Monochrome Type Book Critique by Laura Hudson

M O N O C H R O M E T Y P E

Hummingbird Design by Laura Hudson & Amelia Hulme

M O N O C H R O M E T Y P E laura hudson

05 INTRODUCTION 07 TYPOGRAPHY 08 HISTORY

20 GUTENBERG 30 TYPEFACE 34 ANATOMY

39 GLOSSARY 4

CONTENTS 05 Foreword

19 Offset Printing

08 A Brief History

21 What is a Typeface?

07 What is typography? 09 History: Serifs

10 History: San Serifs 11 Printing

15 The Letter Press

16 Johann Gutenberg 18 Lithography

20 Modern Typography 22 Terms To Use 23 Anatomy

24 Revolutionary Type 25 Afterword

26 Acknowledgements 27 Bibliography

FOREWORD Are you an aspiring designer, typographer or artist? Then this book was written for you. Covering a broad range of subjects from typefaces to the history of printing and letterpress, what better way to explore typography’s past than going right back to the basics? And how much more basic can you get than black and white? Welcome to Monochrome Type. It’s time to get back to basics.

WHAT IS

TYPOGRAPHY?

Typography is sometimes seen as encompassing many separate fields, from the type designer who creates letter forms to the graphic designer who selects typefaces and arranges them on the page. Today, the type selection process is generally handled by graphic designers although many designers rely on knowledgeable typographers to help them know what typeface choices to make.

In general usage typography is the practical and artistic arrangement of type and printing with type. The design and use of typefaces as a means of visual communication from calligraphy to the everdeveloping use of digital type is the broad use of the term typography. However, the art and practice of typography began with the invention of moveable type and the printing press.

A BRIEF

HISTORY OF TYPE

The history of type can be traced back through time for over two millenia. According to the testimony of ancient historian Hellanicus, the first recorded hand written letter was by Persian Queen Atossa daughter of Syrus, mother of Xerxes around 500 BC. Story telling, song, festivals and initiations are just some of the many ways people of the past tried to preserve their traditions and memories. People marked items as a means of passing information to others, this included marking of stone, indents in clay, knotted lengths of cord and scratching of plates of lead, copper and wood with a style made of iron. Saxons of the dark ages used the bark of the beech tree, called boc, from whence comes the word book. 10

THE

TRAJAN INSCRIPTION

The Trajan column, is a doric column with a spiral frieze, carved in low relief. It depicts Emperor Trajan’s own account of his conquest of Decebalus (the campaigns of 101–102 and 105– 106 AD). The monument, designed by the architect Apollodorus of Damascus, was erected between 106–113 AD and dedicated in May 113. The inscription (six lines and 37 words, many of which are abbreviated) is essentially a simple dedication of the monument. The letter forms, however, represent perhaps the most elegant, and certainly the most celebrated, example of the Roman letter. The inscription has served as the model Roman alphabet for almost two millennia. There are numerous infamous serif typefaces that have been based on the Trajan inscription. 11

Old Style (Garamond)

Slab (Rockwell)

Clarendon (Saloon)

Transitional (Baskerville)

Modern (Modern No. 20)

Free Form (Sidhe)

SERIF Serif font history dates back to the times of Ancient Rome with the Roman alphabet and inscriptional lettering. That is why serif fonts are also known as Roman fonts. Old style serif fonts are considered to be based on the humanist calligraphy from the middle of the 15th century. The key features of the old style serif fonts are low line contrast (when there is only a slight difference between thick and thin lines forming a letter) and diagonal stress (the thinnest parts of the letters are those at the angles). Unlike old style serifs, transitional serif fonts feature

higher line contrast with more distinctive difference between thick and thin lines. Transitional serif fonts are sometimes called “baroque fonts”. Modern serif fonts first appeared at the end of the 18th century. Also known as Didone serif typefaces, the family of modern serifs fonts has vivid differences from the old style serif fonts. These are the extreme high line contrast, vertical stress instead of diagonal, and long and fine serifs. Vertical lines of the modern serif fonts are usually very heavy, which, in combination with thin and light serifs, makes a text, printed in modern serif font,

“...

DESIGNERS, USE ALL THEIR IMAGINATION TO PRESENT SERIF FONTS IN A FRESH AND UNEXPECTED WAY

...”

The first slab serif font was presented in the early 19th century by Vincent Figgins under the name Antique. However, in view of public craze in Europe for everything Egyptian at those times, the slab serif fonts were commonly called Egyptian. Virtually no difference between thick and thin lines of the letters is the key feature of slab serifs. With the bold and rectangular shapes, slab serif fonts often have fixed width, which means that every letter occupies the same horizontal space. Clarendon serif font is sometimes classified as the subtype of slab serif fonts. However, unlike traditional slab serifs, Clarendon font has 14

some brackets at the junction of a stem and serifs. Also, Clarendon fonts usually feature heavy and square-cut serifs. This font group was widely used in the Old West in “wanted” posters and later on traffic signs in the USA. Along with the serif fonts, designed in accordance with particular typography rules or tradition, such as old style serif fonts or modern serifs, there are also many free form serif fonts developed these days. Designers, inspired by a legacy of serif fonts and modern trends in typography, use all their imagination to present serif fonts in a fresh and sometimes unexpected way.

Gothic Serif

Transitional Serif

Bracketed Serif

Glyphic Serif

Wedge Serif

Slab (Bracketed)

Oldstyle

Hairline

Tuscan Serif

Cursive Serif

Slab (Unbracketed)Serif

Sans Serif

A BC D E FGH I J K L MN O PQ RS T U V Y XYZ 1234567890 16

SANS SERIF The typeface, sans serif (French for, “without serifs”) first appeared at the beginning of the 19th century It was referred to as ‘Egyptian’ font. The name ‘Sans Serif’ refers to a typeface that does not have winged tips on the end. The name comes from the roman typeface “Serif” which is the opposite of sans serif typeface. It was first used in 1816 in a type sample book by William Caslon.

When the first examples of sans serif fonts appeared, they seemed so controversial that the first name given to them was ‘grotesque,’ and they were rarely used except in advertising. And so it remained until the newest trends in art and industrial design, most notably the German Bauhaus movement of 1920s (influenced by earlier Russian constructivism), required adequate means of typographic expression.

These movements stressed utilitarian aspects in design, claiming that a thing becomes beautiful only when—and because— it serves a practical purpose, denying any attempts to artificially “adorn” it. The most influential type design of the era, the Futura font created in Germany in 1928, displayed the core of the Bauhaus ideology: 18

geometric outline, lacking any embellishments and just barely conforming to the historical shapes of letters. The most natural use of a sans serif font is still for display purposes (ads, titles, logos, labels of all sorts), although it can be successfully used for body text as well.

M O GE

C I R ET

“...

EACH PIECE OF MOVABLE TYPE, INCLUDING LETTER FORMS, PUNCTUATION, AND BLANK SPACES, WAS ORIGINALLY MADE BY HAND

...”

In the Middle Ages, before printing was invented, scribes made books by hand-copying manuscripts in distinctive calligraphic lettering. A single book could take years to produce using this method, meaning that only the church and nobility could afford them. Early printers needed both a printing press and a type font—the set of movable type—to produce

books. Type was cast from molten metal poured into carved molds; the task of carving the molds was the done by typographers. The term leading comes from the lead ‘spacers’ used to seperate lines of text. It wasn’t until Johannes Gutenberg perfected the technology of movable type in 1458 that the printing press realized its full potential.

His skill as a punchcutter (type carver) meant that his carvings of type molds produced superior type characteristics. His fonts became sought after by printers of the time, and type foundries became a business enterprise. Garamond also cut the classic Old Style typeface bearing his name, which is considered one of the best faces in all typography. For the next

200 years—from the late 1600s to the late 1800s—the printing press and the science of typecutting had only minor refinements. Type styles, which had continued to evolve through several periods (Transitional, Modern, Slab Serif) underwent a major change in the late 19th and early 20th century with the development of sans serif type faces.

JOHANN

GUTENBERG

Johann Gutenberg invented the printing press in the 15th century. His goal was to bring books to the common people. In the decades just preceding the 1440s, printing of any kind required craftsmen to carve entire pages of text into wooden blocks. Once the text was carved, the space around the letters had to be whittled away so the text was the only surface that would touch the page. The blocks were inked, the paper placed on top and rubbed onto the wood to create an impression. Each page required its own wooden block, which was a time-consuming and difficult process. However, this new wood-block printing allowed books to be copied more easily than transcribing by hand.

“...

HIS MOST NOTABLE PRINT JOB WAS A COPY OF THE BIBLE—A TASK THAT TOOK A STAFF OF TWENTY, TWO TO THREE YEARS TO COMPLETE

...”

Gutenberg’s efforts to create an easier way of printing took an extensive amount of time and funding. It is believed that his first forays, between the 1430s and 1440s, were through his own version of wood-block printing, with individual, reusable letters carved into wood blocks instead of entire words or pages. This allowed for a movable type. Individual letters could be used to form words for one page of print, then taken apart and re-ordered to create the next. While this method was a significant improvement on wood-block page printing, the wooden letters did not print with clarity, so Gutenberg began working with metal type instead. The metal type included individual

capital and lowercase letters, as well as punctuation symbols; these characters’ reverse impressions— mirror images—were cast in steel. Letters and symbols could then be assembled on a wooden forme to create entire pages of text, complete with spacers and lead rules for legibility. In order to transfer these impressions from forme to page, Gutenberg used a lacquer-like ink he created himself out of soot, walnut oil and turpentine. Gutenberg’s printing press was called a “screw press” or handpress, and allowed ink to transfer evenly between the page and the forme. With this new way to print, Gutenberg could print books at a rate of around six pages per day.

THE

BIBLE His most notable print job was a copy of the Bible. Gutenberg’s bible had 42 lines of text in two columns on each page, and consisted of two volumes that totaled 1,282 pages — a task that took a staff of twenty, two to three years (between 1452 and 1454/1455) to complete. One hundred eighty copies were made of this Bible, and 48 copies can still be found in museums today. For the next 350 years, Gutenberg’s press was used to print with virtually no changes to the design. 27

THE

LETTERPRESS Letterpress printing is a relief printing process, which initially utilized raised metal type and engravings to imprint words and designs on a page. Letterpress originated in the 1400s and was the primary form of printing and communication for more than 500 years. For centuries it was the primary method of publishing books, but over time it has evolved into an art form more than a standard printing practice. Now, letterpress printing allows printers to make modern commercial works that have an appealing tactile quality in 28

comparison to current offset and digital printing methods. In the late 1980s, letterpress printing had its own revival among small printers who still wanted that tactile, quality feel that offset printing cannot provide. It wasn’t until the 1990s that it became popular among individuals for their personal printing needs. Original letterpress printers used a “kiss” method of printing; that is, the press only touched the paper enough to transfer the ink. Modern letterpress enthusiasts, however, are interested in deep impressions in the page— which

is more commonly referred to as “debossing” —which make it immediately obvious that the page is, in fact, letterpress and not printed by any other means. The appeal lies in the deep impressions on the page, as a beautiful, imprinted work of art rather than just a printed page. This elegant, tactile quality of current letterpress printing is now the primary reason for choosing to print with this method rather than offset. As offset is now the primary printing method for both professional and home print jobs, letterpress printing takes the recipient back to a time

when printing was a craft that took time to create. It’s now about the look and feel of the paper, and quality is key. Some printers still utilize Gutenberg’s method of individual characters to print letterpress, however others have embraced digital methods that make the process simpler. With computers, designers are able to use software to combine the text and designs to be printed. They can then produce a digital page and create a photopolymer plate of the page’s design. The design can be pressed into the paper, creating a colourful, tactile work of art. 29

LITHOGRAPHY In 1798, Alois Senefelder invented lithography printing. Unlike the letterpress printing system, lithography printing allows the entire printing space—both the text to be printed and the white space surrounding it—to remain on a level surface with no raised areas. Lithography was less expensive than letterpress printing, due to the availability of cheaper paper options and that, driven by steam power, these presses could print large quantities of pages more quickly than with letterpress. Printers immediately attempted to print color images with these new lithographic presses, as multiple litho plates could be used one after another on the same page.

Within 100 years, lithography was the primary method for advertising and magazine printing However, lithography did not completely remove the need for letterpress printing in the 1800s. The Industrial Revolution brought improvements to the design of the hand press, including improved leverage and weighting to get the correct amount of pressure put on the form each time. In the mid-1880s, a high-end tabletop press was invented that left clear impressions on each page, thanks to a side arm whose length provided better leverage. By the end of the century, a smaller tabletop press had been developed for use in smaller print shops.

“...

THESE PRESSES COULD PRINT UP TO 5 000 COPIES IN AN HOUR WITH LITTLE TO NO ATTENTION REQUIRED

...”

While previously full-sized presses had to be operated by foot while paper was hand-fed to the press, they were updated to include individual motors. Later, automatic feed presses were introduced that were not only motorized, but independently fed paper; these presses could print up to 5000 copies in an hour with little to no attention required. Despite these updates, there were still issues when printing with a letterpress. When printing magazines or newspapers, each page’s ink took time to dry, and 32

if assembled too quickly, the ink would smudge. In 1939, Walter Huber filed for a patent for his ink that dried solidly and instantly upon contact with paper, due to fluctuations in the ink’s temperature. This solid ink was resistant to smudging and allowed for cleaner, sharper printing than previous letterpress inks. These improvements allowed the letterpress to remain relevant throughout the first half of the 20th century, despite the growing popularity of lithography and later, offset printing.

OFFSET 34

Offset printing came about by accident in 1903. American printer Ira Washington Rubel owned a lithograph press, and when he failed to insert paper, the stone plate’s image transferred onto the rubber cylinder used to make the impression. After putting paper back in the machine, the stone printed on one side of

the page while the rubber cylinder printed on the other. Rubel was surprised to find that the image from the cylinder was significantly sharper than the image from the stone litho plate. Later, he invented a machine that re-created his ‘accident.’ However, it wasn’t for another few decades that offset printing gained popularity.

Compared to lithograph presses, which utilized stone plates, offset printing was imprinted from rubber, and the image could be transferred onto not only paper, but other surfaces such as wood and metal for versatility. Within 50 years of lithography’s rise, offset lithography and digital printing had taken over the scene.

By the 1950’s, offset printing was the most popular method of commercial printing. With the rise of computers came the downfall of letterpress printing. Everything could now be accomplished through digital or offset printing, either through a print shop or out of one’s own home. 35

WHAT IS A

TYPEFACE? Think of a typeface as the ‘design’ of the design of the alphabet, the shape of the letters that make up the typestyle. The letters, numbers, and symbols that make up a design of type. So when you say “Arial” or “Garamond” you’re talking about a set of letters in a specific style, a ‘typeface’. According to Adobe’s type glossary: “A font is one weight, width, and style of a typeface. Before scalable type, there was little distinction 36

between the terms font, face, and family. Font and face still tend to be used interchangeably, although the term face is usually more correct. A typeface is the letters, numbers, and symbols that make up a design of type. A typeface is often part of a type family of coordinated designs. The individual typefaces are named after the family and are also specified with a designation, such as italic, bold or condensed.

Lowercase

Serif

Bowl

Ascender Cap- Height

Baseline Descender 38

Counter

Descender

Stem

Terminal

Crossbar

Finial

Spine

Uppercase

Small Caps 39

TYPOGRAPHY 40

GLOSSARY

Ascender

The part of a lower case letterform that projects above the x-height of the font

Baseline

Where the feet of Capital letters sit. Below this line are descenders and loops.

Bold

A specially designed, thickened typeface. Used for emphasis and headings and subheadings.

Bowl

The shapely, enclosed parts of letters such as ‘p’ and ‘b’.

Bracket

A wedge-like shape that joins a serif to the stem of a font in some typefaces.

Cap height

The height of a capital letter above the baseline.

Counter

The enclosed—or partially enclosed—portion of letterforms such as ‘c’, ‘e’ and ‘g’; easy to get mixed up with the bowl.

Crossbar

The crossbar connects two strokes: ‘H’.

Cursive

These are typefaces that imitate handwriting

Descender

The part of the letterform that falls below the baseline. 41

Drop cap

An oversized capital letter often used at the start of a paragraph that ‘drops’ into two or more lines of text, but can also climb upwards.

Em Dash

Em is a horizontal space equal to the current point size of text. Used to replace commas, semicolons, colons, and parentheses

En Dash

En is a horizontal measure one half the size of an Em. Used in place of the word ‘to’. I.e. 1945 to 1946 (1945–1946).

Finial

A tapered or curved end, which appears on letters such as e and c.

Font

A font is one weight, width, and style of a typeface.

Glyph

Any singular mark that makes part of a font, whether a letter, number or punctuation mark. Glyphs are the building blocks of typography.

Gutter:

The spaces between facing pages of, and very often columns of text.

Hierarchy

The importance of seperate elements of information. Applies to headings, subheadings, body copy, dates etc.

Hyphen

Used to join words to indicate that they have a combined meaning or that they are linked in the grammar of a sentence. Not to be used in place of an Em or En dash.

Italic

A specifically designed, sloped typeface used especially for emphasis or distinction and in foreign words.

Justified

Text contents that are arranged so that text begins flush left and finishes flush right of a text box.

Kerning

Adjusting the space between characters to create a harmonious pairing and optimise readability.

Leading

The vertical space between each line of type.

Legibility

The ease with which one letterform can be distinguished from the next.

Ligature

Ligatures pull two seperate letters together to produce a new glyph and optomise readability. Commonly used with some, not all, letters adjacent to ‘f’.

Measure

The width of a text block.

Oblique/Sloped roman

Oblique letters are merely slanted versions of the standard roman form, often arrived at by mechanical means. Not to be confused with italic.

Orphan

The first line of a new paragraph stranded at the bottom of a page.

Point

A point is a standard typographical measurement equal to 1/12 of a pica or 1/72 of an inch.

Readability

The ease with which a block of text can be scanned by eye.

Sans Serif

A style of type without serifs.

Scale

Larger or smaller than the original size. Can be used to define hierarchy along with colour, spacing, weight etc.

Serif

A flare or terminating flourish at the end of a letterform’s strokes, originating from the Roman tendency to paint letters onto marble before chiselling them out.

Size

The amount of space a letterform takes up on a page. The most common unit to measure type is point system. Type sizes can also be measured in inches, millimeters, or pixels.

Spine

The main curved stroke of a lowercase or capital S. Can be found in ‘g’ above the loop. it depends on the style.

Stem

A vertical, full-length stroke in upright characters.

Terminal 44

A type of curve at the end of a stroke. Often tear drop shaped. Can be found on the end of ‘e’ and ‘c’.

Tittle

The brilliantly suggestive name for the dot above letters ‘i’ and ‘j’.

Tracking

The spacing of all characters that is applied evenly across all characters.

Typeface

A design for a set of characters.

Typography

The art and technique of arranging type.

X-height

The height of lowercase letters from the baseline to ‘x-height’ line.

AFTERWORD

This book was inspired by my own experiences with design and typography. There is something to be said for the simplicity of black and white and the amazing creations that can come from it. Monochrome Type was created to express my own personal love for the history of typography and printing and to give back to the diverse community of aspiring designers, typographers and artists. It’s always important to know your history and that goes for your profession or future profession. Remember, knowledge is fundamental for success.

IMAGES

andrewnovialdi.com/typography.html backgrounds.mysitemyway.com/free-grunge-watercolorstock-background-images/ crispme.com/brilliant-creative-typography-artworks/ designwithfontforge.com/en-US/The_EM_Square.html elationpress.com/resources/the-history-of-letterpressprinting/ fontfont.com/news/the-making-of-ff-dora ftldesign.com/Waterlow/index.htm gardenofpraise.com/ibdguten.htm greenchairpress.com/blog/?p=6 ilovetypography.com/2008/05/21/face-to-face-interviewwith-stefan-hattenbach/ juxtapost.com/site/permlink/fd452c80-9dbb-11e1a5ff-27bbb375d8db/post/type_calligraphy_lettering_ typography_luca_barcelona/ liamlewison1.blogspot.com.au/2011/02/blog-post_4768. html pinterest.com/pin/258112622367381414/ printcityny.com/offset-printing-nyc.html roseybarn.blogspot.com.au/2013/02/vintage-letterpress. htm upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/25/Beineckegutenburg-bible.jpg urdu-mag.com/blog/2013/03/52-typography-designs-greatfor-design-inspiration/

BIBLIOGRAPHY

codex99.com/typography/21.html creativebloq.com/typography/what-is-typography-123652 desktoppub.about.com/cs/basic/g/typography.htm elationpress.com/resources/the-history-of-letterpress-printing/ emmasweeney.blogspot.com.au/history-typeface-sans-seriffrench-for.html fonts2u.com/references/serif-fonts.html handwrittenletters.com/history.html noupe.com/fonts/serif-fonts-and-their-peculiarities.html papress.com/thinkingwithtype/letter/anatomy.htm printlocal.com/History-of-Printing.htm thefloatingfrog.co.uk/tips-tricks-tutorials/what-is-the-differencebetween-a-font-and-a-typeface/ thinkingwithtype.com/contents/letter/ typedia.com/learn/only/anatomy-of-a-typeface/ webreference.com/dlab/9802/sansserif.html