Ed Tech in the Classroom

The Evolution of Beauty

The short Evolution by Dove shows how the "effortless" the beauty we see on billboards is created. It's a powerful portrayal of how our perception of beauty is distorted by digital tools and the media. All teens and adults should watch this, not just those learning the joys of photoshop! :-)

Font Matters

Yesterday during Friday news, year three grad students in the MAET program presented their images. This is the one I created. I toyed with the idea of using a Lichtenstein painting and inserting different fonts in a series of three to demonstrate how font can change the tone of a piece of art. In the end, I decided to use the phrase "I love you" in various fonts on a series of nearly identical images to demontstrate how font and placement of words add meaning to text. The big idea I was trying to portray is this:

It's not just the WHAT, but the HOW. Sometimes, how something is presented can be just as important as the content.

As Virginia Postral says in Looks Matter (Forbes Magazine), "Appearance matters....sometimes it's not just what you say but how you say it."

In web design, print, and publishing, font matters. Font communicates meaning. Imagine the font in the Lichtenstein painting with a cute curly-Q, whimsical font. Not the same message, eh?

(image via artchive)

On an added note, if you're really interested in learning more about font, check out Valerie Kirschenbaum's Goodbye Gutenberg. It's a fantastic coffee table book that everyone picks up. Kirschenbaum, a teacher in the New York, claims to be the first female in 500 years to design her own font. It's a must-read for all teachers interested in literacy and the visual arts.

-Little Ms. Blog

i.images

What's an i-image?

i-image samples- various designers, although we aren't sure who they are.

"perspective" image by Diane Franklin