Finally! The day has come in which issue 03 is finally printed and currently being distributed to a school / cafe / university near you! Keep an eye out! It was such an awesome experience being able to go in to Allied Press and watch the whole printing process unfold right in front of me. From the plates getting made, right through to it being folded and wrapped and placed on the conveyor belt, and piled into my wee car! Russell (Pre-press manager) at Allied Press was very friendly and helpful towards my project, and even made the printing team stop the machine so that i could get some photos. Ideally i would have loved of filmed the entire process, but it was over so quickly (approx. 5 minutes) and everything was moving super speedy it was hard to even get a photo in focus. It was a really great experience seeing my newspaper amongst several other local, well known newspaper such at the Otago Daily Times and the Mountain Scene.
To get your hands on a United By Design newspaper – email us in the contact section and we can send one out to you! Free of charge!
“Digital Foundations: An intro to media design” was written by Michael Mandiburg and Xtine Burroughs, who are both educators in design. Whilst teaching classes that take place in software laboratories, they noticed that many of their students expected to learn to use software, but gave little consideration to aesthetics or art and design history.
At first they tempted to oblige their students’ thirst for so-called practical knowledge, but they recognised that without visual, theoretical, and historical frameworks, practical knowledge is basically useless. After settling for years on books that don’t really encapsulate a class, they finally decided to write the book that all introductory media design students should be using. A student can be working towards a degree in art, communication, graphic design, illustration, and so on in a traditional classroom setting, or a self-taught found-it-on-the-bookstore-shelf learner. Within the 20 chapters of the book, they have shared some history, followed by visual references, and then digital exercises that don’t’ just talk about which button to click, but to connect technical training to colour theory and composition.They explore creative software in a manner that brings design principles into the software demo.
Originally, this book was printed as a manual to the Adobe Creative Suite, the software found in classrooms and labs around the world. However, just a month after the book was published, they teamed up with Floss Manuals to convert the manuscript into one that teaches the same design principles using open source software such as Gimp, Inkscape, Scribus and other Libre Graphics tools.
Digital foundations contains a small amount history, followed by visual references, and digital exercises that explore creative software (Adobe) in a manner that brings design principles into the software demo. This work received praise from other creatives such as Ellen Lupton, who describes it as “A book that teaches visual thinking and software skills together. The text leads readers step-by-step through the process of creating dynamic images using a range of powerful applications. The engaging, experimental exercises take this project well beyond the typical software guide.”
To find out more information, visit their website:
Thinking with Type is a really useful guide to using typography in visual communication design, from digital screen-based typography to print. Author, Ellen Lupton displays the latest information on style sheets, the use of ornaments and captions, using uppercase and lowercase, as well as information on font licensing, mixing typefaces, and hand lettering. Throughout the book, visual examples show how to be inventive within systems of typography, what the rules are and how to break them.
Thinking with Type is a type book for a range of people, including designers, writers, editors, students, and anyone else who works with and uses words.
Ellen Lupton is a writer, curator, and graphic designer. She is director of the Graphic Design MFA program at Maryland Institute College of Art. As curator of contemporary design at Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum since 1992, she has produced numerous exhibitions and books.
There is also a popular online addition to Thinking with Type (www.thinkingwithtype.com) in which a lot of the resources are also displayed.
Recently one of our designers Marcia visited Melbourne. After a whirlwind ten days of exploring the streets, find out where her favourite hot spots were.
1. Proforma was a little store that we stumbled upon whilst in the suburb of Fitzroy. It was my DREAM store, fitted out with hand made jewellery, screen printed textiles, glass and ceramics, furniture, Artist’s prints, gift cards, stationery and more from local and international artists. Everything was so colourful and bright and made me feel HAPPY. Check out their online store here http://proformastore.com.au/collections
2. Signed and Numbered is a print shop that i had been dying to check out for a while. I found their instagram feed a few months back and absolutely loved their stuff. They supply a range of printed goods from established artists, but also under the radar young designers which i think is awesome. I managed to score a print from Gary Seaman who is an artist from Adelaide, Australia. There is no escaping his cute, happy characters mixed together with shapes and geometric elements. If you are ever in Melbourne, be sure to check out their stores either on Greville Street, or Degraves Street. (Both these streets have a bunch of other stores that might interest you also.)
3. Cookie is a thai restaurant right in the centre of Melbourne. What i loved about eating out in Melbourne, was the atmosphere in each restaurant or cafe. Cookie in particular, was jam packed full with a large waiting list, so we were lucky to get a spot! It was decked out in a picture book theme – the menus, the table displays, everything was like a picture book! Im not sure how this has any relevance to thai food, however it was awesome nonetheless. The walls are covered with murals and artwork from Melbourne artists including Beci Orpin, Misha Hollenbach and Monika Ippoliti.
4. I was stoked to see a poster that said some of Andy Warhol’s pieces were being exhibited at the National Gallery of Victoria (NVG) It was a pretty crazy building with a giant water feature down front entrance. There were three levels of exhibits – some of them i had previously seen at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery earlier in the year. My favourite Andy Warhol piece, was a self portrait that had been screen printed in 1986. I thought that it really captured his essence.
5. The Victoria night market happened to be on the last night i was in Melbourne. This was a perfect way to wind down and purchase some last minute gifts! It was pumping with people and the mulled wine delicious! I picked up a cool wee leather notebook for my mum with recycled paper from market stall called Uscha. Check out their website at at http://uscha.com.au/ I definitely recommend the night markets which happens every wednesday and more often in summer! Live music, the best food. Good times.
6. The Hardware Société is a cafe on Hardware lane that we went on my 21st birthday brunch! Located down end of Hardware Lane sits a cute little cafe that is super popular – they even had a waiting list for breakfast!?! The counter is filled with delicious sweets – biscuits and croissants, and teapots with tea cosies! LOVE IT! I had baked eggs with baked eggs with chorizo sausage (pictured below) and a cinnamon and banana juice?! (also pictured below)
What is is your name and how old are you?
Hello! I am Sam and I am 28.
Where are you currently living and where did you grow up?
Originally from Arrowtown and currently living up in Nelson.
How does where you live affect your photography?
Being so close to loads of beautiful walks like the Malborough Sounds is really great. Getting out of town and exploring is really inspiring. I still find the south calling and will probably move back down at some stage.
What camera(s) do you shoot on? (Analogue / Digital)
I mostly shoot digital and for all my work i shoot digital, but over the last year i have been collecting old cameras ans starting to shoot film. it’s a fun process and i love not knowing what the images are going to turn out like.
What subjects interest you most?
Landscapes will probably always be my favourite, hunting for beautiful light and finding dark moody clouds is always pretty exciting. I also love capturing weddings. It’s pretty special to record such an amazing day in people’s lives. Food photography is also an area i would really like to get into more, it is great.
What are you working on at the moment?
I am currently working on an exhibition that is starting on the 1st of july. It is going to be in The Little Bee Hive Co-op in Nelson.
What would you be doing if you weren’t taking photos?
Probably graphic design or something to do with food.
What is your favourite design blog or website?
My favourite website would be ‘this is colossal‘ it is full of crazy ideas & super talented people.
New Zealander Emma Norton‘s “Bring Your Own Laptop” trainer and graphic designer has produced some Adobe flash cards to help you understand the fundamental tools within the Adobe programmes. Print them out and pin them to your wall to ensure you know EVERYTHING about Illustrator, Photoshop and Indesign. For more information check out her website at http://www.bringyourownlaptop.co.nz/
Colour has always been present in our natural environment and in art across the world. Artists, mathematicians, and scientists have developed theories of colour since the seventeenth century.
Colour theories are usually encapsulated in what is referred to as a colour model. German Bauhaus school educators Josef Albers and Johannnes Itten helped define and expand upon the RYB (red – yellow – blue) colour model during the years 1919 – 1923. Art and design students typically complete colour studies using pigment and brushes or colour-aid paper. However, formal colour studies can now be executed in the digital environment. The CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black) color model is specific to the print industry. Artists and designers often create art for high-volume printing using the CMYK color model to synchronize the digital file with the four corresponding printing inks. Even though it is worked on with digital tools and examined via the projected light of a computer screen, this system is also subtractive, meaning overlapping inks create a darker hue.
Television screens and computer monitors do not use ink or paint – they use red, green, and blue light. RGB is an additive colour model. Coloured light is mixed to create hue and value with red, green, and blue as the primary colours. When the primary colours in the RGB model are mixed together, the result is white. Whether or not we realise it, colour is an integral part of establishing a distinctive brand identify in the marketplace. Specific colours can create certain messages and feelings that can help draw attention to a business.
There are several different words used when talking about colour and some of these include:
Hue is colour (e.g. red, blue, green, yellow).
Intensity, Saturation, Chroma and Brilliance all refer to how much pigment is in a colour, which translates to how vivid a colour appears.
Value is measured by how much white or black is mixed with a hue, or, it can be registered as the grayscale equivalent of a colour.
Shades are a hue mixed with black.
Tints are a hue mixed with white.
Analogous colours are adjacent on the colour wheel.
As designers we are always dealing with different file formats and it is fundamental that we know what they stand for and what they are used for.
In the open source book Digital Foundations – An Intro to Media Design, they cover some important file formats.
These include: .jpg / .jpeg = Joint Photographic Experts Group – Used for photographs on the web .tif = Tagged Image File – Used for scanning and printing .pdf = Portable Document Format .ai = Illustrator File .indd = Indesign Document .psd = Photoshop Document .doc = Microsoft Word Document .html = Hypertext Markup Language (webpage) .png = Portable Network Graphics, is a raster graphics file format that supports lossless data compression. .gif = Graphic Interchange Format – compressed image file format, often used on the web
for logos and other design element.
Copyrighted content can be used in a new work if permission is obtained from the copyright holder, or if the media use falls into the category of fair use. Under the fair use clause of copyright law, limited copyrighted material can be used for a transformative purpose, such as commenting upon, criticizing, or parodying the initial material. The four key factors are:
Another one of the traditional protected purposes is educational use in a classroom. Keep in mind that just because you cannot be sued for using appropriated work for assignments, you should be using it for reasons that advance your education, not just for convenience.
The Internet is a treasure trove of photographic imagery. Artists and designers often combine media elements from this visual archive in inventive ways, or use downloaded images as research for their own creative work. While we admittedly live in a copy/paste culture, using a downloaded image from the web has legal ramifications.
Just because you can download an image doesn’t mean you may use it! A downloaded image may be protected by copyright laws. Copyright is a legal tool for preserving control over the use of a creative work. Books, poems, music recordings and compositions, photographs, paintings, sculptures, radio and television broadcasts, films, and even dances can be copyrighted.
