CanUX looks at me and the Organic Web

by Tyler Egeto

CanUX (a Microsoft Developer Network blog) is a blog that focuses on the user experience community in Canada. Recently they took a look at me and some of my work, specifically my final project, the Organic Web.

The article can be found here. In the article I talk briefly about my passions as a designer and where I am headed in the future. Also in the article is a video that demonstrates some of the core concepts behind the Organic Information Visualization System I developed, (the system that the Organic Web demo application is built on).

A special thanks to CanUX for giving me the opportunity to share my work!

-Tyler Egeto

Wim Crouwel’s “New Alphabet”

by Vinson Van Haaff

New Alphabet

When a young Wim Crouwel went to a German type setting expo in 1965, he saw one of the first digital typesetters. He saw Garamond 6pt and noticed that as you scaled the letters, lets say by two times, there would be twice as many pixels available to generate the curves, thereby changing the font as you scaled it. This spawned an idea in him that would eventually lead to this grid-based type concept that would be later used in rock album covers and pop art magazines.

His ideas were later published in the “New Alphabet” (1967), a book showcasing his approach to print and type design, and the whole book consisted of not one curve or non-45 degree diagonal! Crouwel’s idea was clarity in the digital age, to create a defined typesetting that would not change when scaled, because of its strictly 45 or 90 degree angles, and because if its inherent grid-based structure. The type was to be very square, so that if text lined up on top of each other, the letters would be lined up as well. What started out as an experiment for Crouwel became a sleeper success. Peter Saville, a designer that was contracted to design Joy Division’s Substance album redesigned Crouwel’s “New Alphabet” to be more legible, and then released it as “atmosphere ’88”. For years to come, the new wave of digital type must nod their hats to Wim Crouwel’s foundation laid by “New Alphabet”.

It presented a clean, rational scope in which to view type design with this new digital medium. With the new wave of pixel fonts (type designed with screen usage in mind, making efficient use of blank spaces to create readable text even at small sizes) emerging, echos of Wim Crouwel’s methodologies still ring strong today. His foresight in the future of type design can be seen with hundreds of different modern fonts out there, and their functional ideals can all be linked back to Wim Crouwel’s “New Alphabet”.

I created a type specimen showcasing Wim Crouwel’s “New Alphabet”. For the piece, I brought in another functional digital type “OCR Std”, to contrast “New Alphabet”, and to also highlight the similarities between the two eras of functional digital type. I then created a site map of The Foundry’s website and all of its internal file assets within that domain using Processing. The Foundry is the only foundry I have found that digitized Wim Crouwel’s type. All of the files on this site are linked to each other ultimately by the single root node, “/”.

I am trying to communicate the parallel with Wim Crouwel and this root node. Virtually all of digital type that followed are connected to “New Alphabet” by some avenue or other. Just like the root directory, Wim Crouwel is the node that links all other functional digital type to each other, and all of them share the same concepts and approach in their design and function.

I used Processing to extrapolate the filenames and linkage properties to map out the connection between all of the files, I had to play with the layout a bit, but it was mostly done in Processing and Illustrator. Let me know what you think!

Link

Thank you THANK YOU

by Danny Chan

It’s always great to see work from former faculty members and alumni. Check out the work from Todd Smith, and DD07 alumni Boca and Ryan Uhrich at Thank You.

Also, you should check out the Mar/Apr 2008 issue of Applied Arts. Jeff Greenberg from DD06, branding instructor Eric Karjaluoto, and Final Project advisors Cosmo Campbell, Alex Beim, Sergio Toporek, Wil Arndt have all been honoured for their various interactive design projects.

Cute Character

by Bun Lee

d’Holbachie

Great character design! Remind me of Ingrid….

Typographics nominated for 2008 Yahoo! Video Awards

by Danny Chan

Let’s show our support for Ryan and Boca from DD07. Their term 4 piece is a nominee in the category of Best Animated Video for the Yahoo! Video Awards. We have until Friday, March 21 to vote.

And don’t forget about Simon’s piece for the “See What’s Possible” challenge.

http://swp.cutandpaste.com/user/370

Pablo’s Garden

by Pablo Kraus

Pablo’ Garden

Here it is. the much anticipated final Project. After 4 months of hard work you can finally check it out here at pablosgarden.com.

Pablo’ Garden

Pablo’s garden is a website where users can log in and express themselves as an artist, designer or however they feel. Users can interact and draw into the garden as well as have the power to vote on drawings.
The garden gives the opportunity for users to collaborate and draw pieces influenced by each-other. They can build on each others work and create combined works of art.

If you want to know more about my project you can download my case study here.

Wanna win $10,000 for designing a logo?

by Tom Fedechko

British Columbia design students are being invited to compete to create a new logo for the government’s LiveSmart BC climate action programs… Click here

My “See What’s Possible” vids.

by Simon Haiduk

Reincarnation Still

Thanks to Danny’s post about the “See What’s Possible” competition. It inspired me to experiment and I created 2 works that can be viewed either forward or in reverse. As I was making them I realized due to the short length it would be sweet to make them a perfect loop. So out of the 2 I submitted 4. It is a shame what compression for YouTube or Revver does to bright colors, so please watch the high res versions of each if you are interested in quality. ( I found Revver to have a bit better compression than YouTube ).

Here is the link to my page on the Cut&Paste site: http://swp.cutandpaste.com/user/370 . Or Search SymbioSonic if that doesn’t work. In the description of each vid is a link to the High-Res version of each. Please remember to vote if your stoked.

I also took the time to load a full loop of each (2 fwd. + 2 bak.). There are Hi-Res and Highest-Res links for both. I’ll post the Hi-Res of each here, just for you kids. ; )

Temple Garden Loop: Hi-Res: http://symbiosonic.com/sonicsoul/TGLoop_med.mov

Reincarnation Loop: Hi-Res: http://symbiosonic.com/sonicsoul/RcLoop_med.mov

It’s all based on the theme of Visionary Artwork which I do with many mediums:
www.symbiosonic.com

Music clips are tweaks of songs by my lovely, Andrea Drury.

Temple Garden Still

( I’ve learned more about the H264 compression out of After Effects,, it works well but is really finicky, I’ll get that thread going soon, I’m sure it will be interesting and helpful)

Sheet of paper II

by Clarence Lee

Jessica wrote a post about “One sheet of paper” few weeks ago.
Here’s an example, a flash site with same concept.
Checkland Kindleysides

Solution to Vancouver Student Housing Problem

by Shalinder Matharu

All you need is this…

Bedroom in a box!

Links from Talk (Business of Design)

by Gagan Diesh

Hi All:

Thanks for attending assembly today –I enjoyed speaking with some of you after my talk!

I just wanted to put a shout out about the Beta User pool at Rouxbe. If you think you could be good at trying out the site experience and providing objective feedback, then hit me back and let’s chat about setting you up with access. gdiesh (a) rouxbe.com.

Related to my talk:

Facebook Slowdown

Trouble with Steve Jobs

link to a PDF with book resources on how designers can find a seat at the ‘business’ table (the speech that inspired my talk)

And if you think you will have any problems finding a job after school, remember people like this make videos to improve your life

3D panoramic video

by Bart Barlowski

We’ve seen 3D pictures, now its 3D video. I can see flash virtual reality helmets coming out soon.

http://www.immersivemedia.com/

Never before…

by Iván Cruz

Never before have Bridesmaids been so important to VFS, until a motion graphics piece from it’s students make it into Motionographer in record time. What has it been, a couple weeks?


Bridesmaids

Les Télécreateurs

by Bun Lee

Few pretty cool videos I saw on this site… right on the front page, check out:

The Presets - a human kaleidoscope music video, awesome example playing with layer and timing of live video (you can skip the first half….)
Sneaux - always love stop motion myself, and this is one of the finest I’ve seen! (just the shadow of the camera….)

Les Télécreateurs (Lots more good stuff on this site)

Bridesmaids Online!

by Nicolas Alexander

Hi guys! We’ve been asked by a lot of people in the past couple of day where was our Term 3 Infographic. We took a couple of days to refine it and it’s now online for your viewing pleasure. click on the thumbnail below to view the video and don’t hesitage to visit our blogs and leave comments.

bridesmaid_image_ddblog2.jpg

Update!: we are featured on “No fat clips!”

It’s funny when they (faculty) tell you stuff like “Network, Network, join a forum, post your stuff on blogs…” well I just posted a link on the mograph forum yesterday and there you go, one day later, somebody writes an article about it! :D

Update march 2nd: featured on “Computerlove” and “The animation ressource centre”

…and some german (is that german?) website

… and “motiongraphics.it”

Adobe Cards

by Bun Lee

Cool 3D motion graphics with a easing timeline flash interface.

View site

GMail AD

by Bun Lee

Back to Analog……!

Watch

Paper Furniture

by Antonio Suarez

weird-music2.png
Molo Design is an award winning design and manufacturing company based in Vancouver that creates interesting and unique products.

Amazing Business Card

by Shalinder Matharu

anotherbloomindesigner21.jpg

This business card idea is great. What a fantastic way to keep the attention of a prospective employer. Link

Typography Final

by Shalinder Matharu


Hiroshige Specimen Sheet from Shal on Vimeo.
In an effort to put more student work up on the DD Blog, here is my typography final. A specimen sheet on the Hiroshige typeface.