typography Final

TYPOGRAPHY PORTFOLIO the art of typography

BY LYNN YEO

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5

Logo

6

Intro

8

Character Studies

18

Sketches

Ta b l e o f Contents

20

Terms Illustrated

24

Logo Development

26

History of Type

36

Museum Report

56

Ubiquitous Type

60

Pop! Projects

80

Fonts Used

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M

INTRO

y name is Lynn Yeo and I am a Digital Media student at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandizing.

As a Digital Media major, it never occured to me that type would become such a huge part of my life. Prior to taking this typography course, I only thought of fonts or typefaces as nothing more than just mere communication to its audience. However, I learned that typography has the power to change an entire look, peoples’ emotions and the feel of one’s presentation. If typography is used correctly, it can evoke powerful feelings to the audience. Good typography conveys not only the message to its audience but the design itself can set the mood to tie into its intended message.

I would like to take this opportunity to show my gratitude towards Mr. Dunbar, my typography professor, for showing me the importance of design in typography. Throughout the quarter, he has helped develop my skills towards becoming a better visual observer and incorporate that into my designs. I have come to realize and appreciate different typefaces that exist around me in life and will continue to do so.

g Z

CHARACTER STUDIES

character study the letter A

N

o one knows why ‘A’ is the first letter of our alphabet.

Some think it’s because this letter represents one of the most common vowel sounds in ancient languages of the western hemisphere. Other sources argue against this theory because there were no vowel sounds in the Phoenician language. (The Phoenician alphabet is generally thought to be the basis of the one we use today.)

No one also knows why the ‘A’ looks the way it does, but we can construct a fairly logical chain of events.

Some say the Phoenicians chose the head of an ox to represent the ‘A’ sound (for the Phoenicians, this was actually a glottal stop). The ox was a common, important animal to the Phoenicians. It was their main power source for heavy work. Oxen plowed the fields, harvested crops, and hauled food to market. Some sources also claim that the ox was often the main course at meals. A symbol for the ox would have been an important communication tool for the Phoenicians. It somewhat naturally follows that an ox symbol would be the first letter of the alphabet.

BASKERVILLE John Baskerville (1706-1775) was an accomplished writing master and printer from Birmingham, England. He was the designer of several types, punchcut by John Handy, which are the basis for the fonts that bear the name Baskerville today. The excellent quality of his printing influenced such famous printers as Didot in France and Bodoni in Italy.

Though he was known internationally as an innovator of technique and style, his high standards for paper and ink quality made it difficult for him to compete with local commercial printers. However, his fellow Englishmen imitated his types, and in 1768, Isaac Moore punchcut a version of Baskerville’s letterforms for the Fry Foundry.

character study the letter g

G

enerally speaking, there are no launch dates for the letters of our alphabet. For the most part they’ve come down to us through an evolutionary process, with shapes that developed slowly over a long period of time. The G, however, is an exception.

In fact, our letter G made its official debut in 312 B.C. Of course, the story begins a bit earlier than that.

The Phoenicians, and the other Semitic peoples of Syria, used a simple graphic form that looked roughly like an upside-down V to represent the consonant ‘g’ sound (as in “go”). They named the form gimel, which was the Phoenician word for camel. Some contend this was because the upside-down V looked like the hump of a camel.

The Greeks borrowed the basic Phoenician form and changed its name to gamma. They also made some dramatic changes to the letter’s appearance.

At various times in ancient Greek history, the gamma looked like a one-sided arrow pointing up, an upside-down L, or a crescent moon. Throughout this time, however, the gamma always represented the same hard ‘g’ sound that it did for the Phoenicians.

The Greek form was adopted by the Etruscans and then by the Romans, where for many years it represented both the hard ‘k’ and ‘g’ sounds.

This brings us to 312 B.C., when our modern G was formally introduced into the reformed Latin alphabet. The G was created to eliminate the confusion caused by one letter representing two sounds. The basic shape, which now looked like our C, was used to represent the palatalized sounds

‘s’ and ‘c,’ and a little bar was added to create the letter G, which denoted the guttural stop ‘g.’

g

GIAMBATTISTA BODONI

B

odoni is the name given to the serif typefaces first designed by Giambattista Bodoni (1740–1813) in the late eighteenth century and frequently revived since.

Bodoni’stypefacesareclassifiedasDidoneormodern.

Bodoni followed the ideas of John Baskerville, as found in the printing type Baskerville—increased stroke contrast reflecting developing printing technology and a more vertical axis—but he took them to a more extreme conclusion. Bodoni had a long career and his designs changed and varied, ending with a typeface of a slightly condensed underlying structure with flat, unbracketed serifs, extreme contrast between thick and thin strokes, and an overall geometric construction.[3] When first released, Bodoni and other didone fonts were called classical designs because of their rational structure. However, these fonts were not updated versions of Roman or Renaissance letter styles, but new designs. They came to be called ‘modern’ serif fonts and then, until the mid-20th century, they were known as Didone designs. Bodoni’s later designs are rightfully called “modern”, but the earlier designs are now called “transitional”.

Some digital versions of Bodoni are said to be hard to read due to “dazzle” caused by the alternating thick and thin strokes, particularly as the thin strokes are very thin at small point sizes. This is very common when optical sizes of font intended for use at display sizes are printed at text size, at which point the hairline strokes can recede to being hard to see.

character study the exclamation point !

Graphically the exclamation mark is represented as a full stop point with a vertical line above.

One theory of its origin is that it is derived from a Latin exclamation of joy (io). The modern graphical representation is believed to have been born in the Middle Ages. Medieval copyists wrote the Latin word io at the end of a sentence to indicate joy. The word io meant “hurray”. Over time, the i moved above the o, and the o became smaller, becoming a point.

The exclamation mark was first introduced into English printing in the 15th century to show emphasis, and was called the “sign of admiration or exclamation” or the “note of admiration” until the mid-17th century; admiration referred to its Latin sense of wonderment.

The exclamation mark did not have its own dedicated key on standard manual typewriters before the 1970s. Instead, one typed a period, backspaced, and typed an apostrophe. In the 1950s, secretarial dictation and typesetting manuals in America referred to the mark as “bang”, perhaps from comic books where the ! appeared in dialogue balloons to represent a gun being fired, although the nickname probably emerged from letterpress printing. This bang usage is behind the names of the interrobang, an unconventional typographic character, and a shebang line, a feature of Unix computer systems.

AMERICAN TYPEWRITER

A

merican Typewriter is a slab serif typeface created in 1974

by Joel Kaden and Tony Stan for International Typeface Corporation. It is based on the slab serif style of typewriters; however, unlike most true typewriter fonts, it is a proportional design: the characters do not all have the same width. American Typewriter is often used to suggest an old-fashioned or industrial image.

It was originally released in cold type (photocomposition) before being released digitally. Like many ITC fonts, it has a range of four weights from light to bold (with matching italics) and separate condensed styles. Some releases do not have italics.

In the history of typewriters, early typewriters were initially thought to be replacements for printing and so featured proportional fonts. Monospaced typefaces, those designed so every letter takes up the same amount of space, were a more practical alternative and soon replaced printing types.

American Typewriter was by no means the first typeface to imitate typewriting.

Foundry catalogs of the late nineteenth century were already offering them, and press manufacturers even made press-size ribbons so that letters looking as if they had been typed could be produced wholesale.

character study the letter z

T

Z

he twenty-sixth letter of our alphabet was the seventh letter in the Semitic alphabet. They called the letter “za” (pronounced “zag”) and drew it as a stylized dagger. The Phoenicians used roughly the same graphic sign, which they called “zayin” and which also meant a dagger or weapon.

A similar symbol turns up in various other cultures, all having the same meaning.

Around 1000 B.C. the Phoenician zayin became the Greek “zeta.” The Greek character looked more like a dagger than the zayin did, but it didn’t bear much resemblance to the Z we currently use. In fact, it looked a lot like our present capital I (especially as set in ITC Lubalin Graph, or another slab serif typeface).

The Romans adopted the zeta into their alphabet, but since the sound was not used in the Latin language the letter was eventually dropped, and the position of the seventh letter was given to the G. In fact, the Z might never have made it into our present-day alphabet, if not for a few stray Greek words that were incorporated into the Roman language after the Romans conquered the Greeks. In order to write these words a Z was required, and so, several centuries after it was first banished from the Roman alphabet, the Z was allowed to return. However, because the letter was not a part of the traditional Roman language, the Z was relegated to the last spot in the alphabetical hierarchy.

Firmin Didot

F

irmin Didot (14 April 1764 – 24 April 1836) was a French printer, engraver, and type founder.

Didot invented the word “stereotype”, which in printing refers to the metal printing plate created for the actual printing of pages (as opposed to printing pages directly with movable type), and used the process extensively, revolutionizing the book trade by his cheap editions. His manufactory was a place of pilgrimage for the printers of the world.

He first used the process in his edition of Callet’s Tables of Logarithms (1795), in which he secured an accuracy till then unattainable. He published stereotyped editions of French, English and Italian classics at a very low price. At the 1798 Exposition des produits de l’industrie française Pierre and Firmin Didot and Louis Etienne Herhan won an honorable distinction, the highest award, for their “Superb edition of Virgil with characters and ink of their manufacture; a stereotype plate, and an in-12 edition of the works of Virgil and Lafontaine with these characters.

Didot was appointed by Napoleon as the director of the Imprimerie Impériale typefoundry.

He was also the author of two tragedies — La Reine de Portugal and La Mort d’Annibal — and he wrote metrical translations from Virgil, Tyrtaeus and Theocritus.

SKETCHES

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TYPOGRAPHICAL TERMS

Terms Illustrated

BLACKLETTER Blackletter (sometimes black letter), also known as Gothic script, Gothic minuscule, or Textura, was a script used throughout Western Europe from approximately 1150 to well into the 17th century. It continued to be used for the Danish language until 1875, and for German and Latvian until the 20th century. Fraktur is a notable script of this type, and sometimes the entire group of blackletter faces is incorrectly referred to as Fraktur. Blackletter is sometimes referred to as Old English, but it is not to be confused with the Old English language (or Anglo-Saxon), which predates blackletter by many centuries and was written in the insular script or in Futhorc.

HAIRLINE RULE A thin typographic line. Also describes a very thin serif, as in hairline serif, or the thinnest line that can be printed, as in hairline rule. In a typeface that has a high degree of contrast between the thicknesses of strokes, such as Bodoni, hairline also refers to the thinnest stroke of a letter.

When using a highresolution PostScript device, such as an imagesetter or platesetter for final output to a press, the smallest line that will be visible without breaking up, is between 0.3 to 0.5 points.

CURSIVE Cursive (also known as script or longhand, among other names[a]) is any style of penmanship in which some characters are written joined together in a flowing manner, generally for the purpose of making writing faster. Formal cursive is generally joined, but casual cursive is a combination of joins and pen lifts.

DROP CAP

I

n a published work,an initial or drop cap is a letter at the beginning of a word, a chapter, or a paragraph that is larger than the rest of the text.

The word is derived from the Latin initialis, which means standing at the beginning. An initial is often several lines in height and in older books or manuscripts, sometimes ornately decorated.

CALLIGRAPHY Calligraphy is a visual art related to writing. It is the design and execution of lettering with a broad tip instrument, brush, or other writing instruments. A contemporary calligraphic practice can be defined as “the art of giving form to signs in an expressive, harmonious, and skillful manner”.

In typography, letter-spacing, also referred to as tracking by typographers working with pre-WYSIWYG digital systems, refers to an optically consistent degree of increase2 (or sometimes decrease) of space between letters to affect visual density in a line or block of text.

A display typeface is a typeface that is intended for use at large sizes for headings, rather than for extended passages of body text.

Display typefaces will often have more eccentric and variable designs than the simple, relatively restrained Modern calligraphy ranges typefaces generally used from functional inscriptions for body text. They may and designs to fine-art take inspiration from other pieces where the letters may genres of lettering, such or may not be readable. as handpainted signs, Classical calligraphy differs calligraphy or an aesthetic from typography and nonappropriate to their use, classical hand-lettering, perhaps ornamented, though a calligrapher may exotic, abstracted or drawn practice both. in the style of a different writing system.

EGYPTIAN FONT In typography, a slab serif (also called mechanistic, square serif, antique or Egyptian) typeface is a type of serif typeface characterized by thick, block-like serifs.

Serif terminals may be either blunt and angular (Rockwell), or rounded (Courier). Slab serifs were invented in and most popular during the nineteenth century.

Slab serifs form a large and varied genre. Some such as Memphis and Rockwell have a geometric design with minimal variation in stroke width: they are sometimes described as sans-serif fonts with added serifs.

DECORATIVE SERIF

TRACKING

DISPLAY TYPE

S

In typography, a serif (/ ˈsɛrɪf/) is a small line or stroke regularly attached to the end of a larger stroke in a letter or symbol within a particular font or family of fonts. A typeface or “font family” making use of serifs is called a serif typeface (or serifed typeface), and a typeface that does not include them is a sans-serif one.

Some typography sources refer to sans-serif typefaces as “grotesque” (in German, “grotesk”) or “Gothic”, and serif typefaces as “roman”.

DINGBAT In typography, a dingbat (sometimes more formally known as a printer’s ornament or printer’s character) is an ornament, character, or spacer used in typesetting, often employed for the creation of box frames (similar to boxdrawing characters). The term continues to be used in the computer industry to describe fonts that have symbols and shapes in the positions designated for alphabetical or numeric characters.

Script fonts, fonts with extreme features such as swashes or exaggerated serifs, and any fonts designed to be used at larger than body copy sizes can be described as decorative type.

Also referred to as display type, decorative fonts are typically used for titles and headlines and for small amounts of text in large sizes such as in greeting cards or posters. Some decorative type is hand drawn or may be created from digital type that has been manipulated in a font editor or graphics program to suit a specific purpose such as a newsletter nameplate or a logo.

DISTRESSED DIDONE Didone is a genre of serif typeface that emerged in the late 18th century and was the standard style of generalpurpose printing during the nineteenth.It is characterized by: • Narrow and unbracketed (hairline) serifs. (The serifs have a nearly constant width along their length.)

• Vertical orientation of weight axes. (The vertical strokes of letters are thick.)

• Strong contrast between thick and thin lines.

(Horizontal parts of letters are thin in comparison to the vertical parts.)

Distressed typefaces cover a lot of ground. Some replicate the irregular contours of brush strokes and other writing implements. Others capture the organic texture of parchment and stone, or approximate the low-tech look of woodcuts, stencils and rubber stamps.

The oldest initial form is the drop cap. Here the initial letter is set down within the copy, not rising above the top line of text. The other style is a raised initial. Raised Caps are simply larger letters at the start of the paragraph.

REVERSED

Reversing type – that is, placing light or white type against a darker background – is a useful way to add emphasis as well as to help develop a strong typographic hierarchy. A reverse headline can provide an inviting, eye-catching point of entry, signaling the viewer to “look here” before moving on to the other elements.

WOOD TYPE Wood has been used for letterforms and illustrations dating back to the first known Chinese wood block print from 868 CE. The forerunner of the block print in China was the wooden stamp. The image on these stamps was most often that of the Buddha, and was quite small. Provided with handles to facilitate their use, they were not unlike the modern rubber-stamps of today. In Europe, large letters used in printing were carved out of wood because large metal type had a tendency to develop uneven surfaces, or crack.

RAISED CAP

FRACTION Fractions can be a regularly occurring element in text.

They are routinely used in text for measurements and dimensions, recipes, math and science notation, as well as in manuals and other technical documentation.

Fractions can be represented in several ways: spelled out, using decimals, by diagonal or slashed fractions, by stacked or nut fractions, or by horizontal fractions.

LIGATURE AMPERSAND

The typographic symbol used to designate the word and (& ) is the Latin symbol for et which means and.

The name, ampersand , is believed to be derived from the phrase “and per se and.”

On a standard English layout keyboard the ampersand (&) is accessed with shift+7.

Two or more letters combined into one character make a ligature. In typography some ligatures represent specific sounds or words such as the AE or æ diphthong ligature. Other ligatures are primarily to make type more attractive on the page such as the fl and fi ligatures. In most cases, a ligature is only available in extended characters sets or special expert sets of fonts.

LOGO DEVELOPMENT

Museum of Contemporary Typography

Museum of Contemporary Typography

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SWISS STYLE

BY LYNN YEO

WINTER 2019

HISTORY OF TYPE

HISTORY OF TYPE

What is Swiss Style?

“Cleanliness.

Readability. Objectivity.

Just a few key words that describe the driving force behind Swiss Style” The primary influential works were developed as posters, which were seen to be the most effective means of communication.

Cleanliness. Readability. Objectivity. Just a few key words that describe the driving force behind Swiss Style. The 19th century marked the separation of design from fine art, and with it, the birth of grid-based design.

O

ften referred to as the International Typographic Style or the International Style, the style of design that originated in Switzerland in the 1940s and 50s was the basis of much of the development of graphic design during the mid 20th century.

Led by designers Josef Müller-Brockmann at the Zurich School of Arts and Krafts and Armin Hofmann at the Basel School of Design, the style favored simplicity, legibility and objectivity.

Of the many contributions to develop from the two schools were the use of, sans-serif typography, grids and asymmetrical layouts. Also stressed was the combination of typography and photography as a means of visual communication.

Swiss Design was a movement that took hold in the 1950s in two Swiss art schools, the kunstgewerbeschule in Zurich, led by Josef MüllerBrockmann, and the Allgemeine Gewerbeschule in Basel, led by Armin Hofmann. Both of these instructors had studied with the great Ernst Keller in Zurich before World War II. These names will become more meaningful when we look at their work a little later.

Their style, which was called the International Typographic Style at the time, was guided by the ethos that design should be as invisible as possible. All traces of the designer’s subjectivity should be suppressed in order to let the “content” of a work shine through. It is similar to the axiom of architectural modernism that form should follow function.

swiss style

swiss style

Max Miedinger

Meet the man behind one of the most famous typefaces

HELVETICA

OVERVIEW

The Helvetica typeface is one of the most famous and popular in the world. It’s been used for every typographic project imaginable, not just because it is on virtually every computer. Helvetica is ubiquitous because it works so well. The design embodies the concept that a typeface should absolutely support the reading process – that clear communication is the primary goal of typography.

HELVETICA HISTORY

M

ax Miedinger was a Swiss typeface designer. He was famous for creating the Neue Haas Grotesk typeface in 1957 which was renamed Helvetica in 1960. Marketed as a symbol of cutting-edge Swiss technology, Helvetica went global at once.

Between 1926 and 1930 Miedinger trained as a typesetter in Zürich, after which he attended evening classes at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Zürich.

At the age of sixteen Max became an

apprentice typesetter at a book printing office for Jacques Bollmann (in Zürich). After four years as an apprentice, Miedinger enrolled in the School of Arts and Crafts. When he was 26 years old, he went to work for an advertising studio called Globe.

Here he worked as a typographer and improved his skills. After ten years of working at Globe, Miedinger then gained employment with Haas Type Foundry as a representative.

This is where he made his mark on history and designed the most used typeface of the 20th century, Helvetica.

Helvetica didn’t start out with that name.

The story of Helvetica began in the fall of 1956 in the small Swiss town of Münchenstein. This is where Eduard Hoffmann, managing director of the Haas Type Foundry, commissioned Max Miedinger to draw a typeface that would unseat a popular family offered by one his company’s competitors.

to its customers in Germany, where Stempel was based. The company, however, felt it would be too difficult to market a new face under another foundry’s name and looked for one that would embody the spirit and heritage of the face. The two companies settled on “Helvetica,” which was a close approximation of “Helvetia,” the Latin name for Switzerland. (“Helvetia” was not chosen because a Swiss sewing machine company and an insurance firm had already taken the name.)

Over the years, the Helvetica family was expanded to encompass an extensive selection of weights and proportions and has been adapted for every typesetting technology.

HELVETICA “Design can be USAGE art. Design can be Helvetica is among the aesthetics. Design is most widely used sans serif typefaces and has been a so simple, that’s why it popular choice for corporate including those for is so complicated.” logos, 3M, American Airlines, American Apparel, BMW, - Paul Rand Jeep, JCPenney, Lufthansa,

Miedinger, who was an artist and graphic designer before training as a typesetter, came up with a design based on Hoffmann’s instructions, and by the summer or 1957, produced a new sans serif typeface which was given the name “Neue Haas Grotesk.” Simply translated this meant “New Haas Sans Serif.”

The Stempel type foundry, the parent company of Haas, decided to offer the design

Microsoft, Mitsubishi Electric, Orange, Target, Toyota, Panasonic, Motorola, Kawasaki and Verizon Wireless. Apple has incorporated Helvetica in the iOS® platform and the iPod® device. Helvetica is widely used by the U.S. government, most notably on federal income tax forms, and NASA selected the type for the space shuttle orbiters.

Modern Applications of Helvetica

Museum of Contemporary Typography presents the work of

MUSEUM Max Miedinger REPORT C R E AT O R O F H E LV E T I C A

Museum of Contemporary Typography

TABLE OF CONTENTS Museum of Contemporary Typography

4 6

INTRO

Max Miedinger

WORK EXAMPLES

Helvetica Swiss Style Music Posters Modern Brands Using Helvetica

TYPOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION

Explained 12 Terminology History of Typography Timeline

16 Museum of Contemporary Typography ABOUT THE MUSEUM

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Intro:

MAX MIEDINGER

Max Miedinger, the creator of the famous Swiss typeface designer. He is at work at the Haas Type foundry (left)

M

ax Miedinger was a Swiss typeface designer. He was famous for creating the Neue Haas Grotesk typeface in 1957 which was renamed Helvetica in 1960. Marketed as a symbol of cutting-edge Swiss technology, Helvetica went global at once.

Samples of fontype foundry blocks bearing Helvetica glyphs (right)

(in Zürich). After four years as an apprentice, Miedinger enrolled in the School of Arts and Crafts. When he was 26 years old, he went to work for an advertising studio called Globe. Here he worked as a typographer and improved his skills.

Between 1926 and 1930 Miedinger trained as a typesetter in Zürich, after which he attended evening classes at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Zürich.

After ten years of working at Globe, Miedinger then gained employment with Haas Type Foundry as a representative. This is where he made his mark on history and designed the most used typeface of the 20th century, Helvetica.

At the age of sixteen Max became an apprentice typesetter at a book printing office for Jacques Bollmann

In 1956, Miedinger became a freelance graphic designer and about a year later he collaborated with Edouard

Hoffman on the typeface which would later be called Helvetica.

Four years after its birth, Helvetica was given an oblique brother. More weights were added later, but they were made by different designers in diverse foundries, but these lacked consistency, and Helvetica became a hodge podge of different fonts.

Linotype has since redrawn every style and weight of the font to make a consistent family of typefaces.

Differences in alignment were corrected, subtle features were made consistent from one face to another, and all the weights and widths were designed to work together as one family.

This new family is called Neue Helvetica, and is available from, among others, Adobe.

Today, Helvetica is shunned by many designers because it is overused due to its being the default typeface on many desktop publishing software packages. But, remember, it is the default face because it is such a reliable, workhorse of a typeface. Together with Times New Roman, Helvetica was the most specified face of the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s.

Helvetica is not only the preferred typeface of leading professionals, it is also an all-time favourite among the multitude of codes, signals

and signs that flavour urban life.

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HELVETICA

MODERN BRANDS USING HELVETICA

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A TYPOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION

T

ype is everywhere – street signs, magazines, the web. Every typeface you see around you has been painstakingly and carefully planned out, and each has its own personality and vibe. But have you ever stopped to wonder how the typefaces we encounter everyday came to be? Who invented them, and why?

If you’re interested in learning more about typography, you’ve come to the right place.

TERMINOLOGY EXPLAINED

W

hat’s the difference between a typeface and a font?

Before you jump in, let’s clarify the terminology used.

Typography is the art of creating the letters we use everyday. It’s designing them and creating them and making them real. A font is a collection or set of letters – they’re the mechanism you use to get your message across to your reader. Every letter and dash and semi colon would be considered part of a specific font. A typeface is the design you see – the style and look of a specific font.

Throughout history, typefaces have been influenced by technological advances, culture shifts, and just general boredom with the state of typography. Here’s how it all went down:

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Guttenberg invented movable typefaces, giving the world a cheaper way to obtain the written word. Up until this point, all written materials were done by hand, and were very costly to purchase.

Guttenburg also created the first typeface, blackletter – it was dark, fairly practical, and intense, but not very legible.

B

Baskerville

Italics

Italics begin to be used as way to fit more words onto a page, saving the printer money.

Today, we use italics as a design detail or for emphasis when writing.

1 4 0 0

Egyptian

John Baskerville created what we now call Transitional type, a Romanstyle type, with very sharp serifs and lots of drastic contrast between thick and thin lines.

1 5 0 1

Goudy

Vincent Figgins created Egyptian, or Slab Serif – the first time a typeface had serifs that were squares or boxes.

1 7 5 7

Frederic Goudy became the world’s first full time type designer, developing numerous groundbreaking typefaces, such as Copperplate Gothic, Kennerly, and Goudy Old Style.

1815

1920

Gotham Gotham is a family of geometric sansserif typefaces designed by American type designer Tobias Frere-Jones & Jesse Ragan in 2000. Gotham’s letterforms are inspired by a form of architectural signage that achieved popularity in the mid-twentieth century.

contemporary

A TYPOGRAPHICAL TIMELINE 1470

Nicolas Jenson created Roman Type, inspired by the text on ancient roman buildings. It was far more readable than blackletter, and caught on quickly.

1 7 3 4

C

Caslon

William Caslon created a typeface which features straighter serifs and much more obvious contrasts between thin and bold strokes. Today, we call this type style ‘old style’.

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1780

D

Didot

Firmin Didot and Giambattista Bodoni created the first ‘modern’ Roman typefaces (Didot, and Bodoni). The contrasts were more extreme than ever before, and created a very cool, fresh look.

1816

Grotesque William Caslon IV created the first typeface without any serifs at all. It was widely rebuked at the time. This was the start of what we now consider Sans Serif typefaces. During this time, type exploded, and many, many variations were being created to accommodate advertising.

Helvetica

Max Miedinger became famous for creating the Neue Haas Grotest typeface in 1957 which was renamed Helvetica in 1960.

Marketed as a symbol of cutting-edge technology, Helvetica went global at once.

ABOUT THE MUSEUM

T

he Museum of Contemporary Typography is a contemporary art museum founded by philanthropists Eli and Edythe Broad on Grand Avenue in downtown Los Angeles. Designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro in collaboration with Gensler, the museum offers free general admission and presents an active program of rotating temporary exhibitions and innovative audience engagement.

The Museum of Contemporary Typography is home to more than 2,000 works of art in The Museum of Contemporary Typography’s collection, which is one of the world’s most prominent collections of postwar and contemporary art.

The 120,000-square-foot building features two floors of gallery space and is the headquarters of The Museum of Contemporary Typography Art Foundation’s worldwide lending library, which has been loaning collection works to museums around the world since 1984. Since opening in September 2015, The Museum of Contemporary Typography has welcomed more than 2.5 million visitors. Generous support is provided by Leading Partner East West Bank.

colophon about this brochure

american typewriter Arial

Arial Black Avenir

Baskerville bodoni72

DIDOT

G E O R G I A

H E LV E T I C A Superclarendon

Museum of Contemporary Typography

21 S Grand Ave, Los Angeles CA 90012 www.museumofcontemporarytypography.com

UBIQUITOUS TYPE

Ubiquitos Type thoroughfares in the silence before dawn. The subject of this book is not typographic solitude, but the old, well- travelled roads at the core of the tradition: paths that each of us is free to follow or not, and to enter and leave when we choose - if only we know the paths are there and have a sense of where they lead.

Ubiquitous Type

That freedom is denied us if the tradition is concealed or left for

The presence of typography both good and bad, can be seen everywhere.

T

By: Milton Glaser

ypography makes at least two kinds of sense, if it makes any sense at all. It makes visual sense and historical sense. The visual side of typography is always on display, and materials for the study of its visual form are many and widespread.

The history of letter- forms and their usage is visible too, to those with access to manuscripts, inscriptions and old books, but from others it is largely hidden.

This book has therefore grown into some-thing more than a short manual of typo-graphic etiquette. It is the fruit of a lot of long walks in the wilderness of letters: in part a pocket field guide to the living wonders that are found there, and in part a meditation on the ecological principles, survival techniques, and ethics that apply. The principles of typography as I understand them are not a set of dead conventions but the tribal customs of the magic forest, where ancient voices speak from all directions and new ones move to unremembered forms.

One question, nevertheless, has been often in my mind. When all right-thinking human beings are struggling to remember that other men and women are free to be different, and free to become more different still, how can one honestly write a rulebook? What reason and authority exist for these commandments, suggestions, and instructions? Surely typographers, like others, ought to be at liberty to follow or to blaze the trails they choose.

Typography thrives as a shared concern - and there are no paths at all where there are no shared desires and directions.

A typographer determined to forge new routes must move, like other solitary travellers, through uninhabited country and against the grain of the land, crossing common

well. That is one of the ends for which they exist.

Letterforms change constantly, yet differ very little, because they are alive. The principles of typographic clarity have also scarcely altered since the second half of the fifteenth century, when the first books were printed in roman type. Indeed, most of the principles of legibility

“Typography is the craft of endowing human language with a durable visual form, and thus with an independent existence.� dead. Originality is everywhere, but much originality is blocked if the way back to earlier discoveries is cut or overgrown. If you use this book as a guide, by all means leave the road when you wish. That is pre- cisely the use of a road: to reach individually chosen points of departure. By all means break the rules, and break them beautifully, deliberately, and

and design explored in this book were known and used by Egyptian scribes writing hieratic script with reed pens on papyrus in 1000 B.C. Samples of their work sit now in museums in Cairo, London and New York, still lively, subtle, and perfectly legible thirty centuries after they were made.

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lawrence ferlinghetti volume eleven

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visual project issue one volume eleven in this issue: andy warhol le bron james sam smith kristen stewart mac miller hayley williams lawrence ferlinghetti visual project issue one volume eleven in this issue: andy warhol visual project issue one volume eleven in this issue: andy warhol le bron james sam smith kristen stewart mac miller hayley williams lawrence ferlinghetti visual project issue one volume eleven in this issue: andy warhol visual project issue one volume eleven in this issue: andy warhol le bron james sam smith kristen stewart mac miller hayley williams lawrence ferlinghetti visual project issue one volume eleven in this issue: andy warhol visual project issue one volume eleven in this issue: andy warhol le bron james sam smith kristen stewart mac miller hayley williams lawrence ferlinghetti visual project issue one volume eleven in this issue: andy warhol visual project issue one volume eleven in this issue: andy warhol le bron james sam smith kristen stewart mac miller hayley williams lawrence ferlinghetti visual project issue one volume eleven in this issue: andy warhol visual project issue one volume eleven in this issue: andy warhol le bron james sam smith kristen stewart mac miller hayley williams lawrence ferlinghetti visual project issue one volume eleven in this issue: andy warhol visual project issue one volume eleven in this issue: andy warhol le bron james sam smith kristen stewart mac miller hayley williams lawrence ferlinghetti visual project issue one volume eleven in this issue: andy warhol visual project issue one volume eleven in this issue: andy warhol le bron james sam smith kristen stewart mac miller hayley williams lawrence ferlinghetti visual project issue one volume eleven in this issue: andy warhol visual project issue one volume eleven in this issue: andy warhol le bron james sam smith kristen stewart mac miller hayley williams lawrence ferlinghetti visual project issue one volume eleven in this issue: andy warhol visual project issue one volume eleven in this issue: andy warhol le bron james sam smith kristen stewart mac miller hayley williams lawrence ferlinghetti visual project issue one volume eleven in this issue: andy warhol visual project issue one volume eleven in this issue: andy warhol le bron james sam smith kristen stewart mac miller hayley williams lawrence ferlinghetti visual project issue one volume eleven in this issue: andy warhol visual project issue one volume eleven in this issue: andy warhol le bron james sam smith kristen stewart mac miller hayley williams lawrence ferlinghetti visual project issue one volume eleven in this issue: andy warhol visual project issue one volume eleven in this issue: andy warhol le bron james sam smith kristen stewart mac miller hayley williams lawrence ferlinghetti visual project issue one volume eleven in this issue: andy warhol visual project issue one volume eleven in this issue: andy warhol le bron james sam smith kristen stewart mac miller hayley williams lawrence ferlinghetti visual project issue one volume eleven in this issue: andy warhol visual project issue one volume eleven in this issue: andy warhol le bron james sam smith kristen stewart mac miller hayley williams lawrence ferlinghetti visual project issue one volume eleven in this issue: andy warhol visual project issue one volume eleven in this issue: andy warhol le bron james sam smith kristen stewart mac miller hayley williams lawrence ferlinghetti visual project issue one volume eleven in this issue: andy warhol visual project issue one volume eleven in this issue: andy warhol le bron james sam smith kristen stewart mac miller hayley williams lawrence ferlinghetti visual project issue one volume eleven in this issue: andy warhol visual project issue one volume eleven in this issue: andy warhol le bron james sam smith kristen stewart mac miller hayley williams lawrence ferlinghetti visual project issue one volume eleven in this issue: andy warhol visual project issue one volume eleven in this issue: andy warhol le bron james sam smith kristen stewart mac miller hayley williams lawrence ferlinghetti visual project issue one volume eleven in this issue: andy warhol visual project issue one volume eleven in this issue: andy warhol le bron james sam smith kristen stewart mac miller hayley williams lawrence ferlinghetti visual project issue one volume eleven in this issue: andy warhol visual project issue one volume eleven in this issue: andy warhol le bron james sam smith kristen stewart

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issue one

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Bebas NEUE

Fonts used

DIDOT Helvetica

helvetica neue AVENIR superclarendon

Georgia

Baskerville gotham American Typewriter