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.

It was a dark and stormy night…

Posted on December 11, 2021 by Brian Lawler

Two of my students and I were searching for Daniel, one of the important people in a community of artists in Munich. I say he is “one of the important people,” but I cannot tell you his title, nor how … Continue reading →

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An analysis of the Image P3 color space

Posted on November 13, 2021 by Brian Lawler

About four years ago, Apple changed the color space of the iPhone from whatever it was (maybe sRGB?) to a new color space called Image P3. This is the color space used by flat panel TV screens. This was a … Continue reading →

Posted in Color Management, Photography, Printing and Printing Processes, Software | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A grateful message to all of you

Posted on October 25, 2021 by Brian Lawler

This is my occasional update on traffic to The Blognosticator with statistics and commentary on my art of blogging. In an era when podcasters are doing fabulously, I have to face facts: I am a print guy. I tried video, … Continue reading →

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An obsession with words

Posted on October 19, 2021 by Brian Lawler

Though it has nothing in common with my usual posts, I want to say a few words about my obsession with the New York Times’ Spelling Bee puzzle. It’s fun! It’s cause for insanity. It’s enough to make you either … Continue reading →

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A refined approach
to repositioned panoramas of Munich street art

Posted on October 16, 2021 by Brian Lawler

Four years ago I was teaching in Munich, and during that time I photographed a number of pieces of street art on Tumblingerstraße in the city. You can read that story and its associated comments here. The photos were taken … Continue reading →

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AppleScript solves my grid mask challenge in Adobe Photoshop

Posted on August 21, 2021 by Brian Lawler

I pride myself on being a competent user of Adobe Photoshop. I know how to make my photos look good by sliding sliders and pushing buttons and applying filters and adding Layer Effects and all sorts of visual things. Occasionally I need … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Imposition and Pagination, Photography, Photoshop techniques, Software | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Illustrator graphs show me how my solar system is working

Posted on January 9, 2021 by Brian Lawler

Greetings Blognosticator readers! I (sort of) apologize for my long absence from this blog. I retired from my teaching position at Cal Poly in mid-June, and have been relaxing since then by not contributing essays to this forum. Instead, I … Continue reading →

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Saved by the wire (and the fiber-optic cable)

Posted on May 3, 2020 by Brian Lawler

You would never think that a wire could slow Internet speed. Well, perhaps you would think of that, but I hadn’t thunk about it much. I was once warned by my friend Eric that the wrong kind of wire could … Continue reading →

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My good friend Ray Prince has died

Posted on May 2, 2020 by Brian Lawler

Ray was a man among men in the graphic arts industry. He worked tirelessly for decades to make our lives better through technological advances in printing and publishing. Though I had known him casually for many years, Mr. Prince became … Continue reading →

Posted in Graphic Arts people | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Excellent typography in web pages

Posted on April 19, 2020 by Brian Lawler

In a previous post I wrote about the differences between typewriter quotes and real quotation marks, and how to do it right. I have received some nice feedback on that post. One person suggested that while it’s great to use … Continue reading →

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