BLOG 14 Essential Mathematics for Games

This my husband's textbook that he uses at work. He's a computer scientist and he works at Volition as a game programmer.  He brought this home one day and I thought it was a well done cover for a textbook ― especially a computer-math textbook.

The scanned colors didn't come our very well.  The cover is more tan than the sickly green it appears to be and all of the adjustments I tried made it look more like puke.  Sorry.

So, what I like about the cover... I like the shape and placement of the E and M and how they relate to the angle and triangle. The line represents a 2-dimentional vector (direction [angle] and length [magnitude]). Game programming uses lots of 3-dimesional vector matrix processing linked with velocity and acceleration matrices. I really like the geometric font for the word GAMES and the cut-away A. I could live without the swirly thing but I think it is suppose to represent the 3-D aspect of programming.  All-in-all, I like the clean, angular, almost Swiss style of the cover.

Source: Van Verth, James M., Bishop, Lars M. Essential Mathematics for Games and Interactive Applications: A Programmer's Guide, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, San Francisco, CA 2004.

BLOG 13 Cocaine

This an PSA put out by the Citizens Against Cocaine Abuse.  I find it haunting. I've shown the block of words below the composition.  The words in black on the white background say The average high induced by cocaine lasts thirty minutes. The white words on the black background say The average death induced by cocaine lasts slightly longer.

I think this composition is very well done.  The large canvas and small text force the reader to pay attention to the chilling words on the page.  The proportions of black (representing death) to white (representing the high) have the same unsettling effect. 

The ad is asymmetrically balanced with vast amounts of black negative space outweighing the white.  The text however balance each other perfectly.  I think the text is Calson.

Source: Stewart, Mary, Launching the Imagination, McGraw-Hill, New York, NY 2008.

BLOG 12 Obama

This is such an interesting and powerful typographic technique that I couldn't resist posting this creation of President Obama. In the image, you can clearly see the toll that the tremendous responsibility of presidency has taken on Obama.  Superimposed on his face, hands, hair, and clothing are all of the burdens that he has faced in office.  Some of the more difficult issues are in heavier weight and larger type - Health Care, Afghanistan, H1N1, Bailout, Global Economics, Global Warming, Iraq, etc.  I am drawn to the way the words arc around his eye, dip under his chin, bridge his nose, circle his forehead, follow the curve of his hand and fingers...  It's as if we can see how all of the issues are intertwined within him, how they weigh him down, show the great responsibility that has befallen him.

The typeface looks like Helvetica in varying weights and sizes. Although it is difficult to say for sure - the numeral 1 in H1N1 looks like the Helvetica numeral 1.

BLOG 11 Butterfly Wings

Most of you have probably seen these before but I find this phenomenon incredible. Every one of these images comes from the brilliant patterns on the wings of moths and butterflies. These designs - each one unique to its species - are used either to attract a mate or for disguise against predators.  The photographer Kjell Sandved has made it his life's work to capture them and create this amazing butterfly alphabet, with every letter from A to Z. 

Nature continues to amaze me! The patterns that occur in nature are so beautiful and so astounding - the colors, shapes, designs.  It re-enforces my belief that so much in our world is interconnected through science, math, sound, literature, art...  There is so much interconnectedness to discover about this world of ours - the Golden Rectangle which appears in the architecture of the Parthenon and the Great Pyramids of Giza. This same number appears in the number and arrangements of many flower pedals - in how they expand from row-to-row based on the Fibonacci sequence (an infinite, irrational series that defines the Golden Number).  Also, many details of the wings of butterflies have been explained and graphed by fractals. Surprise! Many of the fractals are sequenced and end in the Golden Number! If you are really curious, I can explain a little of the math to you but I won't bore you with more details here!   Anyway, it gives me chills when I think about it.

Picture Source:  Extraordinary Pictures of the Alphabet Spelled Out on Butterflies' Wings, 18 January 2008, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/ushome/index.html