The video was a created by using long exposures which captured the iPads movement through space creating three-dimensional forms in light.

The process started by creating software models of three-dimensional typography, objects and animations. These were then rendered into cross sections, making a series of outlines like a virtual CAT scan. The cross sections were then played back as movies on the iPad and captured in long exposure photographs as it was dragged through the air to extrude shapes.  Each long exposure still is a single image in a composite stop frame animation.

Each frame is a long exposure photograph of 3-6 seconds. 5,500 photographs were taken and only half of these were used in the final edit.

Sen. Barack Obama’s “CHANGE” message is building increased momentum and as we near the end of the primary season, at least a few people believe that some of that success can be attributed to his campaign’s unique selection of typeface. The font selections that Obama, and other candidates such a Hillary Clinton and John McCain have chosen are more than just letters, they are statements that can say almost as much about a person as the words that they spell out.

The font selection chosen by Obama is called Gotham, a relatively new font that is just seven years old. The font appears on al of the Illinois Senator’s signs and rally banners proclaiming “Change We Can Believe In” and “Stand for Change”. (Obama’s logo itself is rendered in a font called Requiem — described on the designers’ website as celebrating “the fertile world of Renaissance humanism,” whatever that means.)

“We see type as the clothes that words wear,” typographer Tobias Frere-Jones said. “You have more than one outfit in your closet, because you don’t wear the same thing to the office that you’d wear to the beach.”

Typefaces with big round O’s and tails are considered more friendly, whereas linear fonts evoke overtones of “rigidity, technology and coldness,” according to British psychologist Dr. Aric Sigman who published a 2001 study, “The Psychology of Fonts.”

With artistic flourishes such as a tail on a lowercase “a,” serif styles “conjure images of trustworthiness,” whereas uncluttered sans serif styles “carry less emotional baggage,” he says.

The serif typeface used in Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s “Hillary for President” logo is New Baskerville, which is commonly used by book publishers, law firms and universities. The New York Democrat’s choice has its roots in a 1757 typeface designed by John Baskerville in Birmingham, England.

Sen. John McCain’s sans serif Optima is more recent, created in 1958 by Hermann Zapf (who, like the Arizona Republican, was once a POW). Simon Daniels, lead program manager of fonts for Microsoft’s typography team, describes it as “classic, quirky, elite and just a bit old-fashioned” — adjectives that dovetail with the candidate’s cultivated image as a maverick.

Daniels noted, in addition to its role as a favorite of pharmaceutical packaging (Alka-Seltzer, for example) and hospital signage, one poignant and high-profile use of the typeface. “It’s the same one used to engrave the names into the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall,” he said. “An interesting coincidence.”

John D. Berry, author of a series of books on typography, calls Gotham the font of 2008. “It’s the hot one,” he said. In a discussion of presidential branding on NPR’s “On the Media,” Gotham garnered praise for looking classy and clean with one commentator likening it to an Armani suit. Online, typography blogs are full of love letters to the typeface, and one artist created a spitting image parody of an Obama sign declaring: “Gotham, a Font We Can Believe In.”

“It’s funny to see it used in a political campaign because on the one hand it’s almost too ordinary, yet that’s the point,” Berry says. “It has that sense of trustworthiness because you’ve seen it everywhere.”

Gotham’s roots

BERRY also noticed something else. “There is plenty of space between the letters, which makes all the difference in the world — especially if you are viewing it at an angle. People are viewing these signs not just from the straight-on camera angle.”

Gotham was originally commissioned by GQ magazine and designed by Frere-Jones of the New York-based Hoefler & Frere-Jones type foundry. “They wanted a look that was masculine and fresh yet versatile,” he said, noting that the font was ultimately inspired by the Eighth Avenue Port Authority Bus Terminal sign in New York City.

Frere-Jones is also struck by the consistency of the visuals in the Obama campaign. “When you see a crowd of Obama supporters, any sign that’s not handmade is in Gotham,” he said. “I’ve never once seen a sign that’s in Arial, Helvetica or Comic Sans.”

But even the slickest new typeface can get you only so far. Just ask former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C). His candidacy is long gone, but his campaign logo is still out there in cyberspace at www.johnedwards.com.

It’s in Gotham too.

Source: Adam Tschorn, Los Angeles Times