Day 4 Notes and Research

Day's Notes

The first thing we did was pin up our work for critique and Dorian walked around with a marker and methodically marked certain studies. For the most part, everyone had between 5-7 studies marked which were then used as discussion points. Dorian then called on me and asked me to pick out a good one and a bad one. I chose two and discussed what i didnt like and did like about them but I didnt really like any of them as a whole. I only liked a certain element or idea. We then went on to discussing what worked and doesnt work at all with type and the difference between the printed page as a medium and the screen.

Serifs are harder to see on screen due to the weight variation with the thick and thin parts of the type, Especially when you dont know what viewing format someone is watching them in. For example someone could watch a serif on full 1080P HD and see them fine but someone who is projecting it at 320x480 wont be able to see almost any of it. So Sans serifs might be the best choice in terms of readability.

Critique

We used a pretty generic Good/Bad system to determine what to talk about but didnt get into detail about what is particularly wrong with our studies. Looking at my studies though I got a couple of goods, some with no marks but two with 3-4 bad marks. As im looking at them now I can see why. I tried really hard to make strong verticals and horizontals but didnt really pay attention to trapping space between words. I also have a little stair stepping going on in one of the compositions. Im really trying actively to avoid these pitfalls but its very difficult to do so with such limits.

trapped space.

Personal Thoughts

Im starting to get the hang of it and really invested a large amount of time into these studies. Im looking at placement on the page with a different eye now. I used different grid systems to place them on the page and i think they improved a lot.

My work can still be better but I am not trying to reinvent the game, i just rather fly by and do no harm. Some of my classmates work is interesting but some is quite terrible. Its seems to be very easy to find faults in someone else's work and then look at yours and see even more.

Research and Questions

I think its very interesting to see the relationship between readability on screen and the time. Mostly I would say it depends on all aspects of the animation. The rhythm, the content, the size, the use of design and good compositions and the animation. All of these things are important factors when setting, animating and viewing type on the screen.