Author Archives: Brian Lawler

About Brian Lawler

Brian Lawler is an Emeritus Professor of Graphic Communication at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo and was a Guest Professor at Hochschule München from September, 2021 to September, 2022. He writes about graphic arts processes and technologies for various industry publications, and on his blog, The Blognosticator.

Street Art provides an opportunity
for repositioned panoramas

Posted on May 9, 2017 by Brian Lawler

My wife and I traveled today to see a neighborhood in Munich that is famous for its street art. It’s called the Tumblingerstraße area, and it features some very sophisticated works of graffiti – much better than graffiti – that … Continue reading →

Posted in Adventures, Art, Panoramic Photography, People, Photography, Photoshop techniques, Software | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Van Gogh’s Père Tanguy in perspective

Posted on May 5, 2017 by Brian Lawler

Museums often have no-photography rules, depending on their policy about allowing visitors to take photos, or the legal arrangements they have with art owners, copyright holders and other things that go beyond my pay grade. In the Galleria dell’Accademia in Florence, … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, History, Photography, Photoshop techniques, Printing and Printing Processes | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Der Druck ist nicht tot

Posted on April 21, 2017 by Brian Lawler

At least in Germany it’s not. As I stepped off the train in Heidelberg last Monday afternoon an American asked me for directions. At this I was not very helpful because he and I had been in Heidelberg exactly the … Continue reading →

Posted in Adventures, New technology, People, Printing and Printing Processes, Technology | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Learning letterpress in a 14th century town

Posted on April 19, 2017 by Brian Lawler

One of the three classes I am teaching in Munich is Advanced Typography. The students are in their third year in the Print Media program at Munich University of Applied Sciences. Five of my students are exchange students from my … Continue reading →

Posted in Education, History, Typography | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

The Poster-Paster

Posted on April 10, 2017 by Brian Lawler

In my collection of books related to printing and publishing is a delightful edition from Dover of line art engravings from the 19th and early 20th centuries. I wrote about reproducing these illustrations in a series of blogs I wrote … Continue reading →

Posted in Adventures, History, People | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

270° of the Alps in one panoramic photo

Posted on April 9, 2017 by Brian Lawler

Yesterday my wife and I ventured south from our temporary home in Munich to the German Alps. We traveled by Deutschbahn trains, and a bus (construction on the rails required this) and then another train to the town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen. … Continue reading →

Posted in Panoramic Photography, Photography | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

What’s in a street name?

Posted on March 26, 2017 by Brian Lawler

I walked down Bayerstrasse yesterday morning, heading east from our apartment near the Hauptbahnhof, then turned right on Senefelderstraße. I made a point of doing this because I was on my way to the big Calumet camera store in Munich … Continue reading →

Posted in History, Printing and Printing Processes, Typography | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

The Bishop Peak Portrait Project is very nearly up!

Posted on March 19, 2017 by Brian Lawler

For the next five months I’ll be living in Munich and teaching at the Munich University of Applied Sciences. I arrived here a week ago and I had my first classes this week. But, last week, before leaving San Luis … Continue reading →

Posted in Photography, Photoshop techniques, Printing and Printing Processes | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Once a bitmap, always a bitmap

Posted on March 4, 2017 by Brian Lawler

In my recent series of blogs about reproducing line art from 19th century copper engravings (and similar line art) using modern digital technologies I showed how scanning as grayscale and converting to bitmap format (with the 50 percent dither option) … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Photography, Photoshop techniques, Printing and Printing Processes, Scanning | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Prince Bold made Neue

Posted on February 24, 2017 by Brian Lawler

Every really cool font eventually comes out in a “neue” version. The most famous is Helvetica Neue, which was the modernized version of Helvetica, with its normalized weights and corrected curves and very subtle curve changes. Prince Bold is based … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, New technology, Typography | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment