Want to see some amazing photography?

NOTE: JUST DISCOVERED THAT JEAN MICHEL BERTS’ BLOG IS DOWN, THEREFORE PLEASE SEE MY NEW POST ON THE AMAZING PHOTOGRAPHY:
http://marcozna.wordpress.com/2007/07/08/the-amazing-photography-series/

Check out this blog from Jean Michel Berts. I am including some of the pictures here. He’s mainly in France but did some work in the US.

This is the new Ansel Adams!

Musee d’Orsay – Paris

Eiffel Tower – Paris of course

Park Avenue – New York

Enjoy! And check out his blog!!!

Dude, where’s my bike? (a short lesson in 3D lettering)

Got this shot from the snow this week.

It’s quite fun on the picture of a bike in the snow, but imagine that as a 3D effect on text and you’ll see it’s not good for your lettering. Just like you won’t find your bike here, you’ll have a hard time reading the text.

Why – because it becomes hard to read. 3D effects on lettering decrease the contrast, so if you put too much on your piece the text and the art blend together.

On the post I did a few days ago on the Stencil Graffiti in Copenhagen by Dolk you see what high contrast means. Event on a colorful or random background, the lettering and art is clear.

There are still too many people that think modern means using modern tools (i.e. lots of 3D lettering because the new Photoshop software can make 3D lettering). Don’t fall into that trap.

Here is an example how it should not be done:

What’s wrong?
- Bad font choice
- 3D effect overdone this looses all contrast
- Too much shadow and too strong
- Serif fonts don’t do well with any 3D effects
- No color choice

Here is an example of the same and how it can be done:

what’s right?
- Sans-serif font
- 3D effect subdued
- Shadow just enough to give effect
- Font choice better
- Colors used to focus attention

The Dolk signature is a good font choice and good contast.

Hope this helps, comment if you have questions.

The Monkeys are coming!

I heard on the news that the Arctic Monkeys are coming out with their new album in April. That’s going to be exciting.

I loved their first album and how they took Europe when they released the album was quite impressive.

Publishing their songs on MySpace and offering free downloads, while touring and making a living on that is a great story. The Wikipedia version of their story says they refused the contracts with the big record labels for years saying if they can do it without them then why should they do it with them.

It’s an amazing success story of the digital age (I wonder what’s the graffitti of the digital age).

And now they’re coming up with their next album which is promising.

I haven’t been able to really classify their albums it’s like hard-ska or something like this. Whatever it is it’s cool!

You can download free demo songs on www.arctic-monkeys.com, if you don’t know the Mokeys – check that out.

Dolk – stencil graffiti

I got these pictures from a friend of mine in Copenhagen they’re from an artist called Dolk. This guy is pretty incredible – the quality of the stencil is out of this world. Didn’t know him before but seems to be pretty famous internationally, at least if you google his name you get quite some returns with photo galleries of his work and more!

I heard they even sell prints of it.

I remember when stencil graffitti started in the 1980s it was nothing like this stuff! He has taken it to a new level.

Unfortunately I don’t quite think he asked permission to paint so I was told the stuff is washed off now – I would dedicate a wall for some of these.

Update: See also my latest post to find more images and resources on Dolk.

Using 3D effects in lettering

During the 90s – in the heyday of 3D effects you saw just about any lettering had 3D effects (embossing, bevels etc). It was great then because it was new and showed that you had the latest software.

But it never did too much for communicating message. Why was that?

When you put strong bevels on text or other 3D effects you loose contrast. And the impact of your poster or design depends on the contract and how the text is readable.

By keeping a high contrast text/art ratio your message comes across much better and you COMMUNICATE to the viewer.

In practical terms:

1. Use drop shadows but keep them moderate (a few points drop shadow is nice, but 10 point shadow for a 20 point text is disturbing), don’t go over 10% or 15% of the text size.

2. Keep the bevels to a minimum. You can bevel text, but keep it extremely minimal. Try putting a stroke and beveling that a little instead, you’ll keep a better contrast.

3. When you choose your color for the font, watch the color harmony (I’ll post more on this later). Stick to colors that offer nice harmony but good contrast.

Some tools for designs and fonts (my essentials)

It’s funny how many of the good taggers and graffiti artists turned to font and lettering artits. I read about some of the top taggers of my youth now running a marketing agency that specializes in doing a typeface for each customer. Neat branding gimmick.

Anyways, looking into fonts and where to get some good fonts I came across this site which was recommended to me by webdesignfromscratch (which I really suggest you check out).

They run a pretty informative blog that gives some of the history of certain typefaces etc.

Some good resources to check out.

An important point in font usage which I see misused too often is, if you have a modern design – please use a modern or futuristic looking font, classic design, classic font.

More on this later…

A Weekend in the City with Bloc Party

Ok, just bought the new album and listened to it. Here is my review.

Firstly if you liked the first one you will probably like this one.

One thing I love about Bloc Party is the out of the box arrangements. the rythm and drum sequences here just rock. Noticed this on the first album as well the drummer knows his stuff and shows it. This one just the same.

The whole arrangement is extremely cool and takesit out of the hard-rock/rock category and into another level.

Couple of tracks I found boring but since we aren’t listening to cassettes and the “next” button is only a click away that didn’t disturb me too much.

I found several of the trcks a lot better than the earlier album. The first album grew on me over a while, this one I got into almost immediately.

Congrats to Kele Okereke (Vocals/Guitar), Russell Lissack (Guitar), Gordon Moakes (Bass), Matt Tong (Drums) for an album well put together and ready wear my eardrums for a bit.

How wide can one extend a typeface?

I have always been looking for some rules of typeface usage and have still not managed to find anything.

For example how wide can one stretch a typeface before it becomes ugly?
As a guideline for myself I try to keep the horizontal and vertical bars optically similar in width. Further than that it starts to look ugly or out of proportion.

I love the subject and have been passionate with it since a kid my first encounter with the subject was on the wrong side of the law i.e. tagging and graffitti. But that was over and now am into the fonts and lettering design.

Definitely comment back on this if you have information.

Skating Scientologists

Just saw this post on Scientologists Skating. I am posting about it because I think making such groups of people that work together on some project is fun. And BECAUSE I LOVE SKATIN!