This week...

The early release of last week's lecture places us in a good position for focussing on the studio and the development of content and structure of the online magazine.

Your early responses to the discussion points are much appreciated and they do read really well.
So to reitterate. The current lecture on the typographic context was released early but if you haven't had the chance to read it check it out here.

The first additional link out this week is a really useful game that helps sharpen your sensibilities in regard to the kerning of type. For those of you who are't yet aware kerning is a powerful tool for creating harmonious distribution of negative space between typographic characters and is spoken of in the context of letterspace one of the three spaces of type.

The objective of the game is as follows:

Your mission is simple: achieve pleasant and readable text by distributing the space between letters. Typographers call this activity kerning. Your solution will be compared to a typographer's solution, and you will be given a score depending on how close you nailed it. 

The game is called KERN TYPE and can be found here...

The second link out this week is another interactive experiment that is type related. This project is based aroudn the conceptual metaphor that "Type is an organism". the site features seven different typographic investigations that are all interactive in different ways.

The project is called typoganism...

Both these innovative approaches to thinking about typography demonstrate that when thinking about typographic context we must acknowledge the integral role that the evolution of technology has played in the development of type.  Essentially type has always been closely linked to new technologies. This is almost an understatement but needs to be pointed out becuase we so often take the quotidian for granted without really considering it's iimport and how we as the designer might exploit it's potential. Hopefully this is something that is being made apparent as we engage with the world of online publishing int eh current project.

If you have yet to repsond to the current Discussion Point here's a reminder:

Discussion Point: Select two innovative typographic designers - one pre-digital (1984), the other contemporary. Provide a brief comparative analysis of their contributions to typographic practice supported by relevant examples of their work. Post your response to the Studio Blog.