Paean explores the subliminal relationship that exists between pharmaceutical products and graphic design as it shapes our environment, our health and ultimately our sense of self. The name 'Paean' originates from the physician of the gods in ancient Greek mythology.
THE ELEMENTS OF TYPOGRAPHIC STYLE
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LETTERS AND CITIES
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MEDICATION (from left to right) EQUAZEN, EYE Q CHEWS RITALIN, 10 HELP@HAND, PARACETAMOL KLOXEMA CODRAL ORIGINAL, COLD & FLU CALTRATE, BONE AND MUSCLE
MANUFACTURER FLORDIS NOVARTIS WOOLWORTHS NPS MEDICINEWISE JOHNSON & JOHNSON PACIFIC PTY LTD GSK COMPANY
The Elements of Typographic Style
Robert Bringhurst FIRST PRINCIPLES Typography exists to honour content.
Letters have a life and dignity of their own.
There is a style beyond style.
TYPOGRAPHY is the craft of endowing human language with a durable form, and thus with an independent existence. Its heartwood is calligraphy—the dance, on a tiny stage, of the living, speaking hand—and its roots reach into living soil, though its branches may be hung each year with new machines. So long as the root lives, TYPOGRAPHY remains a source of true delight, true knowledge, true surprise. As a craft, TYPOGRAPHY shares a long common boundary and many common concerns with writing and editing on the one side and with graphic design on the other; yet TYPOGRAPHY itself belongs to neither.
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FIRST PRINCIPLES
Typograhy exists to honour content.
Like oratory, music, dance, calligraphy—like anything that lends its grace to language—TYPOGRAPHY is an art that can be deliberately misused. It is a craft by which the meanings of a text (or its absence of meaning) can be clarified, honoured and shared, or, knowingly disguised. In a world rife with unsolicited messages, TYPOGRAPHY must draw attention to itself before it will be read. Yet in order to be read, it must relinquish the attention it has drawn. TYPOGRAPHY with anything to say therefore aspires to a kind of statuesque transparency. Its other traditional goal is durability: not immunity to change, but a clear superiority to fashion. TYPOGRAPHY at its best is a visual form of language linking timelessness and time. One of the principles of durable TYPOGRAPHY is always legibility; another is something more than legibility: some earned or unearned interest that gives its living energy to the page. It takes various forms and goes by various names, including serenity, liveliness, laughter, grace and joy. These principles apply, in different ways, to the TYPOGRAPHY of business cards, instruction sheets and postage stamps, as well as to editions of religious scriptures, literary classics and other books that aspire to join their ranks. Within limits, the same principles apply even to stock market reports, airline schedules, milk cartons, classified ads. But laughter, grace and joy, like legibility itself, all feed on meaning, which the writer, the words and the subject, not the typographer, must provide.
Letters have a life & dignity of their own.
Letterforms that honour and elucidate what humans see and say deserve to be honoured in their turn. Well-chosen words deserve well-chosen letters; these in their turn deserve to be set with affection, intelligence, knowledge and skill. Typography is a link, and it ought, as a matter of honour, courtesy and pure delight, to be as strong as the others in the chain. Writing begins with the making of footprints, the leaving of signs. Like speaking, it is a perfectly natural act which humans have carried to complex extremes. The typographer’s task has always been to add a somewhat unnatural edge, a protective shell of artificial order, to the power of the writing hand. The tools have altered over the centuries, and the exact degree of unnaturalness desired has varied from place to place and time to time, but the character of the essential transformation between manuscript and type has scarcely changed. The original purpose of type was simply copying. The job of the typographer was to imitate the scribal hand in a
form that permitted exact and fast replication. Dozens, then hundreds, then thousands of copies were printed in less time than a scribe would need to finish one. This excuse for setting texts in type has disappeared. In the age of photolithography, digital scanning and offset printing it is as easy to print directly from handwritten copy as from text that is typographically composed. Yet the typographer’s task is little changed. It is still to give the illusion of superhuman speed and stamina—and of superhuman patience and precision—to the writing hand. Typography is just that: idealised writing. Writers themselves now rarely have the calligraphic skill of earlier scribes, but they evoke countless versions of ideal script by their varying voices and literary styles. To these blind and often invisible visions, the typographer must respond in visible terms. In a badly designed book, the letters mill and stand like starving horses in a field. In a book designed by rote, they sit like stale bread and mutton on the page. In a well-made book, where designer, compositor and printer have all done their jobs no matter how many thousands of lines and pages, the letters are alive. They dance in their seats. Sometimes they rise and dance in the margins and aisles. Simple as it may sound, the task of creative non-interference with letters is a rewarding and difficult calling. In ideal conditions, it is all that typographers are really asked to do—and it is enough.
There is a style beyond style.
‘Literary style’, says Walter Benjamin, ‘is the power to move freely in the length and breadth of linguistic thinking without slipping into banality.’1 Typographic style, in this large and intelligent sense of the word, does not mean any particular style—my style or your style, Neo classical or Baroque style—but the power to move freely through the whole domain of typography and to function at every step in a way that is graceful and vital instead of banal. It means typography can walk familiar ground without sliding into platitudes, typography that responds to new conditions with innovative solutions, and typography that does not vex the reader with its own originality in a self-conscious search for praise. Typography is to literature as musical performance is to composition: an essential act of interpretation, full of endless opportunities for insight or obtuseness. Much typography is far removed from literature, for language has many uses, including packaging and propaganda. Like music, it can be used to manipulate behaviour and emotions. But this is not where typographers, musicians, or other human beings show us their finest side. Typography at its best is a slow performing art, worthy of the same informed appreciation that we sometimes give to musical performances, and capable of giving similar nourishment and pleasure in return. The same alphabets and page designs can be used for a biography of Mohandas Gandhi and for a manual on the use and deployment of biological weapons. Writing can be used both for love letters and for hate mail, and love letters themselves can be used for manipulation and
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extortion as well as to bring delight to body and soul. Evidently there is nothing inherently noble and trustworthy in the written or printed word. Yet generations of men and women have turned to writing and printing to house and share their deepest hopes, perceptions, dreams and fears. It is to them, not to the extortionist—nor to the opportunist of the profiteer—that the typographer must answer.
From part 2 of Benjamin’s essay on Karl Kraus, in Illuminationen, (Frankfurt, 1955). There is an English translation in Walter Benjamin, Reflections, ed. Peter Demetz (New York, 1978). 1
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LETTERS AND CITIES
Reading the urban environment with the help of perception theories. 014
SEITIC DNA SRETTEL
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SEITIC DNA SRETTEL
Excerpts from Silva Gouveia, A, and Farias, P and Gatto, P. (2009. Visual Communication Journal, 8 (3) Letters and cities: reading the urban environment with the help of perception theories. (pp. 339–348). Sage Publications
tnemnorivne nabru eht gnidaeR .seiroeht noitpecrep fo pleh eht htiw
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SEITIC DNA SRETTEL
Excerpts from Silva Gouveia, A, and Farias, P and Gatto, P. (2009. Visual Communication Journal, 8 (3) Letters and cities: reading the urban environment with the help of perception theories. (pp. 339–348). Sage Publications
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READING THE CITY
In The Image of the City, Lynch investigates the quality of the visual environment, introducing new research procedures and new concepts such as wayfinding and mental maps. He examines the legibility of the city structure from the point of view of user-dwellers and their use of mental maps, pointing out the relevance of urban landmarks, and the dweller’s mental image of the city. In Townscape, which is considered an important treatise on urban aesthetics, Cullen suggests that environments we consider pleasant did not just happen by chance. The author records and systematises urban interventions, making an investigative use of drawing and photography. The conic perspective, from the user-pedestrian’s point of view, is applied as a tool for checking the quality of the urban environment. In his drawings, Cullen uses optical effects, by means of lines and reticles, to highlight features of a particular place and its specific meaning, in a psychological approach to the urban landscape. According to these authors, the image of the environment is based on people’s interactions with their surroundings— interactions that help them to make sense, code and evaluate their environment and then take appropriate action. In this context, a mental image can be seen as the final stage of the perceptive process. Such an image, therefore, is not solely a visual but a synthetic product.
WAYFINDING AND INFORMATION DESIGN
Ma th e i n se re cula the y of ert vived rly Ly o n ri e s J a ch be ac nd and desc obson re - e ’s way , part v ri b e find ’s In alu me 20t a da i t s a forma ted in ng, we c ha h a n d h o d s t 1 i i c p r nu o 9 ea r con ters s e o l l e ct n D e s 9 9 i n e ly ion in i i R g des tributi by ar 21st ob n, w nf of c put ign, an ons o hitect centur ormat the m hich f a i s fo c o y d a R . n i b Of sen rwa y co rchit ome d e s n th a n p e s d e oth e -ma rd a ne mmun cture i Pas articu ign in ories k la e si th ic wm a find r book ing. P eth ation nd w ni, wh r note e late a i ng s a t o o s h y t are d s eor find dis an d ini in A hat a c e th is olog i des Archit rchit re of g also y for i tician ng to usses e e n B r t e i c and ribe w cture cture eat re he au forma renda nform the le t a t ( in e imple ay find (Arthu 1984) vance hor an ion sy Der vin tion me r nv i r i n in th d co stem a wh a nd nd th e onm ntat g as o s is li Wa P as i ap n e o a u th o c a l l e y s fi prim autho ents on of r i o d n r n f c d i o s r t e a i s 1 in p ar y co , und hat ar ction ss th 992). ng: Pe tudies f two a e en : l ot n plans t invo Passin ople, Waybe anning ncern rstan lv d a S r i e info ffecte such of arc ing th cess elated es the and A igns, a h e is d r In a matio by sp nviron itects kind rily fa to mo elabo rthur np ac e ddi o m ving ratio a f p m ilia nd en ro figu ti ring on, th vided organ ts. Th graph roces r. Acc arou n nd i o rd s e e sa ic b y y e nv s iron discu y grap tion a argue desig hould ing to n s n h me nts s stra ic, au d arch that w ers e be the ng te d a it th a t fa gies t itor y a ecture y findin aged hat c i l it nd gm a s t ate w m a a use ay be ctile e ell as y b r s’ l a s pa p p lie e m e n y ts d ti a l o ri e i n c o n . nt a ti o n .
In Visual Function (1997), designer Paul Mijksenaar discusses a number of cases in which information design may help an understanding of the built environment, and points out some restrictions imposed by the architectonic conception of some buildings. Mijksenaar criticises modern and post-modern buildings where the main entrance, whether accidentally or not, is concealed in the facade (pp.8–10). According to the author, an efficient architectonic structure might not even need further information about destinations and routes (p.10).
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TYPOGRAPHIC LANDSCAPES READING LETTERS AND NUMBERS IN THE CITY
Based on Lynch’s (1997: 9) discussion, it could be argued that the visual, aesthetic and cultural identity of the city is made up of, amongst other things, its graphic elements. These elements can act as indicators of urban flows (wayfinding) or as landmarks that identify and name city locations and therefore contribute to defining the city’s informational structure. Letters and numbers in the urban environment can thus be studied as part of the city’s identity and communicative efforts, and understood as a kind of discourse.
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What we call typographic landscape is the landscape formed by a subset of graphic elements in the urban environment: characters that form words, dates and other messages composed of letters and numbers. Typography is here understood in a broad sense, including reference to alphabetic and para-alphabetic characters obtained from processes that would be better described as lettering (painting, engraving, casting, etc.) and not only from automatic or mechanic processes that characterise typography in a more restricted sense. Such landscapes are formed by a number of insertions: historical evidences that last over different periods of time and that can be divided into eight major groups:
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We find precedents for investigations into typographic landscapes in the
research that has been carried out by typography and design scholars d on foun such , ring s e such as Nicolete Gray (1960, 1986), Alan Bartram (1975), Jock Kinneir t n t ig c Le s s y a orar op f g (1980), Phil Baines and Catherine Dixon (2003). In archaeology, and temp se on sh buildin a o d, more particularly in the field of epigraphy, we find a longstanding tradias th ached to ction an tt d ru tion of studies of writings found in public spaces, mainly those produced ias, a s const , replace s r it afte st case ns from by the Greek and Roman civilisations. Some relevant contemporary refo ig m s in e. th e r erences to these studies are La scrittura: ideologia e rappresentazione, by o e to tim tim
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Unofficial , unauthorised inscriptio ns, such as g tags, usua raffiti and lly not pla nned , and inscri be permissio d without the n of arch itects, construct ion comp anies, dev elopers an d o w n ers . C A C ID GR EN TA L T Y P O
by Armando Petrucci (1986), Epigraphic Evidence: Ancient History from Inscriptions (Bodel 2001) and Epigrafia romana: la comunicazione nell’antichità (Donati 2002). An important forerunner of such studies in Brazil is art historian Clarival do Prado Valladares, who wrote Memória do Brasil: um estudo da epigrafia erudita e popular (Memory of Brazil: A Study of Ancient and Popular Epigraphy, 1976).
If, on the one hand, studies in the field of graphic design are likely to favour the analysis and appreciation of typographic forms, studies in the field of epigraphy, on the other hand, are likely to focus on the content of written messages and their meanings for society and culture. According to Moser (2005:285), methodologies developed in environmental psychology must take account of cultural specificities and the identification of these cultural specificities can only be achieved by comparing different cultures. In view of the fact that both concerns are relevant, we conclude that an ideal methodological approach to investigating typographic landscapes must necessarily include judicious protocols for data gathering and systematisation, as well as sound procedures for analysis and interpretation. The data gathered must help to identify cultural specificities and facilitate the comparison of examples that occur at different places and from different times. 020 SILVA GOUVEIA, FARIAS, GATTO