Stewdio Blog » HistoFace

Stewart interviewed by Creativity

admin — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 11:00:49 +0000

The design and advertising blog Creativity (formerly AdCritic) has just posted an interview with Stewdio’s Stewart Smith, conducted by Jamie Kim of Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam. The two discuss the intersection of art and software, collaborators, personal projects, and the “fake it ’till you make it” ethos. Read up here: Face to face with the brains behind iQuit, Browser Pong and other experiments in digital fun.

Stuttgart Germany visits Stewdio

admin — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 17:00:01 +0000

Professor Uli Cluss and his wonderful students from Stuttgart ABK in Germany

On Saturday afternoon Stewdio hosted Professor Uli Cluss and his wonderful students from Stuttgart ABK in Germany for a small presentation of Stewdio projects. The session began with a quick look at the Jed’s Other Poem music video along with the primitive Apple II computer used to build it. This was followed by a more serious discussion on data visualization and the Terre Natale (Exits 2) piece in Paris. Loosely continuing the theme were WindMaker and the more experimental typography of HistoFace.

The second half of the presentation consisted of in-progress interactive work such as Avoider [unreleased], the Gimbels Passageway simulator for Ear Studio, and face-tracking games. The subsequent abstract discussion on Code Typography found a momentary anchor when comparing reformatted code whitespace to redecorated chord progressions as heard in Lua Hurts Everybody on Sullivan Street (DGeA). A short QA session followed, touching on the importance of play in design as a tool for discovery; always endeavor to fail in a brand new way.

HistoFace featured on Five Whys

admin — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 17:00:14 +0000

HistoFace, Stewdio’s histogram typeface, has been featured on the Five Whys blog at
http://whywhywhywhywhy.com/2009/03/histoface-hidden-histogram-messages/. Author Neale McDavitt-Van Fleet even provides an RGB channel-separated secret histogram message that he constructed himself.

HistoFace blogged by Adobe’s John Nack

admin — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 17:00:57 +0000

HistoFace, Stewdio‘s histogram typeface, received mention on the Adobe blogs today via John Nack in a post titled Slick typographic apps: Hidden Messages & More. HistoFace is a form of steganography, the art of hiding messages within another medium. The medium in this case is a digital image and the vehicle for revealing the message is the Photoshop Levels tool. Don’t rely on it for security, however, as HistoFace makes for horribly weak cryptography. Its purpose was more process driven: How does one craft a unique set of letterforms that handle the impossibly tight constraints of histogram imagery? Visit HistoFace at http://stewdio.org/histoface.

HistoFace featured on Ironic Sans

admin — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 14:00:08 +0000

This morning David Friedman wrote about HistoFace on his blog Ironic Sans. HistoFace is a histogram typeface designed for use in the Photoshop “Levels” window. The character shapes articulate the tight constraints of histogram imagery: Each figure must be constructed from bottom-flush vertical lines, rendering compound paths and concave cantilevers impossible.

It’s a particular honor for this project to be featured on Ironic Sans because it was inspired by an Ironic Sans article on Histogram Hacking and an I.S. reader, Josh Millard. (Thanks to Lan Lan Liu for originally bringing Ironic Sans to our attention.) HistoFace was also recently linked from The Moon Goons.