TouchéGet the appArt & Design trivia questions
Ten questions to try. Pick an answer to see why.
01Which New York skyscraper did King Kong climb in the 1933 film?Try itHide
Answer: Empire State Building
WhyThe Empire State Building went up in 410 days, at about four and a half stories a week. Its spire was designed as a mooring mast for airships, but high winds made docking impractical and the plan was dropped.
02Which company sold the first instant camera in 1948?Try itHide
Answer: Polaroid
WhyEdwin Land's three-year-old daughter asked why she could not see the picture he had just taken of her. Within an hour he had the idea for an instant camera, and the Land Camera went on sale in 1948.
03Which technique shows a flower blooming in a few seconds?Try itHide
Answer: Time-lapse
WhyF. Percy Smith pioneered time-lapse in nature filming with his 1910 silent film The Birth of a Flower. The first use in a feature film came earlier, in Georges Méliès' Carrefour de l'Opéra in 1897.
04Which building has the address 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue?Try itHide
Answer: The White House
WhyDublin gave Washington its blueprint. An Irish-born architect, James Hoban, won a design contest for the president's house in 1792, and he modeled it on Leinster House, which now holds Ireland's parliament.
05What brown tone gives old photographs a vintage look?Try itHide
Answer: Sepia
WhySepia is the Greek word for cuttlefish, and the color was originally that animal's ink. Sepia toning is a chemical process that turns black-and-white prints brown, and many photo apps imitate it with a filter.
06Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima won which prize in 1945?Try itHide
Answer: Pulitzer Prize
WhyJoe Rosenthal's prize-winning picture shows the second flag raised on Mount Suribachi that day. The first was too small to be seen from the north side, so a larger replacement was raised by different Marines.
07What does ISO measure in photography?Try itHide
Answer: Light sensitivity
WhyBefore ISO, film speed was rated on the ASA scale in the United States and the DIN scale in Europe. A more sensitive film needed less time to expose, so subjects did not have to hold still as long.
08The rule of thirds splits a frame into how many equal parts?Try itHide
Answer: Nine
WhyThe rule of thirds is older than photography. John Thomas Smith named it in his 1797 book Remarks on Rural Scenery, building on Joshua Reynolds's remarks about balancing light and dark in a painting.
09What does "35 mm" measure in 35 mm film?Try itHide
Answer: The film's width
WhyThe width came from the movies. In Thomas Edison's lab, William Dickson cut 70 mm stock from Eastman Kodak in half lengthwise, and still cameras borrowed the result, with the Leica popularizing it in the 1920s.
10Which roof style is named for a 17th-century French architect?Try itHide
Answer: Mansard
WhyA popular story says Mansart invented the roof to dodge a window tax, but the French window tax came 132 years after his death. The earliest known example is by Pierre Lescot, at the Louvre around 1550.
That was 10 of 200.
The rest are in the app, each with the story behind the answer.