |
| Picture available here. |
"This letterpress poster was handcrafted character by character over the course of roughly 100 hours. Characters from the Bickham Script Pro, Engravers MT, and Epic typeface families form the edifice featured in the artwork, the Salt Lake Temple." Information taken from Design42Day's blog.
The poster was created by Cameron Moll, who is the artist behind Cameron Moll, LLC. You can purchase a copy of the poster here.
At $100.00, it is a bit pricey, but your copy will be:
-printed by Bryce Knudson on an old, unique printing press in Bjorn Letterpress in Utah,
-signed by the artist,
-and you will have helped a small indie company with your purchase!
Here is a video showing Mr. Knudson printing Mr. Moll's other masterpiece featuring the Coliseum of Rome, which is also available for purchase:
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Comic of the Week: "Walking On Water"
Jesus + water = wine.....right? |
| Illustration copyright 2012 by Kara Muller. |
Monday, December 17, 2012
Typeface Review: "Bickham Script Pro"
What It Looks Like:
 |
| Picture can be found here. |
"Richard Lipton grew up in New York City and studied art and design upstate at Harpur College where he was introduced to the magic of calligraphy. He continued his lettering journey in 1974 as a freelance calligrapher, signpainter, and graphic designer and eventually established a calligraphy studio in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 1983, Lipton began working for Bitstream, a digital type foundry and helped to make Bitstream’s type library one of the most respected in the industry. In his tenure as senior designer, Lipton developed two original type families: Arrus, and Cataneo (with Jacqueline Sakwa). In 1991, Lipton created an independent type and calligraphy studio and designed many original typefaces including BickhamPro for Adobe and Sloop for Font Bureau. Currently he is a full time type designer at Font Bureau where he develops custom fonts for international clients." (Source #2)
 |
| Picture can be found here. |
How You Can Design With It: "Bickham Script Pro is excellent for formal, elegant designs, especially those reminiscent of its origin in the 18th century. It also includes a number of OpenType features, including discretionary ligatures, swashes, superscripts, stylistic alternates, and cast-sensitive glyph connectors. The contextual changes that occur to the characters as one types make it an especially versatile typeface, and improves your designs effortlessly.
"Bickham Script Pro is purely a display typeface, perfect for headings and subheads. It’s commonly seen in logos, menus, invitations, annual reports, and packaging, in primarily formal, elegant designs." (Source #1)
"As one types, substitutions are made dynamically as the context changes. Not only do varied ligatures appear, but subtle changes to glyph exit and entry strokes ensure an attractive, flowing text both between letters and at word beginnings and endings." (Source #4)
Where You Can Get It: Bickham Script Pro is available for purchase here: http://store1.adobe.com/cfusion/store/html/index.cfm?store=OLS-US&event=displayFontPackage&code=1736.
Descriptive Terms For It: classical, display, elegant, formal, headings, logo, script, serif, and sub-headings.
Sources:
-#1 - http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2011/08/the-most-popular-fonts-used-by-designers/,
-#2 - http://www.fontbureau.com/people/RichardLipton/,
-#3 - "The Complete Typographer: A Manual for Designing with Type" by Will Hill, 2nd Edition, p. 150,
-#4 - http://www.adobe.com/type/browser/landing/bickham.html.
Examples:
 |
| Picture can be found here. |
 |
| Picture can be found here. |
 |
| 2012 copyright HitRECord.org. Picture can be found here. |
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Comic of the Week: "The Perfect Gift"
 |
| Copyright 2012 by Kara Muller. |
 |
| Copyright 2012 by Kara Muller. |
 |
| Copyright 2012 by Kara Muller. |
Monday, December 10, 2012
Typeface Review: "Optima"
What It Looks Like:
 |
| Picture available here. |
Its History: "Optima is a Humanist Sans Serif typeface designed by Hermann Zapf between 1952 and 1955 for the D. Stempel AG foundry [located in] Frankfurt, Germany." (Source below. #1)
"At the Franciscan Basilica di Santa Croce in Florence on October 3rd, 1950, one visitor was looking at the 276 gravestones through quite different eyes than the other tourists. The great names of Michelangelo, Rossini, Galilei and Machiavelli held less fascination for him than the great variety of lettering carved in the stone. Because he had left his notebook behind at the hotel, Hermann Zapf sketched a few characters on a 1000 lire note." (Source below. #2)
"A delicate sans serif, characterized by its tapered stems, Optima alludes to Greek inscriptional forms without appearing archaic." (Source below. #3)
"Hermann Zapf, born November 8, 1918, is a German typeface designer who lives in Darmstadt, Germany. He is married to calligrapher and typeface designer Gudrun Zapf von Hesse.
"Zapf's work, which includes Palatino and Optima, has been widely copied, often against his will. The best known example may be Monotype's Book Antiqua, which shipped with Microsoft Office and was widely considered a "knockoff" of Palatino. In 1993, Zapf resigned from ATypI (Association Typographique Internationale) over what he viewed as its hypocritical attitude toward unauthorized copying by prominent ATypI members." (Source below. #4)
"Zapf's work, which includes Palatino and Optima, has been widely copied, often against his will. The best known example may be Monotype's Book Antiqua, which shipped with Microsoft Office and was widely considered a "knockoff" of Palatino. In 1993, Zapf resigned from ATypI (Association Typographique Internationale) over what he viewed as its hypocritical attitude toward unauthorized copying by prominent ATypI members." (Source below. #4)
 |
| Picture available here. |
"Humanist Sans typefaces function well for the setting of extended text, though they do not as a rule provide for very economical setting because most have a lower x-height than the Grotesques. Heavier weights may be effectively used for smaller quantities of text, and benefit from generous leading.
"Humanist Sans faces are notable for their compatibility with classic serif types, and can be paired with a number of Humanist, Garalde, and Transitional faces that are based upon similar Roman proportions." (Source below. #5)
How You Can Design With It: "Optima is an elegant if conservative type choice, and is well-suited to understated designs. Most famously, it’s been used for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, and by the 2008 John McCain presidential campaign. It’s also the official branding typeface of Estée Lauder Companies and Aston Martin." (Source below. #6)
Where You Can Get It: Available for a free download here: http://www.fontsupply.com/fonts/O/Optima.html. There are Optima alternatives available for free download here: http://www.fontspace.com/category/optima.
Descriptive Terms For It: book copy, classical, Humanist, large blocks of text, legibility, logo, modern, readable, and sans serif.
Sources:
- #3 and #5: "The Complete Typographer: A Manual for Designing with Type" by Will Hill, 2nd Edition, p. 110 and 117,
Examples:
 |
| Picture can be found here. |
 |
| Picture can be found here. |
Thursday, December 6, 2012
Disney Villains Minimalist Illustrations!
 |
| Ursula from "The Little Mermaid". Copyright Chelsea Mitchell. |
Disney villains are iconic characters, pushing the story along and making the hero do their job. It's no surprise then that they've become a part of the internet's artist community in various forms.
I originally saw this post on the Buzzfeed website (located here). The artist's name is Chelsea Mitchell. The original posting was on the artist's Tumblr.
The six posters include the likes of Jafar, Ursula, Captain Hook, Hades, and Cruella DeVil.
 |
| Jafar from "Aladdin". Copyright Chelsea Mitchell. |
 |
| Captain Hook from "Peter Pan". Copyright Chelsea Mitchell. |
 |
| Cruella DeVil from "101 Dalmations". Copyright Chelsea Mitchell. |
 |
| Hades from "Hercules". Copyright Chelsea Mitchell. |
 |
| Maleficent from "Sleeping Beauty". Copyright Chelsea Mitchell. |
My favorite is Maleficent. She was a real badass! And a dragon!
Monday, December 3, 2012
Typeface Review: "Bank Gothic"
What It Looks Like:
 |
| Got picture here. |
"In February 2007, Linotype released a wonderfully reinterpreted and expanded version of Bank Gothic, Morris Sans, designed by Dan Reynolds under type director Akira Kobayashi. For the first time, the geometric typeface was available in three weights and two widths, with a lowercase and a great number of extras. The new typeface takes its name from its original 'inventor'." (Source below.)
It is part of a family of fonts with a long range of varieties of weight such as Light, Light Condensed, Medium, Medium Condensed, Bold, and Bold Condensed.
 |
| Poster for the movie "I, Robot" featuring the typeface Bank Gothic. Picture available here. |
How You Can Design With It: With its legibility useful as a way to communicate something in a short and bold burst of text, like a poster or book cover, but can also be used in smaller blocks of text.
Where You Can Get It: Available for a free download here: http://fontzone.net/font-details/BankGothic+Md+BT+Medium/ and http://www.fonts101.com/fonts/view/Uncategorized/53668/BankGothic. There are Bank Gothic Alternatives available for purchase here: http://www.fontshop.com/fontlist/alternatives/bank_gothic/.
Descriptive Terms For It: all-caps, classical, large blocks of text, modern, readable, sans serif, scifi, strong, technical, versatile, variety, and whole family.
Sources: http://luc.devroye.org/fonts-46711.html, http://www.100besttypefaces.com/74_Bank+Gothic.html, "The Complete Typographer: A Manual for Designing with Type" by Will Hill, 2nd Edition, p. 118, and http://www.typeoff.de/2008/04/10/this-typeface-will-break-your-heart/.
Examples:
 |
| Poster for the movie "Gridiron Gang" featuring the typeface Bank Gothic. Picture available here. |
 |
| Poster for the movie "Event Horizon" featuring the typeface Bank Gothic. Picture available here. |
 |
| Poster for the movie "Ironman" featuring the typeface Bank Gothic. Picture available here. |
Saturday, December 1, 2012
Holiday Shopping with Etsy!!!
Hello holiday shoppers! No time like the present to get your loved ones the perfect gift this year!
For this year's holiday season, I decided to offer a coupon: 5% off any order!!!! Just type in "XMAS2012" at the checkout and you're set!
For this year's holiday season, I decided to offer a coupon: 5% off any order!!!! Just type in "XMAS2012" at the checkout and you're set!
Nothing like a one-of-the-kind handmade journal, available here!
Or, for those into classic old Hollywood style, there are fabulous framed glossy photographs of the one and only Audrey Hepburn, located here!
For those fans into glitter and sparkly things, there are handmade glitter posters located here! If you have an idea for something that I don't have in stock, say a favorite band or sports team logo, just send a convo or email my way at karakreative@yahoo.com. I'll be sure to respond quickly and it will be at no extra cost!
Have a great holiday shopping experience!
Friday, November 30, 2012
Children's Book Classics as Minimalist Posters!
 |
| "Goldilocks & the Three Bears" copyright Christian Jackson. |
Although I do not at first look like I would enjoy anything that is distilled down into a simple picture, I actually do love minimalist work!
After being forced to do it for a class project - IT'S REALLY HARD! - I have the utmost admiration for those who can do it and do it well!
This artist, Christian Jackson (who you can find here), decided to do a few posters of beloved children's book classics.
Here are a few of my favorites:
 |
| "Little Red Riding Hood" copyright Christian Jackson. |
You can see them in their entirety on Brain Pickings' blog or you can go to the artist's, Christian Jackson, site here.
 |
| "The Wizard of Oz" copyright Christian Jackson. |
 |
| "The Princess and the Pea" copyright Christian Jackson. |
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)