Devices of the New World Order

NEWMEDIAPUBLISHINGTHE MAGAZINE FOR E-PUBLISHERS

In 1985 the “desktop publishing” revolution began and graphic design would never be the same again. Three companies almost single handedly began this revolution. They were Adobe, Aldus and Apple.

Adobe invented the device independent Postscript page description language. At the same time Aldus released PageMaker as the first desktop publishing application that used it. Apples contribution to the revolution was the 300 dpi LaserWriter the first truly affordable laser printer. Finally Apple brought it all together on its Macintosh personal computer platform. This combination made professional level typesetting from a desktop system

possible.

With these systems work with type rapidly went digital. Digital fonts are simply computer programs that contain vector information with spacing and kerning details. Each program defines a letter of the alphabet or other symbol. Gathered together a collection of these character programs that share a common design definition form a family of typefaces such as Times New Roman or Helvetica. These standard typefaces may include information for creating the font in italic, bold, regular and bold italic. There may even be more extensive information for further design innovations, while decorative fonts may simply be individual fonts collected together.

For most Standard fronts like Helvetica or Arial which may be used as system fonts it’s not uncommon for only the four basic font variants of italic, bold, regular and bold italics to be delivered. These are usually not enough for the professional E-publisher. The professional will look for additional sets like light, regular, bold, semibold, heavy and black additionally there will be widths such as condensed and/or expanded. Many times these attributes are packaged in fonts sets called expert or professional sets. While printed type relies on light reflection, screen type is reliant on light that is emitted from radiant devices like laptops and iPads. This is very tiring for the eyes and typology can help mitigate this tiring effect. Further resolution is a main difference between type for the screen and print. Most computerized devices have resolutions ranging from 72 to 96 pixels per inch while print ranges around 2500 dots per inch. Laser printers today are

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Typography Todayby Edward Baker

mostly 600 dpi. This makes reading on digital devices quite a chore as opposed to printed matter.

On the advantageous side type on screen tends to be searchable as well as editable making it into what many are calling “live text” that allows for cross referencing and interactive hyperlinks.

Screen rendered type can also be coupled with sound and animation. TV and film titles fall into this category of

typology. It’s not uncommon today for type to be used in motion to create plug-ins for WebPages, games, CD-ROMS with technologies such as Flash, QuickTime and Silverlight.

The Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) has created the exhibit “Standard Deviations: Types and Families in Contemporary Design: to highlight the importance of digital type. Here is the linked list of type faces. Click a name to view the typeface.

MOMA’s 23 digital typefaces:

OCR-A (1966) New Alphabet (1967)

Bell Centennial (1976-78) ITC Galliard (1978)

FF Meta (1984-1991) Oakland (1985)

Keedy Sans (1991) FF Beowolf (1990)

Template Gothic (1990) Dead History (1990)

HTF Didot (1991) FF Blur (1992) Mason (1992)

Mantinia (1993) Interstate (1993-95)

Big Caslon (1994) FF DIN (1995)

Walker (1995) Verdana (1996) Mercury (1996)

Miller (1997) Retina (1999)

Gotham (2000)

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Digital Color Theory For many of today’s new e-publishers color is a hugely difficult subject. There are hundreds, if not thousands of variables to manage, and some colors are simply not possible in certain media. So we thought it would be a good idea to revisit color theory and how it works with an eye to the new digital world. We wanted to see color in the light of the new world order in publishing, while at the same time reviewing its timeless properties.

Today publishing-designers and lay-outers are faced with producing works that transcends media. Logos and

letterheads need to look good on both paper and digital screens. Even within media color can be a difficult subject. Take for example Pantone, a leading color matching system that is often used in the standard 4 color printing process. Only about half of their current swatch book’s colors can be produced in the standard 4 color printing process.

In the digital age there are two

types of color systems that dominate, RGB and CMYK. RGB stands for red, blue and green while CMYK stands for cyan, magenta, yellow and black.

The digital devices used by today’s consumers such as iPads and laptop computers emit colors as RGB light. Despite the fact that all visible colors can be created using the RGB system, digital devices are only able to reproduce some of them. This capability varies among devices. The intensity of the light for these devices is given a value from 0 meaning nothing is emitted in this color or 255 where the full color is emitted, this translates to red having a value of 255,0,0, Green having a value of 0,255,0 and blue having a value of

“50% of the colors in the current Pantone swatch book are not achievable in standard 4 color process printing. “

by Edward Baker

0,0,255. Together these three colors are known as the primary colors.

From the three primary colors we can produce an additional set of colors called the RGB secondary colors, which are made by combining the full light spectrum emitted by two primary colors For instance yellow is produced when we add red and green in the value of 255,255,0. Magenta is produced when you add red and blue in the value of 255,0,255, and finally cyan is created when you add the blue and green values of 0,255,255. Finally Black is created when there is no light emitted 0,0,0 and white is created when all

light is emitted with the value of 255,255,255.

Where RGB emits light the CMYK system absorbs or reflects light. The pigments in ink act as filters to subtract different amounts of red, green and blue from white light. This will then result in different colors being printed. The difference of range between the two systems results in their displaying colors differently. Many printing processes for example offset lithography use the CMYK system so that digital work produced using RGB must be converted before being submitted for this type of processing.

Addative Colors of the RGB Model

White 255,255,255

Primary Red 255,0,0

Primary Green 0,255,0

Secondary Yellow 255,255,0

Secondary Magenta 255,0,255

Secondary Cyan 0,255,255

Primary Blue 0,0,255

Black 0,0,0

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