Leo Santana

The New York Public Library has organized an exhibition called “Celebrating 100 Years”, and the name of the exhibition tells the whole story. This excision is meant to celebrate 100 years since the opening of the Stephen A. Schwarzman building. The display shows historic pieces of literature, which had made changes in the society, such as: the Guttenberg’s Bible, the diary of Malcolm X, a cape from a member of the KKK, etc. The whole collection of historic books amazed the public because all the history behind each piece of literature.
The exhibition has a lot to discover because every piece of literature, printed or handwritten, has a historic background that makes it interesting for the human being to dig in more about it. I found 2 interesting books to explore and research more, “Mein Kampf” (My Struggle) by Adolf Hitler, and “Frankenstein, or the modern Prometheus” by Mary Shelley. Both novels inspired mystery and disturb, to the public when they were published. Therefore, since one book refers to a creature made of death people, and the other to transmit a message of hate toward a group of people, I found interesting to go deeper into the history behind these books.
“Frankenstein, or the modern Prometheus” by Mary Shelley, was a book that cause to born new ideas on the public when was first released. The story tells about a creature made out of human corpses, which will amazed and really take the reader to a new level of imagination. The author Mary Shelley wrote the tale when she was eighteen years old. The first edition was published as anonymous, in London 1818. When the book was published the public didn’t react so well to the idea of a monster made from human dead parts, but despite that review, Frankenstein achieved highly success. The book came out of a competition to see who could write the best horror story. The book was publishing to entertain the people, and it was produce for mass distribution. The book was published in the year 1818, I imply that a steam driven press was used in its production. What I found interesting in the design of the book is that the pages were not cut with right precision, some were bigger than others, but it has a hard cover in order to protect the pages. The original copy was on display in the exhibition inside a showcase and just open in a page with text, that made difficult for me to notice if the book has some kind of illustrations. In contemporary times in order to communicate a similar message the public would prefer something visual that they can process easily.
“Mein Kampf” (My Struggle) by Adolf Hitler, was a book that disturbs its audience back when it was published, and that can still disturb some people now in days. The book is about racial separation, and for Hitler to transmit his ideology. The book also tells the life of Adolf Hitler, the book was meant to initiate a territorial expansion in Eastern Europe. It’s important to highlight that this book was outlawed in Germany after World War II. The book was published in 1925 and the volume 2 in 1926. The book was published before World War II, this might be in order for Hitler to gain trust over the masses in order for him to gain power. This book was design for mass production, but different versions depending on the public that was aimed to read. I imply that lithography was used in order to print this book. I couldn’t see a lot of details in the pages of the book. I want to highlight that this book is offensive to the Jewish society, because is the message of the book show the Jewish society as “parasites”. In order to transmit the same message as the book, I think it will be impossible due to all the government regulations toward any kind of message or ideology that try to thread democracy.

The web is such an important tool for: students, professors, designers, and people in general. The web has amazing amounts of information in it, always available for someone with a computer. There are also important learning tools that can be find in the web and in the physical world, these are books. There are a lot of different websites that can be used for this task, such as Google Books. The web just make us our life easier, since we just need to type the name of the book, and scroll down in the screen in order to find what we are looking for, instead of standing up, walk, getting on the train, walk once again, get to the library and find the book. Just with that task there are a lot of differences. In some cases the whole book won’t be available on the web. “The sun also rises” by Ernest Hemingway is a book that I wondered to read long time ago, I’ll comparing this book with an electronic copy that I found on Google Books.
The physical copy of the book gives the reader some kind of special feeling while they are reading, something to touch which will helps whit the interaction with the story. The cover is resistant enough, but I think that as the time pass by it can get damage. The cover also provides texture to the reader; it makes it interactive to fell the page printed with bright color. When I open the book the paper quality changes it goes from a hard cover with a soft texture to a newspaper texture that makes a contrast between the content of the book and the cover. The content of the book, the actual text has been printed with a legible font, comfortable for the eye to follow along and is lack of decorative illustrations, maybe to avoid the reader’s distraction. Therefore, the printed book is a physical copy of the book, which means that is physical, you can touch it, is meant to interact with the reader; the book is in a convenient size, which makes it portable.
The electronic book, or eBook is really useful too, since is the same information that you will found on the printed copy. In the eBook it seems that they scant the printed copy, the quality is not the best but is legible too. In the eBook is important to highlight that you also interact with the copy, this through the computer or any other device that you use to read the eBook. In the electronic copy of the book the content has the right size for the reader, and depending on the browser that your using there might be a full view button, this in order to lack the distraction factors that might appear in while you’re reading the book. In the eBook you scroll down the pages, instead of passing pages. Therefore, the eBook is convenient for anyone since you just need a computer to read it, and with the different web browsers there might be tools to use to make even easier and helpful to read.
There is a lot of factors to compare and highlight since this two formats have centuries of difference that they were made, but both formats accomplish the same task, which is to show the content of the book. The printed copy of the book gives the reader a one of a kind experience, this because is something that interacts with the reader, you touch the pages with letters and can feel the different textures which the book has. With the printed copy is easy to read in any place, you just need a good light source, also in printed copy sometimes can be hard to find, since we need a library or a book store to get it, if the store or the library has it. In the other hand the eBook is available for anyone with internet connection and computers, which in these days are pretty common in every house in the U.S. which makes the eBook, is also easier to acquirer. The electronic copy can be also mobile as a printed book; this due to the different types of devices that are use to mobilized the content of the eBook. The electronic copy of the book in some way doesn’t interact with the reader, because you feel a screen and it will be the same experience always, but with the printed copy you feel different textures depending on the kind of paper that was use to print the book. Both formats has their pros and cons, the eBook need some device to read which work with electricity, in some places there might be people lack of that resource, which makes the printed copy more convenient. The printed copy can be damage, and as time pass by it can lose its clarity to read, which makes the eBook more convenient because the information will be always available online. Is all up to the person’s preference how to read the book, and in upcoming times there might be other formats to read book, because technology is always evolving.

If I’m about to publish a photo book I would choose www.blurb.com. This is because the website helps to break down the process of publishing in 3 categories. The first option is using an online tool, using pre-design layouts, a variety of fonts, and book sizes, and is easy to export files. The second option is a free software made in order for the user to created its own layouts and it comes with useful tools in order to create you book. And the third is a more professional tool, for persons that know how to use design software such as: InDesign, this option is an online tool, just need the layouts in PDF format, upload them, and order your book.

The prices might vary depending on the option that will be use, and the number of pages, also the size of the book. It seems like this publishing site only publish photo books, that means that is a high quality works, because they specialize in images.

The Museum of Modern Art presents a collection of several pieces by graphic artist that are have been working in the field since 1990’s. They had come up with different ideas and method to use images and a variety of printing process in order to create an image different from the rest. There are two pieces of work that caught my attention in the exhibition: Female Portrait by Carroll Dunham and Signal Station, Summit of Maryland Heights from Harper’s Pictorial History of the Civil War (Annotated) by Kara Walker. Both pieces are intriguing, because they show the human body as an abstract image, and even when the images had distorted the human body there still some details that guide the mind to know that is a human. Both images are showing humans in an abstract form. Both images have a difference of 5 years of creation, Female Portrait was created in 2000 and Signal Station, Summit of Maryland Heights from Harper’s Pictorial History of the Civil War (Annotated) in 2005. In the field of graphic designing every artist have to be aware of others’ work in order to come up with something different and unique. The pieces I selected are different visually, because one is in color and the other is in black and white, also one uses more degradation of black and the other uses solid colors. For Female Portrait the process used by the artist to create the images was, to draw the images first on paper then scanned and colored digitally. The image Signal Station, Summit of Maryland Heights from Harper’s Pictorial History of the Civil War (Annotated) looks like the artist had used the same process as the first images. I don’t think that both artists came up with some particular technique in order to create the images. I think that the images were not handmade by the artist, but they were created in some elaborated process that goes from designing the pieces to the printing process, because both images are lithographs. The images have been through a process of creation, which mean that the artists wanted quality work and I think they didn’t use some cheap techniques in order to produce them.

© 2012 Carroll Dunham

© 2012 Kara Walker

Ad for WWF

This advertisement is called “DOMINOES,” for the company World Wildlife Foundation, this company promotes the protection of the wildlife around the world. This Ad is using a dark background, but the front of the image looks illuminated. The artist used images of different living creatures as the images printed on the dominoes. The color used in the ad is trying to get the audience in a serious, or sad mood.

The artist used the RGB triplets in order to created this ad, because right now is being using in a digital format. The RGB triplets is use for any display in a monitor.

This ad has in meant to raise awareness on nature. The image shows a row of dominoes, this connects the audience to the idea of a domino effect. the artist used the idea of the domino effect, and place images of living creatures, starting with a three and ending with a human. The idea in the advertisement is clear, because is meant to aware us of what would happen if we destroy the environment.

The idea in this ad is clear, but in some cases, but i think that for an advisement that is meant to raise awareness of the wild life and the environment is necessary to have shocking images, something that will cause somehow an emotional reaction.

Blackberry Logo

The style used in the “Blackberry” logo is in sans serif , the weight of the font looks like a semi-bold which makes the words to stand out, this might word in order to called the client’s attentions. The logo is written in with italics. The use of the color in the color makes it a simple logo, could be a boring logo too but the monochromatic theme might reflects the seriousness of the company itself.

The font used in the logo seems to be a customize font, because at the lower part of the capital “B’s” shows a round edge going inside and then round at the bottom. The lower case “l” has a round bottom too. The two lower case “r” have the same round theme, but this time at the top of the letters. The reason I imply is a customized font is because I couldn’t find any match to this font in the website What The Font!