Wednesday, October 14th, 2009
Our assignment for this week was to utilize the Yahoo! weather feed and use it to generate a 3D sketch. I chose to focus on temperature and conditions. We were also allowed to use two colors, plus a black background. I decided to use rectangles arranged in a circle because I was inspired by
this photo and
this photo.
SF weather data:
The Bahamas weather data:
The Bahamas in the morning:
New York weather data:
I’m happy with the way my sketch turned out, but ideally, I would’ve really loved to have more color variation.
View the sketch
here.
Here is a gist of the code:
Posted in Visualizing Data | No Comments »
Wednesday, October 14th, 2009
For last week’s homework, we were given a .csv file and asked to analyze the data. It turns out it was a map of the world:
Also we were asked to answer the following questions about the Gotham typeface:
What is the “Gotham” typeface and what is its design inspired by?
From Wikipedia: Gotham is a family of geometric sans serif typefaces designed by American type designer Tobias Frere-Jones in 2000. Gotham’s letterforms are inspired by a form of architectural signage that achieved popularity in the mid-twentieth century, and are especially popular throughout New York City.
What type foundry drew and released Gotham?
Hoelfer & Frere-Jones
How much does this type foundry charge for the “Gotham Bundle” for a single computer?
$299
How does that make you feel about fonts you’ve pilfered (if you have done so)?
It makes me realize that I don’t understand what makes typography so valuable. Why are some gorgeous fonts like Helvetica free, but an equally beautiful font like Gotham costs $299? I basically don’t understand what I would be paying $299 for. Admittedly, I feel better about stealing fonts, knowing that I’m saving myself $299. It’s like when you buy a dress that was originally $100, but you get it on clearance for $10.
And briefly, who is Matthew Carter and what did he contribute to digital typography?
Matthew Carter is a type designer. Carter’s career in type design has witnessed the transition from physical metal type to digital type. He contributed many fonts, two of the most popular (at least in the web-o-sphere) are Georgia and Verdana.
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Thursday, October 1st, 2009
For this week’s assignment, we were supposed to improve on our existing sketch. I stuck with my bricks, but instead made them follow a sin wave pattern. From there, I played around with various integers and strings to see what the outcome would be.
My second attempt Posted in Visualizing Data | No Comments »
