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And we have a winner...

Presenting to you winning design of the first ever Digital Art Teacher Design Contest!

Carol Twombly, born in 1959 in Concord Massachusetts, started her artistic endeavors as a sculpture artist at Rhode Island School of Design. After seeing the practical appeal of the field of graphic design, she switched from sculpture to graphic design.

As we continue to look at the importance of typography, let’s jump to the early 20th century and peek into the life of Stanley Morison. While he was responsible for the fairly large contribution to typography by creating Times New Roman, his beginnings were rather humble.

Born in Britain in 1889, Morison left school at 14 with only an elementary education. His father abandoned his family and so, as was the custom in those days, he left school to find a job to take up where his father left off.

Have you ever stopped to wonder why there are SO MANY typefaces in the world? You can find a font for ANY OCCASION...no matter how obscure or strange (including your dog’s birthday!).

You are so awesome at teaching, motivating, and encouraging you students, that I thought it was about time to reward both student and teacher with a little gift. So...

Fix in your mind the biggest, most important person you can think of. Now, imagine this person with hundreds of awards, distinctions, and accolades. This person would be a giant in whatever they did, right? Are you picturing Michael Bierut? If you were thinking about graphic design, then you certainly should have been. 

Painting in photography? You bet! The word “photo” means light in greek and “graphe" means drawing; so we’re just going to take it up a notch and paint instead of draw!

Let’s get down to business, how are we going to do it? You will need to gather a few things first:

Born in 1931, George Lois has been a staple in the graphic design community for a long, long time. In his mind, a career in the arts was never a question, "Drawing every second since I was 5 years old, led me to the High School of Music & Art."

From there he was struck by the concept of what he calls "The Big Idea". As an advertising designer, this means that the idea that he comes up with should not only stick in the minds of the viewer, but it should "sear the virtues of the product into the viewer's brain and heart".

In my last blog, I introduced contrast and highlighted how to take high contrast images. This week we are going to take a look at low contrast images, why they are important, and how to look for them in your photography.

High contrast is extremely valuable in photography because it really makes the image stand out and make a statement.

Want people to stop and admire your photography? Want your image to nearly pop off the wall and say “LOOK AT ME!!!”

High contrast can help you do it! There are 3 different kinds of contrast in photography: High, Normal, and Low. 

Low contrast means that there is very little value change. It could be that the the light is mostly dark, mostly grays OR mostly light. The key is that there is not a lot of contrast in low contrast.