Thursday, 29 November 2012

OUGD405 - Photoshop Workshop

Sessions 1:
Non-destructable editing

Original
Proof Colours - shows what colours will be printed
Gamut warning - shows which colours are out of the range of the printer
Selecting hue - Bottom right hand corner
Changing the hue to get the colours in the range
changed hue - half the colours have been accepted, the others are not
Red colours generally work better - change hue to red - all colour is accepted
Changing the levels
Changing the levels for the picture to make the detail more obvious
Changing the brush size and hardness - 0 is best
Image with editing complete - parts of the levels mask blocked out to leave parts unaffected
Levels Part 2
Original - aim to make statue visible
Select the whole statue - quick select tool
Deselect the small areas in between the statue
Change levels - drag the shadow triangle to the left - brightens the selected area
Making a panoramic image - letting photoshop do the work
Photomerge - scans images and merges them together at the right points to create a panoramic image
Use Auto - select images - 'Blend images together'
Image when blending is complete
Cropped version
Session 2:
How to merge images together to make it look like there is no people/interference in the image
Load Files into Stack
Choosing the image files
Image once completed - over a hundred images together
Median - get's rid of everything that isn't consistent - the people
Image once done
Rasterize layer from smart layer
Sky is too dull in the last image, so from the image collection,  choose the image with the sky you want, and then 'place' - from this, get rid of everything but the sky on this image and the above happens

How to make a contact sheet
Automate - contact sheet
Choose files - change media size & resolution - change amount of thumbnails per page
Final contact sheet from photographs taken

OUGD405 - Printed Text & Reading

We were put into groups and given a title to discuss. Ours was 'Printed text and reading'. We covered everything to do with every day life and design: Posters, leaflets, packaging, magazines/editorials, logos, branding etc.

From this we made a spider diagram of the eight main areas:


From this we had to take one topic each to research into. I chose Legibility and Readability because it gives me a chance to finally look into designers such as David Carson, and others that I have not been able to look into.

As a starting point I looked at the subject in a general sense - seeing what was deemed legible or readable, and what the point was where it was not either. Something doesn't have to be readable to be legible - this is something that I kept in mind while doing this.

My main interest lies in the type of work that Carson does, work that people say isn't readable, but is legible. I wanted to look at how the appearance and how readable something is affects people's perceptions. As in, if it's not clear immediately, will they like it/read it? More form over function work.

Research

From this research I have put together three A3 sheets, one on primary research, and two on secondary research from all the important points of each. I thought it was important to do a sheet on David Carson as it is the main factor in this research and I think I will find it useful later on.
In keeping with the subject matter, instead of doing just a simple research sheet with everything laid out structurally, I kept with the illegibility and made the sheets full and overlapping. I think this helped me get a better understanding on how far you can take something to make it completely illegible, and what is classes as legible or readable.

Primary Research


Secondary Research

David Carson Research

From this research I have made a third A3 sheet on the direction I plan to go in with what I have learnt. The direction I am going in is about legibility primarily, and how something does not need to be legible to get the message across, and that something deemed 'illegible' by some, does what it needs to. Many people say Carson's work is terrible and doesn't communicate, but I think it fits the brief and does exactly what it needs to, the same can be said for the likes of Neville Brody too.

Direction

OUGD404 - Study Task 2: Birth of a Font Studio Session

  • Gothic fonts clearer closer
  • Block fonts the hardest to read up close - used for headlines - one or two words usually, not body text
  • Script fonts aren't designed to be used around different point sizes - will have been designed to fit a specific point size - too large & it breaks up. Too small & it starts to merge together.
  • More readable when on one line - increase paper size to get larger text on one.
  • Readability changes at distances - block is easier from distance - gothic/roman is easier from close up
  • Lowercase is more readable than uppercase - uppercase is in a block, lowercase has dips - we read the spaces more than the letters. Uppercase doesn't have much space.
  • Difference between books and magazines - books is one page - magazines have columns - small text on many lines - use of gothic instead of roman
Session Task:
From the 24 letters we brought in, we must cut them out, disect them into their different anatomical forms and combine them together to create the letterforms with different characteristics.

Letters/Fonts used
Dissected Gothic Letters
Examples:
Uppercase A


 Uppercase B


Lowercase A



 Lowercase B