History of Type

The 1950's

Key facts:

-Herman Zapf led the humanist movement and helped the progression of lines in sans and sans serif lines from structural to an organic base

Palatino 1950; open counters and weighted forms

Melior 1952; short ascenders and descenders specifically for letterpress

Optima 1958; sans serif with Roman and Calligraphic styles combined, golden ratio

-The Golden Ratio; forms the basis of paper sizes and is a means of achieving balance pg 68

-Helvetica created by Max Miedinger in 1957; clean no nonsense

- Adrian Frutiger created Univers in 1957; geometric and elegant, no frills

-Roger Excoffon created Mistral in 1953 and is based on his own handwriting

-International Style-Grids, mathmaical principles, minimal decor

-Jan Tschichold wrote The New Typography in 1928 wanted simplicity, like doing away with capitol letter so to be more efficient.  

 The 1950's was right after the second world war, a time of renewal and celebration in the world and in typography. In 1950 Herman Zapf a leader of the humanist movement and a genius in the field of calligraphy it is legible with open counters and weights strokes based on the Italian Renaissance. He also created Melior which is a newspaper face with short ascenders and descenders. In 1958 he created Optima influenced by the graves at the Santa Croce church and was originally sketched on two 1,000 lire bank notes, it is very general purpose becuase of it mix of Roman and calligraphic forms this was his most successful font.  In 1953 Roger Excoffon created Mistral a loose script based on his own handwriting.  1957 was a very busy year for typographer's including Max Miedinger the creator of Helvetica on of the most popular typefaces in the world, based on Akzidenz-Grotesk and is a strict no-nonsense font. The other person important to 1957 is Adrian Frutiger the creator of Univers although this font is much like Helvetica it is much more geometric with even less frills. The Internationl style otherwise known as the swiss style is based on the 1920's  of De Stijl Bauhaus and Jan Tschichold's The New Typography became a way to represent universal things not personal expression and was mainly based on mathematical principles. Jan Tschichold book  The New Typography published in 1928 explored simplicity, clarity, and functionality, sans serif fonts as well as the new concept of asymmetry.  He based this on his ideal of efficient materials to create a fairer world, an example is he didn't want to use uppercase letters. 

Max Miedinger

Herman Zapf

Roger Excoffon

Jan Tschichold

The Golden Ratio

      

     

        

Absolute Measurement- this is just what it says...a uniform way of spacing or measuring something. For example, points picas inches centimeters are all exact and no matter where you are they should be absolutely the same.  
Relative Measurement- are things like kerning and leading which measurements depend on the size of the type this keeps characters from running into each other.  
Points/Picas- There are 6 picas or 72 points in an inch.  These measurements are absolute and refer to the size of the actual moveable type 
x-height- i am pretty sure we already found this term but it refers to the height of the lower case "x" in that particular typeface, this is the measurement from the baseline to the meanline. 
The em. The en-These are both units of measurement for spacing.  Both the em and the en are relative measurements in that the size is based on the typeset.  The em is used for paragraph indents and spacing and is the same pt size as the font.  The en is half of the point size and is used to "denote clauses"
Dashes (hyphen, en, em)-the em and the en are also used for punctuation spacing. An en is half of an em and a third of an em.
Justifcation- how a block of text is aligned wear the text is touching both the left and right margins with the word spread equally in between

Flush Left- where all the text is lined up to the left margin even if they are jagged on the right 

Flush Right- when all the text is lines up tp the right margin even if they are jagged on the left
Letterspacing- when the spacing between letters are increased
Kerning- when the spacing in between the letters are being reduced
Tracking-the general term for the amount of space in between letter
Word Spacing-is a relative measurement based on a percentage value of an em and is the amount of space in between words this can be altered within your computers font settings. 
Widow- the lone word at the end of a paragraph
Orphan- the final one or two lines that get separated form the rest of the paragraph.  This is a type no no. 
Leading- the space between lines of type measured form baseline to baseline
First Line Indent- based on the length of an em or the gird helps the reader find the entry into a paragraph

Hanging Indent-when the first line of a paragraph is lined up with the left margin but all the lines after are lined up a certain amount in depending on the type size and em and en

a dictionary of type terms

want to make your own font

rules when designing your own font

Important Typo People

John Baskerville

Mr. John Baskerville is an interesting character (hahaha).  Not only did he create a font family he also was an innovator in the entire printing process making improvements on the construction of the red, the ink. The Baskerville font is described as a transition between the older style fonts of William Caslon and of the more modern fonts of Giambattista and Frimin Didot. His clarification with the serifs on the Baskerville font family is what makes them unique making them shaper and more pointed, he also messed around the axis of rounded letter. The most unifying thing about his type is the stability throughout the characters in size and form.

His first book was an edition of Virgil in 1754 on which he of course designed the typeface for and improved the paper he worked on. Among some of most distinguishable pieces he worked on is the Book of Common Prayer, the official prayer book of the church of England.  The appeal of the font for this was the simple design of the typeface and pages all while best utilizing the white space on a page.  During the printing of the book in 1762 a single column or two column some with or without decorations on fine paper in which he established himself.  Another distinguishable work of his is Milton’s Paradise Lost and Paradise Gained.  His goal was never to produce lots of books but to improve their artistic quality.

Baskerville fonts

The Baskerville Bible

Adrian Frutiger

 Adrian Frutiger is the first live typographer we have talked about yet, this I comment on because it amazes me how much there is to typography in general none the less that new fonts are being developed to this day. His latest project is to design a new watch face for a limited edition line for the Swiss watchmaker Ventura. He also recently designed the logo for the National Institute of Design. 

 

Mr. Frutiger is responsible for many typefaces some of the most infamous being Univers and Frutiger. Univers came about in 1957 and is described as a “realist sans-serif” typeface.  His typefaces are were created to assist the  movement of traditional printing methods to phototypesetting technologies.  The type family is based on numbers instead of names. The number describes the weight and the name describes what it is for example; 2 ultra Light is different from 2 Ultra Light Extended Oblique.  However each letter is very uniform and is based on typefaces by Akzidenz Grotesk.The Fruitger typeface based on the Univers typeface is known for the clear lines and legibility at far distances, which is why the Charles De Gaulle International Airport adopted it and is the font on many iMac keyboards.  Its influences are Univers and Gill Sans.

Just a cool linotype website

NID logo designed by Frutiger

Adrian Frutiger

Grids and grids

It is important for a designer to use a grid for several reasons.  I think one of the most important reason is to keep order. I know my mind wonders endlessly and sometimes i want to do things to do them but they may not make sense to others.  A grid creates an order that is hard to mess up.  Although some of those grids in the reading seemed pretty complicated i would particularly like to see how the one on page 150 in thinking with type.  The benefits of a grid is in fact the order it creates.  I also think it helps because in a project we as designers have a lot to create the grid is something sturdy to depend on. 

Information i should probably know so i am going to write i on here: 

one point = 1/72 in. or .35 millimeters 

12 points = 1 pica

Question why is it in the book they sat 12/14 Mrs Evans for example pg. 37 thinking with type

Polyglot bible

When i first started looking at the bible pages i thought of when i was growing up as a young Jewish girl and looking at the the Haftorah pages which are sectioned with the passage in the middle and then commentaries and commentaries on commentaries around the edges. 

The mishneh torah