RESEARCH BOOKLET
Blackletter 1150 Blackletter refers to the calligraphic script used by scribes throughout Western Europe from approximately 1150 to the 17th century. Derived from Carolingian miniscules, Blackletter is characterized by sharp narroww letters with broken angular lines which make it hard to read. The earliest typefaces used in printing (including those in the Gutenberg Bible) were modeled after handwritten Blackletter script. Jenson 1470 Printer Nicolas Jenson, a French national working in Venice, created the typeface which bears his name. It was renowned for its evenness and the comfortable fit of its letters as words, as well as the beautiful proportions of the letterforms themselves. It is a highly readable typeface appropriate for large amounts of text. A model for good typeface design, it has inspired many revivals. Italic 1500 The first italic typeface was produced by Aldus Manutias. Its purpose was to save space in compact “pocket” books by condensing the width of the letters. Based on humanist cursive script, italics retained the slant of handwriting. Unlike the italic type used today however, early italics had only a modest slope and all capital letters were upright roman letters with no slant.
Humanist 1400 Humanist typefaces were created during the 15th century by Venetian printers. These typefaces imitated the formal handwriting found in the humanistic (Renaissance) manuscripts of the time. Humanist typefaces are round (in opposition to Blackletter) and are characterized by short and thick bracketed serifs, a slanted cross stroke on the lowercase ‘e’, ascenders with slanted serifs, and low contrast between horizontals and verticals. They are still widely used today. Oldstyle 1490 Oldstyle type began with the Italian punchcutter Francesco Griffo. Oldstyle letters are characterized by the diagonal stress of handwriting in round letters and have sloped, bracketed or tapered serifs. Oldstyle capitals were influenced by carved roman capitals (majuscules); lowercase oldstyle letters were inspired by fifteenth century humanistic writing (minuscules). Aldine 1501 The typecutter Francesco Griffo created the typeface Aldine for Aldus Manutias’ 1501 pocketbook edition of the poetry of the Roman poet Virgil. Aldine italic was very popular in its own day and became the model for other italic types. It was widely (and poorly) imitated.
Letterpress 1450 Johannes Gutenberg’s moveable type printing press (or letterpress) created in Mainz, Germany, combined the grape screw press used in winemaking with the system of moveable type developed by the Chinese. Combining these two technologies with his goldsmithing skills he developed more durable metal type, automated printing and reduced the price of books, making them more accessible. Bembo 1496 Commissioned by Aldus Manutias for the Aldine Press and designed by Francesco Griffo, Bembo is named after the writer Pietro Bembo. Bembo has a more consistent and quieter weight stress and variation than its precedents. Making the uppercase letters shorter than the ascenders in the lower case creates a more even texture on the page. Its serene quality makes Bembo an excellent book face. Civilité 1557 The Frenchman Robert Granjon designed the first script typeface, known as civilité-letter, in 1557. It was originally used in contracts and includes theatrical flourishes at the end of lines. These gestural strokes resemble the lines written on bank checks to ensure that no additional terms could be added. Civilité was also used for devotionals or proclamations.
Pantograph 1603 The first pantograph was constructed by Christoph Scheiner, who used the device to copy and scale drawings and diagrams. Later, the pantograph was used to scale fonts to a variety of sizes and also to condense, extend, and slant letterforms. Lithography 1796 Lithography is a printing process in which an image is drawn (in reverse) into an oily substance on a smoothed stone and then transferred to a piece of paper. Lithography works because of the mutual repulsion of oil and water. It was invented by Alois Senefelder as a cheap method of publishing theatrical works. Sans Serif 1816 The first sans serif type appeared in 1816 in a specimen book by the English typefounder William Caslon IV. Sans serif type, as the name implies, lacks serifs. Other characteristics shared by most sans serif type include vertical stress and more uniform strokes. Though most sans serif faces include geometric construction, some combine organic and geometric qualities.
Modern 1700 Modern typestyles evolved from Transitional styles. Modern type is based on a machine aesthetic as opposed to handwriting. It is characterized by a strong geometric quality (evident in the vertical weight of rounded characters) and extreme contrast between thick and thin strokes. Also typical are horizontal hairline serifs that join the stems at a right angle without bracketing. Bodoni 1798 Considered the first “modern” typeface, Bodoni was designed by the Italian printer Giambattista Bodoni. The typeface has a pronounced verticality and overall geometric construction that is a dramatic departure from its calligraphic influence. Bodoni’s extreme contrast of thick and thin strokes, flat unbracketed serifs, and round dot over the letter “i” are among its identifying charcteristics. Steel Nib Pen 1822 The pointed steel nib pen, first manufactured by John Mitchell in Birmingham, England retained a sharp point much longer than either reed or quill pens. Its sharp point, rather than broad edge, brought about a shift in the style of letters including greater contrast between thick and thin strokes. English Round Hand and Copperplate scripts were developed with steel nib pens.
Baskerville 1757 John Baskerville explored ways of improving the printing press to make it capable of more subtle impressions with greater precision. His sense of perfection and attention to details contributed greatly to the design of a detailed typeface influenced by the copperplate engraving of the period. Baskerville is characterized by open letterforms that give the page a light grey appearance. The most distinct letter in the face is the capital “Q” which has a sweeping tail. (This site uses Libre Baskerville, an open source webfont based off of Baskerville.) Slab Serif 1815 Slab serifs evolved out of the desire for eye-catching display letters for advertising posters and handbills in the early 19th century. The first slab serifed typeface (Antique) was designed by the Englishman Vincent Figgens. Slab serifs are characterized by bold heavy square-cornered serifs (usually without brackets), minimal stress in rounded letters, and little contrast between thick and thin strokes. Slab serifs became known as Egyptian typefaces after Napoleon’s conquest of Egypt. Although there was no relationship between Egyptian writing systems and slab serif types, their form does mimic the base and capital of Egytian columns.
Halftone 1850 The halftone is a reprographic technique that simulates continuous tone imagery through the use of dots, varying either in size, in shape, or in spacing. Developed by William Fox Talbot, the halftone process enabled photographs (with a full tonal range) to be reproduction on the same page with typographic elements. Linotype 1884 Linotype, invented by Ottmar Mergenthaler, automated typesetting by producing an entire line of metal type at once. Metallic letter molds (matrices) were assembled using a typewriter keyboard and filled with molten metal to cast the type. This was a significant improvement over the previous industry standard; manual, letter-by-letter typesetting using a composing stick and drawers of letters. Electronic Digital Computer 1940 The first electronic digital computers were the size of a large room, consuming as much power as several hundred modern personal computers. They were used primarily for military applications. iPad 2010 The iPad is a tablet computer developed by Apple Inc. as a personal platform for audio-visual media including books, periodicals, movies, music, games, apps and web content. Its design, which makes the hands-on experience intuitive and the technology invisible, coupled with its razor sharp type, has greatly accelerated the development of e-books.
Typewriter 1868 This was one of the first machines to offer an alternative to handwriting, mechanically transcribing letters on to paper. The QWERTY keyboard, designed to slow down the typing process and separate frequently used pairs of letters so that the typebars would not get tangled together, has been incorporated into later devices such as the Linotype and computer. Typewriters typically had only a handful of typefaces (of fixed-width) and one or two font sizes (pica or elite). Futura 1927 Futura was designed by the German book designer Paul Renner. Its initial design was built on a circle, square, and triangle using a compass and straightedge and became the paradigm of a geometic sans serif. Its final form however, was not geometrically perfect and its strokes were not a uniform width. Its architectural form and function together with its lack of decoration emodied the spirit of the modernist movement. achine Readable 1960 M Machine readable fonts utilize optical character recognition and are designed to be read by machines as well as humans. They are characterized by a simplicity of form and monospacing (fixed widths). Machine readable fonts are mostly used by banks, credit card companies, and other businesses that process large amounts of printed data by machine.
Offset Lithography 1875 The most common kind of offset lithography is derived from the photo offset process, which involves using light-sensitive chemicals and photographic techniques to transfer type and images from film negatives to printing plates. These flexible plates are wrapped around cylindrical drums and are inked. The inked image is then trasferred (or “offset”) from the plate to a rubber blanket and finally to paper. Memphis 1929 The typeface Memphis (named after the capital of ancient Egypt) was originally designed by the German Rudolf Wolf for the Stemple Foundry. The typeface is a variant of the sans serif Futura typeface and shares its geometric form. It is considered a monoweight since its stems and serifs appear to have the same weight. Peculiarities which make the typeface unique include upper and lowercase “O’s” which are perfect circles and a lower case “r” with a circular ear. Memphis is suitable for both display and text applications. IBM Selectric Typewriter 1961 The Selectric was known as the carriageless typewriter. It replaced the traditional typewriter’s moving carriage with a roller that stayed in position while a typeball and ribbon mechanism moved from side to side eliminating the problem of clashing typebars. It also incorporated word processing and an ability to change fonts which became important features in desktop publishing.
Josef Muller Brockman created the Grid method. The grid method is used in modern day magazines and books. A key piece of technology that uses it in the modern day is Adobe InDesign who uses similar grids to create layouts. Brockman used it very frequently throughout his lifetime. Adobe InDesign is a much more time efficiant process in which uses very similar methods, the overall astetic on InDesign I feel like is easier to locate and produce quicker work however for the grid system by hand could be easier to get more accurate hand text and pictures.
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Saul Bass was an American graphic designer and Academy Award winning filmmaker, best known for his design of motion-picture title sequences, film posters, and logos. Bass is very well known for us-
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ing the negative space within type to show an image within the lettering. One very famous piece is of ‘The Shining’, here you can see a character within the ‘T-H-E’, within
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this you can see a face faintly within the type, this in my opinion is highly effective due to the use of the negative space which would not have
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been used otherwise and would of most likely be left black as the word ‘Shining’ is.
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DAVID CARSON David Carson is an American graphic designer, art director and surfer. He is best known for his innovative magazine design, and use of experimental typography. Carson’ work seems to be print and photography based but then brought into Adobe Photoshop and
collaged together and then cut out into the shape of letters, this form of typography again this artist is using the outlines of text to show off the textures within the negative space. In my opinion I
believe this to be a really cool process with the mix media aspect of his work with vibrant colours.
Carson’s work on the page to the left shows the use of mixed media between letterpress and some sort of red card. The colours in this piece are bright and stand out really well in comparison to the white background and the black printed text.
In my opinion this guy is one of my favourite artists and the most inspiring for me personally as the simplicity works so well for what the artist wants to show to the audience.
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VIRGIL Virgil’s work is widely respected by current day designers as his brand ‘OFF WHITE’ has collaborated with Nike and many other brands, furthermore Virgil has worked with Louis Vuitton one of the leading luxury quality fashion companies.
Virgil is one of the most influencial artists of the current day in my opinion, the take of typography is so simple yet so so effective. The font ‘’Helvetica’’ is used with all capital letters with quotation marks surrounding the word. This is Virgils signature way of showing a quote or a singular word.
LUBALIN
HERB Herb Lubalin was an American graphic designer who collaborated with Ralph Ginzburg on three of Ginzburg’s magMazines: Eros, Fact, and Avant Garde, and was
responsible for the creative visual beauty of these publications. This artist specialises in typography of many different styles as shown in the
image. All of Lubslin’s typography I find really interesting due to the variation of styles throughout, from simple text
formats to logo format text- all look really effective as you’d see in a magazine or book.
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Here I found a really clever layout where the Coach of the MLS team LA Galaxy spreads out over two pages in which the arm carries over slightly with the text of the right page curving cleanly around it. The use of the bold text on the left page catches the eye of the audience and makes the audience look at this first and then towards to the coach and then to the badge. The right page is set up with columns of text in which your eyes are guided from reading downwards. The images alongside the text on the right page helps the reader grasp what the writer of the article is explaining.
LETTER PRESS
Part of my experimentation was using a letter press. I decided to use a short but powerful world such as ‘ugly’ as its a singular word and would look powerful just on its own. I created three different colours of paper for the background but using one type of in which was black.
The process began by picking my word in which I chose ‘ugly’ and then I proceeded to put it in the frame with wooden blocks to make sure that the letters didn’t fall out. Next I made sure the the top plate is inked up, this makes the letters inked up to make the print work. Once the plate
with the type was in the press all I did was push a leaver down to force the ink onto the letters then onto the paper to create the word ‘UGLY’. This process was really interesting as its a classic method of typography in comparison to modern day process’s.
My favourite part of the overall layout is the image placement, in my opinion the placement is really clean and flows within the page from the top image to the bottom image. The simple white background flows well with the blacks, blues and reds within the image. Moving onto the
text, the fonts used here and clear and easy to read with the use of three different fonts on the page. Another thing that I really like about this page is the overall numbering of the pages, placed at the bottom middle of page you can see the number ‘35’.
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Anatomy Of Type
The Anatomy of type onsists of the placement of type throughout each letter. Here I have a piece of text on differet lines showing the type.
Helvetica Helvetica Bold is my most used font of all persoanlly as I feel like it’s easily usable for many different projects and is a universal font. Created
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in 1957, the font is one of the most used clean looking fonts of the modern era. What makes the font so easily usable is the sans-serif. Overall
this font is my favourite due to the simplicity and easy readablitity. I will continue to use this font very often and explore my uses of it.
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