F i r s t p u b l i s h e d i n 1 9 9 6 by W i l d D ove B o o ks W i l d D ove B o o ks i s a n i m p r i n t o f S wa d o c a P u b l i s h i n g L i m i te d 50 The Corso Au s t ra l i a WD8 8SP Š 1 9 9 6 S wa d o c a P u b l i s h i n g L i m i te d T h i s e d i t i o n i s d i s t r i b u te d i n Au s t ra l i a by Ra ve n B o o ks D i s t r i b u t i o n L i m i te d A l l r i g h t s re s e r ve d . N o p a r t o f t h i s p u b l i c a t i o n m a y b e re p ro d u c e d , s to re d i n a re t r i eva l sys te m , o r t ra n s m i t te d i n a ny wa y by a ny m e a n s , e l a c t ro n i c , m e c h a n i c a l , p h o to c o py i n g , re c o r d i n g o r o t h e r w i s e , w i t h o u t t h e p r i o r w r i t te n p e r m i s s i o n o f t h e c o py r i g h t h o l d e r. I S B N 1 8 5 9 67 2 2 9 9 Publisher: Dominique Falla S e n i o r E d i to r : Au re l i e M a ro n P h o to g ra p h e r : Te s s a M i l h a ly D e s i g n e r : A n i ta M o r to n P r i n te d i n Au s t ra l i a by B l u r b P t y L t d
My thanks must go to the people who inspired me on this journey of self discovery. First to my amazing husband for your endless love and support and never letting me give up, to my four beautiful children Winston, Amber, Oliver and Charlton for all the hours you let me spend at my desk now we can go and play. To Dominique Falla for awakening in me a love for type I never new I had and will carry with me now forever, thankyou for sharing your love for your craft. To Aurelie Maron for her endless patience and eye for detail, and Tessa Mihaly for the beautiful type face we created together that is featured in this book. To all my greatest thanks.
CONTENTS INTRODUCTION
5
QUOTES
6
BIBLIOGRAPHY
60
TYPOG
RAPHY TYPOGRAPHY IN OUR WORLD Typography in Our World is a collection of beautiful and inspiring images of the letters of our alphabet of type found in the building and object that surround us every day. These have been coupled with short quotes form some famous authors and other just ordinary people about type.
The book was done to be inspirational to us all, to help us to look outside ourselves and really see the influences that type and the founders of type have on us and all we do even today thousands of years after type was first written.
I A M T H E VO I C E O F TO DAY, the herald of tomorrow, I am the voice of today, the herald of tomorrow, I am type! Of my earliest ancestry neither history nor relics remain. The wedge-shaped symbols impressed in plastic clay in the dim past by Babylonian builders foreshadowed me: from them, on through the hieroglyphs of the ancient Egyptians down to the beautiful manuscript letters of the medieval scribes. I was in the making. Johann Gutenberg was the first to cast me in metal. From this chance thought straying through an idle reverie-a dream most golden-the profound art of printing with movable types was born. Cold, rigid, and implacable I may be, yet the first impress of my face brought the divine word to countless thousands ‌ Frederic W. Goudy, 1927
I AM T Y PE !
A
love of letters is the beginning of typographical wisdom. That is, the love of letters as literature and the love of letters as physical entities, having abstract beauty of their own, apart from the ideas they may express. John R. Biggs, Typography and Author
“ T Y P OG R A P H Y I S TO L I T E R AT U R E as musical per formance is to composition:
An essential act of interpretation, full of endless opportunities for insight or obtuseness.�
Robert Bringhurst, The Elements of Typographic Style
style
is
Typographic “
founded
Typographic st y l e is founded not on any one technology of typesetting or printing, but on the primitive yet subtle c r a f t of writing.�
Robert Bringhurst, The Elements of Typographic Style
“ T Y P O G R A P H Y is the craft of endowing human language with a durable visual form.� Robert Bringhurst, The Elements of Typographic Style
“ Type is a beautiful group of let ters, not a group of beautiful let ters.” Matthew Carter
FOSTERED TH E MODERN I DE A OF
“
“
T Y P O G RA P HY I N D I V I D U A L I T Y, B U T I T D E S T R OY E D T H E M E D I E VA L S E N S E O F C O M M U N I T Y A N D I N T E G R AT I O N . Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business.
W
from conviction and with passion ‌ We are t ype designers, punch cut ters, wood cut ters, t ype founders, compositors, printers, and book binders from conviction and with passion, not because we are insuf ficiently
“
“
e are t ype designers, punch cut ters, wood cut ters, t ype founders, compositors, printers, and book binders
talented for other h igher th ings, but because for us the h ighest th ings stand in close kinsh ip to those ends.
Rudolph Koch
“
The making of let ters in ever y form is for me the purest and the greatest pleasure, and at many stages of my life it was to me what a song is to the singer, a picture to the painter, a shout
“
T
he making of let ters in ever y form is for me the purest and the greatest pleasure ‌
to the elated, or a sign to the oppressed. It was and is for me the most happy and per fect expression of my life. Rudolph Koch
“ WOR DS ARE , OF COU RS E , TH E MOST POWER F U L D RUG US ED BY MAN K I N D.” Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936)
“ Th e
d om ai n m ay
b e u n fa m ili a r , but establishing contexts,
understanding limitations, and identifying options is a constant in design.� Gerry Leonidas
A N D B Y N O OT H E R A S P E C T C A N A M AT E U R S B E S O E A S I LY D I S T I N G U I S H E D F R O M P R O F E S S I O N A L S . TO B E F O N T L I T E R AT E , A D E S I G N E R H A S TO S T U DY T H E H I STO RY A N D T H E P R I N C I P L ES O F FONT DESIGN. Dmitry Kirsanov
“
“
NO OTHER DESIGN DISCIPLINE REQUIRES SO MUCH LEARNING A N D T R A I N I N G A S F O N T O G R A P H Y,
Geometry can produce legible letter
but art alone makes them beautiful. “ Geometry can produce legible letter but art alone makes them beautiful. Art begins where geometry ends, and imparts to letters a character transcending mere measurement.� Paul Standard, 1947
Typography has one plain dut y before it
“ Typography has one plain dut y before it and that is to convey information in writing. No argument or consideration can absolve t ypography from th is dut y.” Emil Ruder
Typography is what language looks like. Ellen Lupton
“
“
“
T
ypography is two–dimensional arch itecture, based on experience and imagination, and guided by rules and readabilit y.
And th is is the purpose of t ypography: T h e a r ra n g e me n t of d es i g n e le me n t s wi t h i n a g i ve n st r u ct u re s h o u l d a l low t h e re a d e r to e a s i ly foc u s o n t h e mes sa g e , wi t h o u t s lowi n g d own t h e s p ee d of h i s re a d i n g .”
Hermann Zapf
Typography is the craft of endowing human language with a durable visual form, and thus with an independent existence. Its heartwood is calligraphy the dance, on a tiny stage, of the living, speaking hand and its roots reach into living soil, though its branches may be hung each year with new machines. So long as the root lives, typography remains a source of true delight, true knowledge, true surprise.
Typography
“ BY A L L M E A N S B R E A K T H E R U L ES , A N D B R E A K T H E M B E AU T I F U L LY, D E L I B E R AT E LY, A N D WE L L . T H AT I S O N E O F T H E E N DS FO R WH I C H T H E Y E X I ST.” Robert Bringhurst
D
esigners provide ways into–and out of–the flood of words by breaking up text into pieces and offering shortcuts and alternate routes th rough masses of information. (…) Although many books define the purpose of typography as enhancing the readability of the written word, one of design’s most humane function is, in actuality, to help readers avoid reading.”
Ellen Lupton Thinking with Type
WO U L D N ’ T I T B E I N T E R EST I N G I F T H E R E WE R E O N LY O N E
T Y PE FACE I N TH E WO RL D?
Designers would really have to think about the idea behind their designs instead of covering it up with fancy typefaces. One, universal typeface would really strip away all the flashy emptiness in design. And, of course, that one typeface would have to be Helvetica. Erik Kessels
i g p n s hould
phi
cal d
s e
ra
URE OF
H I S
H
OU
GH
TS .
WH A T
T
E
ST
l l y Ty p
g o
T
ca
GE
e r ti f o p r o m
R C E REA K A E TE P S S
AN D
T
H
V H OIC G U E RO
El Lizzitsky
H
“
Don’t mistake
legibility for communication.�
 David Carson
If you remember the shape of your spoon at lunch , it has to be the wrong shape. The spoon and the let ter are tools; one to take food from the bowl, the other to take information
Remember off the page ‌
Adrian Frutiger
When it is a good design, the reader has to feel comfor table because the let ter is both banal and beautiful .
The most popular typefaces are the easiest to read;
T H E I R P O P U L A R I T Y H AS M A D E T H E M D I SA P P E A R F RO M C O N SC I O U S C OG N I T I O N . I T B E C O M ES I M P OS S I B L E TO T E L L I F T H E Y A R E E ASY TO R E A D B E CAU S E T H E Y A R E C O M M O N LY U S E D, O R I F T H E Y A R E C O M M O N LY U S E D B E CAU S E T H E Y A R E E ASY TO R E A D. Zuzana Licko
In 1936, Frederic Goudy was in New York City to receive an award for excellence in type design. Upon accepting a certificate, he took one look at it and declared that
“
Anyone who would letterspace black letter would steal sheep.” Erik Spiekermann
HELVETICA HELVE
HELVETICA HELVE
HELVETICA HELVE
HELVETICA HELVE
HELVETICA HELVE
HELVETICA HELVE
ETICA HELVETICA I discovered that I never really used
ETICA HELVETICA Helvetica but I like to look at it.
ETICA HELVETICA I like the VW beetle, too,
ETICA HELVETICA although I’ve never driven one.
ETICA HELVETICA Stefan Sagmeister
ETICA HELVETICA
“ From all these experiences the most impor tant th ing I have learned is that legibilit y and beaut y stand close together and that t ype design, in its restraint,
should be only felt but not perceived by the reader.� Adrian Frutiger
“
W
hen a type design is good it is not because each individual letter of the alphabet is perfect in form, but because there is a feeling of harmony and unbroken rhythm that runs through the whole design, each letter kin to every other and to all.� Frederick Goudy
e, Mr Goudy
BIBLIOGRAPHY
QUOTES
IMAGES
K.JPG http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-65_84Gt3Sc0/UXPPnDbiUmI/
Frederic W. Goudy, 1927, 6 P60 Designing with type http://www.designingwithtype.com/5/classifications.php
Eiffel-tower-A.jpg
AAAAAAAADi4/xYZ_LW8n_2U/s1600/K.JPG
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8pTbmFFuf3g/UQfsB3rCM8I/
J Maybe.jpg
AAAAAAAAjG0/RmEHFlFWG8w/s1600/
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-csHp7o42YH8/UWF6lXjnquI/
Eiffel-tower-paris-black-and-white-photos-16.jpg
AAAAAAAADcs/O5_uyJpoNCg/s1600/J+Maybe.jpg
B_Allen shoes.jpg
L_zpse99220e2.jpg
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_KJmk-phBTtA/Snwo_x3vL4I/
http://i941.photobucket.com/albums/ad255/
AAAAAAAABYo/Do8v7D0scfQ/s1600/B_Allen_1.jpg
adoublem6/For%20the%20Blog/L_zpse99220e2.jpg
theletterC-.jpg
M.jpg
http://s3.amazonaws.com/estock/fspid9/11/16/94/1/
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_MzB1bOulrNg/TAnBDHtmJII/
theletterc-letter-alphabet-1116941-o.jpg
AAAAAAAABRk/5aEda0lSKYw/s1600/M.jpg
Matthew Carter, 16 http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/typography
letter d.jpg
The Letter Q 002.JPG
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-GZaTMwRdhYk/TjCiDNiNn2I/
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pokHAZ9cwOQ/T0EHYgtstcI/
Neil Postman, 18 Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/typography
AAAAAAAAAB8/zsv6Q90uSBY/s1600/letter+d.jpg
AAAAAAAAE0Q/Qw6MPdGy8Lc/s1600/The+Letter+Q+002.JPG
letter E iron.jpg
chris r.jpeg
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_fMZ1sCXo8VI/TVLekzucxsI/
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Rudolph Koch, 20, 23 http://www.as8.it/quotes/T-quotes.html
letter U.jpg
t05sepia copy.jpg
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_k5WazX1sfoM/TDdHkG6n6jI/
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-XaKD32wLxfo/TYDmrpqf9QI/
AAAAAAAAAHA/n1eEIqrtVH4/s1600/U_2.jpg
AAAAAAAAAEA/1jzegRnlYH0/s1600/t05sepia+copy.jpg
letter N.jpg
w.jpg
John R. Biggs, 9 Typographer and Author P60 Designing with type http://www.designingwithtype.com/5/classifications.php Robert Bringhurst, 11, 12, 13 The Elements of Typographic Style http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/typography
Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), 25 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RudyardKipling
http://rookery9.aviary.com.s3.amazonaws.com/
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_4UwwjFPGp1E/TKzzzPUhEfI/
Gerry Leonidas, 27 www.leonidas.org www.typefacedesign.org
3642000/3642203_113c_1024x2000.jpg
AAAAAAAAAHo/MddcT8VLFPw/s1600/w.jpg
S-letter.jpg
sydney-new-south-wales-australia-travel-photography M.jpg
http://www.pxleyes.com/images/contests/alphabets/fullsize/
http://mmccracken09.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/
Dmitry Kirsanov, 28 www.kirsanov.com
S-4e94487a6b447_hires.jpg
sydney-new-south-wales-australia-travel-photography.jpg
V skylight.JPG
1332422150_stone-97 c.jpg
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ds-X53QzoKY/Ur7JOXuC4RI/
http://www.anglophile.ru/uploads/posts/2012-03/
AAAAAAAAF88/MAun2zFCx8o/s1600/DSC05537.JPG
1332422150_stone-97.jpg
Paul Standard, 1947, 31 www.smith.edu/library/rarebook/exhibitions
O.jpg
H-bridge.jpg
Emil Ruder, 33
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ZhYYNCHbcYQ/TQr1FP0GAoI/
http://www.pxleyes.com/images/contests/alphabets/fullsize/
Ellen Lupton, 35,40
AAAAAAAALd4/_wHBgVgPgs0/s1600/O.jpg
H-4e94a9958af1c_hires.jpg
Hermann Zapf, 37
J.jpg
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http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zo4OQjjWjJE/TnLO5p7O_DI/
http://www.pxleyes.com/images/contests/alphabets/fullsize/
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F.jpg
y.jpg http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_ZhYYNCHbcYQ/TQr1G-3JgbI/
Erik Kessels, 43 El Lizzitsky, 44 Zuzana Licko, 51 Erik Spiekermann, 53 Stefan Sagmeister, 55 http://typophile.com/node/134 Adrian Frutiger, 48, 55 David Carson, 46 http://typetastingresearch.wordpress.com/2013/02/02/ quotes-about-typography
http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2546/4193752966_8c65da1263_o.jpg j in hand.jpg
AAAAAAAALd8/gRydIaDDyQc/s1600/y.jpg
http://christinastetlerphotography.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/j.jpg
Z-for-zorro-stairs.jpg
g.jpg
http://www.pxleyes.com/images/contests/alphabets/fullsize/
http://christinastetlerphotography.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/g.jpg
Z-for-zorro-4e9054cc1b324_hires.jpg
P.jpg http://alpha-photos.com/x/default/101_3531.jpg Washington_Monument_Dusk_Jan_2006 letter I.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c1/ Washington_Monument_Dusk_Jan_2006.jpg