|typecasting?|

It's been a while since my last blog, right? I apologize... I'm falling into the rut of summer slackery and am contemplating how to renovate my newly acquired design portfolio site at justgibs.com.

Today I simply provide an image for you to ponder. Take a look at the image below. Notice anything odd?

Look again. Do you see anything funnily intentional? Check out that 'M' behind former President Clinton. Rather, check out the part of the 'M' you can see. Does it not create the illusion of devil horns?

I figure there's a very, very slight chance this went unnoticed by Time, but I highly doubt it. It seems any designer with an ounce of experience would have taken into account the way typography affected the rest of the graphics on this cover, especially since this designer likely played with putting 'Time' completely in front of our friend Bill.

Was this an act of uneasy foreshadowing? A lighthearted joke? Either way, it caused quite a stir back in the day!

-J. Gibb

P.S. I stumbled upon this magazine cover in the pictorial article "Magazine Covers that Shook the World" at Zap2it.com.

|not enough space between youtwo|

Kerning is the amount of space between two characters. Tracking is basically the same thing as kerning, except that tracking is the amount of space within an entire line of text. When you type a report in Microsoft Word, the program uses automatic kerning as you type each letter and spacebar between each word. Because of the huge number of possible letter combinations, font designs are inevitably flawed by several letter pairings that should be manually kerned (according to one's eye and taste... people have differing opinions as to how much space should be between any two characters) using programs such as Adobe InDesign, Photoshop, etc.

An iPhone/iPod Touch application (pictured above) that I found last night turns kerning into a game. Apparently, the app presents a word missing a letter; your job, as the two parts of the 'word' close in towards each other, is to insert the missing letter when the amount of space is agreeable. Wait too long, and you might end up with two letters in one (known in the design world as a ligature).

This sounds like an incredibly nerdy app. And totally worth $0.99. I shall probably purchase it. And show off the nerdiness. ;-D

-J. Gibb

|i <3 typography|

Mmm... See this delicious wallpaper design? I like it... 'a lot.' Find more here.

-J. Gibb

|look ma, it's upside-down!|

Usually one to follow trends way after they're trends, I read Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code after it first became a big deal. A few weeks ago, my roommate Mark was obsessively reading Angels and Demons, Brown's first book featuring character Robert Langdon. When Mark went home for spring break and I decided to stay in the dorm, I eventually picked up the book and started reading since Mark had quickly finished it.

I'm almost halfway through the book, which has already featured two ambigrams. Ambigrams are graphical figures that spell out one or more words in the way presented and in another direction or orientation. A little researched revealed that John Langdon claims to have invented the ambigram along with Scott Kim in the 1970s. Ambigrams became much more popular after Angels and Demons, and Brown has acknowledged that the last name of his character is a nod to John Langdon, who actually designed the ambigram that was used on the book cover.

The image above is a design I found online, and I included a rotated image on the right for your convenience. The words "drink guide" look exactly the same as is or upside-down, while the three heads become three new heads when flipped 180 degrees.

I once tried to turn my name into an ambigram, with mixed success. Perhaps I shall soon try again and share my results...

-J. Gibb

P.S. Since this blog's inception, I've posted a new addition each day. This was due to excitement and wanting to have lots of content waiting for potential new "followers." It will probably be a little over a week until my next post, as I will be gone to the Adventist Intercollegiate Association annual convention at Columbia Union College from Monday through Sunday. Until then, faithful readers!

|font lesson #1: serif vs. sans serif|

By definition, a font is the complete character set of a given typeface style and size: all capitals (ABC), lower case (abc), numbers (123), and punctuation (.!%). Additionally, typography is the art and technique of designing, arranging, and modifying type. Most typographers use the terms font and typeface interchangeably, as do I.

Once defining what a font is, the next level of broad classification is serif or sans serif. Serifs are semi-structural extensions at the end of some letter and symbol strokes. The term sans is French for "without"; thus, sans serif fonts lack these extensions. See two examples below:

{This type is Times, a serif font.}

{This type is Trebuchet, a sans serif font.}

Surprisingly, serif fonts tend to be more readable than sans serif at small sizes (about 12 pt and smaller), so the majority of books, magazines, newspapers, and other lengthy documents are printed with seriffed typefaces. Also, serif fonts typically have a more formal look.

On the other hand, sans serif fonts are the preferred choice for Web pages because they are more legible than serif fonts due to the resolution of average computer screens. Sans serif fonts usually look more casual than serif typefaces and are widely used for small amounts of type, such as headlines and headings.

Just as the English language has its endless exceptions, the font world has Optima. Though probably more likely to be classified as sans serif, its delicate variation of stroke width mimics the effect of a serif font, so Optima can be doubly classified.

We have officially dipped our toe into the world of typography. Hang on for the rest of the ride.

-J. Gibb