Blog #1

http://dh.library.yale.edu/projects/vogue/slice_histograms/

I decided to explore Robots Reading Vogue. The project takes an interesting approach at analyzing Vogue, a magazine that has had a dominate place in American culture for the past hundred years. In doing so Lindsay King took to the magazine as her primary source of data of 2,700 covers and 400,000 pages and complied different models to present her analysis of what the iconic magazine contributes to the Humanities and the Sciences. By focusing on a particular element, the study makes comment on not only the cultural but the affect scientific advances have on the cultural. The concept of communication is vital in the humanities, and when the publication of color made its way on the bookstands society then connected more efficiently with the illustrations. The concept of color is important because of the strong impact it has on the individual.

The projects present its data in an array of charts, interesting it looks at the colors used historically on its covers

Tools such as learning.py, ffmped, and Imagemagick were utilized in the project. The Vogue covers were processed through Slice Histogram in manufacturing metadata which was then organized by year. Slice Histogram also allowed for the image to be processed into leveled, comparative data. It composed the images into data that could be used in Quantitative and Qualitative research. The graphs provide an insight on the popularity of color to the pertaining year, and the analysis of what correspondence a particular color possessed culturally. Factors such as Vogue appearing in black and white from 1892 to 1901, then appearing in color thereon after are addressed in the analysis, as well as the variety of publications per month. The presentation is interesting and engaging with its constant movement as it illustrates the metadata of color within the covers.

As time progress, there is an increase of color which is noticeable during the years of the civil movements. There on after they generally continue to increase with instances of decline. This frame captures crucial moments in history, ‘a finger print’ on what Vogue depicted. The comparative factor in this project encourages the reader to make historical correlation with the data that might suggest how the magazine affected popular culture. The metadata provides an insight to the trends of Vogue, which then can be reviewed in contrast to cultural epidemics. The comparison allows readers to decide on whether the magazine function as a tool of cultural progression or suppression.