i spy candy

I should be studying for an exam I have in less than 8 hours and transcribing an hour-long interview, but instead I am posting this photo that I took last Thursday outside the UL. Autumn is in full-blown mode.

This article reminded me of myself so much! Haha I totally am obsessed with fonts that I run into everyday. Key example? The water-conservation signs on the inside of the UNC bathroom doors. They say pull the lever up for #1 and down for #2. But the “#1” is slightly smaller than “#2.” A defect of Helvetica for sure. Check it out next time people! I swear it’s true! Pics to come…..

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/16/arts/16iht-design16.html?_r=1&em

November 16, 2009 Design By ALICE RAWSTHORN

Dirt. Noise. Crowds. Delays. Scary smells. Even scarier fluids swirling on the floor. There are lots of reasons to loathe the New York City subway, but one very good reason to love it — Helvetica, the typeface that’s used on its signage.

Seeing the clean, crisp shapes of those letters and numbers at station entrances, on the platforms and inside the trains is always a treat, at least it is until I spot the “Do not lean …” sign on the train doors. Ugh! There’s something not quite right about the “e” and the “a” in the word “lean.” Somehow they seem too small and too cramped. Once I’ve noticed them, the memory of the clean, crisp letters fades, and all I remember are the “off” ones.

That’s the problem with loving typography. It’s always a pleasure to discover a formally gorgeous, subtly expressive typeface while walking along a street or leafing through a magazine. (Among my current favorites are the very elegant letters in the new identity of the Paris fashion house, Céline, and the jolly jumble of multi-colored fonts on the back of the Rossi Ice Cream vans purring around London.) But that joy is swiftly obliterated by the sight of a typographic howler. It’s like having a heightened sense of smell. You spend much more of your time wincing at noxious stinks, than reveling in delightful aromas.

If it’s bad for me (an amateur enthusiast who is interested in typography, but isn’t hugely knowledgeable about it), what must it be like for the purists? Dreadful, it seems. I feel guilty enough about grumbling to my friends whenever I see this or that typographic gaffe, but am too ignorant to spot all of them, unlike the designers who work with typefaces on a daily basis, and study them lovingly.

“I think sometimes that being overly type-sensitive is like an allergy,” said Michael Bierut, a partner in the Pentagram design group in New York. “My font nerdiness makes me have bad reactions to things that spoil otherwise pleasant moments.” One of his (least) favorite examples is the Cooper Black typeface on the Mass sign outside a beautifully restored 1885 Carpenter Gothic church near his weekend home in Cape May Point, New Jersey. “Cooper Black is a perfectly good font, but in my mind it is a fat, happy font associated with the logo for the ‘National Lampoon,’ the sleeve of the Beach Boys’ ‘Pet Sounds’ album and discount retailers up and down the U.S.,” Mr. Bierut explained. “I wouldn’t choose it as a font for St. Agnes Church even as a joke. Every time I go by, my vacation is, for a moment, ruined.”

Choosing an inappropriate typeface is one problem. Applying one inaccurately is another. Sadly for type nuts, movies often offend on both counts. Take “Titanic,” in which the numbers on the dials of the ship’s pressure gauges use Helvetica, a font designed in 1957, some 45 years after the real “Titanic” sank. Helvetica was also miscast in “Good Night and Good Luck,” which takes place in the early 1950s. “I still find it bizarre to see type or lettering that is wrong by years in a period movie in which the architecture, furniture and costumes are impeccable, and where somebody would have been fired if they were not,” said Matthew Carter, the typography designer based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The same applies to TV shows, including the otherwise excellent “Mad Men.” It is rare to find a review of the show that does not rave about the accuracy of its early 1960s styling, yet the “Mad Men” team is woefully sloppy when it comes to typography. Mark Simonson, a graphic designer in St. Paul, Minnesota, blogs about typographic misdemeanors on his Web site, www.marksimonson.com, and he once catalogued the flaws in “Mad Men.” The 1992 typeface, Lucida Handwriting, appears in an ad in the opening titles. Gill Sans, a British typeface designed in 1930 but rarely used in the United States until the 1970s, is used for office signage. A lipstick ad features one wholly appropriate 1958 font, Amazone, but two incongruous ones, 1978’s Balmoral and 1980’s Fenice. He noted lots of other clunkers too, but admits that he has spotted fewer new errors in the most recent episodes of “Mad Men.”

“I guess they must be doing a better job,” Mr. Simonson said, adding that the same applies to other TV shows and movies, with the unfortunate exception of the animated feature film “Up,” in which he espied Verdana, a font designed by Mr. Carter in 1996 specifically for use on computers, in scenes set in the 1930s and 1940s. “But I’m not sure how picky you should be with a cartoon.”

Yet another common blunder is the misuse of the individual characters in a typeface that includes obscure versions of letters and numbers as well as more familiar ones. These gaffes often occur when lazy designers confuse one character with another, thereby making the typographic equivalent of a spelling mistake.

The British typography designer, Paul Barnes, remembers seeing one on a poster in a Gap store. “It was set in Adobe Caslon and was supposed to say ‘Your first clothes,”’ he recalled. “Rather than use an ‘f’ and ‘I,’ they decided to use a long ‘s’ and dotless ‘i,’ thus spelling ‘sirst’ rather than ‘first.’ ” He is equally irritated by similar errors in the use of historic fonts, like the archaic black letter typefaces that date back to the invention of the printing press in the 15th century.

That said, even the type-savvy Mr. Barnes claims to have become more tolerant — or less intolerant — of such howlers over the years. “I’m not sure if it’s a case of growing older, or maybe I have lower expectations,” he explained. “In France recently, I drank some nice Côtes du Rhône wine with a fairly dreadful typographic dress. I was less bothered than I used to be; after all, it’s the wine that’s important!”

Traditionally women have been presented in the following roles:  Damsels in Distress, Femme Fatales, or Buxom Babes:

“What remains to be seen is whether images of women, which in the past were nearly absent from virtual worlds, will evolve beyond what one game producer called “fantasy art wet dream material” (”Girl trouble, 1998, p. 99) and into strong, independent characters that are not trapped by sexist stereotypes.

Describe how you would “redesign” women in a video game of your own creation so that they are not trapped by sexist stereotypes.

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Well, considering that the video game industry has been receiving more female players than every before, I think it’s about time that the games they play appeal to them. “Sexy” players are fine, to a certain extent, but allowing rape, prostitution, etc. is overboard and I fear that the people playing may blur the lines between reality and fiction. If there are going to be “sexy” players, there needs to be options, so that when a female wants to play, but not with a character dressed as a stripper, she can. Also, if the girls are being so sexualized in the games, where are the guys? Nothing extreme or overboard of course, but the gaming industry really needs to cater to both genders and worlds in one game in order to be most profitable. Give the guys the hot girl character and the girls the hot guy character, but also given then options and let’s keep it relatively PG.

“God Thinks You’re W☺nderful!” By Max Lucado

God is fond you. 
If He had a wallet, your photo would be in it.
If He had a refrigerator, you picture would be on it.
He sends you flowers every spring and a sunrise every morning.
Whenever you want to talk, He’ll listen.
He can live anywhere in the universe, and He chose you heart.
Face it friend.

He’s crazy about you.

By the way, it may be difficult to believe that God knows your name…
but He does.
Written on His hand.
Spoken by His mouth.
Whispered by His lips.
Your name.

“I have written your name on my hand.” (Isaiah 49:16)

Our hearts are not large enough to contain the blessings that God wants to give.
So try this.
The next time a sunrise steals your breath…or a meadow of flowers leaves you speechless…remain that way.
Say nothing and listen as heaven whispers, “Do you like it? I did it just for you.”
If we give gifts to show our love, how much more would He?

He could have left the world flat and gray…but He didn’t.
He splashed orange in the sunrise…
and cast the sky blue.
And if you love to see geese as they gather, chances are you’ll see that too.

Did He have to make the squirrel’s tail furry?
Was He obliged to make the birds sing?
And the funny way that chickens scurry…or the majesty or thunder when it rings?

Why give a flower fragrance?
Why give food taste?
Could it be He loves to see that look upon your face?

So promise me you’ll never forget…that you aren’t an accident or an incident…you are a gift to the world, a divine work of art, signed by God.
You were knit together.

“You knit me together in my mother’s womb.” (Psalm 139:13)

You weren’t mass-produced.
You aren’t an assembly-line product.
You were deliberately planned, specifically gifted, and lovingly positioned on this earth…by the Master Crafts-Man.

He thinks you are the best thing to come down the pike in quite a while.
Turn to the sidelines; that’s God cheering your run.
Look past the finish line; that’s God applauding your steps.
God is for you.

Had He a calander, your birthday would be circled.
If He drove a car, your name would be on his bumper.
If there’s a tree in heaven, He’s carved you name in the bark.
Maybe you don’t want to trouble God with your hurts.
But…

“He cares about you.” (1 Peter 5:7)

He is waiting for you, to embrace you whether you succeed or fail.
Your heavenly Father is very fond of you and only wants to share His love with you.

“Blessed be the Lord you God who has delighted in you…” (1 Kings 10:9)

Untethered by time, God sees us all.
Vagabonds and ragamuffins all, He saw us before we were born.
And He loves what He sees.

Flooded by emotion, overcome by pride, the Starmaker turns to us, one by one, and says, “You are my child. I love you dearly. I’m aware that someday you’ll turn from me and walk away. But I want you to know, I’ve already provided a way back.”

You have captured the heart of God.
He cannot bear to live without you.
God’s dream is to make you right with Him.
And the path to the cross tells us exactly how far God will go to call us back.

“It is not our love for God; it is God’s love for us in sending his Son to be the way to take away our sins.” (1 John 4:10)

“Can anything make me stop loving you?” God asks.
No, Never, Not in a million years, never ever!
“You wonder how long my love will last? Watch me speak you language, sleep on your earth, and feel your hurts. Find you answer on a splintered cross, on a craggy hill. That’s how much I love you.”

God does more than forgive our mistakes; He removes them!
We simply have to take them to Him.
You can talk to God because God listens.
Let a tear appear on you cheek, and He is there to wipe it.
He has sent his angels to care for you, His Holy spirit to dwell in you…His church to encourage you, and His word to guide you.

As much as you want to see Him, He wants to see you more.
If you want to touch God’s heart, use the name He loves to hear.
Call him ”Father.”

He thinks you’re w☺nderful!

Some last glimpses of the flowers with my new Canon T1i before winter hits!

lomographized

lomographized. which do you prefer?

Prompt: On October 8, self-help “guru” James Arthur Ray hosted a sweat lodge experience as part of his Spiritual Warrior retreat in Sedona, Arizona which resulted in three deaths and several injuries.

The “sweat lodge” which was covered with tarps and blankets was 2.5 feet high on the sides and 4.5 feet high in the center.  It is estimated that between 55 and 65 people participated in the ceremony.

Here is an account from a Beverly Bunn, an orthodontist who participated in the ceremony. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/10/23/earlyshow/main5413451.shtml

Many Native Americans are greatly concerned that their cultural practices are being misused by others for financial gain.  Chief Arvol Looking Horse responds to this tragedy (prior to the third death) in Indian Country Today.

http://www.indiancountrytoday.com/opinion/64486777.html

Is it appropriate to use rituals and practices from other cultures?

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My Response: To answer the question, yes, I think it is generally appropriate to use rituals and practices from other cultures. However, it must be done with great caution and respect of both the action and the culture. What happened in Sedona was clearly not this at all. Ray sounds like a cult-leader who was looking to make some quick money by swindling it out of his obedient (perhaps brain-washed) followers and needed a ritual to (very) loosely base it on. It is truly unfortunate that because of Ray’s irresponsible actions, the Native-American community and their rituals may be getting the wrong kind of attention. On another note, it blows my mind to think that these participants paid Ray $9,000 to be abused like this. I’m sure there is reason beyond stupidity behind why they participated, but like many of the CBS article’ comments read: I don’t want to defend the stupid.