The Gutenberg Press

The Gutenberg press is one of the most significant creations in history. The reason for this is the fact that it greatly increased the speed at which information could be spread. The first big project completed by the press was the Gutenberg bible. The creation of this book allowed for religion to be spread at an incredbly accelerated rate. Because of the increased ease for creating printed materials, information was now something that could be easily shared by the masses, no longer a need to handwrite letters and have meetings. People could now be informed with leaflets or pamphlets. The press also allowed for the first newspapers to be created, allowing the spread of information in a cheap and easy manner.


It's hard to imagine a world without this invention. The creation of the press would eventually lead to the typewriter, which would make "home printing" a possibility. Eventually this would lead to home computers. The ability to press a button that produced a letter is one of the most important of our time. Now we can possibly write novels on our phones with 4 inch screens. Without the press, the mass production and distribution of books would have never become a possibility.


Gutenberg's name is still kept alive to this day by Project Gutenberg. http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page
 By using his name, this group is able to continue to honor his legacy even as we slowly move away from traditional print formats.


"The mission of Project Gutenberg is simple:

To encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks.

This mission is, as much as possible, to encourage all those who are interested in making eBooks and helping to give them away."

The goal of the group is to create a place where free ebooks can easily be distributed, allowing for them to be shared by the masses.


Many thanks are owed to Gutenberg, because without his breakthrough in technology, i would not be able to be typing this.

My Weekend

Page Design

Page design is the process of placing design objects such as text, headings, and images consistently and effectively on the page, taking into account the actual visual field, the characteristics of the design objects, and the 

relationships implied among them by the principles of design. (pg 115)

In simple words, page design is the process of using your familiarity with the concepts we have previously learned, and applying them to a “page.” The page is the document you are creating, the part that can be seen in whole by the reader at one given point. A brochure would have multiple pages, because there are pages on top of pages, while a 
book cover would be a singular page.

For my design, the most important principle i took from the book was that of the Power Zones. According to the book, the power zone is the top left corner of the page. From there the zone extends horizontally along the top, and vertically down the left side. For the round sign, i was originally going to put the text at the top and bottom, but upon remembering the book, i decided to shift the text counterclockwise, placing it into the the corner, which is the strongest part of a page. This was also surprisingly important in my rectangular sign, where I instinctively placed the image at the left side, as i tend to always do, until i remembered the power zone principle. That's when i realized that i should place the image on the right, and placed the text on the left side, because that is what i need the eyes to focus on. 

Bangkok Thai Restaurant Signs

Last week I was driving down 34^th and came across a sign that said Bangkok Thai Restaurant. It was black text on a white sign, and there were actually two of them, a round one on the building, and a rectangular on facing the street.  I felt like that a restaurant should have better signs so I decided to make them. As you can see I made both of the signs, one round, and one rectangular. Because the rectangular one faces the street, I felt like it should include the address and the phone number.

The first thing to be noticed on the design is the contrast of colors. I actually received some help from the internet in choosing the colors I would use. Someone on the internet decided to create a color palette for thai food, so I chose Pad Thai, the most well known that dish, and used the colors that were in that dish. http://www.colourlovers.com/blog/2007/11/12/colors-of-global-cuisine-thailand/ I chose to use three of the colors, described here simply as a light brown, an orange, and a green.  I felt that these colors contrasted well because not only did they feel like warm colors, but they did a great job representing the food itself. The background originally started off as a solid color, but it just lessened the impact of the other colors in the logo, so I decided to add an effect that broke it up and added small amounts of white to the whole thing.

The second important concept was alignment. Because the round logo goes on the actual building, I felt that it should be very simple and just include an image and the name of the restaurant. For the round logo I placed the image of Thailand in the dead center, but aligned the text in a unique way. Using the idea of power zones, combined with traditional American reading order, I decided to place the objects in a diagonal line, heading from northwest to southeast. “Bangkok” was placed in a corner, because it is the strongest power zone, since reader’s eyes always start there. The eyes would then go to the image in the center, and continue to the bottom right corner to “Thai Restaurant” I also decided to curve the text along with the logo, as it would create a stronger visual connection.

For the rectangular logo, I decided to include more information, so I added the address and the phone number.  Since this sign faces the street, I felt that it should be more like a business card, and used some of those ideas. I decided not to place the image on the left side, since it would be in the power zone and therefore detract attention from the text. I therefore placed it on the right side, and decided to center the text in the empty space. Because I did not feel that the image of Thailand created a hard edge, I felt that aligning the text right would now work very well, as the white space would be uneven.

I was very happy with the pair of logos I managed to create, and await plenty of feedback.

Three Significant Concepts

Concept 1 - The four basic principles (pg 13)
-These four principles are probably the most important concept to take away from this class and texts. The four principles are the "building blocks" for everything we will do in this course. While they are more ideas, than rules, it is very advisable to follow these four. There two others covered in the Kimball/Williams book, but they are not as important as these four. Any design should be created with these principles in mind, because they are what make the reader focus on the object. "If you design it well, they will look at it"

Concept 2 - Design Objects and their Characteristics (pg 21)
-The ideas presented in this section add to the tools that the previous concept contained. While the concept 1 contained what could be best understood as conceptual ideas, concept 2 contains more actual rules , dealing with size, color, text, and other aspects of design.

Concept 3 -  Formats in Print and Screen (pg 85)
- This concept is important because it shows the many diverse ways that we can present information. Paper can be molded/shaped into many different formats, and each format must be designed differently. Screen formats are alot different, because there are both more, and less ways to share the information. By that i mean that most screens are rectangular, but they also come in many sizes, from a tiny phone screen, to a big computer screen.

While i only picked these 3 as the most important to me, there are a bunch more interesting concepts in the book that affect the way we design things.