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Color contrast

The article will explore the meaning of color and how to differentiate color in information layers.

Contrast between the foreground and background is one of the most important factors for the ease of reading. If coloured text is used on a bright background the contrast will be weak, for optimal contrast results is white text against dark colored backgrounds. In signage & wayfinding design color is the combining factor to harmonize the sign with the environment. Color programs will distinguish signs from each other and can offer an indication of the message without having to be able to understand the language of the sign.

Basics of color groups: Color wheel

Swiss painter and designer Johannes Itten created a color wheel that is a organization of 12 color hues around in a circle showing relationships between the colors. The colors are presented in the following way:

• Primary colors: Blue, red & yellow
• Secondary colors: Green, orange & violet
• Complementary colors: Red–orange, red–violet, yellow–orange, yellow–green, blue–violet & blue–green.

Goethe’s Theory of Colours provided the first systematic study of the physiological effects of color (1810). His observations on the effect of opposed colors led him to a symmetric arrangement of his color wheel, “for the colours diametrically opposed to each other… are those which reciprocally evoke each other in the eye.” (Goethe, Theory of Colours, 1810)
Wikipedia

A Color Wheel is an abstract illustrative organization of color hues around a circle that shows relationships between primary colors, secondary colors and complementary colors. Knowing the relationship between colors is the first step in developing a color scheme for signage and wayfinding systems.

Color contrast by science

Arthur & Passini described in their book Wayfinding from 1992 a reliable calculating method to calculate the contrast difference between two colors. The formula is based on the light reflectancy (LR) readings in percentages for each of the two colors involved. By substracting the darker color from the lighter color, divided by the difference by the lighter, and multiplying by 100, we get brightness differential. When the brightness differential is 70 percent or higher the legibility is assured. When it is less, the legibility cannot be assured and those colors should not be using in that combination.

Color examples and meaning

Typography & color contrast

Not only is the contrast important also the chosen typeface will make the difference in a good or bad sign. When using too bold weighted typefaces the text will look like its expanding of the sign, when using too light weighted typefaces the text will fall back into its background. Medium or Regular weights are usually the best options to choose for a good and readable sign.

Orientation and navigation

Navigation from place to place is a fundamental human activity and an integral part of everyday life. Where are you? Where are you heading to? People use their knowledge and previous experiences to find their way in the built environment. The human perception of the built environment and information in a space comes down to balance and focus. What do you see? Why did you see it? What did you do with the information.

Wayfinding principles

Wayfinding has the function to inform people of the surroundings in the (unfamiliar) built environment, it is important to show information at strategic points to guide people into the right directions. Complex structures in the built environment are interpreted and stored by the human memory. Distances, locations and time may be remembered differently than as they appear to be in reality.

An effective wayfinding system is based on human behavior and consists of the following characteristics:

• Do not make them think
  Create a comprehensive, clear and consistent visual communication system with concise messaging.
• Show only what is needed
  Show information that is relevant to the space, location and / or navigation path.
• Remove excessive information
  Remove unnecessary elements to create a clear visual environment ahead.

How does wayfinding work?

How do people orientate, navigate or remember the built environment? Why will people recognize or understand one place easier than another? As shown in the images on the left, a geographical map versus cognitive (mental) map = reality versus human mental memory. When creating a wayfinding scheme the following characteristics influences the way we interpreted the built environment.

• Landmarks
  To create a legible environment it is necessary to mark specific spaces and / or locations. This reinforces the recognition of places and plays a part in overseeing a larger area. With the use of landmarks and marking elements an area will become more visible and will be understand better in the human memory. Landmarks can be art-objects, buildings, streetart, wayfinding signs or striking elements in a landscape. These elements combined will shape the identity of an (unknown) area as seen from your perspective.
• Orientation
  In order to navigate, you need to know where you are in the built environment and where other destinations are located. Preferable it is good to know the distance in time from one place to another. If you are able to orientate yourself within the built environment, it will be easier to understand destinations and to navigate by landmarks. In wayfinding, maps are common used to indicate your location. The usage of maps is a very powerful way of expressing and overseeing the built environment. Be sure to display the maps heads-up in the direction you are facing, this way you can easy relate yourself to the built environment.
• Navigation
  Navigating the physical reference to a particular area, setting or destination. With the usage of directional (static) signs people will be guided along their path towards destination(s).

Strategic wayfinding design

When creating a signage system for an area, building or architectural structure it is essential to develop a strategic wayfinding scheme. With this step you are able to build up a modular wayfinding system that will adapt to the built environment and the human expectations for orientation and navigation purposes. Research is an important step to understand the built environment and where information is needed to maximize legibility of the wayfinding system.

Signage design principles

There are four important type of signs: Information signs, for instance a signpole with locate a destination and / or to orientate yourself in the built environment.
Directional signs, where information is displayed to find destinations, located on several strategic points in the built environment.
Identification signs, where information about individual locations is displayed such as buildings, locations and public facilities.
Warning signs, to indicate safety procedures such as a fire escape routes, no smoking areas and other regulations that is, or is not allowed in a specific area.

To make a signage system work together a design grid is used to order information and to scale the signs to different sizes, as part of the sign family. With the example design I have used a base grid of 30 mm (milimeters) with a subdivision of 9. All the measurements of the example are based on the 9×9 division. Be careful not to show too much information into one sign, this will be easily overlooked, instead use multiple signs to get good wayfinding results.

Signage typeface

A signage typeface is usually a sans-serif type and available in various weights with a simple easy-to-read straightforward design. They have a good legibility with a large X-Height and wide letter proportions with prominent ascenders / descenders to ensure a good readability.

When using an easy-to-read font the typeface is recognizable for many people to read and to understand the message clearly. Therefore the choice of a signage typeface is one of the keyfactors in order to make a wayfinding system work. When selecting a typeface for a signage design / wayfinding project please use the following characteristics:

• A clear and straightforward type design, sans-serif
• Easy recognizable letterforms
• Positive letter spacing to enhance the visual appearance
• The Font Family includes a package of many different weights
• The typeface has a large X-height for good readability

Signage design

Be consistent in typography, type height, icons, grid design, color and material choice. The signs needs to be straight forward designed and in a consistent order to wayfinding scheme, always use the same order of displaying the information. Remember to make samples of the different sign types and check them in the built environment to ensure it becomes a best-practice design.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

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We've listened to your feedback and are excited to announce the introduction of metadata variables in Auphonic for more advanced use of our Basic and Extended Metadata.
This new feature allows you to use metadata fields from your input files to automate workflows. You can easily reference any field by using { curly brackets } and typing the field name, such as {title}, {artist}, {album}, {track}, and more.
To get started, take a look at our Formatting Examples and the Table of all Variables to see all the available options.

Whether you are using the Auphonic Web Service or our API, metadata variables can be applied whenever metadata values are set. They are particularly helpful when working with Presets, Batch Productions, or Watch Folders!

For instance, consider the left column of the following table as input ending up in the metadata as shown in the right column:

Note:
Please mind that fields can not refer to each other in cycles (e.g., if {title} refers to {album}, {album} may not refer to {title}). While the input form will not show any errors, the metadata will most likely not be correct and the production will generate a warning.

Formatting Examples

With metadata variables you can automatically generate your output file basename based on the input filename and podcast metadata, like album, track, and title.
If you have, for example, a podcast preset or input file with the album name "The Placeholder Podcast", you can automatically name your episode title like your input filename. By combining the metadata variables "album" name and your generated episode "title" with any text patterns, like "denoised" in this case, you can create your individual output file basename:

The next example shows how you can create truly unique output file basenames with timestamps. Here, a track number is, together with the input file basename, added up as episode title. So, your unique output file basename could be a combination of this generated episode title with the time and date, when your Auphonic production was started:

See example 3 for more time formatting examples, and this table for the full list of symbols that can be used for formatting dates.

The following time and date example outputs would be possible for a production created at 7:05 pm on Saturday, January 30th in 1999:

See this table for the full list of symbols that can be used for formatting dates.

For the list fields "tags", "chapters", "outputfiles", and multitrack "input_filename/basename", you need to reference every value separately by adding .N to your variable – Where N stands for ascending ordinal numbers starting from 0.
Combined with the .N you can refer to the format, bitrate, suffix, and ending of every selected output file, for example {outputfiles.0.format} refers to the format of the first output file in your list of outputfiles:

• Output File 1 – format: WAV 16-bit PCM, bitrate: optimal, suffix: lossless, ending: wav
• Output File 2 – format: MP3, bitrate: 112 kbps, suffix: lossy, ending: mp3

For all available options, please see the Table of List Variables.

All Metadata Variables

The following variables are available:

For detailed use, please see Formatting Examples.

Conclusion

Metadata Variables are a powerful tool for organizing your productions whenever metadata values are set. Those field references are very convenient when distinguishing between different files at a glance, particularly when working with Presets, Batch Productions, or Watch Folders.

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions or feedback!

Responding to your feedback, we are now proud to present new separate parameters for noise, reverb, and breath reduction to give you more flexible control for your individual, best output results.
Find all the new parameters below and listen to the Audio Examples to get a closer impression of the upgrade.

What's the update about?

Before

Previously, you could only set the Denoising Method and one reduction amount, that was used for all elements.
Depending on the selected method, you were already able to decide whether music, static, or changing noises should be removed, but there was no setting to keep the typewriter sound effects while removing the reverb, for example.

Now

With our latest upgrade, you can now set the reduction amounts separately for noise, reverb, and breathing sounds.
For example, you could completely remove the background noise while reducing the reverb just a little to enhance speech intelligibility but keep the atmosphere. Like we did in Audio Example 1.
Many of you have also asked about the possibility of slightly reducing breath sounds rather than eliminating them completely. In Audio Example 2 we demonstrate how you can prevent your audio from sounding strange and unnatural by reducing instead of eliminating all breathing sounds.

To all of you who are happy with the results and don't want anything to change, relax:
If you don't change the default settings, the noise reduction algorithms work exactly the same as before.

Note: As the 'Static Denoiser' removes only stationary noise, there are no 'Remove Reverb' and 'Remove Breathings' parameters available for this denoising method.

New Parameters

Screenshot of the new Noise Reduction Parameters in the production form.

In order to use the new noise reduction features, you may separately set the following parameters:

• Denoising Method: (unchanged) Select what kind of noise you want to remove.
  [Dynamic Denoiser (default), Speech Isolation, Static Denoiser]
  Note that the parameters 'Remove Reverb' and 'Remove Breathings' are NOT available for Static Denoiser!
• Remove Noise: Select the amount of noise you want to remove.
  [100 dB (default), Disable Denoise, 3 dB, 6 dB, ..., 100 dB (full)]
• Remove Reverb: Select the amount of reverb you want to remove.
  [100 dB (default), Disable Deverb, 3 dB, 6 dB, ..., 100 dB (full)]
• Remove Breathings: Select the amount of breathings you want to remove.
  [Off (default), 3 dB, 6 dB, ..., 100 dB (full)]

Feel free to experiment with all the options to find your preferred parameter settings! Editing and reprocessing existing productions does not cost any additional credits as long as you don't change the input file.

Listen to the results:

1. Reverb reduction with full noise elimination

For the first audio example by conduitministries.com we set the 'Remove Noise' amount to 100 dB (full) and varied the 'Remove Reverb' amount starting from 0 dB (Off) to 12 dB (medium) and to 100 dB (full). Listen to how first the noise is gone and then step by step the reverb is lower:

2. Breathing sound reduction

In the breathing reduction audio example by LibriVox.org we used the 'Remove Breathing' amounts increasing from the original audio with 0 dB (Off) to 12 dB (medium) and to 100 dB (full) reduction.
In the result files you can hear, that the 100 dB (full) elimination leads to weird, unnatural-sounding pauses, that can be prevented by just reducing the breathing sounds:

Try it now on auphonic.com!

Feedback

We hope you like our upgraded version of the Noise Reduction Algorithms with new parameters for more control.
If you have more feature requests or feedback for us, please let us know! You can also leave a comment in the feedback section on the status page of your specific production. We're looking forward to hearing from you!

A new foray into the world of video: Auphonic is proud to announce support for intro and outro videos! With our most recent update you can now seamlessly integrate video intros and outros into your productions, providing a richer and more engaging experience for your audience.

Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash

What's new?

For a long time Auphonic has supported video files as the main files of productions. Until recently, intros and outros were limited to audio-only though.

Our new feature now allows you to add video intros and outros to your productions. This means your content can now begin and end with video clips, adding a professional touch and increasing viewer engagement. Whether you're working on podcasts, audiobooks, or any other type of multimedia content: providing your content both in audio form and in video form is now way easier!

Mixing Audio and Video

A key aspect of this feature is the ability to mix audio and video files effortlessly. If your main production file is a video but your intro is an audio file, Auphonic will automatically generate a video for the intro using a standing image from the main video. This ensures a seamless and visually coherent transition between different media types, maintaining the overall quality and flow of your production.

It works the same way for outros as well. When your main production file is a video file but your outro is audio-only we will generate an outro video from a standing image of the main video.

Overlap

We also support overlap for video intros and outros. This means you can have your intros and outros start or end slightly before the main content, creating a smoother transition. However, you should know that overlapping intro and outro videos requires us to place a cut in your video intro and outro. Only this way the the audio will stay in sync with the video.

How to add Intro and Outro Videos

Using our new feature is incredibly simple. You can add video intros and outros the same way you would add audio intros and outros in the production form.

A screenshot of the production form where a video intro and a video outro where selected.

Use Cases

There are many different use cases for our new feature! If you, as an example, regularly release episodes of your podcast both as audio and as video, you can now automatically add a recurring video intro and outro without needing to manually edit your videos.

Or, if you're an audio engineer, you may have a large number of recordings of, let's say, a conference. Instead of having to edit each individual conference recording by hand you now can add a common intro and outro to each conference recording automatically using a batch production.

Supported Video Formats

The world of video is a limitless one, with a sheer endless amount of video codecs, resolutions or frame rates to offer. Naturally, this means we are not able to support every arbitrary video format there is. However, we made sure to support the most commonly used video containers and codecs to make sure that at least 99.5% of all video productions will be possible.

Currently we support the 3 most common video containers: MP4, MKV and MOV. For these containers the following codecs are supported:

• h264: MP4, MKV, MOV
• mpeg4: MP4, MKV, MOV
• mpeg2video: MP4, MKV, MOV
• prores: Only MKV and MOV
• msmpeg4v3: Only MKV and MOV

Any video intro or outro which uses these containers and codecs can be processed by us. Additionally, we make sure that your output video uses a common format. Therefore, if your video intro or outro uses a different codec or container than your main video we will encode the video intro or outro to the setting of the main video.

Given that video demands significantly more computational ressources than audio the video intros and outros may be 1 minute long at max in order to be processed.

Conclusion

The new intro and outro videos feature on Auphonic is designed to give you more creative control and to help you produce professional, engaging content effortlessly. By supporting a variety of codecs and allowing for the mixing of audio and video we aim to support every possible workflow. We invite you to explore this new feature and see how it can enhance your multimedia productions!

Feedback

Would you like us to support another video format? Did you stumble across an issue with your video file(s)? Let us know! Simply drop us a message in our contact form or leave a comment in the feedback section on the status page of your specific production.
We're looking forward to hearing from you!

The new Auphonic team accounts streamline billing for companies, teams, or groups and are available to business users. A team account's owner can invite team members and admins, all of whom share the team account's credits for their productions.

The team account feature only impacts billing. Team members cannot access each other’s productions, presets, etc.
If you're interested in switching to a team account, please contact us!

What are Auphonic Teams?

A team consists of an Owner with Members and optional Admins. The Owner and Admins can add and remove team members as well as change their roles in the team. Every added account can use Auphonic as usual, but only the account Owner's credits are used for billing productions.

This simplifies the invoicing process for teams using multiple Auphonic accounts.
One Owner provides the credits, and all of the team can use them.

Overview of the team accounts section in the account settings.

Inviting Users

After gaining access to the team account feature, you can invite new team members via the team account section on the account settings page. Invited team members can be:

• Existing Auphonic users
• New users who do not yet have an account

Managing Team Account Members

The team account Owner and Admins can remove members and change roles within the team.

Editing roles

Roles and Permissions

Within the team, there are three roles: Owner, Admin and Member. Each role has specific permissions:

All roles and permissions.

Billing

The Owner of the team account is responsible for purchasing credits. Productions made by team members will use the team account's credits. As a team account member, you will see the team account owner's credit balance instead of your own.

If you wish to access your personal credits, you can leave the team at any time.

Conclusion

With the introduction of team accounts, we provide a solution to simplify the production process for teams. One account is responsible for providing the credits and all team members can use them collectively!

Contact us if you are a business user and interested in using our new feature.

Feedback

We are always happy to receive feedback on our features!
If you have thoughts, ideas or recommendations, drop us a line using our contact form or email us directly.

We're looking forward to hearing from you!

Entrepreneurs are a different breed of people. Where others squirm at the thought of making self-managed business endeavors a sole source of income, we see an opportunity for uncapped riches and prosperity. It takes a certain mind to be willing to ignore what society says about breaking the mold and pursue big ideas against difficult odds. Yet folks like John Mackey prove that a defiant spirit can indeed lead to abundant success. I’m excited to have the 44-year CEO of Whole Foods back on the podcast once again. In this episode, our discussion focuses on the spiritual journey of entrepreneurs – that doesn’t get talked about nearly as much as it should – and explores his first-hand experience traveling it as the founder of one of America’s most iconic grocery chains. Incorporating Personal Values Into Work John’s personal values were deeply influential in shaping the development of Whole Foods Market from its early days. He believed strongly in the importance of staying true to one’s principles and letting them guide decision-making and actions as an entrepreneur. It’s a smart strategy – you aren’t going to get very far with a business idea unless you genuinely believe in it and are...

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Organizer: British Columbia Institute of Technology
Location: Online

Organizer: Community Energy Association
Location: Online

For the past year, the Open University has been exploring the potential of an open 'social learning platform' that will integrate the power of a social network and third party tools and applications within a pedagogically sound architectural framework. The project - code named "socialearn" - has been developing along several parallel strands: the user experience within a potential 'social learning' Web site; the development of a set of core platoform services with open API that is congruent with other standard and de facto standard web service APIs; and a business model that allows individuals and instituions alike to use the platform to futher their own business goals, whilst securing a sustainable financial basis for the platform itself. In this workshop, we will review the progress of the socialearn project, and demonstrate the features of the platform that have been built to date. As the socialearn platform is intended to be an open platform, we will also run through a series of exercises exploring ways in which the socialearn aproach may be used to support institutional services in both the formal and informal educational sectors. The session was facilitated by Tony Hirst, Open University.

Keith Doyle, University of Salford will facilitate this session. A small group of people are working towards setting up a peer group to share good practise and knowledge. In this session, there will be the opportunity for delegates working to develop University Intranets to share their thoughts on developments around intranets and portals. We will also discuss how the peer group could develop.