From the Conductor's Office of Charlie Irons: Technology

Showing posts with label Technology. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Like litte mud huts...

Adobe's In Design, Photoshop, and rat bastard wayward child, Illustrator.

Ah, the Adobe creative suite. if you do pretty much anything with creating graphics, layouts, or design, there's a good chance you've used an Adobe product at one time, or another. Or, in some cases, yelled at it in late night fits of last minute deadlines and homework.

Or, is it just me?

Anyway, Adobe was founded in 1982 by by John Warnock and Charles Geschke; who left Xerox in order to develop their Postscript page description language. After Postscript, they went on to market fonts which they released in a proprietary format called, simply enough, Type 1; a single byte font format which eventually went public. eventually Type 1 would fall to Apple's True Type font.

In the mid 80's - during the great video game and garage start up age - Adobe threw their hat into the graphics creating ring with Illustrator, to compete with Apple's QuickDraw. Illustrator used a Bezier curve, which gave greater accuracy to shape rendering and allowed for greater scalability.

However, in 1989, Adobe released probably their greatest achievement; they gave the world Photoshop. And, with that, ushered in a new golden age for amateur and professional photographers the world over. And, of course, it wouldn't take us comic book folks long to figure out how to put it to good use, either.

Adobe, which takes its name from the Adobe Creek in Los Altos, Ca - which ran behind Warnock and Geschke's house, has been responsible for many standards in graphic and interactive design, as well as web standards, like the Portable Document Format (PDF) and Acrobat reader. And, even though making a few mistakes in trying to predict the trends in persona and business computing, as managed to stay both profitable and relevant in the field of graphic and interactive design. Slowly, over the years, they've been able to buy out and absorb other competitors in their respective fields to become the giant they are, today.

Today their product line includes layout software, like In Design, replacing PageMaker, and acquired Macromedia in 2005; expanding their reach into video production with Premiere, Director, and other editing programs.

Today, based out of San Jose, Ca (With offices also in San Francisco.), Adobe controls the lion's share of the graphic software and design market. They have grown from a mere handful of fonts into the main power behind desk top publishing and marketing; as well as small and large studio house production, and have a net worth of close to $9bil.

Sunday, May 6, 2012

Johannes Gutenberg - The Father of Modern Typography

Scratch board portrait by
Michael Halbert

Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg– simply known as Johannes Gutenberg – was born cira 1400 to Freile Gensfleisch and his wife Else Wyrich in Mainz, Germany; being one of the patrician families of the town. The last name of Gutenberg is taken from the patriarchal family estates.

Little to nothing is known of Johannes' early life, except that he migrated to Strasburg in March of 1434; supposedly for political reasons- an uprising against the patricians had taken hold in 1411. There he would join the higher ranks of the patricians, as well as become a gold smith; also teaching gem polishing, production of looking glass, and, eventually, printing.

Legend has it that the idea of the press and movable type came to Johannes “like a beam of light”. Others have speculated that he had gleamed the entire process from knowledge of other techniques already in use. Whatever the case may be, his combination of pressing techniques, unveiled in 1440, led to the European inception of the printing press, and, most notably, modern typography. It was his use of lead based alloys to create cheap, easy to manufacture letter punches that could be made quickly, affordably, and with relative uniformity – much more durable then wooden block letters – that lead to the rise of modern typography and the printing revolution.

Page of Gutenberg's 42 line Bible
with illumination. Such decoration depended
on how much the buyer spent.

Though his first projects were Latin and German readers of the time, he's best known for the undertaking of, what would later come to be known as, The Gutenberg Bible; partially funded by Johann Fust and his son in law Peter Schoffer.

Many trials and adjustments would come to pass in the creation of his Bible. Most notable were his abandoned first attempts at multicolored two pass printing - later replaced with single pass and hand illumination, and the ability to increase print lines from an initial 36 lines to, eventually, 42 per page. (In some cases, Gutenberg's Bible is referred to as the “42 line Bible”.) His Bible was completed in 1452.

Johannes created a font type later to be known as Textualis (Textura), or also Schawbacher; characterized by straight, vertical strokes, horizontal lines, and varied line weights, to create a woven like structure throughout the text. To make the justification of the type stronger to the eye, he would vary font sizes, line spacing, and utilized “hanging punctuation”; allowing punctuation to pass beyond the justification lines of the paragraph borders.

Study of Textualis; spaces would be left for
hand illumination of lettering during the
printing process.

Though a skilled craftsman, Johannes was a poor business man. In 1456 legal issues and money disputes between Johannes, Fust, and Schoffer would see Johannes bankrupt, losing his Bible making business; though, later, he would, again, set up another print press, and continue his work. In 1459 a Bible was printed in the city of Bamburg with Johannes supplying the type; though no official credit is given to him.

In 1465, after sacking Johannes' home town of Mainz, archbishop Adolf von Nassau, in recognition of Johannes' work, bestowed on him the title of “Hofmann”; gentleman of the court. He is believed to have lived there, under the stipend of his title, until his death in 1468; his accomplishments relatively unknown to the general public. His grave, in the Franciscan church of Mainz, was lost when the church and cemetery were destroyed in 1742.

Portrait of Johannes Gutenberg;
believed a reconstruction as no
known portrait exists in antiquity.

It wasn't until 1504 that Johannes is publicly recognized as the inventor of typography in a publication by chancellor Ivo Wittig of the University of Mainz, declaring; “who, first of all, invented printing letters... by which art he has deserved honor by the whole world.” In 1567 Johannes' portrait was added to Heinrich Pantaleon's biography of famous Germans.

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

The Conductor is for The Net...

Today we take a stand agains SOPA and PIPA. Today is the day we vote to protect free speech and the emerging new frontier of communication, commerce, and activism. Today is the day we show people where we stand.

Today we vot for The Net. Will you?

Click the badge to sign the petition, stay informed, and find who, in our governement, wants to take away your First Ammendment Right just to benefit some Hollywood execs for a few dollars in their pockets.

Sunday, January 1, 2012

gAtari!

There were many things to come out of 2011; some grand, and some nearly horrific.
In a couple days I'll cover the what's what.
But, this... This needs its own post.
It may have been the greatest thing to come out of last year, entirely on its own!

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Half a Penny...

What cost the universe?

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Fly Me to the Moon...

In contemplation of the moon landing, on this date in 1969...

The leap from a pair of haphazard brothers in a field to the moon was as if nothing, when standing next to the span of man's dawn until his first strides into the 20th century. And yet, in that one small step for man, more was covered in the age of his knowing than all of his days before. And before him the horizon of his potential; a future that, at once, would be so beautiful, and yet so terrifying.

To those who came before, and those still to follow; "thank you"!