Author: HFM

This author has written 6420 articles

Prototyping Responsive Typography

  • Post author:
  • Post category:Design

By viljamis.com: Prototyping Responsive Typography:

Basically, a typography prototype is a single web page that consists of the project’s actual content. It’s designed in the browser using real web fonts and tools like Typecast. A typography prototype includes font choices, styles for the basic text content and a typographic scale, but nothing else.

All our decisions should start from the content out, not canvas in. This means we shouldn’t start doing any design work before having the project’s actual content on hand (or something that is very near the actual content). That’s because the content and the language used has a big impact on how our typography will work. This is especially true with display type and headers, but also with paragraphs and line-lengths. Having the real content also helps to judge if the font choices fit the mood correctly.

Very nice instruction on how to prototype for typography as a part of design.

Continue ReadingPrototyping Responsive Typography

Week 1: What is gender? Theories and views

Gender Through Comic Books Online Course at Canvas.net.

The Course Syllabus

Class hasn’t started, but I can already tell by the reading materials that I’m going to be FIRED UP about some of this week’s subject, because I’ve written about it before! The readings from Lorber are definitely a feminist take on gender, but it’s a take from the mid-90’s before the great feminism vs. transgender wars started. I believe the trans folks have successfully proven their arguments in that war by now, so some of the ideas in Lorber’s writing need to be adjusted to be less “all gender is a social construct” and more “many parts of gender are a social construct.” Science, people. It can stop wars.

If Ruth Hubbard’s ‘The Social Construction of Sexuality’ is actually intended to be a course subject and isn’t just tacked on the end of the other paper, things get really interesting. Hubbard is laying the groundwork for the sexual fluidity argument, and the course selections from Strangers In Paradise seem to carry that subject on. I sure hope that Afterellen’s Senior Editor Heather Hogan is taking this class, too. It would be really fun to fight the sexual fluidity war with her in an actual academic setting.

I understand some feminists’ desire for “all gender is a social construction” to be true – it certainly makes it easier to break down arguments of one gender having greater social value than the other. But it’s too simplistic and really leaves out the experiences and soul-searching that trans folks go through in arriving at an understanding of themselves. The same is true for the “all sexuality is a social construct” argument – it undercuts the experience of both Kinsey 6 gay people and Kinsey 0 heterosexuals.

Strangers in Paradise

Week 1 Reading Assignments:

Comic Book reading assignments
Strangers in Paradise 1-3 (Vol. 1), Strangers in Paradise 1-9 (Vol. 2), and Rachel Rising #1

Course Additional reading
Article: “Night to His Day”: The Social Construction of Gender by Lorber

(Note that this PDF also has The Social Construction of Sexuality by Ruth Hubbard included.)

My Additional Reading

Male-to-Female Transsexuals Have Female Neuron Numbers in a Limbic Nucleus
“The present findings of somatostatin neuronal sex differences in the BSTc and its sex reversal in the transsexual brain clearly support the paradigm that in transsexuals sexual differentiation of the brain and genitals may go into opposite directions and point to a neurobiological basis of gender identity disorder.”

Transsexual differences caught on brain scan – 26 January 2011 – New Scientist

Reader Response to “Night to His Day” by Judith Lorber | hannahcylkowski

See also, my own post on Sexual Fluidity: Sexual fluidity, Skins US, and labels! labels! labels!.

Continue ReadingWeek 1: What is gender? Theories and views

‘Beasts of battle’ via Wikipedia

Via wikipedia: Beasts of battle:

The Beasts of battle is a poetic trope in Old English and Old Norse literature. It consists of the wolf, the raven, and the eagle, traditional animals accompanying the warriors to feast on the bodies of the slain. It occurs in eight Old English poems and in the Old Norse Poetic Edda.

The term originates with Francis Peabody Magoun, who first used it in 1955, although the combination of the three animals was first considered a theme by Maurice Bowra, in 1952.

The beasts of battle presumably date from an earlier, Germanic tradition; the animals are well known for eating carrion. A mythological connection may be presumed as well, though it is clear that at the time that the Old English manuscripts were produced, in a Christianized England, there was no connection between for instance the raven and Huginn and Muninn or the wolf and Geri and Freki. This mythological and/or religious connection survived for much longer in Scandinavia.

Continue Reading‘Beasts of battle’ via Wikipedia

Batgirl’s Equal Pay Public Service Announcement

How cool is this that the actors from the Batman TV show starred in a political public ad in the early 1960’s? You’d never see this today. In case you were wondering after watching the below video, the Equal Pay Act of 1963 did get passed, and has improved women’s salaries, but needs to be amended to achieve the true aims of the bill, because women are still paid on 77 cents on the dollar compared to men.

The EPA’s equal pay for equal work goals have not been completely achieved, as demonstrated by the BLS data and Congressional findings within the text of the proposed Paycheck Fairness Act. President Barack Obama said in March 2011 that he will continue to fight for the goals in the Paycheck Fairness Act.[4] The bill was reintroduced in both houses of Congress in April 2011.

Continue ReadingBatgirl’s Equal Pay Public Service Announcement

Indianapolis Museum of Art’s unnecessary budget cut backs

There’s a lot to unpack in this article on the IMA’s recent decision to cut it’s budget under director Charles Venable – [The sad, unnecessary situations at MOCA, Indy | Tyler Green: Modern Art Notes | ARTINFO.com.]

But it’s well worth reading the whole article to tease out the details, especially if you are a member of IMA or if you care about where the arts are headed in Indianapolis. In really simple terms, the IMA director Venable decided to cut the budget to keep their draw from endowment under 5%, which will result in laying off staff. But their endowment is quite high and could easily retain that staff given the current state of the economy. And the board is supporting that decision, even though it will result in a reduced quality of services and cultural impact for Indianapolis.

Especially disturbing are the suggestions that there was a whisper campaign that past directors of the IMA were profligate about spending – there’s no real evidence of irresponsibility, and IMA stands as an example of a very well-run and quite popular institution given it’s size and the size of the metropolitan Indianapolis community.

I urge you to pop over and read the whole article, it’s worth your time.

IMA 100 Acres

IMA’s 100 Acres

Continue ReadingIndianapolis Museum of Art’s unnecessary budget cut backs

Damsel in Distress: Part 1 – Tropes vs Women in Video Games

The first video from Anita Sarkeesian’s kickstarter project “Tropes vs. Women in Video Games” is up and running, covering the “Damsel in Distress” trope.

You might remember that when Sarkeesian started this Kickstarter project, there was a huge surge of harassment directed at her for even starting the research, before she had even expressed her ideas on the subject [Slate article: Online Misogyny: Can’t Ignore It, Can’t Not Ignore It]

Sarkeesian’s story is a doozy, by the way. She started a Kickstarter page to raise money to make a documentary about the tropes used by video game designers to portray female characters. She hadn’t expressed an opinion about video games yet, but simply by stating that she would at some point in the future do so, she had to endure an absolute avalanche of misogynist abuse from men who hoped they could silence her before her too-scary-to-be-heard opinion could be voiced. Every access point they could exploit was used to try to get to her, especially her YouTube page. Her Wikipedia page was repeatedly vandalized with lies, links out to porn sites, and pornographic pictures.* Eventually, Wikipedia shut it down. Unfortunately for the misogynists, this sort of thing generated a lot of sympathy for Sarkeesian, and she was able to fundraise well beyond her original goals. Like, more than $90,000 beyond what she originally wanted to raise.

Continue ReadingDamsel in Distress: Part 1 – Tropes vs Women in Video Games

Oceanographer Edith Widder: How we found the giant squid

Oceanographer Dr. Edith Widder talks about how she invented the camera rig designed to attract and film the giant squid recently filmed and shown in the Discover documentary.

Dr. Widder is the president, senior scientist and CEO of the Ocean Research and Conservation Association. And she is a total bad ass. A really cool example of women doing important and fun stuff.

Continue ReadingOceanographer Edith Widder: How we found the giant squid

Team Pie and Team Cake Shirts

I’ve been meaning to make these shirts since the first Twilight movie came out, because I never cared much for Edward or Jacob, but I do care a lot about dessert. I also have a vague recollection of having a (semi-sober) discussion (argument) with someone about whether cake or pie was better, which was quite a silly thing to have a disagreement about because everyone knows that pie is better than cake. Thankfully, I don’t remember with whom I was having this discussion, so I can’t hold their wrong opinion against them. (Notice I was nice enough to make a shirt for the misguided cake-espousers. Because I’ll take their money, even though they’re wrong.)

Team Pie Shirt

Team Cake Shirt

Team Pie and Team Cake Shirts, for sale on redbubble.com.

Continue ReadingTeam Pie and Team Cake Shirts

Jennifer Hudson – ‘I Can’t Let Go’ on Smash

I know it’s fashionable to hate on Smash recently, but you gotta at least admit that Jennifer Hudson KILLS this song. I’ve been playing this on repeat all week. Favorite line – “And when heartache comes a’calling, / I won’t even try to run / Cause it’s all that makes me know that I’m alive.” (Not exactly applicable in my life right now given that I’m happily married, but it still resonates.)

Continue ReadingJennifer Hudson – ‘I Can’t Let Go’ on Smash