reading, occupational hazard

[G4pj]

I started reading "The Elements of Typographic Style" by Robert Bringhurst. On page 156, using a Fibonacci formula, 0 1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21, where a number is the sum of the two previous numbers, a spiral is demonstrated in the same manner AdobeAce described in the document he presented on spirals. This formula applies to the default setting of the spiral tool.

The book is quite enjoyable, it appears that the only thing wrong with the book is the possibility that Goudy's sheep remark was misquoted.

[AdobeAce]

Hi G4pj,

You mean I inadvertently stumbled across some famous mathematical formula? Cool!

And I thought I was doing some ground breaking work. :D
I googled Fibonacci formula and found a bunch of higher math that was way beyond my understanding. Who said art isn't brain surgery? :eek:

Ace

[Paul C]

Is it AdobeAce or AlgorithmAce? Enquiring minds need to know…
Great book by the way.
peace

[AdobeAce]

Hi Paul,

AlgorithmAce!

But just while writing that one tutorial.

Have a good rest of your weekend.

Ace

:D

[G4pj]

It never fails to find that a simple discovery can be explained so easily. Right now, I find myself on a quest for information, not just how to use the software, or how it works, but solid design principles and information about layout and typography.

I know the information is out there, but it seems like a person has to really dig for it because we live in an age of, "I got a computer for Christmas, I want to be a graphic designer." And unless a person is able to run off to a design school that feels it is necessary to teach these principles, the principles seem to get lost in how to use the software.

I had some pre-computer training, where high tech was an exacto knife, rubber cement and rubylith. There was a lot to learn and remember for the final exam.

[Paul C]

the principles seem to get lost in how to use the software.
I'm with you 1000% G4pj - there is far too much talk about software features and not enough about design. These pieces of software are only tools after all - you can know everything about using them and be a lousy designer.
I've always thought this part of the challenge was unique to design as presently constituted. How in the heck do you keep up with the blinding advance of the software and keep your mind on what's important? I think the answer is in having a design philosophy that is consistent. I have mine and I apply it to everything I design. So far so good (or so I'm told)…
Starting with Bringhurst is the best intro into almost all things typographic…
peace

[The Repro Kid]

Well as far as design is concerned, that spiral formula can be traced back to the greeks, it uses the golden rectangle, take the golden rectangle, and bisect it with a line to make a square inside, bisect the resulting golden rectangle into a new square. Keep going and you get a series of nested rectangles that when traced inside with an arc, draw into a perfect spiral. the greeks discovered this and it is used throughout nature, time and time again. The chambered nautilus is a classic example of nature using the spiral derived from golden rectangle proportions in it's own design.

Art school does teach these things otherwise I would probably not know what a golden rectangle spiral is. But I just assume that everybody else knows this stuff also because that's what they taught us in art school.

If one is to be a designer it would be good to seek out formal education as one. Fine art training and Design at first seem to be two different things, but fine art training still has more to offer a designer than a designer might realize. Fine art training is where one gets a grasp of the greeks and their principals of design which is what all western design is ultimately based on.

[AdobeAce]

If one is to be a designer it would be good to seek out formal education as one. Fine art training and Design at first seem to be two different things, but fine art training still has more to offer a designer than a designer might realize. Fine art training is where one gets a grasp of the greeks and their principals of design which is what all western design is ultimately based on.

Hi Repro,

For me, there's nothing harder than training a computer "artist" with no formal design training. Since the beginning of computer graphics, there's been this misconception that you can put secretaries in front of graphics workstations and they are magically transformed into graphic artists.

It's part of the "All you have to do is press the button" mentality that is so pervasive is the way businesses views artists and design. They don't realize that the computer is just a tool. It's NOT creating the design. With no background (and in many cases, no talent), creating graphics on a computer is about as silly as asking an artist to perform brain surgery after a couple of days of training.

Ace

[AdobeAce]

The use of the words Fine Art to describe the Classics has always bothered me. Fine Art is defined in the dictionary as "art produced or intended primarily for beauty alone rather than utility."

Fine Art was the invention of the Impressionists in the 1880s – Not the Greeks or Romans or even the greats of the Renaissance. Before the Impressionists, there were few fine artists. It may be semantics, but I prefer Classical Artists, or even better, Classical Commercial Artists.

Follow my logic. A fine artist creates art hoping that some gallery will show their work and it will sell. Most of the greatest fine artists made little, if any, money from their work – Take a look at Van Gogh. I believe he sold just one painting in his lifetime and that was to his brother Theo (who supported him).

Michelangelo was an illustrator. He was hired by the Vatican to decorate their ceilings as a commercial artist for this particular project. Now don't get me wrong – I think Michelangelo was one of the greatest artist who ever lived. I just prefer Classical Artist.

I believe that the term Fine Art is used by "gallery" artists to raise themselves above the rest of us. They dismiss us as artists because, after all, our art is just commercial. They're art is FINE.

Ace

[The Repro Kid]

I'm with you on that entire point Ace. In fact, being an "artists for art's sake" is also something they taught us about in art school, so I just assume everybody knows that as well.

[G4pj]

I'm in Austin, more than the capital of Texas, a lot of unemployed creatives here too. I've had a few classes in at Austin Community College.

Perhaps I need to dig deeper, but it wasn't about finding a sweet spot in a document, it was about appling filters in Photoshop for the imaging. I peeked in on a few Illustrator classes, and heard some interesting things about trapping. Layout and Design, one class was how to use Quark, and the other class focused on InDesign by someone who was migrating from Quark, I think she learned more from me than I did from her.

The Quark class was fun, though I'm not a big fan of Quark, I liked the old school atmosphere the instructor had.

So in Austin, there aren't many opportunities to dig out the hard core design topics. My training began before the days of the computer, then I got sidetracked by the semiconductor industry before I got back on track. I was exposed to the classical training of a layout artist. I reserve the title of graphic designer for someone who creates graphics. I do create graphics, but not for a living, my job is prepress and the occaisional layout. I fix more files from other people than I'd like.

I recently moved from a community where the most popular question was, "Industry Standard software, what's that? You mean you can't take my file from the $30 software I got at Wal-Mart and print it, I paid a lot of money for it? Just look at that business card, that's the best one you'll ever see." Then I have to explain that if I had every piece of software ever released for making layouts, I wouldn't have a hard drive big enough to work with. Most people would accept that, others, well, give me a hard copy at 1000% and I'll scan it, then you have the benefit of pixels and hopefully, rough edges disappearing.

I long for an inteligent conversation.

Even with the designers who frequently submit files to this shop for printing, I'll get a business card file, and I'll play connect the trim marks, just to see how the file is going to print, the size is less than 3.5 x 2 inches, or the trim marks run slightly diagonal. Top left trim mark can be seen on by the transform palette at 2.023 inch for the X value, and the bottom left trim mark is at 2.031 inch for X value. I advise the designer, and they get all huffy because I discovered that their file isn't logical. What's so difficult about using the transform palette to line up the cut marks and guides. Setting guides it so logical, if you didn't use your non-photo blue pencil when making a mechanical layout, points were docked because the instructor could make no logical judgement on the piece.

I'll step down from the soap box. I'm a non-degreed person, lucky enough to be working, in a town full degreed people. Most people still do not think that I know what I say I know.

[Paul C]

Great posts, guys.
I do differ on one point with Adobe Ace and Repro:
I think that untrained artists have contributed much over the years and it's still possible to be a designer and an autodidact. What can't be taught is creativity, the intangible in all this. Just because someone didn't go to design or art school doesn't mean they're unaware or without aesthetic values.
Charlie Parker learned how to play jazz by imitating the masters, then went on to revolutionize it. Charles Mingus couldn't read or write a note of music. He composed by humming the parts to his musicians or tapping them out on the piano. He's one of the most accomplished arrangers/composers in jazz. There are many other examples.
In certain ways academia serves to homogenize things, jazz being a prime example. Once the knowledge is codified, and a curriculum is developed, then everyone who studies this curriculum knows the same things.
I am also not arguing that it's better to not go to school, just that great things have come from all kinds of sources, and naiveté is one of those sources.
I am an autodidact. Thanks to Repro's cool post I now know what the golden rectangle is. I have studied what I do as hard as any student out there and personally I'd rather get taught by professionals than a professor who oftentimes can't really make it in his or her field. How many English professors are failed writers?
peace

[grnofslt]

I am constantly amazed (for the good) within this forum. Thank you ACE and Repro for being here. Yes, this has been a great thread. I learn tons in this place.

Billy Jay

[AdobeAce]

Hi Paul,

You're right! There are some people who are so brilliant and talented, and innovative that they are beyond formal training. But, on the other hand, regular folks will probably benefit a great deal from some sort of art training.

Learning from professionals definitely is the way to go. Most of my instructors at Pratt (back in the late 60's and early 70's - yes, I'm that old) were advertising creative directors, art directors, writers, illustrators, film directors, etc.

But I did have this one professor who was brilliant, and talented and innovative – an amazing teacher who literally inspired a generation of New York advertising art directors – Professor Herschel Levit. The names of the students he taught are like a Who's Who of the creative era of advertising – Steve Frankfort, Steve Horn, George Lois, Len Sirowitz, Ron Travisano. The list goes on and on.

Steve Frankfort said it best – "We are all figments of Herschel's imagination."

He didn't just teach visual communications. He taught artists how to think. Many, including myself, owe everything to this great teacher.

That's why THE professor was inducted into to the New York Art Director's Hall of Fame in 1989. It made a lot of sense. After all, most of the top artists who voted him in were his former students.

Ace

PS: Thank you Herschel!

[Paul C]

Hi AbobeAce -
Thanks for seeing my point of view.
That's really cool of you to give props to your professors. It sounds like you had a great experience in school and gained a lot of knowledge. However you learned what you know - cool!
For myself I groove on talking to people - like you and Repro and DCurry and many others I've met along the way. The web is such a wonderful repository of knowledge (and flotsam).
"Quit school and go to the library" - Frank Zappa
There are precedents for many forms of knowledge acquisition…
I guess I have a slightly bad attitude because I just placed an ad for a production artist. I interviewed 15 people who all had degrees and not one of them could tell me what ink density was. So I think there's probably a few great schools and a lot of bad ones since design is such a hot career choice. Or maybe they don't teach such mundane things as ink density…
peace

[AdobeAce]

Hi Paul,

When I say that Herschel taught artists how to think, I mean that literally. The first couple of classes I had no clue what the man was talking about. Then in the middle of my third class a light, a bulb turned on.

Even though it was over 35 years ago, I remember this class like it was yesterday. Herschel was going thought the students' assignments on the wall and was talking about the difference between ordinary and extraordinary solutions to assignments. He said, "Look for the visual surprise, something totally unexpected that will draw people into your work and grab them."

The next week's assignment was to create a poster for the circus. I drew a simple cartoon of a midget carrying stilts over one of his shoulders. In his other hand, he had a small suitcase with the word "circus" printed on it. (see attached)

Herschel got so exited when he saw it, I thought he was going to explode.

All these years later, when I'm working on assignments, I can hear Herschel's voice saying, "Look for the visual surprise."

What an extraordinary teacher!

Ace

[Paul C]

Thanks for posting that AdobeAce. That is a really cool solution to the problem. Your teachers words ring true. I'm glad you passed them on. Now I can add him to the long list of people who inspired me - through you.

What I love about your solution is it's simplicity and wonderful execution. As I move forward I look for the simple solution. In the inundated culture we live in simplicity executed well is absolutely surprising. It's harder than covering the page.

I write a lot of copy now and I find truth to be the surprise. Amongst so much cleverness the truth is the most surprising and powerful thing in the world. It always was…

Writing copy really helped my career. I believe that talent allowed me to move from Lead Designer to Art Director. If you can design and write copy, you are suddenly a one man ad agency. My designs have become more holistic as a result. I struggle over the words for days - that is my incubation period - and once I've got the words, the images come pretty easily.

I'm glad I found you guys again - we had a lot of fun in the previous incarnation and there's more to come…
peace

[AdobeAce]

Hi Paul,

Developing all these additional skills and talents have a direcxt impact on all the other parts of your job.

I think you'll find that the best art directors also write well. And the best writers have a good eye for design and visual concepts. It also can do wonders for your career in that your are far more valuable to you company.

I too am really happy that we all connected again on this new forum.

All the best in your new position as an A.D.

All

[The Repro Kid]

Great posts, guys.
I do differ on one point with Adobe Ace and Repro:
I think that untrained artists have contributed much over the years and it's still possible to be a designer and an autodidact. What can't be taught is creativity, the intangible in all this. Just because someone didn't go to design or art school doesn't mean they're unaware or without aesthetic values.
Charlie Parker learned how to play jazz by imitating the masters, then went on to revolutionize it. Charles Mingus couldn't read or write a note of music. He composed by humming the parts to his musicians or tapping them out on the piano. He's one of the most accomplished arrangers/composers in jazz. There are many other examples.
In certain ways academia serves to homogenize things, jazz being a prime example. Once the knowledge is codified, and a curriculum is developed, then everyone who studies this curriculum knows the same things.
I am also not arguing that it's better to not go to school, just that great things have come from all kinds of sources, and naiveté is one of those sources.
I am an autodidact. Thanks to Repro's cool post I now know what the golden rectangle is. I have studied what I do as hard as any student out there and personally I'd rather get taught by professionals than a professor who oftentimes can't really make it in his or her field. How many English professors are failed writers?
peace

(I haven't had time to keep up with this thread) I somehow managed to study many different types of art. At one point in time I was working in a design studio part-time so I studied as much fine art as possible at school to get the most out of the situation. I know what you mean about didactic people not being a total scourge. But sometimes I think people take the reading music bit too far, as for not being educated in music. Music has so many things to learn and understand that reading music doesn't directly affect. Dyads, triads, fifths, chord structure, scales, all can be learned without knowing how to read music. I think of not knowing how to read music just like not knowing how to write. You can sit in a classroom and study philosophy and as long as you have a good memory and solid grasp of the spoken language, you can learn all there is to know about philosophy without actually knowing how to read or write. Not knowing how to read and write doesn't mean you can't learn anything about philosophy just as not knowing how to read or write music doesn't mean you can't learn anything about music.

I'm not sure how much that relates to this discussion but I think it does.

About that golden rectangle. It is also the basis of much greek architecture. I think it is a rectangle with a ratio of 5:3

5 and 3 come up again and again in western art and in western music, and in nature.

[The Repro Kid]

Thanks for posting that AdobeAce. That is a really cool solution to the problem. Your teachers words ring true. I'm glad you passed them on. Now I can add him to the long list of people who inspired me - through you....

I like that too, ace. I need to incorporate your professor's "look for the visual surprise" idea.

And I like that illustration. Very much in the "New Yorker Magazine" style, which I also always liked.

But it seems to me your midget is also an Uncle Sam figure. Could this have been a radical political statement from the sixties? ;)

[Paul C]

I was wondering that myself, Repro, considering the time period AdobeAce was in studying. Those were some pretty 'head'y times. I caught the last dying gasp of it.

Interesting about the 5 and 3. 1-3-5 the basis of western chords. Actually the first western chords documented were 1-5 (Gregorian Chants). Then in 8th century Georgia polyphony arose and the 3 chimed in. It took quite a while for counterpoint and polyphony to be combined in it's present form by J.S. Bach - then we were off to the races. At least that's the historians best guess…

I was a classical pianist and then went to school to become a composer and decided school wasn't for me so I started playing jazz and somehow wound up in the first punk band in Phoenix Arizona.

We didn't go over real well there so I moved to Los Angeles in 1977 and have been here ever since. So I've got a few years on me…

I can honestly say that art (specifically music) saved my life. I was a crazy little kid and then the guitar came along and gave me an outlet that turned into a philosophy that turned into a career that died and got resurrected as a designer. Fun!

Thanks for the kind wishes AdobeAce and it's always nice to hear from The One and Only Repro Kid…
peace

[AdobeAce]

But it seems to me your midget is also an Uncle Sam figure. Could this have been a radical political statement from the sixties? ;)

Hi Repro,

The Tall Man at the circus was often dressed up as an Uncle Sam character.

But this cartoon was done in 1970, and Pratt was right in the middle of the Anti-Viet Nam War Movement in New York.

Hmm! No wonder the professor was so excited about it.

As much as I like this global connection to the world circus of the times, it was purely unintentional brilliance.

Thanks Repro, maybe after all these years, I should get the "Tall Man at the Circus" framed.

Ace

:D

[AdobeAce]

Hi All,

To think that the tread all started with a spiral. :eek:

Interesting!

Ace

:D

[The Repro Kid]

...Actually the first western chords documented were 1-5 (Gregorian Chants). ...

I'm just starting to learn about music so maybe I'm getting this wrong, but, do mean to tell me that Gregorian Monks invented the power chord?

:eek:


Ace, about the tall man on stilts, yes I guess they are often uncle sam. But when presented in times like the Viet Nam era, it definitely takes on political significance. Slap a george bush face under the uncle same beard and you have a nice jab at the iraq era.

Your professor must have seen the political irony in the image. He may have assumed it was your intention.

[Paul C]

That's hilarious, Repro…
Weren't they also the first ones to brew beer and make wine? Maybe there's a connection there somewhere…
peace