A History of Type

A History of Type

Aims

simple introduction of the history of typography

Introduce the six main classifications of type

Introduce some famous typefaces and their related connotations

Introduce the metalinguistic function of typography

• Visual communication - Writing - Verbal communication
• Typography = Meta-Communication - Paralinguistic's - Kinesics
• Word has a linguistic function , but typography can help the speed or the way we read that language.

Type Classifications - 

• Humanist 
• old style
• transitional
• modern slab serif (egyptian
• sans serf

Modern Typography-

• The age of print began around 1450s - Gutenberg's printing press - Before monks created books.
• Term comes from the media theorist Marshall Mcluhan
• A lot of our alphabet comes from roman inscriptions , Trajan's Column 113AD
• Gutenberg Gothic Script 1450
• Humanist Typefaces , Greater kind of elegance - Designed to be a lot more readable. Moving and working with the new media. How you can identity humanist typeface - The cross stroke of the E has a slight ascender. ( Nicolas Jenson ,, Circa 1475)

The painter and designer Geofroy tory believed that the proportions of the alphabet should reflect the ideal human form he wrote the cross stroke covers the mans organ of generation to signify that modesty and chastity.

New Old Style Typefaces , using these types - class , Traditional & sophistication, Type chosen to match image

• Palatino
• Garamond
• Perpetua
• Goudy Old Style

Mid 18th century , Romanda

John Baskerville from Birmingham he created type with such contrast between thick and thin elements.

HUMANIST , OLD STYLE , TRANSITIONAL

Modern Typefaces

• Didone
• Bidoni
• These fonts get used in fashion magazines , editorial , style & Glamour eg. Vogue.
• Slab Serif/Egyptian - 1800's Loud brass fonts , used for Billboards - really shout at you. Used for heavy industry. Market traders.
• Fat face is an inflated hyper-bold type style developed in the early nineteenth century.
• Modernist San Serif Typefaces - Akzidenz Grotesk 1876
• - Times new roman font Stanley Morison 1932
• - Johann Christia Bauer in 1850. Used by the third reich until 1941
• Oswald Bruce Cooper, Cooper Black 1921
• Helvetica Bold. Designed on 1957 by Max Miedinger.

!944 Rudy Vanderlands ' There is a new generation of graphic designers who before ever considering what their favourite typeface is will design a new one.'

Jonathan Barnbrook 1990.

The Crystal Goblet by Beatrice  Warde - Excerpt from a Lecture to the British Typographers Guide.