Category: Black

#189 Space & Time

Chaz DeSimone 1 Comment
Re-engineered Webb Telescope becomes first ampersand in space
#189 Space & Time
Click image to view full size or download poster for gallery-​quality printing & framing.
This is a high-​resolution pdf & may take a few minutes to download.Find printing tips & framing ideas here.

“A picture is worth a thousand worlds.”

I didn’t say that; Google did. On July 13, 2022, I saw this Google Doo­dle & imme­di­ate­ly clicked on it, for­get­ting what­ev­er it was that I was googling. I rec­og­nized the gold hexag­o­nal mir­rors & knew it had some­thing to do with the James Webb Space Tele­scope. Wow — it was announc­ing the first images sent to earth by JWST! Google’s phrase “a pic­ture is worth a thou­sand worlds” is a very clever pun, so I used it to blast off Amper­Art #189, Space & Time. The very first image sent, that of deep space, was used as the back­ground in my lat­est piece. Here’s the Google Doo­dle — click on it to see its amus­ing ani­ma­tion & read about its cre­ative development.

Google Doodle celebrating first images from Webb Telescope
Click the Google Doo­dle to see the ani­ma­tion & read about the artwork.

Have you heard of the James Webb Space Telescope? 

Ear­li­er this week I met a new friend who has been in tech­nol­o­gy through­out his career. I told him how excit­ed I was about the first images of space & time from the new tele­scope, expect­ing him to share in the excite­ment. Instead, he asked “You mean Hub­ble?” He was not even aware of the James Webb Space Tele­scope, Hub­ble’s suc­ces­sor. (He has since told me he Googled it, and said “it’s all over the news!” Yes it is.) 

I was amazed that some­one in tech­nol­o­gy had not heard of this tech­no­log­i­cal won­der. That alert­ed me to real­ize maybe not every­one has heard about the JWST — or oth­er inno­va­tions, for that mat­ter — even if it would be of inter­est to them. So I was com­pelled to add this video to intro­duce those of you (espe­cial­ly if you wit­nessed the first moon land­ing in 1969 on your black & white tubes) who have not heard of this suc­ces­sor to the Hub­ble tele­scope, which is mag­nif­i­cent in its own right & still in ser­vice. You just might be as awed as the rest of us are by the James Webb Space Tele­scope — espe­cial­ly after you see the spec­tac­u­lar first images that were revealed July 12, 2022.

This excel­lent video by Fras­er Cain at uni​ver​se​to​day​.com will explain & entertain:

(If the video does not appear, play it on YouTube.)

For those who pre­fer to read, there’s a good entry about JWST at Wikipedia.

Vis­it the web­sites list­ed below (includ­ing NASA​.org) for more infor­ma­tion about the James Webb Space Telescope.

Space is hard to comprehend…

I have been fol­low­ing the jour­ney of the James Webb Space Tele­scope since it was first launched on Decem­ber 25, 2021. For some rea­son I just feel a deep pride in this ven­ture & I’m thrilled at every task it suc­ceeds in func­tion­ing even bet­ter than expect­ed. It seems like a mir­a­cle that noth­ing has gone wrong when there is so much that could have. Even the traf­fic acci­dent (appar­ent­ly they hap­pen in out­er space, too) of a micro mete­or dent­ing the mir­ror last month was planned ahead & com­pen­sat­ed for. 

It’s hard to com­pre­hend how vast space is & what’s real­ly out there, but…

Planetary Nebula NGC 3132, one of first images from Webb Telescope

…time is even harder

It is beyond my com­pre­hen­sion that what I am look­ing at in these first images from the James Webb Space Tele­scope is from space & time 13 bil­lion years ago. I tru­ly can­not com­pre­hend that! I will just set­tle for admir­ing a spec­tac­u­lar image achieved through the vision & tech­nol­o­gy of bril­liant humans on earth.

The above image, Plan­e­tary Neb­u­la NGC 3132, aka South­ern Ring Neb­u­la, is cap­tured by JWST in dying star’s final moments (albeit very long moments). More fas­ci­na­tion about NGC 3132 here.

AA #189 features Galaxy Cluster SMACS 0723

James Webb Telescope first image: Galaxy Cluster SMACS 0723

This has been one of my favorite Amper­Art cre­ations to date. I am thrilled to design a piece that cel­e­brates the suc­cess — per­form­ing flaw­less­ly & far exceed­ing its expec­ta­tions — of this mar­vel of tech­nol­o­gy, which I have been fol­low­ing since its launch on Decem­ber 25, 2021. 

Not only does this Amper­Art #189 Space & Time back­ground fea­ture the very first image (at right or below) released by the James Webb Space Tele­scope, but the con­fig­u­ra­tion of the tele­scope’s gold mir­rors made for a sim­ple task of cre­at­ing the amper­sand by just mov­ing a few mir­rors around. (The amper­sand tele­scope turned out kin­da cute, don’t you think?)

The image above is the deep­est & sharpest infrared image of the dis­tant uni­verse to date. Known as Webb’s First Deep Field, this image of galaxy clus­ter SMACS 0723 is over­flow­ing with detail. You can see a larg­er ver­sion & read all the details on the NASA web­site. Here are some highlights:

✴ The image above shows the galaxy clus­ter SMACS 0723 as it appeared 4.6 bil­lion years ago. 

✴ This deep field, tak­en by Webb’s Near-​Infrared Cam­era (NIR­Cam), is made from images at dif­fer­ent wave­lengths, total­ing 12.5 hours

✴ Thou­sands of galax­ies – includ­ing the faintest objects ever observed in the infrared – have appeared in Webb’s view for the first time.

Now this should real­ly send your mind to infin­i­ty & beyond:

✴ This slice of the vast uni­verse — every­thing you see in the image above — is approx­i­mate­ly the size of a grain of rice held at arm’s length by some­one on the ground.

Alien lifeforms

I’m sure if JWST ever finds a colony of intel­li­gent beings out there, they will all be naked. & hap­py. Maybe that’s what it will take to enlight­en us earth­lings to final­ly strip away our prud­ish, igno­rant, sense­less cen­sor­ship against our own bod­ies. After all, as my favorite bumper stick­er says: 

IF THE UNIVERSE HAD MEANT FOR US TO GO NAKED
WE WOULD HAVE BEEN BORN THAT WAY

There’s plen­ty of space & time for a bil­lion words or less, so please…

LEAVE A COMMENT

Explore the James Webb Space Telescope & Mission & Images

NASA James Webb Space Telescope mission

First images from Webb Space Telescope

The ultimate guide to the James Webb Space Telescope

Other “webbsites” about the Webb Telescope

WHERE IS WEBB NOW?
Production notes for #189 Space &Time:
Original size: 20x30 inches
Programs: Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop
Font: Tall Films
Ampersand: custom by Chaz DeSimone, based on JWST mirror array
Credits:
NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI
Background image: NASA & deposit​pho​tos​.com (enhanced)
“A picture is worth a thousand worlds.” quote from Google​.com
Text about the JWST from Wikipedia​.org
Video: Fraser Cain, uni​ver​se​to​day​.com
You may repost the image & article. Please credit Amper​Art​.com.
To download a full-​size high-​resolution 11x17-​inch poster suitable for printing & framing, click on the image.
Visit DesimoneDesign.com Proper Professional Perfect

Chaz DeS­i­mone, design­er & typog­ra­ph­er, is the cre­ator of Amper­Art & own­er of Des­i­mone Design. He was adding ser­ifs to let­ters when he was just a lit­tle brat scrib­bling on walls. Now he’s a big brat & his entire career is design, so long as each project requires the most sophis­ti­cat­ed, log­i­cal, cap­ti­vat­ing results. Con­tact him at chaz@​desimonedesign.​com.

Thank you for sub­scrib­ing to Chaz’s per­son­al design project, Amper­Art. Please invite your friends — those who are fans of the fun & fab­u­lous amper­sand — to sub­scribe at amper​art​.com.

chaz sez... rants & raves by Chaz Desimone, otherwise known as Chaz the Spaz
Want more?
Rants & raves mostly about design, sometimes about the universe.
An occasional bit of useful advice.
Read the blog:
des​i​monedesign​.com/​c​h​a​z​-​sez
Desimone Design
Desimone Design

#103 Long & Short

Chaz DeSimone 1 Comment
103 Long & Short
#103 LONG & SHORT
Click image to view full size or download poster for gallery-​quality printing & framing.
This is a high-​resolution pdf & may take a few minutes to download.
Find printing tips & framing ideas here.

In a nutshell
The gist
Summing it up
The long & short of it

I’m sure schol­ars of the Eng­lish lan­guage have writ­ten lengthy essays on the ori­gin & evo­lu­tion of the phrase “the long & short of it” but here, sim­ply, is the long & short of it:

This expres­sion, orig­i­nal­ly stat­ed as “the short & long of it,” dates from about 1500; lat­er “the long & short of it” was estab­lished by the end of the 1600s. It is also stat­ed “the long & the short of it.”

Source: The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary

The long & short & condensed & italic

Amper­Art #103, Long & Short, fea­tures typog­ra­phy set in just one type fam­i­ly, Bodoni, but with many styles. It is a beau­ti­ful & ver­sa­tile type­style, hav­ing many vari­a­tions designed by sev­er­al foundries over the years. This piece has pur­pose­ly been set with fonts from four dif­fer­ent foundries.* (See type ter­mi­nol­o­gy below.) 

Demon­strat­ing just how ver­sa­tile Bodoni is — how one type fam­i­ly can ren­der so many per­son­al­i­ties — Long & Short was set as fol­lows, indi­cat­ing style (fol­lowed by design­er or foundry):

103 Long & Shortthe, of it set in Bodoni Con­densed Ital­ic (Berthold)

LONG set in Bodoni Poster Com­pressed (Adobe)

SHORT set in Bodoni Black (Bauer)

& set in Bodoni Old­face Ital­ic (Berthold)

 

When type is set to resem­ble the mean­ing of the words, it is called a typogram. Parts of this Amper­Art piece fit that descrip­tion: the words “long” & “short.” Oth­er exam­ples are “addddi­tion” and “scrma­beld.”

Bodoni, typographer

1818 Manuale-Tipografico, Bodoni
The 1818 Manuale-​Tipografico spec­i­men man­u­al of Bodoni’s press, pub­lished after his death.

Bodoni is the name giv­en to the serif type­faces first designed by Giambat­tista Bodoni (1740 – 1813) in the late eigh­teenth cen­tu­ry & fre­quent­ly revived since. Bodoni’s type­faces are clas­si­fied as Didone or mod­ern. Bodoni had a long career & his designs changed & var­ied, end­ing with a type­face of a slight­ly con­densed under­ly­ing struc­ture with flat, unbrack­et­ed ser­ifs, extreme con­trast between thick & thin strokes, & an over­all geo­met­ric construction.

When first released, Bodoni & oth­er didone fonts were called clas­si­cal designs because of their ratio­nal struc­ture. Bodoni’s lat­er designs are right­ful­ly called “mod­ern” but the ear­li­er designs are now called “tran­si­tion­al.”

In the English-​speaking world, “mod­ern” serif designs like Bodoni are most com­mon­ly used in head­ings & dis­play uses & in upmar­ket mag­a­zine print­ing, which is often done on high-​gloss paper that retains & sets off the crisp detail of the fine strokes. In Europe, they are more often used in body text.

Bodoni, printer

Bodoni page decorations
Proofs of page dec­o­ra­tions from the Bodoni print­ing house

Although to a mod­ern audi­ence Bodoni is best known as the name of a type­face, Bodoni was an expert print­er who ran a pres­ti­gious print­ing office under the patron­age of the Duke of Par­ma, & the design of his type was per­mit­ted by & show­cased the qual­i­ty of his com­pa­ny’s work in metal-​casting, print­ing & of the paper made in Parma.

Writ­ing of meet­ing him in the year 1786, James Edward Smith, Eng­lish botanist and founder of the Lin­nean Soci­ety, said:

A very great curios­i­ty in its way is the Par­ma print­ing office, car­ried on under the direc­tion of Mr. Bodoni, who has brought that art to a degree of per­fec­tion scarce­ly known before him. Noth­ing could exceed his civil­i­ty in show­ing us num­bers of the beau­ti­ful pro­duc­tions of his press…as well as the oper­a­tions of cast­ing & fin­ish­ing the letters…his paper is all made at Par­ma. The man­ner in which Mr. Bodoni gives his works their beau­ti­ful smooth­ness, so that no impres­sion of the let­ters is per­cep­ti­ble on either side, is the only part of his busi­ness that he keeps secret.

Dazzle (not what you think)

The effec­tive use of Bodoni in mod­ern print­ing pos­es chal­lenges com­mon to all Didone designs. While it can look very ele­gant due to the reg­u­lar, ratio­nal design & fine strokes, a known effect on read­ers is “daz­zle,” where the thick ver­ti­cals draw the read­er’s atten­tion & cause them to strug­gle to con­cen­trate on the oth­er, much thin­ner strokes that define which let­ter is which. For this rea­son, using the right opti­cal size of font has been described as par­tic­u­lar­ly essen­tial to achieve pro­fes­sion­al results. 

[And for oth­er rea­sons as well, fine typog­ra­phy should be entrust­ed to a pro­fes­sion­al design­er. Yeah, that would be me. —Chaz]

Bodoni, busy

Bodoni has been used for a wide vari­ety of mate­r­i­al, rang­ing from 18th cen­tu­ry Ital­ian books to 1960s peri­od­i­cals. In the 21st cen­tu­ry, the late man­ner ver­sions con­tin­ue to be used in adver­tis­ing, while the ear­ly man­ner ver­sions are occa­sion­al­ly used for fine book printing.

  • Poster Bodoni is used in Mam­ma Mia! posters.
  • Bodoni is one of the two type­sets that is used by Hilton Hotels for restau­rant or bar menu content.
  • Sony’s Colum­bia Records (owned by CBS from 1938 to 1989) also uti­lizes Bodoni for their wordmark.
  • Nir­vana’s logo is writ­ten with Bodoni (specif­i­cal­ly Bodoni Poster-Compressed).
  • Bauer Bodoni Black is used for Carnegie Mel­lon Uni­ver­si­ty’s word­mark.
  • Bauer Bodoni Roman is used for Bran­deis Uni­ver­si­ty’s word­mark.
  • Tom Clan­cy used Bodoni font for the art­work of all his affil­i­at­ed works until his nov­el Dead or Alive.
  • A vari­a­tion of Bodoni called “Pos­toni” is the pri­ma­ry head­line font for The Wash­ing­ton Post newspaper.
  • Bodoni was the favorite type­set of Ted Hugh­es, UK Poet Lau­re­ate, 1984 – 1998.
  • Roman Bauer Bodoni is used in Slow Food’s logo­type.
  • Bodoni has been used in Mani­la Bul­letin’s head­line text until the ear­ly 2000s.
  • Bodoni is used for the Eng­lish trans­la­tion of the logo for the Ghost in The Shell series.
  • Bodoni is used for the cur­rent logo of Time Warn­er.
  • Bodoni is used in THX’s ear­ly trail­ers like Broad­way & Cimarron.
  • The logo for the Cana­di­an teen dra­ma series Ready or Not is in Bodoni Poster-Compressed.
  • Book cov­ers by Chaz DeS­i­mone for Piano Pron­to (see next headline).
Source: Wikipedia

Bodoni by Desimone for Piano Pronto

A few years ago I was com­mis­sioned by Jen­nifer Eklund, a charm­ing client, to design her Piano Pron­to logo & piano instruc­tion books. Tal­ent­ed in her own right as a pianist & pub­lish­er, Jen­nifer also has a keen sense of design & visu­al style. She fell in love with the type­face Bodoni when I pre­sent­ed it as a com­ple­ment to her logo­type and as the main title font for her books. The front and back cov­ers of her Primer are shown here. Two fonts are used for the cov­er, one being Bodoni Black. The back text is pri­mar­i­ly Bodoni, show­cas­ing bold, reg­u­lar and italic.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you have ever wanted to learn piano, Jennifer’s course is one you’ll really enjoy. It features“accelerated learning for all ages & all stages.” See all her piano instruction books and listen to some beautiful piano music at her website, pianopron​to​.com.

 

 

*Type terminology

“Foundry” of course is usu­al­ly asso­ci­at­ed with met­al works, & that’s exact­ly how type was pro­duced for the first cou­ple hun­dred years after move­able type was invent­ed by Guten­berg. The term “foundry” is still used to des­ig­nate a font publisher.

The term “font” used to mean some­thing very spe­cif­ic, not just a type­face. It was the pack­age of met­al type that was one type fam­i­ly (Bodoni, Gara­mond, Hel­veti­ca, etc.), one weight (reg­u­lar, light, book, bold, black), one style (roman — mean­ing upright, ital­ic, small caps, etc.), & one size (6, 8, 10, 60, 72 point). That was a sin­gle font; i.e. Hel­veti­ca | bold | ital­ic | extend­ed | 36pt.

“Lead­ing” is the space between lines of text. In the days of hand-​set type & met­al linecast­ing machines, strips of met­al rang­ing from 1⁄4 point to 36 points (approx. 1⁄2 inch) or more were insert­ed between lines of type. (Any­thing thick­er was usu­al­ly spaced with wood blocks.) The met­al strips were actu­al­ly lead, & result­ed in lead poi­son­ing for many type­set­ters & printers.

“Cut & paste,” one of the most famil­iar terms asso­ci­at­ed with com­put­ers, used to mean lit­er­al­ly cut the sheet of text, image or cli­part with an X‑acto blade & paste it in the lay­out with rub­ber cement or hot wax, to be pho­tographed by the cam­era for off­set platemak­ing. (& hold your breath to see if any­thing shift­ed around or fell off com­plete­ly as the print­ing emerges from the press.)

Please comment here.

chaz sez ...

Check out the new “chaz sez” blog at Des​i​moneDesign​.com, my com­mer­cial graph­ic design web­site. It’s most­ly about design, typog­ra­phy, print­ing, pub­lish­ing & mar­ket­ing, but on occa­sion I’ll divert to a side­ways top­ic that just can’t escape my rant­i­ng & raving.

Production notes for #103 Long & Short:
Original size: 20x30 inches
Program: Adobe Illustrator
Font family: Bodoni
Ampersand: Bodoni Oldface Italic
Credits:
Reference text: Wikipedia (verbatim & edited)
Manuale-​Tipografico specimen: Wikipedia (public domain)
Proofs of page decorations: TypTS 825.18.225, Houghton Library, Harvard University (public domain)
You may repost the AmperArt image. Please credit Amper​Art​.com.
To download a full-​size high-​resolution 11x17-​inch poster, click on the image.

For pro­fes­sion­al graph­ic design, please vis­it Des­i­mone Design.

Desimone? Damn good!