Typography Assessment

Jenni Corbett

Typography

Definition;The craft of composing type and printing from it.

Typography is both an art and a technique. The goal is to create readable content that is also visually appealing.

Good typography enhances the readability and aesthetic presentation of any material.

Bad typography will distract the reader's attention from even the most well composed and planned document.

Johannes Gutenburg1450 – 1480 Before the printing press, books were produced by scribes. Johannes Gutenberg perfected movable type and created the Gutenberg printing press.  A punch made of steel, with a mirror image of the letter is struck into a piece of softer metal. Molten metal is poured into this, and you get type. The type is put into a matrix to form the page of text, inked, then pressed into paper.

(The Gutenberg Press)

Industrial RevolutionSteam, Line-casting &Automated Punch-cutting(1870-95; end 1950-65) 

Rotary steam presses (steam 1814, rotary 1868) replaced hand-operated ones, doing the same job in 16 per cent of the time; photo-engraving took over from handmade printing plates.Typesetting itself was transformed by the introduction of line-casting machines

Photocomposition(1950-60, end 1975-85)

The first photo composition devices didn't really catch on until the early 1950s. Typeface masters for photocomposition or phototypesetting are on film; the characters are projected onto photo-sensitive paper. Lenses are used to adjust the size of the image, scaling the type to the desired size.

(disks for photosetting)

Uses of Typography in Historical Artifacts

Ideographs

Ideographs substituted symbols and abstractions for pictures of events.A symbol of a star represented the heavensA peace pipe represented peace.. Chinese alphabets are still based on ideographs.

The Egyptians still used drawings to represent objects or ideas, but were the first to use objects to represent sounds.

Hieroglyphics

"Trajan's Column”113ce

One of the most famous example of Roman square capitals.A script style is often used for stone monuments.

It was designed to be read from below so the bottom layers are slightly smaller than the top to give perspective.

A page of the first volume of the Guttenberg Bible.

1455

The first major book to be printed with amovable type printing press

The posters were designed to have a uniform device, be a design associated with the Ministry of Information, have a unique and recognizable typography, with a message from the King to his people (whereas it later notoriously became "the People's War").

War time Propaganda1939

Compare and contrast two movements from typography history

Art Nouveau

Features:

OrnateDecoratedFlowingArtisticfluid strokes Asymmetric flourishesLavish

Typography of the Art Nouveau period was flowing and artistic. Sometimes over decorated, typographers of the late 1800s designed with fluid strokes and asymmetric flourishes. The Art Nouveau movement was the dawn of display type.

William Morris was the founder of the Art Nouveau Arts and Crafts Movement in England.

Swiss typography movement 1950s

This includes the fonts:

HelveticaArielEurostyleUniversFrutiger

The International Typographic Style, also known as the Swiss Style, is a graphic design style developed in Switzerland in the 1950s

It is characteristically modern. It is an extension of the Bauhaus principals developed in Zurich.

Key figures of the style included Ernst Keller, Theo Ballmer, Max Bill and Max Huber

It emphasizes cleanliness, readability and objectivity.

Hallmarks of the style are asymmetric layouts, use of a grid, sans-serif typefaces like Akzidenz Grotesk, and flush left, ragged right text.

The style is also associated with a preference for photography in place of illustrations or drawings.

Discuss the differences between Occidental and Oriental type.

The English alphabet only has 26 letters

3 systems : Uppercase Lower case

Italics

Western typography mixes capitals or uppercase letters with lower case to from coherent sentences.

Occidental

Western typography has always reflected the development of art in Europe, from baroque and Futurism etc Therefore we could say western typography has always been about the development of new trends.

The Chinese language has over 8,000 individual characters, of which about 3,500 are most commonly used.

Each character has its own pronunciation, and there is no way to guess it. Chinese requires memorizing about 4,000 characters.

Each character has to be accurate other wise could mean something completely different.

Which means there are less typestyles available in Oriental typography

Japanese is different again so each symbol represents a syllable, combining to form words

Eastern type is therefore more ornate, with stokes forming patterns – little pictures almost symbolizing words and phrases. This is possibly why

Chinese characters are often called ideograms – an ideograph is a graphic symbol that represents a concept or idea.

Oriental

Logographic writing systems are direct contrasts to the alphabetic principle of English spelling in how they represent meaning and speech.

Both oriental and occidental type can employ serifs to decorate, create and definite different styles of font

Pictograms are sometimes used to convey meaning through a shape that identifies them.

Oriental and occidental – Other Comparisons

Describe how the digital world influences and affects type

Describe how the digital world influences and affects type

The digital world is a medium people now Consume everyday.

Two main features designs must think about when designing for web are:

READABILITY

The whole text can be read and understood

LEGIABILITY

So each letter is clear and can be defined

Originally typographers would slave over the perfection of a new type face.Patience and dedication went into creating a new typeface, however the advances in technology and the shift to a digital world has changed this.

Design software has made it easy for any designer or amateur to become a type founder.There are also hundreds of resources for free fonts online.

This means there is a massive resource of font of every nature and style with many variations.

However fonts that work on screen may not necessarily work well on paper.

The current concern in the web medium is that designers are a little weary to utilize fancy fonts due to the extreme focus on website usability and search engine optimization.

2010 was the year of typography. There are more fonts available than ever before and the list is still expanding.

The screens of change

People are consuming information through various different digital screens from iPhones, iPads, TV’s and computers. The range and sizes of screens is varied.

Fonts must be versatile enough to be able to be read on these different media as information from one website/source can now be viewed across the range of screens.

Fonts are being designed in such a way now so they are clear on digital displays.

Typefaces must be easily read and legible for people to pay attention and read them.As there is so much information one person is exposed to every day, for a viewer to stop and read the information the type must also be visually pleasing.

Explain how different fonts can change the impact of a message

In Advertising the relationship between image and font is very important.

Typography Is important to communicate tone of voice.

It might be a whisper

Or a SHOUT

A font can be seen to have its own personality.Its structure can relate to different things.

A decorated font might depict femininity,

Where as a thick slab type face mightbe more masculine.

Choosing the right font is crucial to the impact of your message.

A Skinny decorated font gives a girly feel.

Big bold fonts give an impression of masculinity strength.

Worn, tattered fonts look modern

Fonts with curled edges create a sense of tranquility and beauty.

Colour is also important in typography, it can give emphasis, evoke emotions and help to set a mood.

Typefaces can be incorporated within an advert design as well as being used solely to generate the main design of the advert.

This can create a very powerful impact on the consumer eye and helps to connect the message of the advert with out overcrowding the layout.

Sambrook’s Brewery

Poster design for the new Beer344 aimed at an international market.The Rough font gives a modern, fun feel to the campaign in keeping with the fun Innuendo of the poster design.

Batiste

Batiste is a dry shampoo – to refresh your hair between washes.As this as was mainly female focused the fontUsed was thin, clean and clear in keeping with the theme of the product.