#the bible - the good book - open me typography

[nadyageselbracht-210]

Summary #6

I wrote the book on user-friendly design. What I see today horrifies me by Don Norman

Design Issues: The State of the Ballot by JP Williams

RGD: ACCESS ABILITY page 9- page 66

Real-world example: Map-Spread for the 2021 Art Walk.

Summary

“The world is designed against the elderly, writes Don Norman, 83-year-old author of the industry bible Design of Everyday Things and a former Apple VP.”

Our average life expectancies are much higher. The life expectancy of both genders is still growing every year. Older people are often disregarded in business, but seniors are a large part of customers. The elderly often have more money than other age groups. Everyday items are often designed without the elderly in mind; small print, rigid packaging to open, and ugly designs. The elderly have more experience in life, but their physical ability declines. Seniors need better devices; big tech companies are not making their screen products accessible to the older generation. Inclusive design not only helps seniors but also helps everyone. Stylish and useful design empowers everyone, and when you help the elderly, you help yourself one day.

Design awareness in public is not great. But when it came to a voting ballot in the USA, people noticed. “The user is never wrong, and the user is never stupid. In information design, only designs are wrong and stupid.” Here is the original and redesign of a voting ballot.

We should design for the people who are the outliers on the extremes of humanity (for design to be as accessible to everyone as it can). We should also consider diverse sensory abilities. Design for one modality most likely excludes others. There are sensory and cognitive disabilities. As designers, we can lighten the cognitive load by using grouping, hierarchy, consistency, and grids. Accessible language usage includes: short is sweet, be literal, check your references, and provide a plain-language summary if the language is more complex. Tonal contrast is essential in a design’s colour scheme because it stops the colours from vibrating. Contrast can be achieved through complementary colours. Typography usage should take into consideration the nature it will be seen on. ALL CAPS should be used sparingly as generally, it's harder to read than mixed-case. The four principles of accessibility are perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust.

The most important information is the largest and boldest. That part is good. Although, all of the writing on the left is very monotonous. The name’s font, thickness, and size are very similar to the address below it, which makes not enough contrast for accessibility. The artist’s name and venue should be broken into colour-quoted groups to be easier to read and locate. The map could divide into different colour groups. The circled numbers on the map are far too small. There is a lot of dead space on the map that could be used to further define and locate venues or artists. Both sides of the spread could benefit from more visual hierarchy and more colours and icons used to identify. The red paisley pattern on the left is overpowering and distracting, and it’s not needed or relevant. A thick, red stroke surrounds the grouped numbers on the map. In comparison, the rest of the solo numbers are encircled by a thin red stroke. The stroke differences create a false hierarchy, denoting that the latter are less important. The colour-quoted divisions would have corresponding coloured numbers or icons on the left. The left side of the spread would split into categories with white space in between.

Take-aways

Design for everyone

Let's make some hierarchy

Contrast creates accessibility

Dead space sinks in the whole design

[pixelproductions]

A Tutorial in Hand Lettering With Creative Lettering Resources to Learn From

Hand lettering is a powerful design skill for message delivery, If you’re looking to learn creative lettering check out this tutorial in hand lettering with plenty of awesome resources to learn by.

© WILL PATERSON

By mastering the skill of creative hand lettering, you can draw logos and postcards, create advertisements, and graffiti. But first, you should learn the basics. For that we’ll provide you with a brief hand lettering tutorial and plenty of resources to keep you motivated.

Working with letters is both design and art. It opens up a huge space for creativity by communicating words visually in different styles, which ultimately conveys a very different mood and image. If you’re thinking that hand lettering is not a very useful hobby — you’re mistaken. Design companies, like the one this post is appearing on, use custom hand lettering for brand personalization, communication and appeal to specific audiences.

Check out Pixel’s custom graffiti lettering for Sips Elixirs Logo and branding. This is an example of tying lettering into a very specific company culture.

How to learn hand lettering?

To begin this tutorial in hand lettering, it is important to define the concepts. Many people confuse lettering with calligraphy and fonts. Hand lettering is a way to draw and stylize letters beautifully. Pencils, ink, brushes, chalk, and other accessories can be used. The finished drawing can be corrected and improved on the computer.

Alternatively, calligraphy does not tolerate corrections. The essence of it is to draw letters gracefully and accurately at the first attempt. Both in lettering and calligraphy, the emphasis is on the uniqueness of the work and the artist’s skill, and this is their difference from the font. A font is a standardized set of letters designed for reuse.

Once you have understood the terms, it’s time to choose the right way to learn how to fly.

Books

Personally, I like Lettering & Type: Creating Letters and Designing Typefaces and In Progress: See Inside a Lettering Artist’s Sketchbook and Process, from Pencil to Vector. In my mind, Jessica Hische is probably the queen of hand lettering and her daily drop caps project contributed a lot to the recent rise of hand lettering’s popularity. But really the biggest help for me was just daily practice, with someone who can give you quality feedback on your work.

Finally, If you can get your hands on any books by Doyald Young those should be great too. Unfortunately, they are very hard to get and very expensive. I have Logotypes & Letterforms which is cool but doesn’t teach much fundamentals, his other book Fonts & Logos is considered to be the bible of lettering 🙂 but the cheapest one I found was 75$

Video hand lettering tutorials

Of course, from some videos on YouTube, you won’t become a professional, but you can try out a new hobby for yourself and “fill your hand”.

There are hundreds of videos on how to learn lettering, so I think it might be good to narrow down to some case-specific videos; check out e.g. How to Make Hand Lettering Logo

Masterclasses

Many drawing and design studios conduct workshops and masterclasses on lettering, including free ones.

There are a number of great video courses on YouTube and Skillshare. Also, look into Sean McCabe’s learn lettering course at www.seanwes.com

Who do I subscribe to?

To gain inspiration, subscribe to Instagram accounts of the best lettering masters creative lettering resources.

Matthew Tapia

Matthew Tapia, an artist and graphic designer from Hawaii, is very good at conveying the mood and style of a text. In his Instagram blog he also often publishes examples of quality lettering and interesting fonts from other creators.

Meisographic

If you’re interested in how professional artists work, sign up for a Meisographic account. This author often posts videos, detailing the process of calligraphy and lettering, and this is a truly hypnotic experience.

Rylsee

In his works, Rylsee uses funny phrases like “too shy to rap” and “don’t trust someone who doesn’t like pizza.” However, funny quotes aren’t the pinnacle of the artist’s work; he’s very good at typography, design, branding, and installation.

Kkade Schwarzmaler

The beauty and complexity of the work of this Swiss studio are striking: every letter and element is worked out to the smallest detail. The guys have created their own recognizable style that looks equally good on handwritten works, as it does in graffiti and graphic design.

To sum it up

Whatever route you take, I can’t emphasize enough the importance of doing and learning by practicing every single day.

Find a medium that works for you, learn fundamentals, try to copy \ imitate artists that inspire you and it will come 🙂

#rylsee instagram hand lettering #hand lettering #hand lettering tutorial #creative lttering

[crazy-figures-coll]

Accessible, well-designed -- this is the book you want This book does a fabulous job of making the art of chalk lettering and illustration accessible. As she says, you don't need good handwriting to do this -- it's a different skill from that. And she shows, step by step, how to do it. It's very simple and easy, the way she shows it! The chalkboards that come with the book are useful as well, though it only took me a couple of days to buy an additional chalkboard so that I could practice without having to flip pages in the book all the time. I'm attaching a picture to show what I was able to do after going through this book. If you want to learn chalkboard art, this is a great book to start with! Go to Amazon

Do yourself a favor; order it now. I've been wanting to up my game with calligraphy and chalk lettering... This is one of the best books out there. Pretty on the outside, even more gorgeous on the inside. Don't even bother ordering on PDF. It comes with 3 very useful Chalkboards for practicing. How awesome is that?! Now to the juicy stuff... It has e-very-thing! What tools you need, how to prepare your chalkboard for battle, typography 101 courses, lots and lots of styles and tips to achieve your lettering goals... Imma go play with it because it is addictive. Do yourself a favor; order it now. Go to Amazon

Exceeded Expectations This was actually my gift and I'm loving it. I've always been a fan of calligraphy and lettering and wanted to learn a few new fonts and techniques. I got more than I bargained for. This book is packed with not only letters, but different frames, embellishments, how to do shadows (YES!) an more. I love the different projects to try and the chalkboards included actually work just like chalkboards. There is a lined board in the front and then folded boards in the back which you can open and look at the tutorials as you draw...or fold to the back to use sketchbook style. It is a very well designed and thoughtful book and a great value for the money. I purchased the Allary Chalk Cartridge Set, sold here on Amazon, to go along with this purchase and LOVE them. They are a great companion to the book as they are thin chalks in a mechanical pencil type holder that don't need to be sharpened (but can be) and I was very surprised that they weren't waxy. - Denise Cold Go to Amazon

Has it all - how to letter, how to embellish, how to make a complete design with words, frames and doodles. I was looking for a good book on typography so that I could use it in my art journals. I looked through every book I could find in various book stores on typography - calligraphy, advertising design, ect and I couldn't find a book that showed how to design letters. Most of them were not helpful because they contained only one or two lessons and then a ton of empty pages for you to practice on (that's what my notebook and scratch paper is for - thank you very much). Then I came across this book and every single page was full of something to learn. She starts out slowly explaining 3 types of basic font (now I know what serif and sans serif means) and then shows different ways to embellish the basic fonts to make them fancier. Then she moves into warping the font (ie writing the letters in a arc, or slanting upward or downward. There is detailed discussion on how to draw more attention to some words within a phrase so that they catch the reader's eye by making them bigger or bolder or shaded. After you get the hang of lettering she moves into working a full design - frames, banners, laurel vines, snowflakes, arrows, stars, swirls ect combined with lettering. This was exactly the book I was looking for - how to letter, how to emphasize words within a phrase and then how to put it all together into a complete design. I like that the book has plenty of pictures to show you how to do it, but doesn't skimp on the written instruction either. The book is jam packed with info and low on useless filler material as I've seen in some of the other typography books. Worth every penny and can be applied to more than making chalk board signs. Go to Amazon

More than what I had Expected I've only been chalkboard lettering for about a week and with book alone, I made the sketch(see photo). The book provides details of letters, flourishes, a variety of flower designs, different borders, and includes 3 chalkboards inside the book. A must have for a beginner like me. Go to Amazon

Completely recommend to anyone looking to get into chalking Completely recommend to anyone looking to get into chalking. I use chalk pens (cleaner look for weddings and such), but I use a lot of the techniques in this book. Go to Amazon

Pleasantly surprised I just received this book today. I started playing with it right away. My husband made me a really large framed chalk board for our dinning room, and I have a friend who does great chalk art, so my plan was to pay her to do my chalk board a few times a year, but I could never find a time when she was available. I saw this book and read all the reviews. I thought I would give it a try. It's really a great book, the lessons are well thought out and go step by step. She says in the book that you do not have to have good handwriting to learn this, and based on the 30 minutes I spent working through her first lesson, I would have to agree. It's well taught. Now I don't have to only change my chalkboard a few times a year, after I go through this book I'm confident I'll be able to change my chalkboard when ever the mood strikes. Go to Amazon

I've attached a couple of the first doodles I did ... I've attached a couple of the first doodles I did after reading the book. My first attempts, and though I have a long way to go, this book provides everything you need to get started. I've also used it to practice my hand lettering for Bible journaling. Well worth every penny. Go to Amazon

Great book for any type of lettering Five Stars Five Stars great ideas Very informative and fun I have just started this book and already love it. I took a class last week to ... Five Stars Five Stars Great for lettering. Very Thorough Explanation of Chalk Lettering

[nataliej-animation]

Can Dear Little Me & Disciple Diaries be Merged?

I would love to combine both of these ideas and as I stated in the other blog, I am writing out some ideas for the combined series:

Idea 1 - Note To Self

The opening scene is of the main character opening a diary book entitled Note To Self. They turn to the first page and it is titled with that particular episode hedding (eg. ‘Jealousy’). The character starts off by writing and reading out loud a quote linked with the topic, eg. “Note to self... Jealousy is a disease... get well soon!” The character gives advice to themselves for the audience to take note of. And then the narrator would tell a mordernised story from the Bible on this topic. The story would have the same moral and follow a smiliar plot, but may not be recognisable as a Bible story instantly. For example, they would use the story of Joseph and his jealous brothers who plotted to kill him but ended up selling him to the egyptians. Instead the narrator tells the story of a married couple who unfortunately couldnt have children, so they decided to adopt. Though they had adopted quite a few children that they loved dearly, they still desired to have a child of their own. Finally one day, they recieved the good news, they were pregnant, it was a miracle! The baby was born healthy, into a loving big family and as expected, the baby got all the attention. But as years went by, this not so little baby still got most of the attention. This miracle child seemed to be the parents favourite! The other children were felt so left that they were jealous! They wanted this miracle child gone! ect...

Idea 2 - Disciple Diaries

Each opening scene is of a disciple or follower of Jesus doing a vlog entry starting off by showing their distinct personality and introducing themselves. Then they state the episode title and a quote to correspond with the topic and then goes on to share flash backs of their story and how it links to the topic. Each episode would have a life lesson stemmed from each persons testimony/story/encounter with Jesus. They would end with some words of inspiration and a unique sign out. For example it could be ‘Success and Failure’ if the disciple was Peter. He would be a very confident, cool person. He would show flash backs to when he was so confident, successfully walking on the water. Some other disciples would make some sarcastic comments from behind the camera about how epically failed and started sinking and screaming. He would link his story to how when we are near the end of things, it starts to get difficult. Whether it’s near the end of the school year and preparing for exams is hard or whether you're running a race. Getting not so good results in an exam or falling over in a race doesn't mean you're a failure. True failure is falling down and not even trying to get back up. Peter will encourage his audience to not let dissappointment takeover from achieving their goals and dreams or from moving forward in life. Success is measured by the amount of effort you put into conquering your obstacles.

Idea 3 - Dear Little Me

Each episode would start off with a journal entitled Dear Little Me. The book would open to a blank page and the main character would write the title eg. A Letter on Failure. The whole animation would be layed out as a creative journal with typography and moving images, some animated and some still but sketched by the main character. The characters face wouldn’t be seen unless they draw themselves in the journal. They would explain and illustrate to the audience, things that children aren’t really taught in school. In this particular episode they will be taught that ‘failing’ or not doing as well as they wanted, is not the end of the world, it’s just something to learn from. Then each episode would finish with a statement similar to this: “this is my letter to you, little me. Learn from my mistakes, don’t let failure define you, let it refine you!”

#year 3 #tv series

[wezlo]

Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent, and many Western Christians are wondering how they will mark this holy season 1. In light of the impending season, Accordance Bible Software is making several Lenten devotionals available through their store. As a way of highlighting these resources I was offered a gratis copy 2 of Falling into Goodness, by Chuck DeGroat, to review. This book is currently available through the Accordance website for $8.90.

I’ve never used any version of Accordance for devotional reading, mostly because the reading plans are calendar driven and I find scrolling to be a terrible way to read lengthy texts, but I thought this might be a good opportunity to put it through its paces. I’ll be referencing the iOS version of Accordance in this post, as I use my iPad or iPhone for my devotional reading.

The Book Itself

For anyone familiar with personal devotionals Falling into Goodness is pretty much par for the course. It’s broken up into daily readings for the season of Lent, beginning on Ash Wednesday, and is presented in a simple format.

A short scripture passage

A several paragraph reflection

A prayer

Where DeGroat’s work stands out is in it’s focus. I’ve seen a number of personal devotions which are primarily designed to provide “practical” lessons by which readers can navigate the world. While “practical devotion” is certainly important, when it’s reduced the bite-sized chunks allotted for a devotion “practical” can quickly become “formulaic.”

Falling into Goodness, on the other hand, has a deep awareness of Christian Mysticism. It’s focus isn’t on “practical life lessons” as much as it’s an invitation for people to embark on a journey. One on which they might experience God in a deep and meaningful way. The walk on which DeGroat leads readers is deep, and the way he challenges the assumptions present in much of Western religion are even a bit disturbing. This disturbing movement in the daily devotions seems to spring from DeGroat’s own spirit, as he himself found the Lenten journey to be wonderfully disruptive in his own life.

No one ever told me. No one ever told me about the power of these words: You are dust, and to dust you shall return.

As a Lenten devotion, Falling into Goodness is an ideal piece of literature. DeGroat’s writing is succinct, colorful, and deep. And the journey on which he leads his readers is transformative.

Accordance as a Devotional Reader

Falling into Goodness is an excellent Lenten devotional, but how is Accordance as a devotional reader? As it turns out, a seasonal devotional is the perfect format for reading non-Biblical or research texts in Accordance mobile. The format is well laid-out, and Accordance’s built-in table of contents feature 3 works well. The inclusion of a second table of contents within the scope of the book was probably unnecessary as the book structure is easily accessed any time it’s open, but it’s presence is not overwhelming.

Scriptures are set as hyperlinks, and tapping on one opens up the reference in a clean-looking popup window. This allows readers to delve a bit deeper into the Bible when some contextual passages are listed in a particular devotion. It’s a nice way to read, and it keeps readers from losing their place if they happen to follow the links 4.

A feature I found oddly absent, at least on iOS, is the ability to add notes to the devotional. I sometimes like to jot down a thought or two while I read, to communicate what I was thinking “in the moment,” and its absence seemed odd to me. Given Falling into Goodness is available as a native eBook, and the note features on various eReading apps are stellar, it’s a small knock on the Accordance version.

The devotional also cannot be opened in Accordance’s split-window mode. When it’s opened, it’s opened by itself. In some ways this means readers can read without added distractions in the Accordance app, but it creates an odd side-effect. Typically, when I work in Accordance I tend to look for the largest screen possible. Falling into Goodness, on the other hand, compels me to find the smallest screen possible. In my iPad Pro’s “normal” landscape orientation the text seems too wide, and my eyes have to travel too far across the screen before moving back. It’s much more comfortable on my older iPad Air in Portrait mode, which is more usable as a reader, but where the title shines is on my iPhone. The combination of brevity, quality layout, and decent typography almost make it seem as though this version of the devotion was designed for a smart-phone screen. This makes sense. The different readings are small enough to be read in moments, but deep enough to demand some deliberate pauses for focus and introspection. It’s a perfect combination for people “out and about” during the day, and fits well with an “always on my person” device.

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Final Thoughts

Falling into Goodness is a worthy personal devotion to help guide a Lenten journey. While you might want to look at buying a “normal” eBook version if you want to attach notes to the devotions, the Accordance edition is nicely designed. Just make sure to read it on the smallest screen you have on hand.

Eastern Christians tend to have a set fast from meat, cheese, fish, and fermented drinks. They practice this shared fast because it’s a community first culture. Roman Catholics don’t eat meat on Fridays, and then “give something up,” on their own because Westerners like thinking they are individuals. Many Protestants tend to randomly “give something up” because we feel left out and don’t know any better. But the idea isn’t only about “giving up,” it’s about using energy we might otherwise have used on good things in order to draw nearer to God through prayer and service. ↩

Consider that “full disclosure.” I’m not being paid to say nice things, but I did get the book for free. ↩

AKA the verse chooser ↩

Though, really, an immersive study of different passages isn’t what this spiritual journal is about. ↩

Falling into Goodness Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent, and many Western Christians are wondering how they will mark this holy season…

#Accordance #Devotional #Lent