History of typography book by Ara Min

2015

Typography For Print Book ARA MIN s2815827

ARAMIN MIN ARA

Typefaces HISTORY OF TYPOGRAPHY

And

Designers

HISTORY OF TYPOGRAPHY Compiled and Edited by

ARA MIN

2015 Australia

Copyright ÂŠ 2015 by Blurb All rights reserved. No part of the contents of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permissions of the publisher. Designed and Edited by Ara Min First published in Australia in 2015 Printed and bound in Australia.

CONTENTS

PUBLISHED BY Blurb San Francisco, USA London, UK

10 12 14 16 20 26

Introduction to Typography

Medievel Design Roots

Renaissance Germany and Switzerland

16th century France

Transition to modern type : 17th and 18th century

19th and 20th century typography

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT This book is the first book that I used my modified typeface â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Brokenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; and contained my design knowledge based on researches for typography history. I hope this book can be a start of my typographic work.

INTRODUCTION

Typography From the Greek roots τύπος typos = “impression” and -γραφία -graphia = “writing”

Contemporary typographers view typography as craft with a very long history tracing its origins back to the first punches and dies used to make seals and currency in ancient times. The basic elements of typography are at least as old as civilization and the earliest writing systems—a series of key developments that were eventually drawn together as a systematic craft.

Introduction to

Typography

11 Since the earliest recordings of letterforms the ideational structure of the typographic presentation has evolved into a seemingly endless variety of designs. The history of typography starts with Gutenberg and the development of moveable type, but it has its roots in calligraphy of the old manuscript that were used as the basis of type designs. Typography in graphic design involves a balanced and harmonious juxtaposition of the appropriately selected typefaces on the working surface of a poster, a magazine cover, a book jacket, an advertisement column of a newspaper, a web page,or any other visual communication media. Type designers gradually have categorized the typographic variations in the letterforms, such as the serif shape, x-height, length of ascenders and descenders, variation of stroke weight, and so on, which contribute to aesthetics, functionality, and clarity of a particular design. The German lettering tradition of schrifthandwerk, pioneered by German scribes and lettering artists such as; Rudolph Koch, von Larisch (Austria), and Rudo Spemann calligraphers Ernst Schneidler (Spemanns teacher), Hermann Zapf, Friedrich Poppl, Karlgeorg Hoefer, Werner Schneider among others, has played a prominent role on the development of typography. As Rudolph von Larisch has explained ; Schrift kommt von Schreiben -- Letters come from writing. In fact, in the German and Norwegian languages, only one word, a noun referring to the visual aspects of letters, represents the manifold disciplines of handwriting, calligraphy, lettering, typography, applied lettering: Schrift, or in Norwegian skrift, signifying the close organic relationships among these rubrics

Medieval design roots Typography, type-founding and typeface design began as closely related crafts in mid-15th-century Europe with the introduction of movable type printing at the junction of the medieval era and the Renaissance. Handwritten letterforms of the mid-15th century embodied 3000 years of evolved letter design, and were the natural models for letterforms in systematized typography. The scribal letter known as textur or textualis, produced by the strong gothic spirit of blackletter from the hands of German area scribes, served as the model for the first text types. Johannes Gutenberg employed the scribe Peter Schöffer to help design and cut the letterpunches for the first typeface—the D-K type of 202 characters used to print the first books in Europe. A second typeface of about 300 characters designed for the 42-line Bible c. 1455 was probably cut by the goldsmith Hans Dunne with the help of two others—Götz von Shlettstadt and Hans von Speyer.

Cultural tradition ensured that German typography and type design remained true to the gothic/blackletter spirit; but the parallel influence of the humanist and neo-classical typography in Italy catalyzed textur into four additional sub-styles that were distinct, structurally rich and highly disciplined: Bastarda, fraktur, rotunda, and Schwabacher. The rapid spread of movable type printing across Europe produced additional Gothic, half-Gothic and Gothic-to-roman transitional types. Johann Bämler’s Schwabacher, Augsburg appeared in 1474. The halfGothic Rotunda type of Erhard Ratdolt c. 1486 was cut to suit Venetian taste. In 1476 William Caxton printed the first books in England with a so-called Bâtarde type (an early Schwabacher design), but soon abandoned it.

15 The first volume of the Gutenberg Bible, printed with an early textur typeface c. 1455. The decorative colored initials were hand-lettered separately by a scribe.

Johannes Gutenberg (c. 1398 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; February 3, 1468)

Renaissance Germany and Switzerland

17 Soon after 1500, roman typefaces began to gain popularity north of the Alps for printing of Latin literature. Johann Froben of Basel, Switzerland set up his press in 1491, and by about 1519 (when he printed Erasmus’s famous edition of the Greek New Testament) he had established a set of standards for humanistic printing which were widely copied throughout the German-speaking world and also in Spain and, to a lesser extent in England. His principal type is wholly roman in the shape of the characters but retains an echo of gothic influence in the angled serifs and the way the thick and thin strokes are organized; it was coupled with mated sets of woodcut initials (often designed by distinguished artists) and with two larger sizes of uppercase letters for use in title pages and headings—Froben was the first to use such ‘display faces’ consistently, breaking away from the Italian tradition in

which title pages and headings tended to be set in the same size as the main text. By using these large faces, Froben developed the title page as a fully organized artistic whole. Froben’s italic face is based on that of Aldus but more even and uniform in effect. These Swiss books are the first to have been designed in every detail as printed artifacts rather than as adaptations of manuscript technique. After about 1550 this Swiss/German tradition was gradually overwhelmed by French influence. Towards the end of the 16th century, the Wechel family of Frankfurt was producing fine books which used French typefaces in conjunction with heavy but resplendent woodcut ornaments to achieve a splendid page effect; but soon after 1600 there was a general, marked decline in the quality of both skill and materials, from which German printing did not recover until the 20th century.

16th century France Typography was introduced to France by the German printers Martin Crantz, Michael Freyburger and Ulrich Gering, who set up a press in Paris in 1470, where they printed with an inferior copy of the Lactantius type. Gothic types dominated in France until the end of the 15th century, when they were gradually supplanted by roman designs. Jodocus Badius Ascensius (Josse Bade) in partnership with Henri Estienne established a press in Paris in 1503. Printing with undeveloped Roman and half-Gothic types, the French pair were too occupied meeting the demand for Humanistic and classical texts to design any original types of their own. French books nonetheless began to follow the format established by Italian printers, and Lyon and Paris became the new centers of activity. Eventually, the French government fixed a standard height for all type, to ensure that different batches could be used together.

De Colines, Estienne, and Augereau After their 1494 invasion of Italy the French were greatly influenced by Renaissance culture, and later set about converting French culture from Gothic to neo-classical. The required phonetic and orthographic changes to French language hindered the evolution of type design in France until the late 1520s. At the end of this period roman types introduced by Robert Estienne, Simon de Colines and Antoine Augereau began a phase of type design with a distinctly French character. Robert Estienne carried on the establishment of his father Henri Estienne, who had died in 1520. Simon de Colines had been the elder Estienne’s assistant, married his widow, and set up his own press. The de Colines roman of 1531 resembled Griffo’s 1499 roman but did not copy it closely. Narrower forms and tighter letter fit; a with low angled bowl; elevated triangular stem serifs on i, j, m, n and r; flattened baseline serifs, delicately modeled ascender serifs and graceful, fluid lines characterize the French style. Robert Estienne’s roman of 1532 was similar to the de Colines face, which Estienne complemented with a fine italic type based on that of Arrighi. The craftsmen who cut the punches for the romans used by Estienne and de Colines remain unidentified. In 1532 Antoine Augereau cut the punches for a roman type very close to Estienne’s. The lower cases of the Estienne and Augereau types became the basis for post-Renaissance old style typography, and were copied by French typographers for the next 150 years.

Garamond The svelte French style reached its fullest refinement in the roman types attributed to the best-known figure of French typography—Claude Garamond (also Garamont). In 1541 Robert Estienne, printer to the king, helped Garamond obtain commissions to cut the sequence of Greek fonts for King Francis I of France, known as the “grecs du roi”. A number of roman faces used in Garamond’s publishing activities can be positively attributed to him as punch-cutter. From the dates of their appearance, and their similarity to romans used by Estienne, Christoffel Plantijn and the printer André Wechel, the types known as “Canon de Garamond” and “Petit Canon de Garamond” shown on a specimen sheet issued by the Egenolff-Berner foundry in 1592 are generally accepted as Claude Garamond’s final roman types.

Garamond type revival by Robert Slimbach

Claude Garamont (ca. 1480 – 1561)

Robert Granjon Robert Granjon worked in the second half of the 16th century, mainly at Lyon, but was also recorded at Paris, Rome and Antwerp. He is still famous because of his Civilité types, imitating French gothic cursive calligraphy. His main contribution was an italic type known as “Parangon de Granjon”. Italic type design had apparently become corrupted since the Arrighi and Aldine models. Granjon’s italic had a greater slant angle, slanted roman capitals, and reduced weight and rigor. These qualities and its contrasting thick and thin strokes gave it a dazzling appearance that made it difficult to read. It was nevertheless the main influence for italic type design until the Arrighi model was revived in 1920. In the 16th century, Western printers also developed Oriental types, such as François Savary de Brèves or Robert Granjon, usually with the objective of proselytizing the Catholic faith.

Evangelium Sanctum Domini Nostri Jesu Christi in Arabic, 1590, with Arabic types of Robert Grandjon, Typographia Medicea, Rome.

Transition to

modern type Baroque and rococo aesthetic trends, use of the pointed-pen for writing, and steel engraving techniques effected a gradual shift in typographic style. Contrast between thick and thin strokes increased. Tilted stressing transformed into vertical stressing; full rounds were compressed. Blunt bracketed serifs grew sharp and delicate until they were fine straight lines. Detail became clean and precise. Transitional roman types combined the classical features of lettera antiqua with the vertical stressing and higher contrast between thick and thin strokes characteristic of the true modern romans to come. The roman types used c. 1618 by the Dutch printing firm of Elzevir in Leyden reiterated the 16th-century French style with higher contrast, less rigor and a lighter page effect. After 1647 most Elzevir faces were cut by the highly regarded Christoffel van Dyck, whose precise renditions were regarded by some experts at the time as finer than Garamondâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s.

: 17th and 18th century Fell types From mid-16th century until the end of the 17th, interference with printing by the British Crown thwarted the development of type founding in Englandâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;most type used by 17th-century English printers was of Dutch origin. The lack of material inspired Bishop of Oxford Doctor John Fell to purchase punches & matrices from Holland c. 1670â&#x20AC;&#x201C;1672 for use by the Oxford University Press. The so-named Fell types, presumed to be the work of Dutch punchcutter Dirck Voskens, mark a noticeable jump from previous designs, with considerably shorter extenders, higher stroke contrast, narrowing of round letters, and flattened serifs on the baseline and descenders. The design retained a retrogressive old-style irregularity, smooth

modeling from vertical to horizontal, and angled stressing of rounds (except a vertically stressed o). Fell capitals were condensed, even-width, with wide flattened serifs; all characteristics of the definitive modern romans of the late 18th century. Fell italic types were distinguished by high contrast matching the Fell romans; wider ovals; a split-branching stroke from the stems of m n r and u; and long, flat serifsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; prefiguring modern. They repeated the non-uniform slant of French models, and the capitals included swash J and Q forms. An open-source digitisation of the Fell Types has been released by designer and engineer Igino Marini.

Specimen of Fell type English roman.

Caslon The first major figure in English typography is reckoned by type historians to have ended the monopoly of Dutch type founding almost single-handedly. The gun engraver-turned-punchcutter William Caslon spent 14 years creating the stable of typefaces on the specimen sheet issued in 1734. The complete canon included roman, italic, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic etc. Caslon’s Great Primer roman and English roman were retrogressive designs that very closely followed the Fell types and the roman of Miklós (Nicholas) Kis c. 1685 falsely attributed to Anton Janson. Like the Fells, Caslon’s slightly bracketed serifs and oldstyle irregularity gave it a homely charm— its precise cut and perpendicularity place it firmly in the 18th century however. Caslon’s italic structures follow the Fell italics, but at a condensed width and with conventional branching from stems. William Caslon’s prodigious output was

influential worldwide. Caslon type and its imitations were used throughout the expanding British empire. It was the dominant type in the American colonies for the second half of the 18th century. Caslon marks the rise of England as the center of typographic activity.

Caslon English roman, from a sample issued by the Caslon foundry.Compare with the Fell type.

Fleischmann Johann Michael Fleischmann (1701–1768) was born in Nürnberg where he trained as a punchcutter. He found employment with Dutch type founders in Holland and settled there c. 1728. At the Enschedé foundry in Haarlem he cut punches for a large amount of material. Some time after 1743 he produced a distinguished roman design—related to the preceding transitional types but departing from them. It prefigured modern romans with sparse transaxial modeling joining the vertical stressing to hairline thins, and ball-ends. Fleischmann borrowed from the general mode of Phillipe Grandjean’s and Louis Simonneau’s “Romain du Roi,” commissioned by Louis XIV in 1692 for the Imprimerie Royale, but did not imitate that face. Fleischmann’s capitals were a new variety; an even-width scheme, compressed rounds, all-vertical stressing, and triangular beak ends of E F L T and Z, all characteristics prefiguring the “classical” moderns of Bodoni and Didot. Fleischmann’s italic bore some resemblance to Granjean’s but had longer

ascenders and followed the established Dutch structures for h v and w. Fleischmann was held in great esteem by his contemporaries, his designs exerting a decisive influence in the last quarter of the 18th century. Renowned French punchcutter Pierre Simon Fournier (1712–1768), confessed to having copied Fleischmann’s design, and was first to dub “contrast” types like the Fells, Caslon and Fleischmann “modern”. Fournier’s rococo-influenced designs— Fournier and Narcissus—and his Modèles des Caractères (1742) continued the romaine du roi style and adapted it for his own modern age. Like Baskerville, his italics were inspired by handwriting and the engraved lettering known as copperplate hand. Fournier also published a two volume Manuel Typographique, in which he recorded much European typographic history, and introduced the first standardized system of type size measurement—the “point”.

Baskerville The roman and italic types of John Baskerville c. 1772 appeared later than Fleischman’s but are considered transitional and partly retrogressive with a return to lower contrast, smooth transaxial modeling, finely modeled bracketed serifs, and long stems. The exquisite design and finish of Baskerville’s roman however, combining elegance and strength, was modern. His roman design, and especially his italic, were rococo-influenced. His designs did not visibly quote any previous types. They were informed by his prior experience as a writing master and the influences of his time. The types of Joseph Fry, Alexander Wilson, and John Bell closely followed Baskerville, and through his correspondence with European type founders Baskerville’s influence penetrated most of western Europe. Baskerville was a meticulous artist who controlled all aspects of his creation, devising more accurate presses, blacker inks and paper sealed with hot rollers to

ensure crisp impressions. Of particular note, the lower storey of his lowercase g does not fully close. Derivatives of Baskerville are often identified thus. A modern revival of Baskerville, a font called Mrs Eaves, is named after Baskerville’s wife who was the widow of Richard Eaves.

The Baskerville typeface designed by John Baskerville

Modern romans True modern romans arrived with the types of the Italian Giambattista Bodoni and the French Didots. Completing trends begun by the Fell types, Fleischman, Fournier and Baskerville, the so-called “classical” modern romans eschewed chirographic and organic influences, their synthetic symmetric geometry answering to a rationalized and reformed classical model driven by the strict cartesian grid philosophy of René Descartes and the predictable clockwork universe of Isaac Newton.

mathematical precision and vanishing of rococo design reflected the “enlightenment” of post-revolution France under Napoleon. Francois Ambroise also designed “maigre” and “gras” types corresponding to later condensed and expanded font formats.

The Spanish designer Joaquín Ibarra’s roman was influenced by Baskerville, Didot and Bodoni, but hewn nearer to old-style and used in the same classical manner, including Portrait of Bodoni (c. 1805-1806), by spaced capitals. In England modern romans Giuseppe Lucatelli. Museo Glauco resembling Bodoni’s were cut for the printer Lombardi. William Bulmer c. 1786 by the punchcutter The “classical” appellation of modern William Martin, who had been apprenticed romans stems from their return to long to Baskerville and influenced by him. ascenders and descenders set on widely spaced lines, and a corresponding light page Martin’s italic mirrored the open-tail g and effect reminiscent of old-style—occurring at a overall finesse of Baskerville’s. time of classical revival. In Britain and the United States, modern romans (emerging around 1800 and totally Bodoni was foremost in progressing from rococo to the new classical style. He produced dominant by the 1820s) took a somewhat more rounded, less geometrical form than an italic very close to Baskerville’s, and a French cursive script type falling in between the designs of Didot and Bodoni; an obvious difference is that in Anglo-American faces the italic type and joined scripts. The roman upper-case C has only one serif (at the top) types of Francois Ambroise Didot and son whereas in European designs it has two. Firmin Didot closely resemble the work of Didot type Revival designed in 1991 by Adrian Frutiger for Linotype Bodoni, and opinion is divided over whether foundry. the Didots or Bodoni originated the first modern romans. At any rate the Didots’

19th and 20th century typography

Industrialization The 19th century brought fewer stylistic innovations. The most notable invention was the rise of typefaces with strengthened serifs. Forerunners were the so-called Egyptienne fonts, which were used already at the beginning of the 19th century. Their name likely comes from the enthusiasm of the Napoleonic era for the orient, which in turn was started by Napoleon’s invasion in Egypt. In fact slabserif fonts (e. g. Clarendon from 1845) were newspaper fonts, whose serifs were strengthened in order to prevent damage during the printing process. Stylistically the serif fonts of the mid-19th century appeared very robust and otherwise had more or less neo-classical design features, which changed during the course of time: By the application of the slab serif design feature and by appending serifs to more and more typefaces, an independent intermediate group of heterogeneous fonts emerged during the 20th century. Meanwhile the slab serifs are listed as an independent group in most typeface classifications–besides both main groups serif and sans serif. Slab-serif and sanserif types were rarely used for continuous bodies of text; their realm was that of advertisements, title-pages and other attention-catching pieces of print. By about 1820, most western countries were using modern romans and italics for continuous texts. This remained true until the 1860s, when so-called ‘old style’ faces – a largely Englishspeaking phenomenon – came into use. These

went to the opposite extreme from the modern faces; ‘thick’ strokes were attenuated, and serifs at the end of thin strokes (as in C, E, L and T) were narrow and angled whereas in modern faces they were broad and vertical or nearly so. All the upper-case characters were somewhat ‘condensed’ (narrowed). Old style faces remained popular until about 1910. Above all the 19th century was innovative regarding technical aspects. Automatic manufacturing processes changed the print as well as the graphical illustrations. The illustration of printed matters could be considerably standardised due to the lithography technique invented by Alois Senefelder. Finally, another invention was photography, whose establishment at the end of the 19th century led to the first halftoning and reproduction procedures. The step-bystep development of a modern mass society provided a growing demand of printed matters. Besides the traditional letterpress beginnings of a newspaper landscape as well as a broad market for publications, advertisements, and posters of all kinds appeared. The challenges had changed: since printing and typography had been a straightforward craft for centuries, it now had to face the challenges of an industryruled mass society.

Hot type and phototypesetting in the 20th century The 90 years between 1890 and 1980 coined typography until now. The craft of printing became an industry, and the typography became a part of it as well. Both stylistically and technologically this epoch was really tumultuous. The significant developments were the following: The fabrication and application of typefaces more and more were affected by industrial manufacturing processes. Significant incidents were the invention of the hot type machine by Ottmar Mergenthaler (Linotype machine, 1886) and Tolbert Lanston (Monotype machine, 1887) and a few decades later the emergence of phototypesetting. The result: Compilation and typographical design of the text could be more and more controlled by keyboards in contrast to manual typesetting. A result of the industrialisation process was the unimagined number and distribution of new typefaces. Whether digital variants of Garamond and Bodoni or new contemporary type designs like Futura, Times, and Helvetica: nearly all currently used typefaces have their origin either in the following and ongoing digital typesetting era or are based on designs of this epoch.

The basis was the appearance of large type foundries and type manufacturers. The result: Successful typefaces could quickly gain the status of a trademark–and therefore were able to assign a unique “branding” to products or publications. Besides the traditional typography of books graphic design became a more or less independent branch. The tensions between those two branches significantly determined the stylistic development of 20th century’s typography.

Monotype machine

Art nouveau and New Book Art Since impressionism the modern art styles were reflected in graphic design and typography too. Since 1890 the Art nouveau became popular. Its floral ornaments, the curved forms, as well as the emphasis on graphical realisation inspired the type designers of the start of the 20th century. A popular art nouveau font was the Eckmann designed by graphic artist Otto Eckmann. Furthermore, the influence of art nouveau was expressed in a lot of book illustrations and exlibris designs. Altogether the return to the roots of book art become stronger around the start of the 20th century. It was initiated by British typographer, socialist, and private press publisher William Morris as well as by the Arts and Crafts Movement, which refers to him. Essentially this movement initiated three things: a return to the antiqua-models of the Renaissance, clarity and simplicity of book illustrations, and straightforward technical processes during the production of printed matters. An immediate consequence of the Arts and Crafts Movement was the establishment of the private press movement, which more or less was committed to Morrisâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; ideals, and whose remains partially are still present today. An established meeting point of these scene

in Germany for example is the Mainzer Minipressen-Messe, which actually is held every two years.

Especially the New Book Art movement, which formed in the decade before World War I, was influenced by the Arts and Crafts Movement. The young type designers of the pre-war era, among them Fritz Helmuth Ehmcke and Friedrich Wilhelm Kleukens, rejected both the late typographical classicism and the ornaments of the popular Art nouveau. The new ideal became a tidy and straightforward book typography, which dedicated itself to the ideas of the Renaissance. Walter Tiemann in Leipzig, Friedrich Hermann Ernst Schneidler in Stuttgart, and Rudolf Koch in Offenbach as instructors were the mentors of this kind of typography. They stayed influential in the field of book typesetting until a long time after the end of World War II.

Eckmann, 1901

Exlibris, 1921

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Novin, Guity, 2012, Chapter 54: A History of Typeface, http://guity-novin.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/history-of-type-face. html. Wikipedia. â&#x20AC;&#x153; History og Western typographyâ&#x20AC;?, Last modified on 28 April 2015, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_ Western_typography. Qualitychampion, The Baskerville typeface designed by John Baskerville in 1757, 2006, own work, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ File:Basker_specimen.jpg British Library Board , The opening page of the second volume, Parabole or Proverbs of the Gutenberg Bible, http://www.artfund.org/ what-to-see/exhibitions/2014/10/16/germany-memories-of-a-nation-exhibition Chauncey H. Griffith, Poster Bodoni , 1929, http://www.justinhufford.com/bodoni.html James Arboghast, Caslon_english_roman_thumb, 2006, http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Typography James Arboghast, Fell_english_roman_thumb, 2006, http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/File:Fell_english_roman_ thumb.png ClaudeGaramond, http://wally.rit.edu/cary/cc_db/16th_century/36.html GearedBull at English Wikipedia, AFDidotSpecimen, 2006, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AFDidotSpecimen.svg Roger Koslowski, Ex Libris, F. Paetzel, 1921, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Exlibris-1921.png Roger Koslowski , Eckmann (Typeface), 2006, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Typeface-eckmann.jpg Softeis, Monotype Giessmaschine, 2004, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Monotype-machine.jpg Grandjon, Evangelium_Sanctum_Domini_Nostri_Jesu_Christi_in_Arabic_1590_with_Arabic_types_of_Robert_Grandjon_Rome_Typographia_Medicea, 1590, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Evangelium_Sanctum_Domini_Nostri_Jesu_Christi_in_Arabic_1590_with_Arabic_types_of_Robert_Grandjon_Rome_Typographia_Medicea.jpg User:GearedBull, Specimen of the Garamond typeface, 2006, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:GaramondSpecimenA.svg Lisandra Lopez, Gutenberg, 2015, https://www.pinterest.com/lisandra0783/the-renaissance/

HISTORY OF TYPOGRAPHY