A History Of Type // Lecture 8

- Give a simple introduction the history of typography

- Introduce the six main classifications of type

- Introduce some famous type faces and their related connotations

- Introduce the metalinguistic function of typography

- Talking about kerning and x-heights

Typography =

Meta-communication

Paralinguistics

Kinesics

Type Classifications:

Humanist | Old Style | Transitional | Modern
Slab Serif (Egyptian) | Sans Serif

Humanist

The Humanist types (sometimes referred to as Venetian) appeared during the 1460s and 1470s, and were modelled not on the dark gothic scripts like textura, but on the lighter, more open forms of the Italian humanist writers. The Humanist types were at the same time the first roman types.

 

Old Style

The Old Style (or Garalde) types start to demonstrate a greater refinement—to a large extent augmented by the steadily improving skills of punchcutters. As a consequence the Old Style types are characterised by greater contrast between thick and thin strokes, and are generally speaking, sharper in appearance, more refined. You can see this, perhaps most notably in the serifs: in Old Style types the serifs on the ascenders are more wedge shaped 

Transitional

The 17th and 18th centuries introduced new trends in Western typography: the letters received greater contrast between thick and thin strokes, bracketed serifs turned into fine almost straight lines, and the stressing became vertical. William Caslon, Johann Fleischmann, and John Baskerville made notable contributions to the development of the so-called transitional Roman typefaces. Caslon-Bold, Dustismo Roman Bold, Sanskrit Roman Bold Italic fonts inherit the best traits of this particular tradition in western typography.

Modern Typeface

Modern fonts are recognizable by their thin, long horizontal serifs, and clear-cut thick/thin transitions in the strokes. The stress is vertical, i.e. there is no slant on the letters.

 

They tend to look very structured and could be considered cold. Having said that, modern fonts can look really eye-catching and very elegant at large sizes. They are not suitable for large amounts of body text, either on the web or in print. When used for body copy in print, an effect called “dazzling” occurs, the thick lines become very prominent while the thin lines almost disappear. It’s best to keep them for headings and sub-headings. You may not use the modern typeface too often, but as a designer it’s nice to be able to pick out and recognize font categories.

You probably have a number of Modern fonts on your computer already. Some examples are Didot, Onyx and Times Bold. I’ve picked out seven more which are available to download for free.

 http://www.sitepoint.com/the-modern-typeface/

Modern Slab Serif

During the early 19th century, especially in Britain, letter drawers began creating thicker versions of letterforms common in European printing during the 18th century, e.g., the types of the Fourniers, Giambattista Bodoni, or the Didots. These new letter styles began to appear throughout British society. Artists, artisans, printers, and typefounders … they all would come to embrace these new ideas. In the realm of typefounding, these faces came to represent the age of industrialization, and also the beginnings of advertising. This also marked the birth hour for typefaces that would be marketed by their makers for “display” use. Quite common today!
As far as the typefaces go, the first examples seem to have been all-caps alphabets; faces with lowercase letters would come a bit later. In the UK, many of these early slab serifs were called “Egyptians,” even though they had very little to do with Egypt. Enthusiasm in Western Europe was quite high during this time period; Napoleon and his army had faced off against the British there, and hieroglyphics were in the process of decipherment. Perhaps the naming of typefaces as “Egyptian” had something to do with this popularity.

 

http://www.linotype.com/3493/introduction.html

Sans Serif Typface

In typography, a sans-serif, sans serif, san serif or simply sans typeface is one that does not have the small projecting features called "serifs" at the end of strokes. The term comes from the French word sans, meaning "without".

In print, sans-serif fonts are used for headlines rather than for body text.^[1] The conventional wisdom holds that serifs help guide the eye along the lines in large blocks of text. Sans-serifs, however, have acquired considerable acceptance for body text in Europe.

Sans-serif fonts have become the de facto standard for body text on-screen, especially online. This is partly because interlaced displays may show twittering on the fine details of the horizontal serifs. Additionally, the low resolution of digital displays in general can make fine details like serifs disappear or appear too large.

Before the term “sans-serif” became standard in English typography, a number of other terms had been used. One of these outmoded terms for sans serif was gothic, which is still used in East Asian typography and sometimes seen in font names like Century Gothic or Trade Gothic.

Sans-serif fonts are sometimes, especially in older documents, used as a device for emphasis, due to their typically blacker type color.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sans-serif