The Making of Typographic Man by Ji Lee

THE MAKING OF TYPOGRAPHIC MAN ELLEN LUPTON

(Previous Page) Christopher Clark, Web Typography for the Lonely: Triangulate poster, 2011 Courtesy the artist (Right) Oded Ezer, Helvetica Live! poster, 2008. Courtesy the artist

Marshall McLuhan published The Gutenberg

Who is McLuhan’s Typographic Man? The

to automation.) Gutenberg’s invention joined

It hasn’t really worked out that way. Today,

Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man

concept of the human individual (an isolated

the phonetic alphabet with oil-based ink,

our lives contain more typography than ever,

in 1962. No easy read, this rather technical

self wailed off from the collective urges

linen-based paper, the printing press (derived

served up via text messaging, e-mail, and the

book overflows with opaque excerpts from

of society) was born in the Renaissance and

from the wine press), and the crafts

Internet. Letters swarm across the surface

seventeenth-century poetry and bulk quotes

became the defining subject of modern systems

of goldsmithing and metal-casting (Guten-

of TV commercials and cable news shows,

from pioneering scholarship about print’s

of government, law, economics, religion, and

berg’s personal areas of expertise). Mov-

while global villagers in the developing world

impact on the modern mind-readers today are

more. This individual was, McLuhan argued,

able type engendered the system of mass

have discovered SMS as an indispensable

advised to approach this book with a double

both product and producer of the most

production. This new way of making things

business tool. Meanwhile, the collective expe-

shot of espresso. Despite its density, The

influential technology in the history of the

broke down a continuous process into a series

riences forged by Twitter and Facebook rely

Gutenberg Galaxy helped trigger McLuhan’s

modern West: typography. The use of uniform,

of separate operations. The printed book

largely on the transmission of text. The most

own remaking from a Canadian English

repeatable characters to manufacture uniform,

became the world’s first commodity.

famous McLuhanism of all, “The medium

professor into a global intellectual celebrity.

repeatable texts transformed the way people

The book uses typography in a remarkably

think, write, and talk and triggered the rise

What happened to Typographic Man, and

world, the medium is often just the medium,

aggressive way, breaking up its soporific

of a money-based economy and the industrial

what is he doing today? The eyeball was this

as content seeks to migrate freely across plat-

pages of academic prose with slogan-esque

Revolution. The vast enterprise of modernity

creature’s supreme sense organ, supplanting

forms rather than embody the qualities

“glosses” set in 18-point Bodoni Bold Italic.

all came down to letters printed on sheets.

shared auditory experiences of preliterate soci-

of a specific medium. “Device independence”

Bam! McLuhan was using type to invent the

THE MAKING OF TYPOGRAPHIC MAN by Ellen Lupton

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is the message,” fared no better. 3 In today’s

ety. McLuhan predicted that in the rising elec-

has become a goal more urgent than the task

McLuhanism. Five years later, he produced the

Typography amalgamated past inventions, the

tronic age, the individualism of Typographic

of crafting unique page layouts.

radical mass paperback The Medium is the

most important being the phonetic alphabet

Man would succumb to the tribal chorus

Massage with graphic designer Quentin Fiore,

itself—a concise set of symbols that could,

of the “global Village,” whose collective

Although typography isn’t dead yet, every

amplifying his early visual experiments to new

in theory, translate the sounds of any language

existence was defined by radio and television

good font designer works with one foot in the

levels of bombast.

into a simple string of marks. (In contrast, the

(dominated by sound) rather than by private

grave. Typographers feed on past traditions

Chinese writing system, with its thousands of

acts of reading (dominated by sight).

the way zombies lunch on brains. A survey

unique characters, was less conducive

1 Marshall McLuhan, The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1962). McLuhan popularized the primary research of Harold Innis, Walter Ong, and other deeply original thinkers.

of contemporary typefaces reveals a repetition

2 “Global village” is one of McLuhan’s most famous phrases, coined in The Gutenberg Galaxy. See pages 21 and 31. 3 McLuhan coined the phrase “the medium is the message” in Understanding Media(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1964).

(Left) Philippe Apeloig, Crossing the Line: FIAF Fall Festival poster. Courtesy Studio Apeloig

of printed books for their luxury clientele,

was joined by a demand for full-range,

letters. And just as the first typographers were

using calligraphy to replicate print. 4 Today,

full-bodied type families suitable for detailed

risk-taking entrepreneurs—seeking riches

a vital collision between the idioms of hand-

editorial design (crafted by highly focused

and facing ruin—type designers today are

writing and mechanical and post-mechanical

typographers in a field that was becoming,

technical innovators and business advocates,

processes is shaping our typographic vocab

again, more specialized).

building tools and standards for use by the

ulary. With the introduction of desktop com-

broader type community while testing new

puting in the 1980s, the design and delivery

The same technologies that changed the way

markets and experimenting with alternative

of typefaces changed from a sequence of discrete

designers produce typefaces also changed the

forms of distribution.

processes requiring expensive equipment

way we use them. Graphic designers could

(mass production) into a fluid stream managed

now manipulate fonts directly, instantly seeing

Strictly speaking, typography involves the

by a few producers at low cost (cottage

them in their own layouts and testing them

use of repeatable, standardized letterforms

industry). Using desktop software, a graphic

in different sizes and combinations. As the

(known as fonts), while lettering consists

designer could now manufacture digital fonts

procedures of typesetting and layout merged,

of custom alphabets, usually employed for

and ship them out on floppy disks. Emigre

designers became direct consumers of fonts,

headlines, logotypes, and posters rather than

Fonts, founded in Berkeley, California,

no longer separated by layers of mediation

for running text. During the first hundred

by Rudy VanderLans and Zuzana Licko, began

from the essential raw material of their craft.

years of printing, calligraphy and type fluidly

producing bitmapped typefaces in 1984 that

In this intoxicating new era of instant alpha-

interacted, not yet seen as opposing enterprises.

exploited the constraints of early desktop

betic gratification, designers could not only

While it is well-known that Gutenberg and

printers. An intoxicating discourse about

buy, borrow, and steal digital fonts but could

other early printers used manuscripts

experimental design sprang up around these

crack them open, violating the original de-

as models for typefaces, it is more surprising

fonts, documented in Emigre, its eponymous

signs to create alternate characters and even

to learn that the scribes who were employed

magazine. By the mid-’90s, the jubilant

whole new typefaces. Designers stirred up the

in the “scriptoriums” or writing factories

fascination with high-concept display alphabets

historic confusion between lettering and type

of the day often produced handmade copies

(distressed, narrative, hybridized, futuristic)

in new ways by altering the outlines.

4 McLuhan credits this stunning insight to the scholar Curt Buhler, quoting at length from his 1960 work The Fifteenth CenturyBook: the Scribes; the Printers; the Decorators, 153–154.

5 — THE MAKING OF TYPOGRAPHIC MAN by Ellen Lupton

THE MAKING OF TYPOGRAPHIC MAN by Ellen Lupton

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or replay of the larger history of printed

(Below) Marshall McLuhan. The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man, 1962. Courtesy University of Toronto Press

(Below) Marian Bantjes, I Wonder, 2010. Courtesy the artist

Lettering is a powerful current in contempo-

Many recent script fonts recall the funky

(proportion, weight, stress, stroke, serif, and

many students and clueless amateurs. Some

rary design. Designers today combine physical

headlines that flooded the typographic scene

so on). Many of the digital era’s most influen-

people accustomed to free content on the web

and digital processes to create letterforms

in the 1950s and ‘60s, when designers such

tial typefaces reference the work of Didot and

still find it difficult to pay serious money—or

that grow, copulate, and fall apart. Vocab-

as Ed Benguiat used ink, pen, and brush

Bodoni, including Jonathan Hoefler’s

any at all—for typefaces. Buivenga, a self-

ularies range from the lush organicism of

to create more than 600 original alphabets.

HTF Didot (1991), Zuzana Licko’s Filosofia

taught type designer new to the field, released

Marian Bantjes and Antoine et Manuel to the

The idea of seeking originality in letterforms

(1996), and Peter Mohr’s Fayon (2010).

several weights of his Museo family for free

geometric constructions of Philippe Apeloig,

is a product of nineteenth-century advertising

whose bitmapped forms suggest an animated

culture. Before then, books were print’s primary

One new arrival to the Didone scene is Ques-

and Buivenga soon expanded his free offering

process of assembly and dissolution. Letters

medium, and book typography sought

ta, designed collaboratively by Jos Buivenga

to a full-fledged super family available

drip, drag, and spring into life in the posters

to define norms rather than seduce the eye

and Martin Majoor. Buivenga began his own

to paying customers. 5

of Oded Ezer; they morph and metastasize

with novelty. The neoclassical typefaces

career as a typeface designer by committing

across the CD and LP covers of Non-Format.

of Bodoni and Didot, with their hairline serifs

a typographic abomination: giving away his

Museo joins a rich contemporary menu of

Handmade letters provide the model for many

and severe contrast between thick and thin

work online. So-called “free fonts”—which

low-contrast slab faces, including Tobias

contemporary typefaces, from Hubert Jocham’s

strokes, opened the way to commercial typog-

typically consist of poorly designed, badly

Frere-Jones’ Archer (2000), Henrik Kubel’s A2

Mommie (2007) to Laura Meseguer’s Rumba

raphy by envisioning letters as a set of structural

programmed, incomplete,and/or pirated soft-

FM (2006), Ross Milne’s Charlie (2008),and

(2006) and Underware’s Liza Pro (2009).

features subject to endless manipulation

ware—are, alas, the source of first resort for

Type Together’s Adelle (2009).

download In 2007. It became hugely popular,

THE MAKING OF TYPOGRAPHIC MAN by Ellen Lupton

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5 Martin Majoor, who says he will never ever give away a font, admits that the success of his typeface Scala was spurred in the early 1990s by its illegal circulation among young designers. (Amsterdam: Pepin Press, 2010).

Adding another flavor to the slab serif tasting list, Hoefler & Frere-Jones’ Sentinel takes its roots from the Clarendon faces of the nineteenth century, whose slab serifs and meaty strokes were designed for display. With numerous weights in roman and italic, Sentinel works for both text and headlines. Adelle, Museo, and other slab serifs have proven especially popular on the web, where their sturdy body parts holdup well to presentation on screen. Type design has arrived surprisingly late to written communication’s biggest event since the Renaissance. Typographic Man was born in 1450 and fattened up in the candy shops of commercial printing. Alas, during the opening decades of the World Wide Web, his diet was drastically reduced to the half-dozen fonts typically installed on end users’ own computer systems. This situation has finally begun to change, as members of the type design and web communities have agreed on ways to deploy diverse typefaces online without exposing them to shameless piracy. Services such as Type Kit, which legally host fonts and serve them to specific sites, have become big players in the omnivorous (Below) Photo·Lettering filmstrip for producing headlines, 1960. Courtesy House Industries

expansion of web typography.

The evolution of modern typography is not, of course, all about novelty and spectacle. Counter-

ing the restless appetite for sugarcoated change is a parallel hunger for anonymous, recessive purity. Gill Sans, Futura, and Helvetica—standards from the twentieth-century playlist—once

— THE MAKING OF TYPOGRAPHIC MAN by Ellen Lupton

laid claim to a cool neutrality suited to international communication in the machine age and beyond. While these classic faces have endured the shifting storms of taste and fashion, designers have sought out ever more subtle shades of basic black. Laurenz Brunner’s Akkurat (2004) has been heralded as “the new Helvetica,” while Aurèle Sack’s LL Brown (2011) recalls Edward Johnston’s lettering for the London Underground. Paying soft-pedal homage to Futura, Radim Pesko’s Fugue (2010)flaunts a tentative bravado, like a teenager on a motorcycle. Fugue, writes Pesko, “was conceived as an appreciation of and going back-to-the-future-and-back-again with Paul Renner.” 6 Rounded end-strokes are another common craving among contemporary designers. Soft terminals restore a dash of humanity to the hard-edged realism of sans serif typography. Eric 6 Radim Pesko, accessed July 10, 2011, http://www.radimpesko.com/fonts/fugue.

Olson has led the way with his widely used Bryant (2002) and his more recent Anchor (2010), a condensed gothic whose plump, sausage-like forms fit comfortably in narrow spaces.

The rounded terminals of Jeremy Mickel’s

Where is Typographic Man headed as he rides

Router (2008) flare out slightly, recalling the

off with his serifs and spurs into the digitally

mechanical process employed to manufacture

remastered sunset? He may always keep slip-

routed plastic signs.Exploring the freshly

ping partly backwards, looking for glimmers

cleared frontier of web typography, Christo-

of black gold in the post-industrial ghost towns

pher Clark is inventing surprising uses for

and open mine shafts of history. Like the

SVG (vector graphics for the Web), HTML5

modern individual McLuhan so poignantly

Canvas, and other emerging tools and

described, today’s Typographic Man is an inward

protocols. Clark’s site WebTypography

looking loner, wrapped inside a personal

fortheLonely.com not only showcases

cocoon of digital feeds. Yet Typographic Man

these startling prototypes but also provides

has spun that protective, narcissistic cocoon

instructive commentary and free code.

from the flux of public life. Today’s individual

At once generous and estranged, Clark’s

is the product of his own voracious immersion

“lonely guy” persona speaks to the Typog-

in the common watering hole of image/music/

raphic Man of our time, whose open-heart-

text; he is equipped as never before to bend

ed desire to share and connect undercuts.

typography with his own means to his own ends.

THE MAKING OF TYPOGRAPHIC MAN by Ellen Lupton

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(Above) Photo·Lettering brochure showing typesetting process, 1960s. Courtesy House Industries

M/M (Paris), 1972, A Film by Sarah Morris, 2008, Paralax Films, Courtesy the artists

This self-involved creature is connecting to the social world in new ways. McLuhan described typography as an essential medium of exchange in the modern age: “Typography is not only a technology but is itself a natural resource or staple, like cotton or timber or radio; and, like any staple, it shapes not only private sense ratios but also patterns of communal interdependence.”7 As the first industrial commodity, the printed book was portable, repeatable, and uniform. Unfurling today across the networked horizon, text is now mutable, interactive, and iterative, no longer melded to a solid medium. Yet as a means of exchange that ebbs and flows through communities, text remains more than ever an essential “natural resource” that offers access to participation in a world economy and a shared public life.

THE MAKING OF TYPOGRAPHIC MAN by Ellen Lupton

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7 McLuhan, The Gutenberg Galaxy, 164.

Ji Lee Typography I | SP 16 Modular Grid 2