Guide to Typography

A Guide to Typography Hana Nelson

Table of Contents

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1 4 7 10

Introduction to Type pg. 3-4

Type Properties pg. 17-20

Legibility pg. 35-38

Type in Digital Age pg. 49-50

2 5 6 8 9 11 12

A Brief History of Type pg. 5-12

What is Typography? pg. 13-16

Type Classifications pg. 21-30

Type Families pg. 31-34

Readability pg. 39-42

Famous Type Designers pg. 51-54

Grid and Layout pg. 43-48

References pg. 55-56

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Introduction to Type

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Typography exists to honor content.

Typography is the craft of endowing human language with a durable visual 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.

At its best, typography is a visual form of language linking timelessness and time.

Typography is the term used to describe how type is arranged on a layout. For most designers now, this refers to how type is formatted for displaying on a page, product (e.g. packaging), signage, or website.

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A Brief History of Type

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Origin of Typography Typography as we know it only came into being with the invention of the printing press, but it actually has deeper origins. Many of the fonts you will see used widely today evolved from much earlier type designs.

As civilizations advanced, the need to communicate complex concepts grew—hence the development of Egyptian hieroglyphics. By 3100 B.C., the Egyptians began incorporating symbols or ideograms into their art, architecture and writings.

In second century B.C Mesopotamia, punches and dies were used to stamp letterforms or glyphs onto seals, which makes it a very early form of printing. There is also evidence that similar ‘printing’ techniques were used in Babylon, Crete, and Ancient Greece.

It is Phoenicians who are credited with creating the very first alphabet and around 1000 B.C. — the same alphabet was used by the Greeks. In fact, the word Alphabet is a combination of the first two Greek letters, Alpha and Beta.

Many of the serif fonts we use now can also trace their roots back to Ancient Roman capital lettering, which was used to inscribe monuments and municipal buildings. Trajan Pro and Times New Roman are two examples of typefaces which owe much of their design heritage to these early Roman type styles

The Romans, after several years, used this Greek Alphabet and on the basis of the same, styled the Uppercase Alphabet, which is still used today. They also refined the art of handwriting and fashioned a number of different styles of lettering. Additionally, they also introduced different scripts — formal and informal for official and unofficial writings.

Ancient cave paintings that date back to 20,000 B.C. are perhaps the very first recorded written communication. However, formal writing is said to have been developed by the Sumerians at around 3,500 B.C.

Typography in the Present Graphic designers these days have the luxury of endless tools and technology to create a wide range of typographic styles and even entire families of font families and typefaces. Armed with the knowledge of typographic history, graphic designers can expand their horizons and enhance their skills to produce a much more refined body of work.

Understanding the various visual communication principles in typography since the beginning of time can help designers determine which elements have more or less remained the same and which ones have evolved with time—as well as the factors that contributed to their success or failure.

From ancient typographic styles to classic movable type, the history of typography can help designers develop a more informed and cohesive style that builds on the past. There is so much to learn from the past, and so much inspiration to be discovered.

History also allows designers to learn from the past mistakes, understand common threads, reinvent classic letterforms and develop innovative typographic styles, which they can proudly add to an existing portfolio or body of work.

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Gutenberg’s Blackletter Revolution By the 12th century in Europe, hand-lettering had developed into an incredibly beautiful art form, practiced by monks who created illuminated manuscripts covered in ornate lettering designs. The style of type which was perfected by the monks is now known as blackletter—a Gothic calligraphy script.

The downside of this hand-lettering technique was that it was also time-consuming and costly, which made it accessible only to a limited group of people. For many type enthusiasts, typography only really came into being with the invention of the printing press. In Germany, a blacksmith named Johannes Gutenberg created a machine that could process movable type, allowing a large number of sheets to be printed using ink and dies. Mimicking the blackletter type style used in hand-lettered manuscripts, Gutenberg developed the first ever typeface: Blackletter.

Avebury

Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss Tt Uu Vv Ww Xx Yy Zz FF Brokenscript

Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss Tt Uu Vv Ww Xx Yy Zz 7

Old Stype Typefaces The sheer blackness of Blackletter never made it the easiest typeface to read, so it was a breath of fresh air when Roman type styles became popularised in the 15th and 16th centuries.

In 1470 in Venice, Nicolas Jenson designed a highly legible typeface inspired by Ancient Roman type styles. Jenson is one of the earliest Old Style typefaces, which are defined by low contrast between thick and thin strokes. Old Style Roman typefaces are readable and aesthetically pleasing, which led to them becoming the defining typeface style used throughout this period.

While this renewed legibility was welcome, typesetters were also starting to explore ways of saving space on layouts. Books and other print materials were still not very cheap to produce, so designers focussed on compressing tracking (space between characters) and leading (space between lines). This need for space-saving also led to the development of italic weights. While typographers mostly use italics today to create hierarchy and difference in their typesetting, Renaissance-era typographers used slanted type styles to make the most of the limited space they had available.

Garamond

Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss Tt Uu Vv Ww Xx Yy Zz Palatino

Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss Tt Uu Vv Ww Xx Yy Zz 8

18th Century Serifs Roman typefaces remained enduringly popular for a few centuries, and it wasn’t until the 18th Century that some of the most influential type designers quietly revolutionised the serif as we now know it today. This was the era of the humanist serifs. It all began with William Caslon, a London-based type designer, who created a more refined version of the Old Style serifs first developed by Jenson some centuries before. Caslon is a romantic and undeniably beautiful typeface, which makes all printed documents of this period appear exceptionally elegant.

A couple of decades later, in the 1750s, another English type designer, John Baskerville, created what is now known as the first Transitional typeface. Compared to Old Style Caslon, Baskerville is recognised for its thinner serifs and moderately higher contrast between thick and thin strokes. It has a more formal, sombre appearance than Caslon, and remains one of the most popular typefaces for typesetting books today.

The tide of typographic change was coming thick and fast during the 18th Century, during the Age of Enlightenment. In France, the Didot family designed one of the first Modern serifs, which are defined by very thin serifs and a very high contrast between thick and thin strokes.

Caslon Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss Tt Uu Vv Ww Xx Yy Zz

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Didot Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss Tt Uu Vv Ww Xx

Slab Serifs After all the sophisticated developments in typography during the 18th century, the 19th century was bound to be a little disappointing. This was the era of the Industrial Revolution, and while incredible progress was made in mechanical and industrial fields, typography suffered from a cluttered approach during this time.

Type was condensed or stretched to fit onto advertising materials like posters and newspapers. An eclectic mix of styles was used to fit every available space, which resulted in an eccentric look that ranged from circus-inspired styling to the letterpress-influenced ‘vintage’ styles popular with hip coffee bars today. The upside of all this typographic freedom during the 19th century was the development of slab serif, or Egyptian, typefaces. These were punchier, bolder incarnations of existing serif styles, and they still give a lovely antiquated feel to titles in contemporary design.

Beastly Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss Tt Uu Vv Ww Xx Yy Zz Grueber Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss Tt Uu Vv Ww Xx Yy Zz 10

The Modernists After all the clutter of the Industrial period, typography was badly in need of a refresh. Luckily, there were some very forward-thinking chaps who did just that.

William Caslon (of Caslon fame, see above) had a great-grandson, William Caslon IV, who controversially removed the serifs from one of his traditional typefaces in the early 19th century.

The style was too ahead of its time and didn’t take off, and it would be another century before the world was ready for the palette-cleansing simplicity of the sans serif.

The best-known early sans serif is Futura, which was created by German typographer Paul Renner in 1927. Renner was inspired by simple geometric shapes, which gives Futura and its relations their group name—the Geometric Sans typefaces. At the same time over in England, Eric Gill was approaching the new Modernist mood from a different perspective. He created Gill Sans, which introduced more natural curves and organic forms to the sans serif template. This and other related typefaces are now known as Humanist Sans typefaces. A few decades later, in the late 1950s in Switzerland, another sans serif evolutionary step was made. The Swiss Style, as practiced by a group of designers in the country, was characterised by functional and ultra-legible type design. Helvetica was the star product of this modernist experiment, and it soon came to be used across signage and print design the world over.

Futura Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss Tt Uu Vv Ww Xx Yy Zz Gill Sans Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss 11 Tt Uu Vv Ww Xx Yy Zz

Typography didn't simply begin with the invention of the printing press, but has a much deeper history, much of which historians are still only just bringing to light.

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What is Typography?

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Typography is the visual component of the written word.

Typography is the art and craft of arranging type. It’s critically important to the work of graphic designer, content writers and marketing professionals. The choices related to the layout, color scheme and typeface will decide the difference between a good and poor design.

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Why Typography is Important 1. It is a medium of communication.

5. It establishes an information hierarchy.

A website may be related to a business or art or some specific product. When you visit a website, you can easily determine what sort of information it provides.

This is due to the use of typography.

Information hierarchy means categorizing the texts inside a content according to their importance. You can use different font types and sizes to differentiate the texts that are most important.

The arrangement of the contents, the colors and fonts used and other minute details provide a way of communication with the visitor.

You can highlight the important topics by using bigger font sizes. This will help the audience to easily determine the information that they should pay more attention to.

2. It attracts the readers.

6. It helps to create harmony.

The basic approach of using typography is selecting the correct font. The font should be as clean as possible. It shouldn't be too small and crummy. Using fonts that are easy to read are key to presentation.

If you design a typography and repeat the same pattern throughout your presentation, then it creates a harmony.

Harmony is the leading feature in typography design.

The fonts add value to your text. It helps readers to perceive information from the text. The correct choice of color, font and text size can prove to be vital for attracting your target audience.

3. It holds the audience's attention.

It's easy to attract the readers using typography but holding their attention requires more creativity. You can work on creating some interest within the content by highlighting texts that are captivating.

Every content may contain some mundane text.

If used effectively, typography can make them look attractive. The correct approach might be the use of some attractive graphics.

4. It conveys a certain mood or feeling.

A content might be an advertisement of a computer game. It might contain some exciting features of the game. In such case, you should design the content that is fun, playful and glamorous.

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The choice of such typeface determines how the content is understood.

Harmonic design provides an artistic effect to your website.

Using same font for similar contents provides continuity. The alignment of fonts with correct proportion organizes your presentation and makes it uncluttered.

7. It reflects professionalism.

The correct addition of typography in a design project reflects great professionalism. Appropriate use of text font and size gains the trust of customers. This will benefit marketing aspect of your product.

The professional approach of design includes typography at its core. Typography defines the importance of content you provide and customer feel secure regarding the information they gain.

8. It creates and builds recognition.

If you follow a pattern on using fonts and present your site with some rhythm, it adds a great value to your company brand. The audience always remembers the fonts that you use in presenting the visuals.

Typography specializes your company and it works as an identification for the viewers. With the help of typography each of your content gains your company's presence.

A Few Key Terms Kerning is the spacing between letters or characters

Tracking is the spacing between a block of text

Leading is the spacing between lines of text in a paragraoh.

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Type Properties

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A typeface is a collection of characters.

Typefaces that are selected for their style, legibility, and readability are most effective when following the fundamental principles of typographic design.

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Type Classifications

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Aa Aa Aa Aa Aa Aa

Aa Aa Aa Aa Aa Aa

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Serif

A stroke added as a stop to the beginning and end of the main strokes of a character

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Didot Modern The Modern classification was developed in the late 18th century and remained popular throughout the 19th century. Its characteristics include a high contrast between thick and thin strokes and flat, hairline serifs. They also have a small x-height and vertical stress in rounded strokes.

Garamond Old Style Old Style typefaces are based on ancient Roman inscriptions and are characterized by low contrast between thick and thin strokes, small x-heights, wedge-shaped serifs, left-leaning axis or stress and lower case ascenders that are taller than the height of capital letters.

Baskerville Clarendon Transitional

The Transitional style is noted in having vertical stress in the bowls of lower-case letters. It is also known for having high contrast between thick and thin strokes. It has a medium x-height and short ascenders and descenders.

Slab

The Slab serif style began gaining popularity and recognition during the 19th century and were mainly used for posters. The slab serif is characterized by thick block lines at the end of strokes.

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Sans-Serif A letterform that does not have extending features at the end of strokes which are also known as “serifs�.

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Avenir Geometric

Helvetica Neo-Grotesque

Geometric sans-serifs are more closely based on geometric shapes. Generally, the “O”s in geometrics will appear circular, and the letter “a” is almost always simple, just a circle with a tail. They’re the least commonly-used for body copy, and are also the most modern sans-serifs, as a general rule.

Neo-Grotesque typefaces include some of the most common typefaces: MS Sans Serif, Arial, Helvetica and Univers are all neo-grotesque sans serif type fonts. They have a relatively plain appearance when compared to the grotesques.

Verdana

Monotype

Humanist

Humanist typefaces include Gill Sans, Frutiger, Tahoma, Verdana, Optima, and Lucide Grande. These are more calligraphic than other sans-serif typefaces, and are also the most legible (hence the popularity of some of them for website body copy). They’re more calligraphic than other sans-serifs, meaning they have a greater variation in line widths.

Grotesque Grotesques are the earliest, and include fonts like Franklin Gothic and Akzidenz Grotesk. These typefaces often have letterforms that are very similar to serif typefaces, minus the serifs.

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Decorative Decorative fonts should only be used for decorative purposes only, never body copy.

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Barricada Wigwag Barricada is a loud-voiced typeface with small counters that gives an interesting strong weight. Moreover, it has a solid structure providing strength. Its curved serifs and swashes give a touch of softness and make the letters a little playful

Remedy It's curlicue, free-style, comic appearance, provided a perfect counter to Emigre's then primarily modular type designs. Presented in two weights, featuring numerous alternate characters, flourishes and dingbats, Remedy is a perfectly whimsical typeface suitable for your most jovial celebratory communications.

WigWag Bold and Wigwag Deluxe are bold, informal lettering styles inspired by mid-20th century Showcard Lettering. Especially by the work of Speedball lettering artist Ross George, and also the work of Cecil Wade and Samuel Welo

Guapa Guapa was first born from a personal experiment: transforming a geometric sans serif 'Ă la Futura' into a charming postmodern deco design. Later it became a well-suited typeface for titles for magazines to book & record covers and packaging. The family consists in one single weight. Guapa is fancy, delicious & fresh!

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Script

Scripts more closely resemble modern handwriting, and date back to the mid-twentieth century. They’re much less formal, often with stronger strokes and a more brush-like appearance.

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Madre

Adage

Madre Script is a typeface that adopts two building models: the typographic and the script The models are presented in a subtle, unobtrusive way and mainly without conflicts. The essence of each personality is present, coexisting harmoniously and enjoying the same stylistic space. Madre, is discreet and silent, it is the ideal choice for editorial, packaging and branding.

A warm script font with a down-home feel. Digitally revived from a vintage photo-typesetting face. The character set has been expanded and modernized.

Milk Script

Coquette

The hand-lettered signage of 1920s and 1930s America produced many typographic jewels that digital type has yet to manifest.

This face is but one of them. Unearthed by Alfredo Graziani and Alejandro Paul from a 1923 Speedball lettering manual, Milk Script is a distinctive upright script that offers well-nourished majuscules and sweet-flowing minuscules.

Coquette is an unconnected script combining elements of the traditional French script and geometric sans serif styles. The result is at once novel and familiar, evoking both vernacular and commercial lettering of the mid-20th Century without being derived from any specific existing source.

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Type Families

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A type family is a set of typefaces that relate to each other. Bold, light and italic versions of a typeface, for example, are part of the same family.

When we choose a typeface, we also consider its family — and how those variations fit (or don’t fit) into our design.

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Modern Type Families

Planning by the Numbers

When typefaces were first invented, the notion of having a family of type hadn’t occurred to anyone. All fonts were simply roman designs. In the early 16th century, cursive – or italic (named after Italy, where the idea was popularized) – type was introduced. There were still no typeface families; romans were one style of type and italics were another – much like serif and sans serif.

In 1957, the Swiss type designer Adrian Frutiger designed a new kind of type family. Because he felt that the traditional system of providing names – “bold,” “semi-bold,” “semi-bold condensed” and so on – was confusing and outdated, he proposed a logical, systematic numbering scheme. In Frutiger’s system, each typeface was given a two-digit suffix.

The first digit classified the alphabet weight, with 3 indicating the lightest weight in the family and 9 the boldest. The second digit identified the typeface proportion, with higher numbers for condensed designs and lower numbers for expanded designs.

In addition, if the second number was odd, the typeface was a roman design; if it was even, the typeface was italic. Thus Univers 39 is a very light condensed roman, while Univers 56 is a medium weight italic of normal proportions. Neue Helvetica and Serifa are two other type families that use this numbering system.

In the late 1700s, foundries began to release fonts in families – pairing roman and italic designs that matched each other in style. Later the concept of typeface weights and proportions was added to the typeface family mix. In the 20th century, type families were enlarged even further with the introduction of different designs such as condensed, expanded and outlined.

The person generally credited with conceiving the modern idea of a typeface family is Morris Fuller Benton, director of typeface development for American Type Founders in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Benton’s premise was that typefaces within a family would share the basic characteristics of the parent design, but with individual variances. The Cheltenham, Century, Cloister, and Stymie typeface families are just a few of the designs developed under Benton’s watchful eye.

Extended Type Families Some typeface families are made up of two or more sub-families. ITC Stone is a good example. Its sub-groups consist of Serif, Sans, Humanistic and Informal. Each design has roman and italic versions in three weights for a total of 24 individual typefaces.

The four designs share the same cap height, lowercase x-height, stem weight and general proportions. Each typeface, however, is designed to stand on its own as a useful, distinctive communication tool. Thesis and ITC Legacy are two other popular typeface families that are made up of sub-families.

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Size-specific Families Another kind of type family has different designs for use at different sizes. ITC Bodoni is such a family. It’s comprised of three size-sensitive variants, named Six, Twelve, and Seventy-Two. These were designed to emulate the differences in the progressively-sized metal punches that Giambattista Bodoni created for his original fonts.

The numerical designation indicates the optimum point size at which each design should be set–but, as with most typographic decisions, there are no hard and fast rules. FB Californian and ITC Founders Caslon are two newer size-specific typeface families.

Garamond Light Display Garamond Italic Display Gara,mond Medium Display Garamond Medium Italic Display Garamond Semibold Display Garamond Semibold Italic Display Garamond Regular Garamond Italic Garamond Medium Garamond Medium Italic Garamond Semibold Garamond Semibold Italic Garamond Bold

Garamond Bold Italic Garamond Bold Caption

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Legibility

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Legibility is a measure of how easy it is to distinguish one letter from another in a particular typeface.

Unless text is perfectly legible, it takes longer to read it. The situations where it’s most important for text to be legible is where information is scanned quickly or skimmed through by the reader. And we all know most people skim through web pages, glance at signs and headlines and scan catalogs.

So if you’re designing anything like that you need to make sure the text is legible otherwise information will be missed or simply ignored. If you’re running from a burning building or trying to find your way using road signs, it’s vital that they should be instantly recognizable.

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LEGIBILITY LEGIBILITY LEGIBILITY LEGIBILITY LEGIBILITY LEGIBILITY LEGIBILITY LEGIBILITY 37

LEGIBILITY LEGIBILITY LEGIBILITY LEGIBILITY LEGIBILITY LEGIBILITY LEGIBILITY LEGIBILITY 38

Readability

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Readability is how easy it is to read words, phrases, blocks of copy such as a book, a web page or an article.

There are several factors that determine if text is readable and one of the most important is what typographers refer to as transparency or invisibility. The idea being that if a typeface is noticeable, it can be difficult to read.

If you find yourself stopping to admire a font instead of reading the text, that is not a particularly readable font. This can happen if a typeface calls attention to itself because it has extreme features such as swashes, distortion, very thick and thin strokes, is very tall or very short.

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Body Copy

Lowercase and All Caps

For body copy there are two choices – old style serif and sans-serif. Most other categories of typeface are too distracting. On paper, serif faces are generally the most readable which is why most newspapers and books are set using serif fonts for the body copy. The serifs help lead the eye from one character to the next.

However on screen, sans-serif fonts (such as Arial, Verdana) are considered to be more readable. Sans-serif fonts have larger x-heights and little variation in stroke width. That does not mean that you should never use serif fonts on the web, you certainly can but it’s always a good idea to test out how easy it is to read text.

Text set in lowercase is easier to read.

When we’re reading we’re read in phrases, not letter by letter and the shape of a word is a factor in our recognition and speed of reading. When text is set in all caps every word looks like a rectangle. If you’ve ever received an email set in all caps, I’m sure you’ve found that as well as being difficult to read, it gives the impression that the sender is shouting. All caps are fine for short bursts of text such as headlines or for emphasizing single words, but avoid it for readability of body text.

Make sure to track and kern and adjust the leading on your body of text. It will help immensely and improve the readability.

Tr a c k i n g Kerning 41

only use 30-70 characters per line

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12 pt Type with 15 pts line spacing = 12/15

12/15 Utetur aut minverf erspienisque et aut doluptatur sum ium ut por alique qui acium velis exeribus, et is aborem assit, ne excerum facculpa nullanto que sed molorei cimust est, temporro minctusant del mos ad mi, endi dolore, cum rerit is aute eos repersp erspid moluptas expliquo dolores idiat pliquid eneste volecto occum alitiatesti autem dolorerit experunt qui aut laboreped ut quam rati quam quas eatemod quati doluptia sim exere porendae pratur a autem con pa pe volorec taecus ad exceatur aut omnia non non nes duciis et alignat empora sinullatium quam quisini magnia qui unt, velestia ipsanti ut aturi tectore peratem rero

12/11 Utetur aut minverf erspienisque et aut doluptatur sum ium ut por alique qui acium velis exeribus, et is aborem assit, ne excerum facculpa nullanto que sed molorei cimust est, temporro minctusant del mos ad mi, endi dolore, cum rerit is aute eos repersp erspid moluptas expliquo dolores idiat pliquid eneste volecto occum alitiatesti autem dolorerit experunt qui aut laboreped ut quam rati quam quas eatemod quati doluptia sim exere porendae pratur a autem con pa pe volorec taecus ad exceatur aut omnia non non nes duciis et alignat empora sinullatium quam quisini magnia qui unt, velestia ipsanti ut aturi tectore peratem rero

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Grid and Layout

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In design, a grid is a system for organizing layout.

There are a lot of different types of grid, and they all serve different purposes.

The secret to any good design lies in the way its visual elements are organized and positioned in relation to each other. This is exactly what layout design is all about.

Layout gives meaning to your design and makes it look visually appealing. It helps maintain balance from page to page or slide to slide.

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Baseline Grid A baseline grid is a dense grid of equally spaced horizontal lines that determine where text will sit. Baseline grids are often used in combination with column grids, to make sure that the lines of text in each column align uniformly across a spread. A simple example of a baseline grid is a sheet of ruled paper, like you probably used at school!

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Column Grid This is the most common type of grid used by graphic and web designers. It involves taking a page and splitting it into a number of vertical fields, which objects are then aligned to. Newspapers and magazines use column grids extensively

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Modular Grid Kind of an extension of the column grid, a modular grid involves taking a column grid and adding rows to it. The intersecting rows and columns create “modules� that can then be used to govern layout decisions. Magazines and corporate reports often use modular grids.

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Manuscript Grid This is a one-column grid that simply determines where in a page the text will sit. Classic, “traditional� books use a manuscript grid, with the layouts of facing pages mirroring one another.

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Type in Digital Age

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Typography is a skill that every designer needs to master in the digital age.

Compared to 20 years ago, graphics have taken on entirely new responsibilities. They’re expected to perform more and to sell more, having moved from ‘on the page’ to ‘on the Net’ in a web font revolution that extends to new creative uses, like text messaging.

With an increased demand for graphic images comes a heightened fascination in the letters that correspond.

Likely the most influential evolutionary step in the industries of type design and typography is the shift from print to digital, which forces designers to work on high-resolution screens.

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Famous Type Designers

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Max Miedinger

Dec. 24, 1910 - March 8th, 1980 1926-1930 Trained as a typsetter in Jaques Bollman’s printing office 1936-1946 Typographer for Globus department store 1947-1956 Customer counselor and typeface sales representative for the Haas’she SchriftgieBerei 1957 The Haas-Grotesk (Helvetica) typeface is introduced 1957-1980 worked as a freenlance graphic designer When Max Miedinger was 16, he was urged by his father to begin his career in visual design as an apprentice typesetter at a book printing office for Jacques Bollman. From 1930 to 1936, he was trained as a typographer and then attended night classes at the School of Arts and Crafts in Zurich. Several years later, Miedinger joined the Globus department store’s advertising studio as a typographer and improved his skills through the work. After working there for 10 years, he became a customer counselor and typeface sales representative for the Haas’sche Schriftgießereiin Münchenstein.

In 1954 he created his first typeface design: Pro Arte, a condensed slab serif. At 1956, he decided to go for freelance graphic artist and advertising consultant, like his brother, and gain a certain amount of success over time. Being prompted by Edouard Hoffman, who believed in Miedinger’s talent, Miedinger was asked to design a new sans serif typeface for their advertisement to represent the company–Haas Type Foundry.

During that time, Miedinger made his mark on the design history by creating the most used typeface of the 20th century, the Neue Haas Grotesk, which known as Helvetica.

After the development of Helvetica, Miedinger continued his freelance career and even though he was respected for his aesthetic work, he had not gained much attention for himself. Miedinger was never under spotlight or worldwide acclaimed for Helvetica like the typeface itself.

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Claude Garamond

1499 - 1561 Paris, France Claude Garamond was born in 15th century Paris, France and died in 1561 in the same country. He was a type founder, publisher, punch cutter and type designer. He was also an engraver and letter founder and had a high reputation. He was regarded as the best typecutter and type designer of his day. This was due to the elegance of his typefaces.

He is considered to be one of the leading type designers of all time.

It can be said that Garamond is famous for reworking earlier typefaces of Aldus Manutius, and creating a new typeface called Garamond. Also, ‘He was commissioned

by King Francis First of France to make a new cast of type for his own exclusive use, now known as Grecs du Roi.’ (Linotype.com) His influence spread to the entirety of Europe as it became the leading typeface there.

It continued to spread to the 20th century where other type designer reworked his own types in several versions. Also, Garamond was one of the first independent punchcutters, specializing in type design and punch-cutting as a service to others rather than working in house for a specific printer. Therefore, his career helped to redefine the future of commercial printing, especially with the printing of books. Garamond insisted on clarity in design, generous page margins,quality composition, paper and printing, which was always accentuated with superb binding.’ This could be a factor as to why Garamond continues to have an impact on the modern world, centuries later.

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Elizabeth Colwell

May 24th, 1981 - 1954 Elizabeth Colwell, (Martha Elizabeth), was born 24 May 1881 in Bronson, Michigan. She studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago with John Vanderpoel and B. J. O. Nordfeldt, from whom she learned the techniques of color woodcut.

At the turn of the 19th century, Colwell was listed as the editor of The Sketch Book, Art Institute of Chicago.

She was a printmaker, painter, typographer, and writer who became known for her distinctive designs, bookplates, hand lettering, poetry, and books. Her hand lettered book, Songs & Sonnets, was published by Frederic Fairchild Sherman in 1909 and an example of her hand lettering for this book was included in the January 1911 issue of The Printing Art, Volume 16, No. 5.

As a typographer, she designed the “Colwell Hand Letter� and she was the only woman in the field of typography at that time. As a commercial artist, Colwell created publicity for Marshall Fields and the W. K. Cowan Company of Chicago. In 1913, Alice Rouiller authored The Work of Elizabeth Colwell for the March issue of the The Graphic Arts in which she extolled the quality of her designs. This was the first and only time a woman designer was featured in this magazine.

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References

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1. https://graphicdesign.sfcc.spokane.edu/dzine/tutorials/process/type_basics/modern.htm 2. https://visme.co/blog/different-types-of-fonts/ 3. https://www.jotform.com/blog/a-crash-course-in-typography-the-basics-of-type/ 4. https://fonts.adobe.com/fonts/remedy 5. https://www.myfonts.com/search/remedy 6. https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/typefolio/madre-script/ 7. https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/sudtipos/barricada/ 8. https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/typeotones/guapa/ 9. https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/cbx-jukebox/adage-script-jf/ 10. https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/marksimonson/coquette/ 11. https://zurb.com/word/font-type-family-typeface 12. https://www.fonts.com/content/learning/fontology/level-1/type-families/about-typeface-families 13. https://www.sitepoint.com/typography-readability-and-legibility-part-1/ 14. https://www.sitepoint.com/typography-readability-legibility-part-2/ 15. https://trydesignlab.com/blog/grids-ui-ux-graphic-design-quick-history-5-amazing-tips/#1 16. https://design.tutsplus.com/articles/a-brief-history-of-type--cms-30372 17. https://www.printmag.com/typography/evolution-typography-history/ 18. https://practicaltypography.com/what-is-typography.html 19. https://www.graphicdesigndegreehub.com/faq/what-is-typography/ 20. https://www.engadget.com/2016/07/17/8-reasons-why-typography-is-important/ 21. https://peoplepill.com/people/max-miedinger/ 22. https://nickaleyforvisualcommunication.wordpress.com/2017/09/11/claude-garamond/ 23. https://www.annexgalleries.com/artists/biography/440/Colwell/Elizabeth 24. https://www.dw.com/en/type-design-enters-the-digital-age/a-15907567 25. Bringhurst, Robert. The Elements of Typographic Style, Hartley & Marks, 2015.

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