Graphion’s Online Type Museum

Table of content

Organised around six sections (Typographic visionnaries, Elements of typesetting style, Old Phototypesetter tales, Q&A, The Crystal Goblet and a glossary), these pages were written by Michael Sanborn, formerly a typesetter for a company named Graphion. About his site, the author used to say that “the museum serves as both a gallery of typographic trivia and a repository of information that today's graphic designers really should know and don’t. (…) A lot of elements of typographic art have been forgotten”.

Typographic Visionnaries

This is a gallery of the individuals who, through their creative drive and passion for their craft, formed the world of type as we know it today.

• Johannes Gutenberg (1398-1468)
• William Caxton (1422-1491)
• Aldus Manutius (1450-1515)
• William Caslon (1692-1766)
• John Baskerville (1706-75) [Page Lost]
• Giambattista Bodoni (1740-1813)
• Frederic W. Goudy (1865-1947)
• Eric Gill (1882-1940)
• Jan Tschichold (1902-1974)
  

Other documents

• The Crystal Goblet (An excerpt from Beatrice Warde’s Lecture to the British Typographers’ Guild)
• Typographic Glossary

fonte: Graphion’s Online Type Museum

...

Type in the Future Tense

Excerpted from the article originally published in Communication Arts Jan./Feb. 2000.

With the arrival of a new millennium, it’s worth taking a look at our notions of type of the future. Obviously, there is no way of knowing what type will look like at the end of the next millennium—or if it will even exist as we know it—but we can look at current type that reflects our ideas of the future.

Although to look at “futuristic” type design is at once problematic. What makes any typeface inherently futuristic? If you look at type associated with early 20th century modernist movements such as De Stijl or the Bauhaus, you cannot say that designers associated with these groups were intentionally making futuristic typefaces. One underlying factor of all type identified as having futuristic aspects is experimentation. Experimentation in type projects ideas we associate with the future. For example, type designs associated with the De Stijl movement of the ’20s is often very rectilinear in form or made up of a series of rectangular shapes like building blocks (that may or may not be connected); they convey a sense of architectural horizontal and vertical elements—stripped down to basic components. There are many other aspects of form in type design that convey a sense of what we associate with the future: The use of extended or oblique projects speed; rectilinear form emphasizes structure; the use of weight and contrast conveys mass or strength; stroke width accentuates line and becomes a metaphor for electronic circuitry and communication; abbreviated shapes and glyphic forms project images of text as a new and unfamiliar language; organic forms visually reiterate aerodynamic forms traveling through time and space; geometric and mechanical emphasis, or various combinations of these components—whether used in a subtle way or in the most avant-garde experimental design—transform the familiar letterform into something exotic and otherworldly.

Some of the most prominent examples of futuristic type today appear frequently in display lettering. This kind of lettering can have a powerful effect on how products are perceived and what they represent in terms of identity. It is seen in use on electronic games, fashion, broadcast sports titles, graphic materials and ads for action sports such as snowboarding that cater to a young demographic, and it’s also part of graphic design associated with contemporary electronic dance and techno music genres.

Another example is futuristic elements in the logotypes designed for vehicle model nameplates. Frequently die-cast and chromed, these nameplates have letterforms that are often oblique and extended, projecting futuristic aspirations. In this context this kind of type transforms our perception of the gasoline-powered vehicle, repackaging a technology basically of the late 19th century, into one that is sleek, sophisticated and a contemporary mode of transportation.
Next Section >> Influential Faces >[Ler mais...]




Above (Clockwise from the top left): Taser ™ Round Black designed by Jim Marcus; Basis ™ Thin designed by David Weik, both from T-26 Digital Type Foundry www.t26font.com; Cyberotica ™ Bold designed by Barry Deck, Thirstype www.thirstype.com; FF Koko ™ Five designed by Kai Zimmermann, FontShop International www.fontshop.com; FB Clicker ™ designed by Greg Thompson, The Font Bureau, Inc. www.fontbureau.com.

Post-Industrial Sans Type

Excerpted from the article originally published in Communication Arts August, 1999.

With the constant demand in design and advertising for typefaces that reflect a contemporary look, there has been a resurgence of interest in sans serif typefaces. There are a number of innovative new sans designs as well as revivals of vintage sans typefaces. Many of these share a common utilitarian, technical quality that has made them particularly fitting for use in the complex, layered and constantly changing digital age we live in. It is worth looking back at the evolution of sans serif type in order to place post-industrial sans designs in historical context.
Next Section >> Early Sans Designs >[Ler mais...]

Above: FB Interstate™ designed by Tobias Frere-Jones, 1993-94, Font Bureau, Inc., www.fontbureau.com

AIGA_design archives

Design Archives now includes selections from the 1994-2006 "365: AIGA Design Competitions."

Typography School

Typography School (04:59)
Veteran graphic design/typography and letterpress teacher from the London College of Printing: David Dabner talks... giving an insight into the principles of design, Veteran graphic design/typography and letterpress teacher from the London College of Printing: David Dabner talks... giving an insight into the principles of design, creative letterpress and why computers make students sloppy.

Tags: printing metal type graphic dabner grierson design typography typesetting letterpress fonts lcc lcp london graphics Added: 8 months ago in Category: Film & Animation From: omairways

culture catalysts

Rene Knip

www.nijhoflee.nl

http://maxbruinsma.nl/index1.html

Max Bruinsma

free-lance critic, editor, lecturer, curator
independent consultant editorial design

> short biography / korte biografie
Max Bruinsma is an independent design critic, editor, curator and editorial designer. He is former editor of Eye, the international review of graphic design in London. He studied art-, architecture- and design history in Groningen and Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Since 1985, his critical writings have featured regularly in major Dutch art- and design journals and in a range of international design publications (a.o. Graphis, Idea, Blueprint, The AIGA Journal, Eye, Form). Before he took over from founding editor Rick Poynor at Eye, Bruinsma was editor of the Dutch design magazine Items, published several books on (graphic and new media) design, and taught at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy and the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam. His latest book is 'Deep Sites, intelligent innovation in contemporary webdesign', published by Thames & Hudson, in English and French editions, april 2003.

In 2005, Max Bruinsma curated a major exhibition on the cultural significance of communication design, 'Catalysts!', for the ExperimentaDesign biennale in Lisbon. He is currently a curatorial advisor for the biennale and Experimenta's general editorial consultant. Bruinsma is co-founder of a new masters course in Editorial Design at the Graduate School of Visual Art and Design, Utrecht, the Netherlands, which also started September 2005. A guest lecturer on contemporary art and design, Bruinsma has presented at numerous art academies and congresses throughout the world, including on-line courses and workshops for several design academies. Besides his work as an art- and design critic and educator, he was a music editor and program maker for VPRO, a Dutch radio and television broadcasting organisation and an advisor on cultural affairs for a great variety of institutions. In 2005, Max Bruinsma received the Pierre Bayle Prize for Design Criticism.

Max Bruinsma's shortest definition of the design profession is:
"Designers are cultural catalysts".


> positions

> publications

> lectures, presentations, panels

> miscellaneous activities

> education - received / given


> Steve Heller interviews Max Bruinsma
(Print, may/june 2000)

Steven Heller

Steven Heller wears many hats (in addition to the the New York Yankees): For 33 years he has been an art director of the New York Times, originally on the OpEd Page and for almost 30 of those years on the New York Times Book Review. Currently he is a senior art director. He also writes book reviews and obituaries for the Times.

He is the founder and co-chair of the MFA Designer as Author program at the School of Visual Arts, New York, where he lectures on the history of graphic design. Prior to this, he lectured for 14 years on the history of illustration in the MFA Illustration as Visual Essay program at the School of Visual arts. He also was director for ten years of SVA’s Modernism & Eclecticism: A History of American Graphic Design symposiums.

With Seymour Chwast he has directed Push Pin Editions, a packager of visual books, and with his wife Louise Fili he has produced over twenty books and design products for Chronicle Books and other publishers.

For over two decades he has been contributing editor to PRINT, EYE, BASELINE, and I.D. magazines, had has contributed hundreds of articles, critical essays, and columns (including his interview column "Dialogue" in PRINT) to a score of other design and culture journals.

As editor of the AIGA JOURNAL OF GRAPHIC DESIGN he published scores of critical and journalistic writers on design, and currently as editor of AIGA VOICE: Online Journal of Design, he continues to help build a critical vocabulary for the field.

The author, co-author, and/or editor of over 100 books on design and popular culture, Heller has worked with a score of publishers, including Chronicle Books, Allworth Press, Harry N. Abrams, Phaidon Press, Taschen Press, Abbeville Press, Thames & Hudson, Rockport, Northlight, and more. He is currently completing "Iron Fists: Branding the Totalitarian State" for Phaidon Press, an anaylsis of how the major dictatorships used graphics to propagate their ideologies.

He has produced or been curator of a number of exhibitions, including "Art Against War," "The Satiric Image: Painters as Cartoonists and Caricaturists," "The Malik Verlag," and "The Art of Simplicissumus: Germany’s Most Influential Satire Magazine," among them. He has organized various conferences, including The School of Visual Arts’ "How We Learn What We Learn," devoted to the future of design education, and the AIGA’s "Looking Closer: Graphic Design History and Criticism."

Heller is also the recipient of the AIGA Medal for Lifetime Achievement in 1999, the Art Directors Club Hall of Fame Special Educators Award in 1996, The Pratt Institute Herschel Levitt Award in 2000, and the Society of Illustrators Richard Gangel Award for Art Direction in 2006.

This website is a summary of Steven Heller’s lifetime achievements in design practice, publishing, and teaching. Over time a blog component will be added and various articles will be made available for download.

©2006 Steven Heller Site Design by Landers/Miller Design

The Story of Verdana

In 1994, Microsoft began a typeface development project which was to forever raise the bar for quality standards of screen type. The goal was to produce a new family of sans serif typefaces as TrueType outline fonts which had exceptional readability. To do the job right would require a team of individuals skilled in art, craft and engineering. For the type designer, they chose the talent of Matthew Carter, and for the technological expertise, they chose Tom Rickner of Monotype Imaging.

Matthew Carter’s breadth of experience includes cutting punches in steel for metal typefaces, editing bitmaps, and drawing outlines for photo and digital systems. One typeface of note is Matthew's Bell Centennial, which he designed as a bitmap for use on the new CRT typesetting systems of the late 1970’s. That typeface was used to print phone books, which are notorious for being printed on poor quality paper at high speeds. So when Microsoft presented Matthew with the challenge of designing a highly legible and readable outline font, optimized for the screen, he borrowed a chapter from his past and began by making bitmaps.

The pixel, or picture element, is the basic building block of screen type. Every bit, whether black, white or gray has tremendous impact on our ability to read fluidly and without impediment. Matthew therefore focused his attentions on the final product which people would read, namely three sizes of bitmaps for each of four weights of this new sans serif typeface family. From those bitmaps, Matthew “wrapped” outlines around them, which would in turn be produced as hinted TrueType outlines.

What is TrueType hinting, anyway? Hinting is both engineering and art. It is about defining and controlling the structure of letters. It requires the elimination of subtlety at small sizes where choices are limited. Hinting enforces consistency among similar features, where mathematical chance could introduce optical and typographical errors. It is accomplished by writing small computer programs for each glyph in a font. These programs adjust the shape of the scaled outline to improve the bitmap which is generated by the rasterizer.

Tom Rickner is well versed in TrueType hinting. He was a part of the TrueType development team at Apple Computer, where he hinted and oversaw the production on the first TrueType fonts to be released with Apple’s System 7. After leaving Apple and prior to joining Monotype Imaging, Tom worked as a freelance designer, hinting custom typefaces for such clients as Apple and Microsoft.

Hinting is full of decision making, such as choosing the right compromises between shape, spacing and proportions. However the Verdana project added a new element. Typically, the hinter exercises his or her own judgment in adjusting the font to best represent the “spirit” of the outlines at a given size. With Verdana, Tom had to apply hints in such a way as to reproduce the bitmaps which Matthew had created, while still faithfully rendering the outlines at all other sizes. This required further compromise. In some rare cases, the bitmaps which Matthew had designed were too radically different from the outlines, and so the bitmaps had to be modified. In other cases, Tom’s hinting resulted in a different yet preferable bitmap, and that revision was adopted as well. However, the vast majority of letters appear just as Matthew first designed them, matching his vision pixel for pixel.

Since Verdana first shipped with Internet Explorer in 1996, it has become one of the most widely specified fonts in Web sites around the world. We choose to attribute this to both the universal appeal of the design, and the quality of the rendering. The team of Carter, Monotype Imaging and Microsoft have since produced other widely used typeface families, including the condensed cousins to Verdana, named Tahoma and Nina, and Matthew’s serifed family named Georgia. It should be noted that Monotype Imaging’s role has not been limited to supplying technical expertise alone. When Microsoft chose to extend Tahoma to support the Hebrew, Arabic, and Thai scripts, they chose the expertise of Monotype Imaging and its talented drawing office. But that is another story...
[Ler mais...]

Chronicles Of Design Past And Present

Typography and Graphic Design: From Antiquity to the Present
By Roxane Jubert
Reviewed by Steven Heller

For more than twenty years Philip B. Meggs’s A History of Graphic Design, the first umbrella graphic design history, has been the standard textbook, at least in the United States, and Richard Hollis’s Graphic Design: A Concise History, has been a compact alternative. Supplemented by many thematic histories, as well as a slew of monographs on leading form-givers, it would appear that graphic design history has more than enough chronicles for educational purposes.

What need could there be for another omnibus textbook? That was my question when I received this book, which covers the same territory as the latest edition of Meggs’ book – now titled Meggs’ History of Graphic Design (Wiley, 2006).

On the surface this seems like the duplication of considerable effort, but Ms Jubert’s volume veers from Meggs’s taxonomies in significant ways, and more importantly, as pointed out in the foreword, ‘In France . . . the few works published on the subject, including dictionaries, are translations’. Therefore, for a French audience this book is an integral addition to graphic design scholarship. Yet since Typography and Graphic Design has been translated into English, it needs to be compared to extant English language books. For purposes here, I use Meggs as the touchstone.

To begin with, both Meggs and Jubert focus almost exclusively on Western accomplishments, and while Japan is covered, most other non-Western countries are not. Both begin their surveys with cave paintings and follow with a summary of the invention of writing. Each nimbly treks through the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and Mr Gutenberg’s great achievement. Jumping to the late nineteenth century, both cover Arts & Crafts by reproducing the cover for Wren’s City Churches and Morris’s Work of Geoffrey Chaucer.

Meggs’s table of contents is sparer than Jubert’s, which lists many more macro sub-categories under larger thematic umbrellas, yet the basic overview is the same. Nonetheless there are key differences in organisational (and philosophical) emphasis. Meggs gives more space to the inextricable influence of photography on design from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries than does Jubert. He further devotes an entire chapter to ‘The New York School’, which rightly segues into a section on the rise of conceptual editorial and advertising art direction in New York City. The more Eurocentric Jubert collapses elements of this same history into a homogenous chapter titled ‘Creativity and Trends Country by Country’, which, I believe, mistakenly subordinates Push Pin Studios and psychedelia, while discussing them along with Polish, Swiss and French ‘eclectic’ accomplishments, which appear chronologically out of place. In this sense, Meggs’s approach flows more logically. But Jubert provides two chapters on issues that Meggs glosses over: the impact of the First World War on propaganda and advertising, and the effects of totalitarian design on Modernism.

Jubert’s brief but astute overview of Nazi (and Italian Fascist) dictums on design even goes further than that covered in Jeremy Aynsley’s Graphic Design in Germany: 1890-1945. And while Meggs devotes a spread to John Heartfield and anti-Nazi publishing, and then later covers the Second World War years, the latter is primarily in terms of Modernism in American war propaganda and corporate communications. I’ve always felt he left a big gap – which Jubert now fills. Her analysis of Nazi designer Hans Vitus Vierthaler’s poster for the 1936 anti-Modernist Degenerate Art Show, sarcastically designed in the style of
El Lissitsky, is particularly enjoyable.

Both books have their unique attributes, but students need only one textbook. How to decide? Let me start by saying many of Meggs’s initial kinks have been ironed out since 1983. The design is more readable and all reproductions are finally in colour, with the printing quality far better than before. Both texts flow well, although Jubert’s English translation is unnecessarily wordy. Both use a liberal number of illustrations, though Jubert’s are not always keyed to texts (as are Meggs’s). Overall, the Meggs format is, for me, more accessible in its use of two columns per page, compared with Jubert’s single wide one; and Meggs uses running heads picking up the subheads within a chapter, whereas Jubert does not, making her book harder to speedily navigate.

To recommend one textbook is more difficult than I would have thought. Jubert’s book is a superb addition to French design pedagogy, so there is no question what is best for French-speaking students. But for my own classes, I will stick with Meggs as a primary textbook, at least for now.

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