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    Typography San

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    Santhosh R
    This document provides a history of typography from its origins with Gutenberg's printing press through modern digital typography. It discusses important figures like Aldus Manutius who designed the Italic typeface and Geofroy Tory who based his typeface designs on human proportions. The document also covers the development of modernist typography in the early 20th century which emphasized function over decoration and the rise of digital typography using computer programs. It concludes by discussing how online reading practices continue to influence typographic design.

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    Typography San

    Uploaded by

    Santhosh R
    69 views20 pages
    This document provides a history of typography from its origins with Gutenberg's printing press through modern digital typography. It discusses important figures like Aldus Manutius who designed the Italic typeface and Geofroy Tory who based his typeface designs on human proportions. The document also covers the development of modernist typography in the early 20th century which emphasized function over decoration and the rise of digital typography using computer programs. It concludes by discussing how online reading practices continue to influence typographic design.

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    This document provides a history of typography from its origins with Gutenberg's printing press through modern digital typography. It discusses important figures like Aldus Manutius who designed the Italic typeface and Geofroy Tory who based his typeface designs on human proportions. The document also covers the development of modernist typography in the early 20th century which emphasized function over decoration and the rise of digital typography using computer programs. It concludes by discussing how online reading practices continue to influence typographic design.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as ppt, pdf, or txt
    69 views20 pages

    Typography San

    Uploaded by

    Santhosh R
    This document provides a history of typography from its origins with Gutenberg's printing press through modern digital typography. It discusses important figures like Aldus Manutius who designed the Italic typeface and Geofroy Tory who based his typeface designs on human proportions. The document also covers the development of modernist typography in the early 20th century which emphasized function over decoration and the rise of digital typography using computer programs. It concludes by discussing how online reading practices continue to influence typographic design.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
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    of 20

    History of Typography

    Santhosh
    What is “Typography?”
    • The art and technique of printing
    • The study and “process” of typefaces
    – “Study”
    • Legibility or readability of typefaces and their layout
    • Attractiveness of typefaces and their layout
    • Functionality and effectiveness of typefaces and their layout
    • How a typeface/layout combo “enhances” or “honors” content
    – “Process”
    • Artistic composition of individual type
    • Setting and arrangement of type
    • Basic elements of “desktop publishing”
    – Typeface
    • A full set of type made to a particular design (size and style)
    • A font
    Some Typeface Examples
    • Quick brown foxes jump - Times New Roman
    • Quick brown foxes jump - Bookman Old Style
    • Quick brown foxes jump - Courier New
    • Quick brown foxes jump - Trebuchet MS
    • Quick brown foxes jump - Comic Sans MS
      - Webdings
    Typography and Print
    • Typography is defined in relation to print
    • History of (Western) printing
    – Johannes Gutenberg
    • Europe’s first printer (42-line Bible, 1455)
    • First designer of typeface
    • Gothic type: modeled after German script
    • Goal: To replicate the look of a manuscript Bible
    – Aldus Manutius
    • Designed “Italic” type (“of Italy”) in the 1490s
    • Modeled on handwriting of Venetian clerks
    • Compact form allowed for printing of smaller books
    Typography and Print
    German Gothic
    Script Type

    Manutius’
    Italic
    Typography and Print:

    Creating Type
    Basic
    letterform for
    capital letters
    Stone
    Engravers’
    Style:
    As few curves
    as possible
    Typography and Print:

    Creating Type
    Geofroy Tory

    • 16th Century French


    Designer
    • Influenced by architecture
    and the work of Leonardo
    da Vinci
    • Designed his typeface on
    the proportions of the
    human body

    “Anatomy of a letter” - Some terms eventually associated with the


    (Not Tory,
    potential but anofexample
    features of a full set of typeface)
    type design
    Typography and Print:

    Creating Type
     Design of the typeface
     Creation of physical “type”
     Type: (n.) piece of metal in which letter(s) are cast
     Gutenberg’s innovation: movable, reusable type
     See Robin Chin’s website on “Portability”
     From physical type to printed page
     The composing sticks: words formed, placed into sticks
    The
    “form” { 

    The galley: sticks placed together, spaced apart
    The chase: galley placed inside, wedges add margins
     The form: inked, then placed in the printing press
    Typography and Print:

    Creating Type
    Typography and Print:

    The Power of Typography


    • Theory: “Typography honors content”
    • Related theory: typography honors industry and content
    • Italics example: designed to fit business innovation
    • Modernist theory: Typography as functional with content
    • Modernist era: late 19th - early 20th century
    • Political potential of (experimental) typography
    • Different “rules” of typographic design - to encourage and
    discourage certain values in the reading public
    – Some political artistic groups of the time
    • Futurist writers (Italy) - destruction is beautiful and necessary!
    • Imagist poets (England) - the image itself is speech!
    • Constructivists (Russia) - modernism is functionality!
    Typography and Print:

    The Power of Typography


    •• Typography
    F.T. Marinetti
    takes an
    – Italian
    active role in poet
    the content
    and founder of Futurism
    – From Les mots en liberté futuristes, 1919
    • Visible as well as audible
    • “I am starting a typographic revolution, directed above
    poetic element
    all against the idiotic, sick-making conception of the old-
    fashioned Poetry Book, with its hand-made paper, its
    • Helped sixteenth
    inspire later
    century style, decorated with galleons,
    modernistMinervas, Apollos,
    typographers to great initials …”
    • “The
    use strong book must
    contrasts in be the futuristic expression of our
    type sizesfuturistic thought.
    and design, and Better: my revolution is against
    among other things the so-called typographic harmony of
    new anglesthe of typewhich is in complete opposition to the style
    page,
    which the page allows.”
    Typography and Print:

    The Power of Typography


    • El Lissitzky
    Sans-serif
    – Russian constructivist and major artist of “new typography”
    – “Topgraphy of Typography,” from the magazine Merz, 1922
    • “On the printed page words are seen, not heard.”
    Bold, basic colors of Expression - visual, not phonetic.”
    • “Economy
    • “The new book demands the new writer. Ink-pots and goose-
    quills are dead.” Use of photography
    • “The printed page transcends time and space. The technology)
    (new-ish printed
    page, the infinity of the book, must be transcended. THE ELECTRO-
    LIBRARY.”
    – Distinct break from old typography: total discarding of
    decorative concepts and a turn to functional design
    Typography and Print:

    The Power of Typography


    • Importance of “new typography” today
    – A case where the form of printing adapted to fit the
    conditions of modern life
    – Declares that “form is not independent, but grows out
    of function (purpose), out of the materials used
    (organic or technical), and out of how they are used.”*
    – Declares that clarity and not beauty is the essence of
    typography
    – Declares that asymmetry is generally more optically
    effective than symmetry
    * Jan Tschichold
    Typography and Print:

    The Power of Typography


    • Importance of “new typography” today
    – Considered blank space to be as much as a formal
    element of typography as black type
    – Continued to encourage standardization
    – Blurred the line between “high art” and “mass media”
    – Blurred the distinction between image and language
    – Predicted the future importance of typographic design
    to advertising
    Typography Today
    • Typography in the digital environment
    – New process of typeface design
    • computer programs vs. hand design and casting
    – New possibilities for layout with the screen
    • computer programs vs. galleys, etc.
    – New elements of expression
    • text and images
    • sound and animation
    • screen brightness and contrast
    – New concept of materiality
    • pixels vs. ink
    • links, buttons, IP addresses
    Digital Typography
    • Some digitally adopted typefaces
    – Times New Roman
    • 1932, The Times of London Newspaper
    – Bookman Old Style
    • 1858, A.C. Phemister in Edinburgh, Scotland
    – Courier New
    • 1955, Howard Kettler
    • Designed as a typewriter face
    • Commissioned by IBM
    • Design as a monospaced font (hence easy to align as
    columns of text) makes it a valuable typeface for coding
    Digital Typography
    • Some digitally created typefaces
    – Trebuchet MS
    • 1996, Microsoft typeface designed to be readable at small
    sizes and at low resolutions
    • Based on humanist sans serif typeface designs of the
    1920s and 30s
    – Comic Sans MS
    • 1994 (developed), released as part of Windows 95 Plus!
    Pack
    • Based on the generic lettering style of comic strips
      (Webdings)
    • 1997, designed in response to web designers’ need for
    easy method of incorporating graphics in their pages
    Conclusion:
    Online Reading Practices
    • Lesson from early history of print
    – Typographic design is an essential issue in the printing
    revolution and print culture
    • Lesson from modernist typography
    – “Form is not independent, but grows out of function (purpose),
    out of the materials used (organic or technical), and out of how
    they are used” - i.e. new reading practices
    • Lesson from the development of digital fonts
    – As the webpage borrows from the printed page, so digital font
    has borrowed heavily from printed typefaces
    – As the webpage develops further uses distinct from the page, so
    grows the need to revisit typography, its history, and its future
    Conclusion:
    Online Reading Practices
    • Aesthetics and computing courses
    – MAS 962: Digital Typography
    • Records of digital typographic development
    – Microsoft typography research group
    • Digital typography programs
    – Font-Lab
    • Publications on digital typography
    – Donald Knuth’s Digital Typography series
    Some Printed Sources and
    Resources
    • Drucker, Johanna. The Visible Word: Experimental
    Typography and Modern Art, 1901-1923 (Chicago:
    University of Chicago Press, 1994).
    • McGann, Jerome. The Visible Language of
    Modernism (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
    1993).
    • Tschichold, Jan. The New Typography: A Handbook
    for Modern Designers, trans. Ruari McLean
    (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995).

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