VICTATE CAD/CAM

Yesterday we had a session booked on the big laser cutter to engrave some old skateboards CAD/CAM style. The graphics were made on Illustrator, ready to bring onto TechSoft. The boards were all super old and battered (not to mention all the PVC-containing vinyl stickers everywhere) so they needed some sorting.

Good old sandpaper did the trick. Beforehand we ran them through the bobbin sander, whilst stickers were chiselled off.

Some technical stuff about sandpaper (abrasive paper): lower numbers (80) are more coarse, higher numbers smoother (360). We used pretty low numbered sheets, best for rapid removal.

Sadly, the Illustrator file which was correctly exported as a .emf file wasn't able to be read by 2D Design for some reason, leaving Andrew and ourselves baffled. Not sure why. Very frustrating. Although transfer from Illustrator isn't strictly recommended, there are guidelines such as using fine lines (0.25), having no fills, no layers, and other little things, all of which should have been ok. Hmm.

This isn't the last you'll hear about the Victate skateboards. We'll be back!

HELVETICA

I'm becoming a Helvetica freak.

That's what I would have said a couple of months ago. Now I know I am one!

I see it everywhere, I spot it when I'm not looking, it's mad. But I love it. That was up until I learnt just how similar Microsoft's counterpart typeface Arial was to it. So I did some research into the differences between them.

The fundamental difference is the angle at the end of a stroke. Helvetica works perpendicularly whereas Arial has angles. This is most noticeable in letters like c, e, f, r where the letter ends with an unclosed stroke. The a is different too, Helvetica almost flicking off, Arial straight down. The small t is also a giveaway. The top terminal in Helvetica is again cut perpendicularly, but the Arial t is slanted down left. There's more but I won't ramble. I'm Helvetica crazy. I'm currently compiling a list of good examples and bad examples of Helvetica in branding, because quite frankly it is over-used, but having said that, where it is used well it is such a beautiful little font. So it's a little research project I'm conducting, which I'm sure I'll put up here in due course.

This is a beautiful little graphic by swissmiss to pinpoint the Helvetica vs Arial comparisons.

PET PHOTOGRAPHY

This is Toffee & Fudge, taken with a Canon camera from the MEC.

ILLUSTRATING BLOG TITLES

New header images for the DT101TL Blogs, drawn up with Illustrator.
Cooper Black and Helvetica Bold.

Design Project 3 here http://www.tleecitizensensor.blogspot.com

[GRAPHICS] MANUAL TRACING

For more complex images, we can trace manually, using the Pen tool. Clicking adds points, shift+Click adds curves and the Anchors are adjusted for right angles. I took this image from our JFC photo log and chose to trace an outline of the boys.

And by using the Layers, I can control individual lines and layers by selecting what to view and what to hide. In this case, each boy and the ball (blue, orange, black) are all independent Layers, as are the green borders and strap I added. The original photograph is also a Layer itself, positioned at the top to cover the rest, and hidden also.

CHRISTMAS PHOTOGRAPHY 25.12.2011

This is not to showcase the cooking quality, but the personal use of SLR photography. But yes, the food looks good right! Hand. Made.

Depth of field isn't quite right. Only salad leaves and odd bit of meat in focus...

 A little out of focus.

 Foreground background, got it down.

 A little dark...

Yeahhh nice focus on the Maldon sea salt haha. 

I MADE ANOTHER MOVIE

In September this year, I was in Japan on a holiday, when I drove up through the Tohoku region with friends, the northeastern coastal area affected hugely by the disastrous events in March. I had my digital camera and iPhone in hand, thus accumulating some footage of our three-day trip, with which I promised to compile a video. And I did. Finished just last week, I edited the (mostly playful) video to show what we got up to.

I feel I've got some experience on my side now, having made 7 or 8 of these shorts, and I'm beginning to understand what makes good engaging video. Of course, without any conventional study at all, I can't articulate what techniques or tricks I've used and all that, but I think that through the relationship of the visuals and selected music (which is super important), I've been able to capture the emotion felt at the time and also control the emotion to evoke for the video audience. This I'm sure I have been improving upon video after video, and am taking great interest from.

RESPECTING TYPE

I MADE A MOVIE

Over the last year or so, I've been making some personal movies for myself and for JFC (the youth football club at which I work). I have only been working on the relatively simple application iMovie, but I've been learning and enjoying the movie-making process through these personal projects. I think it's something I would love to develop further and maybe there will be a Technical Studies workshop for it, though there doesn't seem to be one this term. In the meantime, this is my most recent movie (and my longest) finished just this week, using footage from our JFC summer trip to the countryside with some of the boys. With hours and hours of video to work with, I made a 23 minute film with six chapters, encapsulating the feel and vibe of the trip as well as capturing our actual activity across the weekend sleepover.