Tuesday homework

We'll start on our "book illustration" project next class. For this project, you'll have six pages in a book (set us as three two-page spreads), in which to lay out and illustrate a short story or a poem.

WHAT'S IMMEDIATELY DUE TUESDAY:
1. Pick your story or poem (see below for more details)
2. Bring in a page from a magazine, newspaper, or picture book that you think balances the imagery and text very effectively. I want you to bring the book/page into class, to show to the class as an example of a good text/image balance.

For the story/poem, you have the choice of:

1. Choosing something you've written, or that a friend of your has written (as long as the friend gives you permission)
2. Choosing something written by an SNC student who has submitted the story for this purpose (see link below)
3. Choosing something in the public domain

Since we are more or less "publishing" this story through lulu.com, I want to the content (and the images) to be legit – no pilfering copyrighted material.

In terms of illustrating the story, you are free to use drawings you make, photographs you take, or any stock imagery you are able to download for free or pay for.

By Tuesday's class, I want you to have a story or poem chosen, with some ideas of how you'll illustrate it. I want you to be adventurous in your layout, but legibility of the content itself will be key.

I also want you to talk about a layout strategy you like in one of the books I provided for the class to look through – and also, I want you to bring in a book or magazine that has some interesting layout strategies, for you to present to the class on Tuesday. I just want us to pool our resources so that we have a lot of approaches/strategies to riff on.

Here are links to a variety of public domain resources. If the story you'd like will take longer than six pages to tell, feel free to use an excerpt of the story.

Philip K. Dick stories (science fiction from the 50s and 60s)
Classic Short Stories
Short Stories from the Internet Archive
Literary Stories
Horror stories:
H. P. Lovecraft
Algernon Blackwood
Edgar Allen Poe
Public Domain Poetry


Just make sure you claim it in the comments to this blog post, so we don't have a bunch of people illustrating the same story. In fact, ONCE YOU'VE CHOSEN THE STORY YOU WANT TO ILLUSTRATE, WRITE THE NAME OF THE STORY IN THE COMMENTS TO THIS BLOG POST, checking that no one else has taken it first, so that we don't have any repeats in terms of story/poem selections.

Due Thurs, 2/13

Two things are due this Thursday. The first is your app icon - 2 versions, one in iOS6 style and one in iOS7 style. This is due at the beginning of class. Please format them using the template linked in the below blog post, and flatten a jpeg version to turn in.

The other thing due is: DATA.

For our next project, we're making an infographic. I want your infographic to be data-driven - meaning, it should be built from actual numbers. It could take, as its subject, something as trivial as the number of swear words in Hollywood blockbusters over time, or something as serious as locations and scope of genocides in the past decade. But whatever you're making the infographic about, it should map to some actual, verifiable numbers. So part two of your homework is to bring the data (or a link to the data) you'll be illustrating.

Here are a few infographic resource links, if you're looking for some inspiration/ideas to riff on:

50 Great Examples of Infographics

Vision in the 3rd World

Use this template for your final versions

Here's the template you'll need:

http://appicontemplate.com/ios7#

Just make the largest size, and the two iPhone sizes (in the black box).

App Icon Design – Some References

Here are a bunch of references for our next project – designing an App Icon and interface. We'll go over these in class.

The iOS Design Cheat Sheet - by Ivo Mynttinen:

http://ivomynttinen.com/blog/the-ios-7-design-cheat-sheet/

Some examples of Icons that were re-designed for iOS7:

http://macenstein.com/default/2013/09/21563/

http://afterios7icon.tumblr.com

Photoshop App Icon Template, by Michael Flarup (download this one):

http://appicontemplate.com/ios7#

A GUI template from Applidium:

http://applidium.com/en/news/introducing_ios_7_gui_psd/


More OS7 GUI Templates:

http://speckyboy.com/2013/09/20/free-ios-7-gui-kits-templates/

And here, download an AI app icon shape template:

https://app.box.com/s/q975q9s60x06yo6333u3

Using the Mixer Brush in Photoshop

If you ever need a refresher on the mixer brush, here are two good resources:

From Adobe TV:

http://tv.adobe.com/watch/understanding-adobe-photoshop-cs6/eyedropper-tool/

http://tv.adobe.com/watch/learn-photoshop-cs5/using-the-mixer-brush/