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pixellated pixellate Pixellated fonts became extremely popular during the 1980’s, when the digital revolution was in full swing. Instead of photographing letters to create fonts, mathematical formulas on the computer were used to generate electronic fonts. These pixellated fonts made it a lot easier for typographers, since they could be edited easily to enhance quality and readability.They are also faster and easier to use in computer code. One downfall of this new technology was the need for a separate font for each size and resolution, eating up a good portion of memory. Bitmap fonts, also known as “raster fonts,� are constructed from dots (pixels), as though a sheet of graph paper was placed over a drawn letter and each box within the outline of that letter was colored in.
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d fonts ed fonts
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Launched on August 1, 1981 by Warner Amex, MTV was created to play music videos guided by television jockeys (VJs). The logo, an iconic symbol of the 80’s, came from an unlikely source. A small design studio called Manhattan Design in Greenwich Village, consisting of Pat Gorman, Frank Olinsky and Patti Rogoff, was struggling to get by. One day, Frank got a call from a childhood friend, Fred Seibert, who was working on a project for Warner Amex. They wanted to create a TV station for playing music videos and needed a logo. Larger design firms had already been hired, but Fred managed to convince the company
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to set aside the money to hire Manhattan Design as well. After hundreds of sketches, Frank’s team produced the bold sans serif “M” with “TV” added. However, Frank still thought the logo seemed too normal and corporate-looking, as though it needed to be defaced somehow. Eventually, Frank created the scribbled-looking “TV” we all know today, and placed it over the M. The logo actually ended up in the Warner Amex trash can several times, but was finally reconsidered and sent back to Manhattan design for the final edits. Frank was asked to create corporate colors for the logo, but the team decided that there shouldn’t be any and the logo should always be allowed to change. This had never happened with a logo before.
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fonts the
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80’s The 80’s were a big time for electronic font creation and development. Bitstream was the first independent digital type foundry, founded in 1981. In 1988, Adrian Frutiger designed Avenir, the “new and improved” Futura. In 1989, Neville Brody designed Industria and Robert Slimback created Adobe Garamond. In1985, Kris Holmes created Lucida. Kris was also the creator of Baskerville, Caslon, Galileo and Sierra in the 80’s. Font development became a lot easier in 1986 thanks to the arrival of Fontographer software, making it possible to design high-resolution fonts on desktop computers. In 1984, the Apple Macintosh computer, first laser printer, and PageMaker page layout software were introduced, also helping along font development. By the end of the decade, font design had shifted almost entirely to digital.
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EMIGRE Emigre is a type foundry that was founded in 1984. Many foundries had been in existence before Emigre, but Emigre was one of the first to center on computer technology.Type families could and can still be ordered. Emigre magazine was produced as a way to showcase their fonts. Although the magazine is no longer in publication, fonts can still be ordered. The process is now exclusively digital.
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digital revo digital rev Graphic design took a digital turn in the 1980s. This time period is referred to as the digital revolution and it is still happening today. Desktop publishing played a big role in this major shift. Desktop publishing is the creation of documents using page layout skills on a personal computer. One of the biggest advantages of this type of software is the ability to create multiple page documents, such as a magazine, without having to print it. This is useful technology when it comes to editing. This led to the creation of type systems that made digital design even simpler.
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olution volution
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PostScript Language PostScript is a computer language that gives detailed descriptions of fonts. With these descriptions, fonts can be converted from once device to another and from composition systems to printing system. The systems description capabilities include, arbitrary shapes, outline thickness, fill color, and transformations. The first versions needed several sizes installed on a system to look sharp on the screen rather than jaggy and rough.
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TrueType TrueType is a system developed by Apple that uses quadratic curves. Like PostScript, it could convert type front screen to print. Different from PostScript, TrueType has scaling capabilities, meaning multiple sizes don’t need to be downloaded for one font family. TrueType fonts also appear sharper on screen than PostScript fonts, making these fonts more suitable for web design.
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The 1980s were a time of big change for graphic designers, especially typographers. There was a style change in the fonts that were created during this time period, and many adjustments were made to fit a more digital era. This was the beginning of where we are today in terms of technology. And there is still more to come.
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