Art Symphony

Helvetica: the Beauty of Simplicity

Josh Koiro — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 19:45:01 +0000

Font faces are one of the most overlooked details in all of design. Typography permeates the world around us, and has done so for thousands of years. Typography is a unique art in the way that it allows emotion to be directly connected to meaning. Like how a song contains music as well as lyrics, written words contain meaning as well as emotion derived from the aesthetics of the letters.

One of the most popular typefaces today is Helvetica. Helvetica is a Neo-grotesque, Sans-serif font created by swiss typeface designer Max Miedinger in 1957. Sans-serif type is type that does not contain serifs, while Serif fonts contain a small stroke at the end of each letter.

Grotesque and Neo-grotesque typefaces are sans-serif fonts designed with certain characteristics like having an R with a curled leg, the ends of curved strokes ending horizontally, and having squareness of curves.

The Neo-grotesque style is derived from Grotesque and only has minor differences like the ends of the curved strokes being oblique and the g being open tailed rather then being spurred.

Helvetica has been modified over the years so that the modern typeface has more then 30 variations to the original.

So aside from an interesting history, what makes Helvetica one of the most popular fonts used by designers?

Neutrality

First, Helvetica is one of the most neutral fonts. In short, it’s a typeface that gets out of your way and allows the content or it’s surroundings to speak. I’m not saying that Helvetica is emotionally neutral, but that it has the ability to blend with it’s surroundings better then other fonts do.

Readability

Helvetica is one of the most readable fonts ever designed. The human mind can read it with more ease and speed then other typefaces. Often, signs are written in Helvetica because it is easy to read even when it is in motion.

Simplicity

Simplicity is another reason why so many designers use Helvetica. The shapes of the letters are geometrically symmetrical and simple. Many designers use the typeface at an extremely large size to create form in a composition rather then just for typography.

Diversity

Helvetica can be used in a wide variety of styles. Just by searching the internet you can find a huge number of styles and applications that use Helvetica. Here are some examples below.

Thoughts on OSX Lion

Josh Koiro — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 18:14:27 +0000

You may have heard that recently Apple has released OSX Lion. The new version of OSX replacing Snow Leopard. Apple has made some serious improvements to how the system runs and it’s interface. But there are some disadvantages as well. Hopefully, This post will help you to be able to make the right decision if you should upgrade or wait.

First off, one major difference between Lion and Snow Leopard is that a lot of the functionality of iOS has now been integrated into OSX. Some of these features include the Launchpad, inverted scrolling and full screen apps. Launchpad allows you to view all of your apps in one place. Almost identical to the home screen on iOS-powered devices like the iPhone and iPad. Honestly, I don’t see any real reason to use it that much except for the eye-candy. By default, two finger scrolling is inverted from what it was in Snow Leopard. This is again to make it more like iOS. It is a bit weird to get used to at first, but it shouldn’t take too long to get used to. Thankfully, Apple has included the ability to change the scrolling back to normal if you prefer. So if you really cannot get used to it (or just don’t like it) you can change it back. Full screen apps are a huge plus for me. One thing I found annoying when using Macs over PCs was the lack of being able to use the entire screen for a window. Now with Lion, You can browse the web, or look at your mail in a full screen window. And speaking of Mail. Apple Mail has undergone a redesign to be nearly identical to the iPad mail client. It is much cleaner, and it has uncluttered a lot of unnecessary sidebars and buttons found on the older versions of mail. It allows you to view the e-mail in a much larger space than ever before if you take advantage of the full screen functionality.

One of the most powerful features in my opinion, is the ability to autosave built into the operating system. This system essentially auto-saves versions of a file which you can go back to and use simultaneously with the latest saved version. Basically, the result is that you never actually lose files even if you overwrite them.

Here’s a great video showing the capability of this functionality

This is only some of the major updates in OSX Lion. There are a plethora of other detail-oriented changes throughout the system as well. But should you upgrade?

Just because Lion is a bargain at $29.99 on the app store, does not mean you should go ahead and upgrade. There are a few reasons I would say not to upgrade (yet) to Mac OSX Lion.

Slow internet connection
Bugs
incompatible programs

First off, Lion is only available for download. you cannot get a CD or DVD to install it. This is convenient for those with access to fast internet connection, but it will probably take you a while to download the 4GB file if you not running on a decent connection.

Another issue is bugs. All programs have bugs, but first versions of programs typically have a lot of bugs. Thankfully, my experience has been good so far, but until updates happen. The first versions of programs can be buggy sometimes.

Finally, check and make sure all of the programs you run on your mac have Lion updates. Because Lion is a new operating system, some programs (especially large ones) may very likely be incompatible or very buggy running on Lion. In order for you to run these programs on Lion, you need to wait for the developers to create updates for Lion.

To sum up, I think Lion has some great capability, and that it is a lot better then Snow Leopard. I am a little nervous about how OSX is becoming more and more like iOS and I hope Apple will keep the two apart unless iOS starts becoming more like OSX.

You can check out all the details about Lion by watching the WWDC Keynote presentation showing all the new developments from Apple including Lion, iOS5 and iCloud.

Zoom Blur Filter

Josh Koiro — Thu, 05 May 2011 23:16:40 +0000

Pixelmator has a lot of really cool effects that you can apply to layers called filters. One filter that I’ve found that is very useful is called the zoom blur filter. The zoom blur filter does exactly what it sounds like it should do. It takes the pixels on a given layer and applies a vortex-like zoom effect to it. It is very similar to the radial blur filter in Photoshop when it is set to zoom blur. But, I’ve found that Pixelmator’s zoom blur filter is a bit more robust, and is much more versatile then Photoshop’s radial blur.
Enjoy!

Zoom Blur from Josh Koiro on Vimeo.

Josh Koiro — Tue, 03 May 2011 22:14:30 +0000

As you probably realize, I have changed the look of Art Symphony. The reason for this is because I’m planning on starting an Etsy store to sell Canvas photographs. I want to blend the look of my blog with my other social networks so that I can form a sort of brand for Art Symphony.

Hopefully, I’ll have the Art Symphony store set up soon so I’ll let you know when it’s time to check it out!

Levels and Curves

Josh Koiro — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 14:26:18 +0000

Within Pixelmator and Photoshop, there are often unused tools called levels and curves adjustments. They are not often used because they have a overwhelming exterior interface which looks much too complicated for the average user. However, the levels and curves adjustments are simple, yet powerful toning tools that can take images from looking static, to vibrant and dynamic.
Basically, They both control contrast, but they are much more robust then your typical contrast slider. They allow you to have much more control over your image then a contrast or brightness slider would.

Levels and Curves Adjustments from Josh Koiro on Vimeo.

Masks and Selections

Josh Koiro — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 13:25:18 +0000

In this video tutorial, I’m going to show you how to create selections and masks in Pixelmator. These tools and techniques are incredibly useful for any purpose that you may be using Pixelmator. I’m a particular fan of using masks because of their non-destructive nature. Masks essentially erase portions of layers based on a greyscale image. This allows you to “paint” the opacity (or transparency) of the layer.
My hope is that by the end of the video, you will know how to use masks, and begin to use them when you’re working with images and graphics.

Masks and Selections from Josh Koiro on Vimeo.

Using Levels and Curves Adjustments

Josh Koiro — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 13:33:50 +0000

Back in the day, people didn’t have software programs that could “auto adjust” or “auto correct” your images. You had to learn the tools and do it yourself. Today, a lot of programs can correct your image’s white balance, contrast, and toning just with one click. As a result, when we’re put in the situation of needing to correct an image manually, We don’t know where to start. In this tutorial, I’m going to show you how to use Pixelmator to edit your image’s color and toning using two adjustments called Levels and Curves. Both these utilize the Image Histogram. The Histogram shows the number of pixels within the image at a given brightness. In other words, it sorts all the pixels in the image based on their brightness. The Levels and Curves adjustments manipulate this histogram.

Levels and Curves Adjustments from Josh Koiro on Vimeo.

Creating an Image Filter Part 3

Josh Koiro — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 16:48:31 +0000

This is the final part of a series of tutorials on creating a image filter (or effect) for Pixelmator using Quartz Composer.

Creating an Image Filter Part 3 from Josh Koiro on Vimeo.

Creating an Image Filter Part 2

Josh Koiro — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 14:08:15 +0000

This is part 2 of a series of tutorials on creating a image filter (or effect) for Pixelmator using Quartz Composer.

Creating an Image Filter Part 2 from Josh Koiro on Vimeo.

Creating an Image Filter Part 1

Josh Koiro — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 17:40:22 +0000

This is part one of a series of tutorials showing how to use Quartz Composer to create Image filters (or image effects) for Pixelmator.

Creating an Image Filter Part 1 from Josh Koiro on Vimeo.