A Heart of Stars: Mapping a Screen Name is a collection of various mappings that represent my internet persona. These mappings both revealed and excluded information about me as “aheartofstars.” In a sense, “aheartofstars” became a character deviation of me. I decided to use these mappings to dissect the character of “aheartofstars” and to represent the growth of this character; thus, I have used the metaphor of a “road trip” to describe the journey of “aheartofstars” throughout various network of practices.

Beginning the Journey    
In this section, I have documented the various uses of my online moniker “aheartofstars.” I have included screenshots of the name in use on the sites various Web 2.0 application. These screenshots act as evidence of my participation in one large network of practice—the internet.

Taking the Highway    
Throughout the semester I have been actively participating in the Twitter community. It has become a major information ecology in my life. By using Tweetstats.com, I was able to collect graphs that illustrate my participation in the Twittersphere.

Unfolding the Map    
During the spring 2009 semester, I blogged about various Information Architecture topics on the IAOC website. In order to illustrate the frequency of certain words in my blog, I used the tag cloud application Wordle to create a tag cloud of my accumulated blogs. In addition, I created a Wordle of my Tweetstats.com tags.

Stopping for Directions
This section contains a sketched memory map and a remediation of the sketched map into a Google MyMaps. It is demonstrative of how an author unintentionally omits details when mapping portions of their lives; thus, it argues that “aheartofstars” is an inaccurate portrayal of me.

Enjoying the Landscape    
In this section, I introduced my color palette and font. These mappings portray the character of “aheartofstars.” They are like trees and flowers during a country drive. They are essentially the landscape of “aheartofstars.”

Taking in the Scenery    
The community of “aheartofstars” is represented in this section. A Nexus Facebook mapping of “aheartofstars” friend connections is provided. In addition, a LastGraph mapping of the listening history of “aheartofstars” Last.fm is presented. Finally, a TwitFriends.com mapping illustrates the Twitter connections of “aheartofstars.” They are the beautiful depictions, scenery, of my screen name.

Heading Home
The screen name “aheartofstars” leaves more questions about who I am as a person rather than answers.

For Information Architecture, I designed a presentation using Prezi's Zooming Presentation Maker. In Information Architecture, our class examined information in several different contexts. We first looked at how language, one of the most popular vehicles of information, is structured to help people make meaning out of what they see, hear, and read. Metaphors We Live By (1980), by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, was both influential and helpful as it laid the foundation for many of the other things we would read later. From evaluating language, we then examined how technologies are created with certain values in mind. Later in the semester, we looked more specifically at information: how it is categorized and displayed visually. Our final project, using the Prezi Presentation Editor, is the culmination of this semester-long academic adventure.
 
        As I thought more about how I learned so much in the class, I kept thinking of the long nights spent talk to classmates on Twitter in which we would help each other through problems with the assignments. This led me to Etienne Wenger’s Community of Practice, which I found meshed nicely with my own experience this semester. I learned from the texts, from my teacher, but perhaps most of all, from the other students in class. When one finished an assignment, he or she would serve as a great resource to those who were finishing slightly later. Instead of finishing an assignment and forgetting about it, several people in the class went out of his or her way on Twitter to offer help and suggestions. Also, I learned that I learn by doing, by trying, and by failing. This idea has been immeasurably important to me academically and for this project.

    After all, Prezi is designed to be played as much as it is to be mastered. I have played with Prezi a lot, but I haven’t mastered it. But, I think I am proficient with it. As I played with Prezi further, I thought of the work we did in IA in a new light. It was a chance to put into practice the principles we had been discussing all semester long.
  
    I thought more critically about the information I put into the presentation. I thought even harder about how I would link one “slide” or “lexia” to the next. I think I like the term lexia better than slide as the former indicates a sort of malleable place among other pieces of a text, which does not have a discrete, aloof, place. Slides, I believe, are artificially segmented from the presentations they are intended to describe.
 
   
    Information Architecture comprises many topics and so I think it’s only appropriate that my poster designed to explain some of the ideas that informed our work in IA comprises many topics as well. My poster talks about Twitter and maps and fonts and color palettes and social learning with the overarching theme of metaphors being important to understand abstract principles. My Prezi, like many of the parts that constitute it, is essentially one big metaphor embedded with many smaller ones. But these metaphors help me understand my place as a writer within a complex ecology that includes the texts, technologies, our class, our teacher, and the MA program. While some writers shy away from abstractions, I believe these abstractions, these metaphors, as Lakoff and Johnson argue, are important to make sense of these esoteric ideas we come across in frequently in graduate school and in the real world as well.
   
   

This presentation is designed to explore the relationship between writing, technology and information.   To facilitate this, several different tools were utilized. Including Prezi, Twitter, Facebook, FontStruct, Kuler, Google MyMaps, Wordle, Tweetstats, Twitter Top Friends Network, and Nexus.  These tools work to show the connections between the writer and the users as well as to further the “Writer as Cartographer” metaphor.

With this presentation, I attempt to show the writer’s influence over the content and depiction of images as well as the many information ecologies that surround each of us.  If we look at the graphics and the presentation as a whole, we can see that the meaning behind the visual representations, that is taken away by the audience, is carefully chosen by the writer.  Of course, there are occasions where the meaning perceived by the audience is not the intended meaning in which case the outcome is often confusion and frustration on both sides.  However, in most cases the message is carefully molded by the writer.  Although that fact is not inherently good or bad, the viewer should be aware that the writer cannot be objective and cannot help but to create the message from their own perspective. 

When looking at the visual text within this presentation we can see the influence of the writer in placement, design, font, and color.  As well as, which items are prominent and the degree of attention given to each item.   All of these choices are designed to communicate a certain message to the viewer.  This idea is further explored since in this case the creator of the presentation and the designer of the font are one and the same.  Choices in the design and layout must be meticulously considered in order to further the presentation’s argument.  This is similar to a work of prose where every word is meticulously chosen based on its meaning, drive, lyrical quality, connotation, social and cultural baggage, etc.

To show more clearly the impact the writer’s perspective has on text a map was drawn by the writer from memory of Rowan University’s campus.  This map is designed to show the limitations and flaws of the human memory which were made clear when the memory map was compared to the Google MyMaps representation of the same area.  The map also forced the writer to prioritize what they believed warranted being placed on the map and what did not.  For example the building that the writer attends class in maybe present but the tree they pass on the way to class may not be.  However it you are studying the varieties of trees in South Jersey it may be much more important. 

Visual representations of activities on Facebook, a social networking site, Twitter, a social networking site and micro-blogging service, and the International Association of Online Communicators blog are also present in the presentation.  The “tweets” of user Wellthen24 can be analyzed with Tweetstats.com.  However the way that the statistics and graphs are presented and showcased effects how they are perceived.  The graphs, images and wordle’s of Twitter statistics, Twitter friends, Facebook friends, and IAOC blog entries are therefore also manipulated by the writer.  It is impossible for the writer to be completely objective therefore, the writer and audience are forced to look critically at what is presented. 

 My Prezi Presentation: http://prezi.com/37557/

 

My presentation is an attempt to map my own personal “information ecology.”  It is broken into sections with my most general and largest ecologies at the outset, and, as we move in, more specific and smaller ecologies at the inset.  Let’s  look at each section and discuss why I chose its particular placement in my presentation, how it pertains to me as a writer, and how the sections tie into the texts we’ve read over the course of this semester.

 

Google MyMap aka The Real Deal with Bill McNeil:  (I'm hoping someone out there catches this Newsradio reference!)  I thought after four years at this fine institution that I knew this campus like the back of my hand (hey, where’d that scar come from?), but as I sat with a pencil and paper, I realized that drawing Rowan University and doing it correctly was quite a challenge.  As I wrote in my blog post, I learned that Rowan is an information ecology with smaller sub-ecologies within it.  This point is demonstrated by the fact that I, as a communication major, was far more accurate and on-point with my drawings of the “Bozorth” area of campus, as this is where most of my classes as an undergraduate took place.

As I created the Google MyMap version of my Rowan map, I realized that many of my proportions were off in my drawing.  Furthermore, when I got to look at a real map with road names and paths, it began to trigger my memory of things that I missed or totally forgot about in my hand drawing.

 

It’s Time To Facebook The Music:  This also fits on the outer most circle.  This Nexus representation of my Facebook friends is a good way to show who I’m connected with in the online world (and in some cases, the outside world as well), and how my social circles are broken up.  This gives you the first glimpse into who I am as a student and as a person. 

I feel as though this is another map within a map.  I labeled each of the clusters, mainly because I was rather surprised that my friends were broken up into relatively neat groups.  With the labels intact, this simple graph becomes a window into my social circles.  We clearly see that I’ve kept in touch with a lot of my friends from high school (my graduating class was 110, so we were all relatively friendly), and that I still am in contact with my Wushu circle (Wushu is a Chinese martial art that I competed in.  I was a member of the 2005-2007 USA Wushu team, and some of these Facebook friends are former teammates, while others are fellow athletes from my Wushu school based in Virginia.)

 

My Tweetin’ Timeline: Marching Into Good Numbers:  I had never used Twitter before January.  In fact, I’d only heard the name mentioned a few times, and really didn’t know anything about it.  But it quickly became apparent that this tool was going to be a key element to the class.  I placed this in the second circle because this was the beginning of narrowing my ecology.  This connected me to my classmates both in and outside the classroom, and allowed me to make contact with other people utilizing the tool.

This brings me to an interesting point about Twitter.  I often refer to it using the metaphor, “it is a tool,” which, according to Nardi and O’Day’s book Information Ecologies, can “channel and limit our thinking, as well as bring in useful associations from other contexts.” (pp. 25)  I have learned throughout this semester that metaphors can be a great tool for us to better comprehend a concept, but they can also hinder us if we do not challenge them.  I feel that by challenging my initial definitions of Twitter, I have now given it the room it needs to evolve and grow to become an integral and multifaceted piece of my information ecology.

 

Let Me Tell You ‘Bout My Best Friend…According To My Statistics, That Would Be Dr. Wolff:  This is where things become even more specific; these charts show which people inside the twittersphere are my “best friends.”  I have 123 followers and am following 117, but this gives us a glimpse of the top 6 “friends” on my list. 

 

You Tweetin’ At Me?:  Again, we see a narrower view of “me”; now we are glimpsing into which of my Twitter followers I am most in contact with, as well as which interface I use most often to post tweets.  Here you can see that I have done most of my Twittering from the web, but my Twitterlicious usage is rapidly catching up.  If you compare my chart from last month to this current one, you will see that my web usage has stayed fairly stagnant, but my Twitterlicious usage has drastically increased.  You now have a good idea about how I’m going about posting tweets.

 

The Twitter Power Hour:  More narrowing of my ecology, as we see information that is breaking down how many tweets I average per day, how many per hour, and even which hours of which days I tweet the most.  This is a demonstration of not only that I am using this specific networking tool, but exactly how I am using it as well.

Even more specific is the breakdown of my tweets by day, and time of each day.  For those who know me, you’ll begin to notice that on nights I have to be in bed relatively early to be up for the 6am shift at work the next day, I don’t do much Twittering past 8:00.  (Those nights are Sunday, Monday, and Wednesday.)  If you don’t know me, you’ll still notice this pattern and be able to infer that there is some reason for this consistency.

 

The Bird is the Worlde:  We have now reached the most specific and detailed view of me as a writer.  These Wordles show my most frequently used words in my blog posts, and my tweets.  From this, we can now find which words I am most likely to use, and furthermore we are able to organize them into some form of an order (which are the most used, which are moderately used, which are hardly used, etc.)

We now see a very clear map of who I am as a writer, and each of these sections is another piece of my map.  You know where I go to school, which areas of my school matter most to me, and which I am most familiar with.  You know who my friends are and which ones are connected to which, you know that I Twitter, but even more important, you now know when I Twitter, what I’m using most often to tweet, to whom I Twitter to most often, and which words I am most likely to use in a tweet and blog post.

 

This presentation was my attempt at somehow mapping my mind as a writer.  I was actually quite surprised at how each one of these rings flowed perfectly into the next, with each subsequent ring revealing slightly more than the one that preceded it. 

In the end, I think that an Information Ecology is whatever we want it to be.  For me, this Prezi is a great representation of my information ecology.  It shows my location, my social circles, my most active days and times, and even the words that I use most often to express myself.  “Mapping our minds” is not about accuracy or perfection, but rather about revelation and distributing information about ourselves in a unique way.  And when all is said and done, I believe I have succeeded in this task, and I feel confident to stand at the center of my ecology and say, “I am here.”

To view my prezi fullscreen click here

In the book Free Culture, Lawrence Lessig discusses the effect that copyrighting has on creativity and cultural production.  He explains that in the good old days there was a kind of uneasy balance between the rights of the creator to protect their work and those of the public to experience it.  People were more able to build upon the work of others to create bigger and better things.  However with cases such as Eldred v. Ashcroft copyright protection can be extended far longer than before. The case challenged the constitutionality of the 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA).  The act itself proposed to extended the existing copyright terms of the Copyright Act of 1976 by 20 years.  However, depending on the date that the work was created it could be extended by 95 years, or the life of the author plus 70 years.  This would affected both new and existing works.  The Rehnquist Court ruled 7-2 that the CTEA was constitutional.  When this law first came out there were numerous ways for the public to get around copyright laws.  However now because technology has changed the way we share information the effects of this law are much more prevalent.  The book goes on to talk about the heavy fines that are imposed on those who break the CTEA and download copyrighted material.  I tend to agree with Lessig on this point, and many others, that the extent of the fines are absurd. 

Because copyright laws are becoming more and more stringent Lessig is concerned that creativity will be stifled or at least people will not be able to use technological advances to their full advantage when creating.  And I think that he is probably right.  I am not promoting the elimination of all copyright laws, and of course neither is he, but I do think that everything is a trade off.  As a consumer, I would love to rewind time to the days of downloading free music on Nabster and Kazza. However as a wanta be author and someone who knows how little most people actually make from their work, I enjoy the peace of mind that my work will not be “stolen”.   There has to be some level of balance between having everything be public where the creator can make little to no profit off of their work and having to pay exorbitant fees such as for a 5 second clip of a popular TV show. 

Lessig offers several suggestions for how to create more balance between the public and private domain such as shorter copyright terms and registration requirements.  Personally, I tend to think that these are good ideas.  If you create something and you want it protected than great but if you don’t have it protected than it is free to enter the public domain.  I believe that there is a fine line between using someone’s work as inspiration and stealing it and that that line is difficult to define, although many have tried.  But I agree that art, no matter the form, is a culmination of many people’s works.  We build upon, change, and adapt to create something that is our own.  Without the opportunity to access and learn from the works of others, I think that creativity will indeed be hampered. 

What do you think Lessig would think of the recent ruling against the the founders of The Pirate Bay?

A recent study found those branded as "pirates", people who download music illegally are 10 times more likely to buy music.  Why do you think this is?

This book was written in 2003, that is also the year that the iTunes Music Store opened. Since, it has sold over 6 billion songs. How do you think easy modes of distribution have changed the media landscape? Does this work for all forms of media? What other changes have happened since 2003?

This book was released under Creative Commons on the internet, along with a free audiobook. How do you think copyright needs to change to address the internet after reading Free Culture?

Lessig repeatedly referred to Walt Disney creativity, or creating from ripping elements from previous works. Isn't this how everything is created? Why has our culture grown to reject this?

When do you think the internet will reach the freedom that Lessig describes radio, tv, and movies have as a medium? What will it take for it to establish its own common understanding in our culture?

In 2007, critically-acclaimed English rock band Radiohead released "In Rainbows." Fans were given the option to pay whatever amount they wanted, including nothing. Though some detractors felt Radiohead was erring in giving the album away for free, it worked out very well for the band.


Cover art for Radiohead's "In Rainbows"


The principles behind Radiohead's decision to release its album essentially for "free," is an idea that Lawrence Lessig would probably agree with. Lessig, a legal scholar from Standford, argues eloquently in his book "Free Culture" about the nature of cultural production, its history, and how digital technologies have transformed how it is distributed currently. Lessig's arguments, unsurprisingly, center around the legal history of cultural production as he explains how recent copyright laws are anathema to freedom of expression.

Lessig does a brilliant job of introducing the reader to the main issues surrounding copyright laws and how the Web has complicated things. This is not to say the Web is to blame. Quite the contrary. The Web is a great facilitator to sharing ideas and content, Lessig says, and I agree. However, the author is quick to point out that piracy in its conventional sense-- the act of stealing from those who produce or distribute content is wrong-- Lessig explains that file sharing and other methods of sharing information online are not so clear-cut. Lessig points to history to support his claims.

According to the book, copyrights have not always been so clearly defined. While copyright law today encompasses things that written, songs that are recorded, computer programs that are developed, videogames that are designed, and other cultural artifacts, early English copyright law only protected books. But these early copyrights were designed with the aim of protecting the distribution of books, and not the artists.

Lessig connects this argument to today as he explains that artists still reap little of the reward their works produce. Drawing from the work of various artists of various kinds, they are always happy with the way copyright laws work either. Unsurprisingly, it is the MPAA (A body responsible for producing motion pictures) and the RIAA (the lobbyist arm of the recording industry) that are the biggest culprits.

The author's arguments rotate between examples drawn from legal history and philosophical arguments supporting the notion that spreading culture is important. After painting a nuanced, detailed sketch of the problem, Lessig recommends a remedy for the copyright issue: a new way of legislating copyright concerns. Lessig feels that the creative properties of artists should be defended against those who would try to profit wrongfully from other's work, but at the same time, appeals for the importance of sharing work that is culturally significant.

Sometimes, you can't have your cake and eat it too. Lessig understands this, and his assessment is thorough and well-reasoned. Coming into the reading, I expected this to be simply an assault on the importance of copyright law, but Lessig's work is much more than that. It is an appeal to all thinking people to reconsider how copyright laws are harming the spread of knowledge and culture and aims rectify the problem. As media outlets become increasingly more powerful, it is important for thinking people to stand up and take notice. Lessig's work caused me to take notice.

After reading Lawrence Lessing’s Free Culture, I decided to further read on the subject of “free culture.” I found an organization, FreeCulture.org: Students for Free Culture, devoted to advocating and pushing the Free Culture movement. On the organization’s Website, they have a blog space where I found a blog on the work of Tim Hwang.

In Tim Hwang’s speech It’s Tough Out There for a Geek: The Changing Battlefield for Online Freedom, he discusses the history and activism of digital freedom and the way in which the movement is affected by present day digital standards.

When I first heard that we were going to design and create our own fonts and color palettes in class, I was excited by the project. I have always had an appreciation for font and color design, but I had never had the opportunity to develop my own.

I was not familiar with the Web application FontStruct, and I assumed it would allow me to create a font containing curvaceous letters. I began sketching a font that I thought represented my screen name moniker “aheartofstars.” The font was to have thick crescent moon and heart like curves accompanied by a random star.

When I tried to mimic my sketch in FontStruct, I was forced to abandon my font. FontStruct is a great application, but it does have limits. One such limit is that it can not replicate extended curves properly. I felt disappointed and discouraged, but the assignment needed to be completed, so I tried to think of another way I could represent my screen name while conforming to the limitations of FontStruct.

I decided to make a novelty font that could only be used as a heading. It breaks many of Lupton’s rules as the letters are contained within a heart shape. The heart maintains a static cap and x-height, and it always rests on the baseline. I am not satisfied with the overall font.

I did enjoy creating my color palette in Adobe Kuler. As with my font, I built the color palette around my screen name. I used red as the base color as it represents the heart. I used a deep dark blue/purple to represent both the night sky and veins in the heart. The yellow, grey, and white represent stars, clouds, and other heavenly objects.

It's no secret that I hate my job.  In fact, I've disliked most jobs I've had because of crummy co-workers and awful bosses.  (I've worked on golf cart maintenence, bussed tables, waited tables, and worked at a gym.....all sucked).  But one thing that I've always been wary of has been being online friends with co-workers.

This article from NY Times discusses the pros and cons of accepting friend requests from co-workers and bosses on networks like Facebook and Myspace.  I highly suggest checking this article out; it's got some awesome tips and guidelines for how to handle online relationships with co-workers.

 

I found Lawrence Lessig's Free Culture to be a very interesting book to read.  My real fascination came from the fact that I'm a musician, and am always interested in reading about copyright laws and the history behind them. 

I've found that the laws concerning copyrights are very complicated at times and difficult to get a grasp on, and sometimes it becomes tough to form a solid opinion as to exactly how you feel about certain aspects of the law.

I liked Lessig's section on Music on page 55, as well as his suggestion for creator compensation on page 106.  A lot of my friends download music for free, in fact my one buddy JD regularly tells me about how he "hasn't bought a CD in years" because he downloads entire discographies.  To some, this may seem like a smart move, and a great way to save money.  But let me explain how this looks from the opposing side.

As a musician who is trying to promote myself independently, the whole process rests on my shoulders.  No management team, no record label, no PR group, nothing; just me and the help and support of my family.  Let's do a little math:

- First, we have supplies and tools to do my job (write and perform music.)  Guitars, amplifiers, microphones, mic stands, PA system, cables, extension cords, guitar strings, picks, guitar straps, effects pedals, slides, pickups, and  capos. 

- Now let's add in the instructional DVDs and lessons that I've learned from of over the years.

- I began playing music at the age of 12, so factor in 10 years worth of time spent working on my music (I'm primarily self-taught.)

- Add in the hours of practice each week, as well as time spent working on new material, shaping and crafting songs, and generally working to improve.

- I released an album in October 2008, (yes, a shameless plug, but I have to promote myself, remember??)  I had to pay for the time spent in the studio to record, as well as pay for the album to be printed and sealed, and then shipped out to me.

- Lastly, let's factor in the money spent on gas when I drive around to perform and promote my music.

Now imagine I wake up one day and find my album is up on Limewire, and everyone's downloading it for free because they don't want to pay for it. 

I only tell you this to remind you that a copyright protection, in this case, is there for a reason.  I think a lot of people see copyright protection as almost an inconvenience.  My friend JD doesn't get why you would pay for a CD when you can just dowload it for free?  CDs may be "expensive" in some people's eyes, but you have to remember that you're not paying for the plastic case, or the CD itself, or the lyric book.  You're paying for the time, energy, and money spent by the musicians/songwriters who have dedicated their lives to creating music (or any art form, for that matter) for people's entertainment.  Sure, I want to share my music with the world, but honestly, I don't want to starve in the process.

Now let's look at Lessig's point about building off of previous creations.  He gives the impression throughout the book that if we begin to limit what people are allowed to "add on to" or "springboard" off of, that our free culture will suffer.  I disagree.  Again, let me relate this back to music.

I'm a big John Butler Trio fan.  Now if I ripoff this song, Pickapart, and make some changes, but claim I've only built on what was already there, there's no way you're going to convince me that that's ok.  Instead, I feel that the drive to avoid copyright infringement has pushed me to study JBT's style, mesh it with my other influences, and create something unique to myself.  I have a few songs that are in the same style as JBT, but swiping specific melodies and progressions would be piracy in every sense of the word.  Lessig's assertion that the concept of "property" is detrimental to growth in a free culture is a bit absurd, but again, I may feel this way because of my background in music.  As my classmate Chris said in his post, " His theme is that if this occurs, 'Free Cultures are cultures that leave a great deal open for others to build upon; unfree, or permission, cultures leave much less.  Ours was a free culture.  It is becoming less so."  (p. 30)'"  There is plenty to build upon without ripping others off. 

Let me ask you this; if I came to you and said, "Hey a friend of mine approached me and said he wanted to use the melodies and vocal patterns from my song Jet Plane for a documentary he's filming.  He doesn't want to use my song, he just wants to create a song a lot like it and add in some piano parts, maybe a violin, and use a female lead singer."  Would you say that's ok?  Sure, he's adding on to what I did, but is the song not, at its core, still my creation? 

Copyright protection is something I feel passionately about, and this book really made me get really passionate really quick!

I'm sure we all remember back in February when Facebook was about to put into effect a new set of Terms and Conditions that would grant them ownership of users' content, photos, etc, even after an account was deleted.  And I'm sure we also remember the total outrage that ensued.

Well it looks like they listened when we complained.  According to a New York Times article, after the enormous amount of protest and and resistance from users, Facebook has drawn up some new Terms and Conditions, and allowed users to vote on whether or not they should be put into effect (these new Terms and Conditions grant ownership of content to users once again.)

I think this is a great step forward for social networking.  It proves that the users really are the ones in control.  It's easy for changes to be made and it's up to users to simply adapt and get used to it, but the fact is we are the ones who keep these networks running.  If it weren't for us, there would be no Facebook, or Myspace, or Twitter, or Skype, etc.  I was very happy to see this unfold the way it did.

 

 

 

     I have become increasingly interested in the role that technology has in constraining art. But when I became the artist, and had to work within the constraints of an unfamiliar medium, my academic curiosity quickly vanished, and I was left in intermittent fits of frustration. While my response to Fontstruct is probably borne more out of lack of typographical skills than it is with a problem with the program, the fact remains that building a font is a fairly difficult process.

     The first step to designing my font with Fontstruct was to first be a pencil sketch showing what I thought the font should look like. I didn't like this idea because I was afraid that I would be unable to translate something I drew onto the program. So, I just started playing around with Fontstruct.



     I started at the top of the alphabet and began working my way down. I was having trouble getting used to Fontstruct's limitations-- I found making curved lines of any type difficult. So, I tried to work within the framework I was provided with.

    But then, I ran into a problem: a clear lack of consistency. You can notice that the B is smaller than the A and the C and that some of the letters are just not recognizable. So I kept working.



You can see the difference between joefont2 (which was a clone of joefont1-- long story) and joefont3, which is much more similar to final product than was joefont1. The biggest difference was the size of the font. Initially, I was making my fonts around 4 or 5 blocks high, which was much too small. Then I experimented making the uppercase letters eight blocks high and lowercase ones four blocks high, but then I read in Lupton's "Thinking With Type" that the x height should be slightly more than half of the tallest uppercase letters. So, I adjusted the sizes again.
  

   But things weren't so simple. While I was deciding how large to make my fonts on Thursday night, I began having problems with Fontsruct. The page would load, but the Fonstructor would not. I had to remake the font almost entirely from scratch because the fonts were too small. This was frustrating at first because I felt as though I was throwing five hours of work away. It wasn't that bad as I was able to quickly re-assemble my font learning tricks I had learned from trial and error. Though I was no pro, I was getting much better at using Fontstruct.

     After spending so much time with Fonstruct, I thought I was seeing penguins on the page. So, I decided to make my font look like penguins. At the time, it didn't look like a stretch. If you look closely, you will notice that all of my letters have "eyes" that make the letters appear that they are looking at you. That is why I called the font "Vigilance".



This is what my font looked like just before the final pass. Notice how the lowercase "t" looks funny-- I had it dipping below the line. I don't know why I did that, and I fixed it for the last pass. I am also notably missing punctuation marks. Writing a sentence without punctuation marks is difficult, so I added them as well.



     I really like how Fonstruct allow you to type with your font. I think it provides the user with a better sense of whether the font is usable or not. I think my font at this point was usable, though not ideal.

     I spent some more time working on vigilance, polishing out the rough edges, adding punctuation marks, and checking for consistency. I am pretty pleased with the final product. Though a few letters did not turn out quite right, I am happy with the results overall.




     In addition to designing a font, our class was also charged with designing a color palette. I couldn't find a photo I was happy with to use as an inspiration for my palette, so I played around with Adobe's Kuler a bit.

     The application conveniently places a color wheel within easy reach to experiment with colors in real time. I enjoyed moving the points on the wheel around, and seeing which colors seemed to go well together. Then I came away with a palette that I liked. It is pictured below.




     I played with the wheel until I found a combination I was happy with. Why did I stop here? For some reason, these colors all seemed to go together. When you look at the color wheel, it actually makes sense.

   



My base color, as evidenced by the extra ring, which falls in the purplish side of the wheel, is matched almost perfectly by the olive color directly across. Any color that lies directly across from another color is said to be its opposite, and thus complimentary.

The Teal-like color I used is similar, and just a shade or two lighter than the light teal which lies closer to the center of the wheel. The ruddy color lies directly opposite the light teal. My eyes told me these colors go together because they are related, whether opposite or highly similar.

     I will never look at typography the same way again. It is difficult to remain consistent, original, striking, and yet follow good practices. On top of all these factors, it's important to remember that we are also working within a new medium (in this case Fonstruct) which has its own set of limitations.

This has been a enlightening and challenging class.  The books we read lead way into fascinating discussions that have caused me to re think many preconceived notions I have about; metaphors, images, comic books, categorizing, the list goes on and on.  Now that the semester is coming to an end we find ourselves looking back over all we have learned.  These questions are designed to try to help us get an overview of the semester.  Hopefully they will help in our discussion. 

1)      I am sure that we each learned a great deal for all of the books that we read for this class.  But if you had to chose, which do you think had; the biggest impact on you, caused you to make foreseen and unforeseen connections, helped you to grasp an unknown concept or see something in a new way, etc?

 

2)      What connections or ideas are present from author to author?  What concepts do you think that the authors would agree about?  What do you think that they would disagree about?

 

3)      When working on the final project for this course, were there any concepts from the reading that you focused on specifically?  (Of course we all tried to pay attention to the lessons of the books but was there anyone that influenced your project in particular?)

 

4)      After using Twitter and the IAOC blog for the past few months has your opinion changed about these forms of communication?

5)      During the first few weeks of class we attempted to identify possible information ecologies within Rowan.  Now that we have read the remaining books and completed the map project do you still agree with what we had originally said?  Are there any other ecologies that we missed?

 

6)      Do you think that the information on your poster presentation could be considered beautiful evidence? If not why? Is there anything that could have been done differently to make it more so?