THE MODERNIST
&THE CHAMELEON
PAUL RENNER & MATTHEW CARTER
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THE MODERNIST
THE CHAMELEON & PAUL RENNER & MATTHEW CARTER
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SOCIAL CHANGE technolo AND
TYPOGRAPHY THAT IS DRIVEN BY
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Writing is the arrangement of letters from an alphabet to form a series of words that become a legible sentence. At first, the written word was a basic form of symbols carved or painted or applied to a surface in order to form words and convey a message. Typography is the art of arranging letters. As the written word progressed, so did the letter forms. Making letter forms and designing typefaces is an art that has evolved over type from roman lettering chiseled into stone, to humanist writing based on the hand, to today’s lettering that is made and utilized on a computer. Many different typographers have excelled in the designing of revolutionary typefaces. Some are inspired by the social and political world around them, and others are inspired by technology through the ages. Paul Renner was a German typographer who lived between the years 1878 and 1956. He lived in a transitional period of typography, where he was moving away from blackletter and more hand inspired fonts to a modern roman letter. Renner designed the fonts: Architype Renner, Futura, Plak, Futura Black, Futura Light, Ballade, Renner Antiqua, Steile Futura. Matthew Carter is a typographer who has had the luck of living
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and practicing throughout the technological advancements in typography (Miller). Carter is responsible for the fonts: Bell Centennial, Big Caslon, Bitstream Charter, Big Figgins, Carter Sans, Cascade Script, Elephant, Fenway, ITC Galliard, Gando, Georgia, Mantinia, Meiryo, Miller, Monticello, Nina, Olympian, Rocky, Shelley Script, Snell Roundhand, Skia, Sophia, Tahoma, Verdana, Vincent, Wilson Greek, Wrigley, and Yale University typeface. Both Paul Renner and Matthew Carter are major typographers in the history of graphic design. While Renner’s driving force behind his designs were the time period he lived in and the country he was from, Carters inspiration from his typefaces come from the different technologies associated with each new movement.
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In the early 20th century, the letter form that was the most successful representation of the “theoretical requirements of avant garde graphic designers and typographers of the ‘New Typography’” was the sans-serif (Burke 102). This new form was, at the time, primarily available for display type only. There was a great need for a highly functional and successful sans-serif during this time. Paul Renner was a typographer during the Modernist movement in Germany. He wrote Typography as Artin 1922. In 1926 he was the director at Munich’s Graphic Arts College and became the director of the Munich Master Printers’ College in 1927. In 1932 Paul Renner wrote Cultural Bolshevism and for that book he was punished by the National Socialist Party by being fired from his directorship (Burke 102).
HIGHLY FUNCTIONAL FUTURA was the
sans-serif needed at the time
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Futura was released in 1927, and it “became the
favorite & best known of the first geometric sans-serif typefaces that symbolize the aesthetics of early Modernism” (Burke 102). When designing Futura, Paul Renner drew much inspiration from the theories instilled
He wanted to simplify type to the most essential form, removing the quality of the hand and instead using inspiration from geometry. Although this was a modern idea, he was seeking to also draw inspiration from the forms of classic Roman lettering, using the square, circle, and triangle. (Burke 15). Futura certainly is a typeface indicative of it’s time, while at the same time versatile enough to still be widely popular today. Futura is a font that clearly gives a feeling to the Modernist views of the early 20th century. Matthew Carter, on the other hand, was a designer through many different time periods and technological advances in typography. He studied punch cutting, then moving onto working in the field for several years before moving into the new phototypesetting technology. He lived in the US
in de Stijl movement and
for about six years, then returned to London to work with
the Bauhaus school.
Linotype. In 1981 he was extremely interested in the new technology of digital type (Miller). Carter isn’t a typographer who is inspired by historical events or social changes, but rather the technology developments in each time period he designs and lives through.
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FUTURA: FIRST GEOMETRIC SANS-SERIF
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Paul Renner
Moderniz the Gothic letter forms
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Germany in the early 20th century was a place of social reform. The Nazi party used Gothic script and because Germany was really the only country using Gothic at the time, the Nazi’s promoted this saying it was a German typeface and should be indicative of Germany. Students competed to get their Gothic lettering published in print and shows were dedicated to Gothic script. Student organizations under the Nazi influence posted proclamations exclaiming the incorrect use of Gothic script. If it was for something that was “un-German” the book was deemed unsuitable (Burke 148). Renner was dismissed from his post in 1933 and a book that he had edited changed it’s typeface from Futura to a more Gothic design to fit in with the aesthetics the Nazis were demanding.
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The Nazis however only were strongly in favor of Gothic type for a few years. In 1936, Hitler went against the use of the Gothic script in a speech indicating the Gothic type didn’t fit in with the new Modernist views in Germany. Roman and sans-serif type were especially still used for posters and advertising (Burke 149). In the 30’s type foundries advertised to the public with names that gave a sense of nationalism. The Gothic scripts were stripped of their inspiration from the hand, and they began to resemble a very hard and rigid version of a sans-serif. The capital letters looked more roman (Burke 149). Taking the ideas of Modernism in Germany, designers modernized the Gothic letter forms. In 1934, Renner returned to Germany, yet he was “forbidden to earn any kind of regular salary from an employer and his pension was cancelled” by the German authorities (Burke 151).
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Renner designed more than just Futura. He designed Ballade, a Gothic typeface, and Renner-Antiqua, a roman typeface. Both typefaces seem to be Renner working a way to combine Gothic aesthetics with that of roman (Burke 158). Although Renner had been very for the modernizing and simplification of letter forms in the 20’s, he now returned to his interest in Gothic letter forms around the same time that Gothic lettering were getting so much attention from Germany. He wasn’t interested in modernizing Gothic as the Nazi party had, rather finding a way to make a gothic-roman hybrid typeface while still holding the integrity of the Gothic form (Burke 160). Ballad, the Gothic typeface designed by Paul Renner, was not able to stand on the market for very long. In 1941, the Nazi party officially outlawed Gothic typefaces saying they were a “Jewish abomination” (Burke 165). It seems as soon as Renner moved away from his theories of modernization and towards more of the popular Gothic style, it was banned. He wasn’t able to show his versatility as a designer and Futura remains the typeface he’s most known for. While Renner was directly influenced by his own surroundings and the country in which he was from, Carter drew inspiration not from London, where he was born, but from New York. Carter was always interested in the newest way to design type and he is a prime example of how technology can drive design.
THE NAZI PARTY OFFICIALLY OUTLAWED
Gothic TYPEFACES SAYING THEY WERE A JEWISH ABOMINATION
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Where Paul Renner made Futura based on the aesthetic movement from his time period, Carter used technology as the driving force in his inspiration. He has “no sense of recurrent aesthetic” (Miller). Carter has no visual indication of his personal style, yet each font can tell you about the technology that drove his design (Miller). Snell Roundhand, “a script that perfectly illustrated the comparative virtues of photo setting” (Design After a visit to New York, Carter was inspired by the compositions of many artists in commercial art. He worked with many important people in the graphic design world in Britain as a freelance
Museum & British Council). In 1971, he returned to London and produced work for Linotype companies, including his font Bell Centennial. Carter, along with 3 other employees of Linotype founded Bitstream in Massachusetts. They utilized digital type, and the sale of a typeface itself. Carter and his colleagues revolutionized the idea of not only working to design a typeface, but also to sell a typeface licence to anyone. This paired with the new invention of the personal computer made Bitstream a success (Design Museum & British Council).
typographer. He was then interested in photo setting and moved to New York where he designed Snell Roundhand.
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Snell Roundhand: Perfectly illustrated the virtues of photosetting.
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Verdana was the answer to the challenge of on screen display
RECOGNIZED
the characteristics of
PIXEL RENDER rather than
PEN RENDERING
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The Walker Art Center was seeking a typographer to design a typeface that would be able to function as a brand identifier. They didn’t want a font that would come secondary to the logo, rather a innovative typeface that would serve as a visual reminder of their brand (Re 24). “Walker’s forms reflect Carter’s knowledge of technology” (Re 25). In it’s most simplified form, Walker is a sans-serif that can be used in roman or italic. In it’s full form, Walker is a post-modern hybrid typeface that allows the user to choose from different snap-on serifs that are added or deleted from the basic form of Walker. This typeface is a display font, and was designed to be used at larger sizes (Re 25). Carter makes the different snap on serifs possible because he took away characters that aren’t normally used and replaced them with serifs. Through different keyboard commands, the user is able to snap on and off serifs to the basic Walker form.
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In 1994 Carter designed Verdana, a font meant for on screen display. This was in order to “answer to the challenge of on-screen display and to recognize the characteristics of pixelrather than pen-rendering” (Design Museum & British Council). Although Carter learned metal type by hand, he has adapted to each new technology with ease and he shows great skill and knowledge in every new technology. Carter’s fonts all show evidence of his interest in technology and the moving forward with new processes.
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RR
Has an actual italic form rather than just an oblique version.
STEILE FUTURA was not an attempt to recreate a font based on the geometric model, rather to imitate other sans serifs of the nineteenth century.
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Like Walker, Futura was an important innovation in the world of typography. Before Futura, most typefaces had evidence of a handwritten quality. The typefaces were based on the way a person writes and the stresses put on letters by the human hand. Inspired by other art movements and theories of his time, Paul Renner sought to simplify letter forms to the most basic geometric shapes. He proved that it is not necessary for a typeface to simulate a handwritten quality for it to be readable. The most notable aspect of Futura is the way that all of the letters seem to have to same thickness, and the edges are rigid and geometric. In addition, the rounded letters are inspired by perfect circles.
Each letter form looks as if it were skillfully crafted with a tool rather than written by hand (Burke 104). As Burke goes on to note, there is a slight thinning of the form so that each form is optically the same thickness. Optical correction was also an idea not used very widely before Futura. There are five different weights in the digital version of Futura, along with several weights of the condensed as well as display versions of the font. Although technology may not have been the main inspiration for Futura, it’s geometric nature does give a feeling of technology as opposed to a font based on handwriting. Renner was the first typographer to change the letters of the lower case in order to remove all evidence of the hand (Burke 145) thus unifying the lower case and upper case letters. Paul Renner designed Steile Futura and it was released in 1952. This typeface was not designed to the geometric standards that the first edition of Futura was, but rather to match other sans serifs of the nineteenth century. Another font that was designed by Matthew Carter is Georgia. Georgia was designed to be legible in small sizes on screen. Today, it is one of the most popular web fonts as well as a good workhorse typeface for books.
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GEORGIA: Designed to be easily read at small sizes on the screen.
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ABCD EFGH IJKLN OPQR STUV WXYZ
abcd efghij klmno pqrstu vwxyz 1234 5678 90!@ #$%& 23
FUTURA: Clearly indicative of the MODERN AESTHETIC
BELL CENTENNIAL: Designed to meet the needs of the public
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What is most intriguing about these two typographers is the fact that while they are both revolutionary, they accomplish that goal in completely different ways. Paul Renner designed Futura, a font that is clearly indicative of the modernist aesthetic movements happening in Germany at the time. It reflects the aesthetic movements, and the theories of reduction by the Bauhaus and Constructivists. It follows in the Modernist movement of simplification and the importance of simple geometric forms. Futura is still widely used today, proving it remains a successful design. But it continues to have the aesthetic from the time period of which is was designed. Matthew Carter, on the other hand, is a revolutionary typographer because of his utilization of different technologies and his ability to move from one time period to another designing typefaces and meeting the needs of the public. He was able to use phototypesetting by creating a script font, and when the personal computer became popular, he founded Bitstream and used digital type to design and sell licenses to people. As the technologies of computers and displays progressed, Carter answered that call by designing on-screen fonts such as Verdana. While both designers drew inspiration from completely different aspects of their lives both provided the world of design with typefaces that changed the way designers and typographers think about visual communication.
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Burke, Christopher. Paul Renner: the Art of Typography. New York: Princeton Architectural, 1998. Print. “Matthew Carter / Designing Modern Britain - Design Museum Exhibition : - Design/Designer Informaion.” Design Museum London. Web. Oct. 2011. <http://designmuseum.org/design/ matthew-carter>. “Matthew Carter « MyFonts.” MyFonts: Webfonts & Desktop Fonts. Web. Oct. 2011. <http://new.myfonts.com/person/ Matthew_Carter/>. Miller, Abbott. “AIGA | Matthew Carter.” AIGA | the Professional Association for Design. AIGA. Web. Oct.2011. <http://www.aiga. org/medalist-matthewcarter/>. Re, Margaret, Johanna Drucker, James Mosley, and Matthew Carter. Typographically Speaking: the Art of Matthew Carter. Baltimore, MD: University of Maryland, Baltimore County, 2002. Print. Spiekermann, Erik, and E. M. Ginger. Stop Stealing Sheep & Find out How Type Works. Berkeley, CA: Adobe, 2003. Print.
WORKS CITED 26
COLOPHON
Designer: Kelsey Scherer Typefaces:
Futura
Steile Futura
Ballade
Bell Centennial
Snell Roundhand
Georgia Verdana Sophia Course: Typography III Faculty: Francheska Guerrero
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