I rewatched The History of Typography and was pleased to realize I'm beginning to understand the language of type. The video is not only visually compelling, but it's filled with information on this history of type classifications, what characteristics each classification possess, and the some examples of fonts to give a full picture snap shot of typography.
Some facts I picked up after watching the movie again:
Blackletter, the first typeface by Guttenberg, looked great when scribed, but had difficulties with legibility when printed. The introduction of Roman Type helped solve this issue. Because it was designed based off of straight lines and regular curves, the clean marks it made made it more legible and appear much lighter in weight compared to Blackletter.
Italics were initially created to save money. By setting type at an angle, it allowed printers to fit more letters on a page. We now use italics for emphasis.
One of my favorite parts of the video was when the comparisons between Old Style, Tranditonal, and Modern were all made within the same frame. It visually depicts the changes in type classifications over time in a concise manner, something that can be difficult to do without losing the attention of someone that doesn't know much about type. When it's shown this way, it becomes easier to understand:
Old Style has thick serifs and low contrast between thick and thin lines
Transitional has thinner serifs and high contrast between thick and thin lines
Modern has very thin serifs and extreme contrast between thick and thin lines
Advertising was a major influencer in type design. As marketing became more important, so did creating eye catching typography. Because of this, typefaces were made taller and bigger so they could be more visible on posters and billboards. This also opened the doors for experimentation in type design. Some were more successful than others, but this also lead to Egyptian typefaces or Slab Serif typefaces.
The last section of the movie touches on the different kinds of sans serif fonts. This was an area I felt pretty knowledgable about since my current project is on Gotham, a geometric sans serif.
Sunday, October 27, 2013
FUSE
FUSE magazine was about a lot of things, and in many ways, ahead of the curve.
It was about reclaiming typography, exploring form, making it sculptural, organic, show depth, be more architectural. The magazine was about exploring the edges of legibility, abandoning the grid, and making typography beautiful and poetic again.
Some designers created more than one typeface, but here is a list of all of the participants of FUSE magazine and their reinterpretation of typography:
Neville Brody - played with negative space, free form, loss of identity, restructured stories, half this form and half the next form
Gerard Unger - asked the question of why we need 26 characters to communicate...why not just 10?
Barry Deck - grunge, legibility
Paul Elliman - typography about people
Rick Vermeulen - morse code
Phil Bicker - graffiti, tagging
Tobias Frere-Jones - pollution, architecture free form, conversations turned into characters
Cornel Windlin - mechanical
M&Co - uppercase wrong, lowercase right
Mario Beernaert - painterly
David Crow - abstraction of corporate culture
John Critchley - free form body parts, hiding, shredding
LettError - promise
Xplicit FFM - textural
David Crow - DNA
Florian Heiss - surveillance
Function - Tourist version in Japan
Anna-Lisa Schönecker - spoons
Jason Baily - MS
TOBIAS FRERE-JONES
is an American type designer based out of New York. He currently works with Jonathan Hoefler at H&FJ, a font house, that has produced some of the most beloved fonts of our decade. Frere-Jones is best known designing the fonts Gotham, Interstate, and Archer and for participating in FUSE magazine. The photo on the left is an example of his typeface "Reactor" that redefines typography in a polluted sense. The more you type, the less legible it becomes.
Since Frere-Jones is a living designer, he was featured in the film Helvetica. Here is an interview of him and Hoefler that was used in the film.
H&FJ in Helvetica
NEVILLE BRODY
is an English graphic designer, art director, and typographer. He graduated from the London College of Printing and Hornsey College of Art to receive a BFA in Graphic Design. Brody is known for having a strong punk rock influence in his work, which was a popular genre of music in London at the time of his education. In his early years of design, he focused mainly on designing album covers for a variety of bands, such as Depeche Mode and Cabaret Voltaire, but his involvement with The Face Magazine (first publication in 1980) was what really made his name popular. He moved on to work for London Newspapers, The Guardian and The Observer, and numerous magazines, City Limits, Lei, Per Lui, Arena, and Actuel.
Brody currently works in his own design studio, Research Studios, alongside Fwa Richards. Their company is located in London, Paris, Berlin, and Barcelona. Anything from typeface, packaging, and website design can be found in their portfolio. Brody is also well known for his involvement/founding of FontShop, a typeface foundry based out of London. He has designed typefaces for FontShop, as well as, FUSE, a magazine that he helped initiate.
JOHN CRITCHLEY
is an English typeface designer that joined Nveille Brody's Research Studio. He later became the Art Director of MTV Networks in Europe and more recently was placed as the Art Director of the cultural institution in Europes largest ceneter for the arts, Southbank Centre. He now works in a variety of media for clients, touching on advertising, television, film, publishing, and record companies. His most recent endeavor involved forming Visual Material, which incorporates print, animation, and web design clients.
JASON BAILEY
There wasn't a lot of information on Jason Bailey, but I found a quote from him on the subject of his typeface in FUSE, Sclerosis Script, which helps explain his purpose behind the design:
"One of the most frustrating aspects of MS," he says, "is the way in which one's ability to communicate is impaired. I have tried to translate this frustration into the font Sclerosis Script. The letterforms that make up the font are digitized examples of my mother's handwriting, with certain characters having had their 'natural' kerning relationships with other characters greatly exaggerated. Thus, like the condition itself, the experience of using Sclerosis Script cannot be completely controlled."
RICK VERMEULEN
is a graphic designer based out of the Netherlands. He attended Rotterdam Academy and worked regularly for Bert Bakker as a participant in Rotterdam's Graphic Workshops. In the late 70s and Early 80s, Vermeulen was the editor of Hard Werken magazine, a cultural tabloid that made considerable national attention. The company went into financial crisis, relocated to Amsterdam, and renamed the company Inizio. He still works for Vermeulen and has since designed two typefaces for FUSE.
‘I don't think anything designed should be considered as art. It's not only about the experimentation with form. There is always a client’
GERARD UNGER
is a graphic designer from the Netherlands. He studied graphic design, typography, and type design at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam. Unger has had a very strong academic presence in the world of design. He has taught Typography and Graphic Communication at The University of Reading (UK), Gerrit Rietveld Academy (Amsterdam) and Typography at the University of Leiden. He lectures frequently in Holland and abroad, about his own work, as well as, type design, newspaper design, and related subjects. In his career, he has designed stamps, coins, magazines, newspapers, books, logo's, corporate identities, annual reports, and many typefaces.
Unger's typeface, Decoder, challenges the idea that we don't need 26 characters to communicate. Why not have a typeface that uses only 10?
It was about reclaiming typography, exploring form, making it sculptural, organic, show depth, be more architectural. The magazine was about exploring the edges of legibility, abandoning the grid, and making typography beautiful and poetic again.
Some designers created more than one typeface, but here is a list of all of the participants of FUSE magazine and their reinterpretation of typography:
Neville Brody - played with negative space, free form, loss of identity, restructured stories, half this form and half the next form
Gerard Unger - asked the question of why we need 26 characters to communicate...why not just 10?
Barry Deck - grunge, legibility
Paul Elliman - typography about people
Rick Vermeulen - morse code
Phil Bicker - graffiti, tagging
Tobias Frere-Jones - pollution, architecture free form, conversations turned into characters
Cornel Windlin - mechanical
M&Co - uppercase wrong, lowercase right
Mario Beernaert - painterly
David Crow - abstraction of corporate culture
John Critchley - free form body parts, hiding, shredding
LettError - promise
Xplicit FFM - textural
David Crow - DNA
Florian Heiss - surveillance
Function - Tourist version in Japan
Anna-Lisa Schönecker - spoons
Jason Baily - MS
TOBIAS FRERE-JONES
 |
| Reactor - Typeface for FUSE magazine |
is an American type designer based out of New York. He currently works with Jonathan Hoefler at H&FJ, a font house, that has produced some of the most beloved fonts of our decade. Frere-Jones is best known designing the fonts Gotham, Interstate, and Archer and for participating in FUSE magazine. The photo on the left is an example of his typeface "Reactor" that redefines typography in a polluted sense. The more you type, the less legible it becomes.
Since Frere-Jones is a living designer, he was featured in the film Helvetica. Here is an interview of him and Hoefler that was used in the film.
H&FJ in Helvetica
NEVILLE BRODY
 |
| Neville Brody Work Wall |
Brody currently works in his own design studio, Research Studios, alongside Fwa Richards. Their company is located in London, Paris, Berlin, and Barcelona. Anything from typeface, packaging, and website design can be found in their portfolio. Brody is also well known for his involvement/founding of FontShop, a typeface foundry based out of London. He has designed typefaces for FontShop, as well as, FUSE, a magazine that he helped initiate.
JOHN CRITCHLEY
 |
| Critchley's typeface in FUSE, Ollie, which depicted typography with the sensation of hiding. |
JASON BAILEY
 |
| Sclerosisscript, a typeface designed to communicate through the restrictions of MS. |
"One of the most frustrating aspects of MS," he says, "is the way in which one's ability to communicate is impaired. I have tried to translate this frustration into the font Sclerosis Script. The letterforms that make up the font are digitized examples of my mother's handwriting, with certain characters having had their 'natural' kerning relationships with other characters greatly exaggerated. Thus, like the condition itself, the experience of using Sclerosis Script cannot be completely controlled."
RICK VERMEULEN
 |
| The packaging design for FUSE 6, which used morse code as a typographic system |
‘I don't think anything designed should be considered as art. It's not only about the experimentation with form. There is always a client’
GERARD UNGER
 |
| Decoder typeface featured in FUSE |
Unger's typeface, Decoder, challenges the idea that we don't need 26 characters to communicate. Why not have a typeface that uses only 10?
Thursday, October 17, 2013
All Things Typography
As Typography progressed and technology advanced, fonts began to develop characteristics and style. Today, we have a variety of classifications for fonts.
OLD STYLE
It all began with Francesco Griffo's designs of the punchcutter. Influenced by During this time period (1475), everything was made by hand and therefore, mimicked letterforms as if handwritten.
Defining Characteristics:
wedge serifs
slight diagonal stress
contrasting stroke weight
scooped serifs
Font Examples:
Bembo, Garamond, Bookman
No significant advancements or trends changed in the typographic world for a while. 280 years to be precise. But naturally, as time passed, technology advanced. Typographic tools were invented to make more intricate marks, which in turn, created more font styles.
TRANSITIONAL
This font classification showcases the transition in the 1700s from Old Style to Modern, hence the name, Transitional.
Defining Characteristics:
greater contrast in stroke weight
slight vertical stress
typically wider than Old Style
bracketed serifs
tall x-height
Font Examples:
Baskerville, Century, Caslon
25 more years pass with a little more font evolution
MODERN
Inspired by the Transitional font classification, the Modern typefaces were born in the late 1700s.
Defining Characteristics:
hairline serifs
vertical stress
mathematical
high contrasting stroke weight
unbracketed serifs
Typically wide letters (M&W) are condensed and others (P&T) are expanded
Font Examples:
Didot, Walbaum, Bodoni
SLAB SERIF (EGYPTIAN)
Vincent Figgins introduced slab-serif typestyles in 1815 under the name Antique. During this time period, Egyptian artifacts were extremely popular, which inspired the name of this font classification by typefounders.
Defining Characteristics:
thick serifs
medium contrasting stroke widths
monoweight
stress on curved strokes is minimal
usually unbracketed serifs
geometric/constructed
Font Examples:
Swift, Rockwell, Serifa
SANS SERIF
The name alone describes the root of this classification. No serifs. William Caslon IV released the first sans serif typestyle in an 1816 specimen book.
Defining Characteristics:
Monoweight, typically uniform stroke weight
Vertical Stress
Geometric construction typically
Some combine organic and geometric characteristics
Further Classifications with Font Examples:
Geometric - Futura, Gotham, Din, Kabel
Humanist - Frutiger, Meta, Syntax
Grotesque - Interstate, Trade Gothic, Accidents Grotesque, Helvetica
Here are a few definitions to get you on my nerd level
Proportions of the letterform
There are four major letterform proportion variables that end up having a large impact on the appearance of a typeface.
Ratio of letterform heigh to stroke width
variation between the thickest and thinnest strokes of the letterform
width of the letters
relationship of x-heigh to the height of capitals, ascenders, and descenders.
Stroke Weight
Describes the thickness/width of the major lines comprising a letterform.
Axis/Stress
The visual axis created by the relationship between thick and thin strokes. Can be left-angled, vertical, or right angled.
Small Caps
A set of capital letters that have the same x-height as the lowercase letters. Often used for abbreviations, cross references, and emphasis.
Lining Figures
Numbers that align with the height of the captial letters and the baseline
Non-Aligning Figures
Also called Old Style Figures. Numbers that are have varying alignments. 1, 2, and 0 align with the x-height; 6 and 8 have ascenders; and 3, 4, 5, 7, and 9 have descenders
Ligatures
Two or more characters linked together as one unit, such as ff and & (which originated as the combination of the French word et ("and").
Dashes
Apostrophes
Optical relationships within a font
Adjustments purposefully made to correct spacial problems between letters. Pointed and Curved letters have less weight at the top and bottom guidelines, which makes them appear shorter. To change this appearance, the apexes of these letters go beyond the baseline and capline so that they appear to be the same height as the other capital letters.
Type Measurement
The point system of measurement was created by Pierre Simon Fournier, a French type designer. Before 1737, there were no standards for measuring type. The current system, developed in the 1870s uses the point and pica system of measurement.
72 points in an inch
12 points in a pica
~6 picas in an inch
There are three dimensions of type design:
The depth of type is measured in points and called the point size or body size.
All metal type must be the same height (called type high) so that it prints at a uniform impression.
The width of type is called set width, but it varies usually from letter to letter. M & W are the widest and I is the narrowest.
The length of a line of type is measured by the sum of the set width of each character and the spaces in between. It is measured in picas.
text type - Size 12 point type and less is used mainly for body copy.
display type - Type over 12 points and is primarily used for titles, headlines, signage, etc.
Metal type maxes at size 72 point type and has a minimum of 5 points.
A few terms
Type House/Font House
A collaboration of designers that focus on type design.
A few well known Font Houses
House Industries
H&FJ
Adobe
P22
Underware
Typophile
Font Brothers
OLD STYLE
It all began with Francesco Griffo's designs of the punchcutter. Influenced by During this time period (1475), everything was made by hand and therefore, mimicked letterforms as if handwritten.
Defining Characteristics:
wedge serifs
slight diagonal stress
contrasting stroke weight
scooped serifs
Font Examples:
Bembo, Garamond, Bookman
No significant advancements or trends changed in the typographic world for a while. 280 years to be precise. But naturally, as time passed, technology advanced. Typographic tools were invented to make more intricate marks, which in turn, created more font styles.
TRANSITIONAL
This font classification showcases the transition in the 1700s from Old Style to Modern, hence the name, Transitional.
Defining Characteristics:
greater contrast in stroke weight
slight vertical stress
typically wider than Old Style
bracketed serifs
tall x-height
Font Examples:
Baskerville, Century, Caslon
25 more years pass with a little more font evolution
MODERN
Inspired by the Transitional font classification, the Modern typefaces were born in the late 1700s.
Defining Characteristics:
hairline serifs
vertical stress
mathematical
high contrasting stroke weight
unbracketed serifs
Typically wide letters (M&W) are condensed and others (P&T) are expanded
Font Examples:
Didot, Walbaum, Bodoni
SLAB SERIF (EGYPTIAN)
Vincent Figgins introduced slab-serif typestyles in 1815 under the name Antique. During this time period, Egyptian artifacts were extremely popular, which inspired the name of this font classification by typefounders.
Defining Characteristics:
thick serifs
medium contrasting stroke widths
monoweight
stress on curved strokes is minimal
usually unbracketed serifs
geometric/constructed
Font Examples:
Swift, Rockwell, Serifa
SANS SERIF
The name alone describes the root of this classification. No serifs. William Caslon IV released the first sans serif typestyle in an 1816 specimen book.
Defining Characteristics:
Monoweight, typically uniform stroke weight
Vertical Stress
Geometric construction typically
Some combine organic and geometric characteristics
Further Classifications with Font Examples:
Geometric - Futura, Gotham, Din, Kabel
Humanist - Frutiger, Meta, Syntax
Grotesque - Interstate, Trade Gothic, Accidents Grotesque, Helvetica
Here are a few definitions to get you on my nerd level
Proportions of the letterform
There are four major letterform proportion variables that end up having a large impact on the appearance of a typeface.
Ratio of letterform heigh to stroke width
variation between the thickest and thinnest strokes of the letterform
width of the letters
relationship of x-heigh to the height of capitals, ascenders, and descenders.
Stroke Weight
Describes the thickness/width of the major lines comprising a letterform.
Axis/Stress
The visual axis created by the relationship between thick and thin strokes. Can be left-angled, vertical, or right angled.
Small Caps
A set of capital letters that have the same x-height as the lowercase letters. Often used for abbreviations, cross references, and emphasis.
Lining Figures
Numbers that align with the height of the captial letters and the baseline
Non-Aligning Figures
Also called Old Style Figures. Numbers that are have varying alignments. 1, 2, and 0 align with the x-height; 6 and 8 have ascenders; and 3, 4, 5, 7, and 9 have descenders
Ligatures
Two or more characters linked together as one unit, such as ff and & (which originated as the combination of the French word et ("and").
Dashes
Apostrophes
Optical relationships within a font
Adjustments purposefully made to correct spacial problems between letters. Pointed and Curved letters have less weight at the top and bottom guidelines, which makes them appear shorter. To change this appearance, the apexes of these letters go beyond the baseline and capline so that they appear to be the same height as the other capital letters.
Type Measurement
The point system of measurement was created by Pierre Simon Fournier, a French type designer. Before 1737, there were no standards for measuring type. The current system, developed in the 1870s uses the point and pica system of measurement.
72 points in an inch
12 points in a pica
~6 picas in an inch
There are three dimensions of type design:
The depth of type is measured in points and called the point size or body size.
All metal type must be the same height (called type high) so that it prints at a uniform impression.
The width of type is called set width, but it varies usually from letter to letter. M & W are the widest and I is the narrowest.
The length of a line of type is measured by the sum of the set width of each character and the spaces in between. It is measured in picas.
text type - Size 12 point type and less is used mainly for body copy.
display type - Type over 12 points and is primarily used for titles, headlines, signage, etc.
Metal type maxes at size 72 point type and has a minimum of 5 points.
A few terms
Type House/Font House
A collaboration of designers that focus on type design.
A few well known Font Houses
House Industries
H&FJ
Adobe
P22
Underware
Typophile
Font Brothers
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