Catching Bullets

  9/12 After showing the video during the critique I took on board the points about the moving images and faded them in and out.  I also decided to modify the final message to leave it on the screen for a bit longer. 1 hour As a bit of background to understand my parent's life. My dad joined the army in 1940 and fought in Italy and Northwest Europe.  When he returned to Canada he mined uranium in Northern Ontario for a while and then became a police officer in Toronto.  He got married and had a son.  His first wife was killed in a car accident when my brother was less than two.  He changed careers and became a security officer for External Affaires, and set out the travel the world as a single dad in the 1950s.  His first posting was in London, then off to Moscow.  My mother was born in Orkney and after high school got a job as a clerk with British security and then a communicator (teletype operator) with the British foreign office....

   25/11  Scanning the photos were fairly straight forward.  Getting them out of the old photo albums after 50+ years was not, but I got it done without any full thickness tears.  I lost some material off the back of the older ones but no images were damaged.  I decided to colourize the parts of the photos where my parents were and included them as backgrounds in the text reveal.  The images are not directly associated with the letters, but show how they both traveled extensively, both separate and together. 5 hours 2/12 to  8/12 Once the letters and message were scanned, along with the photos I put them through Photoshop to colourize the photos and cut out the relevant parts of the letters.  Once I had those files organized I started up with the After Effects project (see image above).  I made the image full HD but in vertical because of the format of the letters.  The AE project involved a lot of masking, line by line for the lett...

 This took a long time to figure out. 18/11 My first idea was to do something about optimism. I thought about the how Berlin held out during the blockade and how the 50s and 60s had unlimited optimism about the space program. I considered how space research leads to a huge amount of Earth based benefits. Material sciences, climate research, etc. This seemed a bit blah, but the initial plan where I would incorporate video came from this. (red box) The next idea was to do something about my medical problems and how it has affected my personality. Nope. (blue box)   So I was sort of stuck. 4 hours 20/11 Finally I was going through an junk drawer and found a post card from my dad. This evolved into documenting a series of letters between my parents in the late 80s. My dad's correspondence is typed, my mother's written. I think this will be a nice contrast in typography. I've also scanned some photos to give the viewer some more insight into my parents. I started working on the ...

 I have noted a practical application of White Line Fever in the wild. Very exciting!! It cautions smokers to watch both ways before merging into the main path between the Cultural Centre and MHC's main building. This is good as it will get them moving their head and freeing up the tar deposited in their lungs. The fact there's a ? at the end might also encourage the smoke to look at the habit from both sides, quit or not quit. White Line Fever, good for safety, good for your lungs! 

 So now the rules for the lines were decided I needed to draw them. I went through a few iterations. As I was inspired by the New Alphabet I kept my marked up guide next to me. I started on three handraulic versions. The first one was during my ideation, see previous post for those doodles. It was more to decide if I wanted solid, outline, negative space, etc. Didn't go far. Then my first alphabet, in my notebook. I was still working out line weight and if there were curves (there weren't in the end). This is also where I decided on the name, White Line Fever. The madness that comes over you after driving too much. The second one is closer to what was done. No curves, but still working on line weights. My final version was done in Fontlab. Of course I let my 10 day license lapse before I took a screen shot, but here is my type specimen. Lessons learned: Taking on new software is challenging. Taking on new software that has a relatively small market is harder as tutorials are sc...

 So, we gotta make a font. Influenced by Medicine Hat. I hate driving in Medicine Hat. I'm going to make a font that reflects it. I love Wim Crouwel's work. That's an influence. So, looking at the New Alphabet for inspiration, I stared at its type example for too long. Figured out what the figures, math symbols, and punctuation represented. Eventually I started thinking how it related to Medicine Hat transport routes. I realized it didn't directly speak to the traffic, but it did look like roads curving around. While I was doing rubbings of type, I was walking roads, looking down, and realized that the road markings would make an interesting basis of the font. Turns out there are rules for road markings ( https://open.alberta.ca/publications/highway-pavement-marking-guide-2nd-edition/resource/14df908e-9c5d-41f8-82f9-09ac12b5d99a ). Here's the main page I used for my rules of the road. Once I had decided on road lines, I started doodling lines and shapes I see on the...

 Composing pictures to blend text with the image is tricky. I started by brain storming concepts for the contents of book (image 1). Is it about people, places, things, etc? Concepts for layouts and spreads. Finally is there a unifying concept? During all of this, and keeping in mind the minimum of 20 photos, I settled on 24 photos in 24 hours in the Medicine Hat area. I wandered around with a notebook and pen and took pictures when I could. The locations for the images range from Medicine Hat to Redcliff to Basanno. Image 2 shows the initial brainstorming list of photos, followed by the first list of photos and times; this was superseded by the notebook. Getting the photos between 0700 and 2200 was easy(ish). I made a conscious effort to keep the notebook at hand and would divert my route when needed and if I had time; for the rush hour picture I just pulled over on my way to school and went up on the overpass.  I was opportunistic, and kept the project in mind when I was in ...

 So, I've changed a lot. I'm no longer in the military. I'm no longer in the public service. I'm no longer employed. I'm an art and design student at Medicine Hat College, and this blog will shift direction to documenting my work in Typography, and Applied Art and Design. Labels will be applied to differentiate the areas and also describe the posts. There may be pictures! Exciting. There will be still be ammo.  Proof: The CRV-7 rocket motor. 80k or so are being donated to Ukraine as Canada has stopped using them. Disposal is problematic as functioning a large quantity at once will contaminate an area with perchorlates. Better to spread it around. The solution to pollution is dilution.