rae poor BBE on pat | 3 DINNER, SHRVIOES. ELLEN LUPTON Lag entering yaa A CRITICAL GUIDE FOR DESIGNERS, WRITERS, EDITORS, & STUDENTS r Wann, SUITH DRAWING - ROOM PATS MIAMI Gam ts sate errs oes<< UU BASKERVILLE Designed by John Baskerkuile, 1757 BODONI {| Designed hy Giambattita Bodoni, 1790s svn CASLON Designed by Caro! Twombly, 1990, based on pages printed by Wilfiam-Caslon, 1734-70 CENTAUR Designed by Brice Reyes, eot2—14 Theil by Fei Wark is based on the fiftcenth-century Ihandl of Endo deh reg. CENTURY EXPANDED Designed by Morris Fuller Benton, 1900 CLARENDON Named for the Clarendon Press, Oxford, who cornmissioned it in 1845 mn DIDOT Designed by Jonathan Hogfler, 1992 the types of Francois Ambros | FEDRA SANS Designed by Pater Blak, 2001, who was asked {a create ade Prostestantized Univers FILOSOFIA Designed by Zuzana Licko, 1996, a revival ofthe types of Bodoni FRUTIGER Designed by Adrian Frutiger, 1976 FRANKLIN GOTHIC Designed by Mons Fuller Benton, 1904 FUTURA Designed by Paul Renner, 1927, who sought on “honest expression of technical processes.” ” GEORGIA Designed by Matthew Carter, 196, for spay onseren GILL SANS Designed by Eric Gill, 1928. Ithas been described as Bricain's Helvetica, won GARAMOND Designed by Robert Slimbach, 1989, based on pages printed by Clande Gannand in the sixicenth cencury GOTHAM Designed by Tobias Frere-Jones, 2000, inspired by lettering found at Port Authority Bus Terminal, Nevi York Citya a HELVETICA NEWS GOTHIC Designed by Max Miedinger, 1957 Designed by Morris Fuller Benton, 1908, | HOEFLER TEXT QUADRAAT Designed by Jonathan Hoefler . 1995 Designed by Fred Smeijers, 1992 INTERSTATE SABON Designed by Tobias Frere-Jones, 1993, | Designed by Jan Tschichold, 1966, inspired by U.S. highway signs inspired by the sixteenth-century types of | Claude Garamond a a. Designed by Martin Major, 1991 | META ies Designed by Erik Spiekermann, 1991 | THESIS SERIF se Designed by Lucas de Groot, 1994 MRS EAVES Design Zee 198, TRADE GOTHIC inspived by pages printed by John Basteraile Designed by Jackson Burke, 1948-60, inspired by nineteenth-century gratesques NEUTRAFACE UNIVERS | Designed by Christian Schwarts, House lnd.sti 2002, bated on lettering created byl Richard Neutra in the 1940s and) L Designed by Adrian Frutiger, 1957 iat VERDANA | NOBEL SaGAIARRTE cea as for display on screen Designed by Tobias Frere-Jones,1993, seed 929 ypsby he Dutch ypograrer ws fanaa eee NH WALBAUM “Futuracockedina dirty pan” Designed by Justus Erick Walbaum, 1800aay BUFO _thinking with A CRITICAL GUIDE FOR'DESIGNERS, WRITERS, EDITORS, & STUDENTS GAP PRENcerow ancurtecrunat.pKess. ew yorkPublished by Princeton Architectural Press 57 East Seventh Street New York, New York 10003, Fora five catalog of books, call1.800.7 Visit our web site at ww.papress.com ©2004 Princeton Architectural Press All ights reserved Printed in China 7.06.05 5432. Firstadition No partof this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without witten peemission from the publisher, except in the context of reviews tvedy reasonable attempt has beén made to ideatify it, Errors or omissions will be owners of cons corrected in subsequent editions, Libcary of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Lupton, Ellen “Thinking with type 2 erica guide for designees, waiter, editors, & students Fillen Lupton. — ste cin, — (Design briefs) Includes bibliographical references. ISDN r56898-448-> (alk: paper) 1. Graphie desipn (Typography) ‘ype and type-founding [Tile I. Series Ellen Lapton Mark Lamste, Princeton Architectural Press Elizabeth Jobson Jennifer Tobias and Ellen Lupton Eric Karnes and Elke Gasselseder Dan Meyers Scala, designed by Martin Majaor Thesis, designed by Lucas de Groot ete Alin, Nicola Bednarek, Janet Dehning, Megan Carey, Penny (Yuen Pik) Chu, Russel Fecnandez, Jan Haus, Clae Jacobson, Naney Eklund Liter, Linda Lee, Katharine Myers, Jane Sheinman, Scott Tennent, Jennifer Thompson, Joe Weston, and Deb Wood of Princeton Architectural Press — kevin C, Lippert pdlser, ae ODEMANILA JBRARIES (686.a'—deaaCONTENTS INTRODUCTION ACKNOWLEDGMENTS LETTER Anatomy Size Classification Famities Big Families Designing Typefaces Logotypes Screen Fonts Blemap Fonts Letter Exercise TEXT Kerning, Tracking Line Spacing Alignment Vertical Alignment Hierarchy Web Hierarchy Web Accessibility Paragraph Exercise Word Exercise Text Exercise GRID Golden Section Single-Column Grid Multi-Columa Grid Modular Grid Grid Exercise Data Tables Data Table Exercise APPENDIX Dashes, Spaces, and Punctuation Editing Editing Hard Copy Easing Soft Copy Proofreading Free Advice Bibliopraphey indexEMBO RCO, 1 peice Tis vo0 pomen wis hn HEAINES HE TE, Seren ent eeenra go moans mie goan Ont twenty ie emNrs M88 | ER anil cite ‘A woman's healthy face buss thro sheet otext her right Complexion prouing the preduct’s efficacy better than ary writen claim, Both ext and image ave been dram by hand, reproduced via color Bthography. Printed here at actual size hoon’s saxsanantita, Advertisement Fihograph, 1885 |INTRODUCTION THE ORGANIZATION OF LETTERS ona blanls page—or screen—is the designer's most basic challenge. What kind of font to use? How big? How should those letters, words, and paragraphs be aligned, spaced, ordered, shaped, and otherwise manipulated? ‘Anyone who regularly and enthusiastically commits acts of visual communication will find something to use and enjoy in this book, which offers practical information within a context of design history and theory. Sore readers will be chiefly interested in the sections that present basic typographic principles in concise, non-dogmatic layouts. Others will spend more time with the critical essays, which look at the cultural frameworks of typography. I decided to create this book because there was no adequate text to accompany my own courses in typography, which I have been teaching at Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore since 1997. Some books on typography focus on the classical page; others are vast and encyclopedic, overflowing with facts and details. Some rely too heavily on illustrations of their authors’ own work, providing narrow views ofa diverse practice, while others are chatty and dumbed-down, presented in a condescending tone. 1 sought a book that is serene and intelligible, a volume where design and text gently collaborate to enbance understanding. I sought a work that is small and compact, economieal yet well constructed—a handbook designed for the hands. { sought a book that reflects the diversity of typographic life, past and present, exposing my students to history, theory, and ideas. Finally, I sought a book that would be relevant across the media of visual communication, from the printed page to the glowing screen. Thad no alternative but to write the book myself. Thinking with Type is assembled in three sections: LetreR, T2xr, and GRID, building from the basic atom of the letterform to the’ organization of words into coherent bodies and flexible systems. Each section opens with a narrative essay about the cultural and theoretical issues that fuel typographic design across a range of media. The demonstration pages that follow each essay show not just kow typography is structured, but why, asserting the functional and cultural basis for design babits and conventions.‘The first section, zerreR, reveals how early typefaces referred to the body, emulating the work of the hand. The abstractions of neoclassicism bred the strange progeny of nineteenth-century commercial typography. In the twentieth century, avant-garde artists and designers explored the alphabet as a theoretical system, After digital font design became a cottage industry and a mode of underground publishing in the r980s, typography became a natrative form that revived its connections with the body. ‘The second section, TEXT, considers the massing of letter larger bodies. Designers approach text as a continuous field whose grain color, density, and silhouette can be endlessly adjusted. Technology has shaped the design of typographic space, from the concrete physicality of metal type to the flexibility—and constraints—offered by digital media, ‘Text has evolved from a closed, stable body to a fluid and open ecology. “The third section, Gx1b, looks at spatial organization. Grids underlie every typographic system. In the early twentieth century, Dada and Futurist artists attacked the rectilinear constraints of metal type and exposed the mechanical grid of letterpress. Swiss designers in the 19408 and 19508 cxcated design's first total methodology by rationalizing the grid. Their work, which introduced programmatic thinking to a field governed by taste and convention, remains profoundly relevant to the systematic thinking required when designing for multimedi Throughout the book, examples of design practice demonstrate the elasticity of the typographié system, whose rules can all be broken Finally, the aepen pix contains handy lists, helpful hints, dire warnings, and resources for further study, ‘This book is about thinking with typography—in the end, the emphasis falls on with. Typography is tool for doing things with: shaping content, giving language a physical body, enabling the social flow of messages. Typography is an ongoing tradition that connects you with other designers, past and futuze. Type is with you everywhere you go—the street, the mall, the Web, your apartment, This book aims to spesk to, and with, all the readers and writers, designers and producers, teachers and students, whose work engages the ordered yet unpredictable life of the visible word. 8i ACKNOWLEDGMENTS nvxen, Lam indebted to my teachers AS A DESIGNER, WRITER, AND VISUAL T at the Cooper Union, where I studied art and design from 1981 to 198. Baclc then, the design world was rather neatly divided between a Swiss inflected modernism and an idea-based approach rooted in American advertising and illustration. My teachers, including George Sadek, William Bevington, and James Craig, staked out an odd place between those worlds, allowing the modernist fascination with abstract systems to collide with the str nge, the poetic, and the popular The title of this book, Thinking with Type, is an homage to James Craig's primer Desigiting with Type, the utilitarian classic that was our text book at Cooper: Ifthat book was a handyman’s guide to basic typography, this one is a naturalist’s Geld guide, approaching its subject as an organic system that is more evolutionary than mechanical. What I really learned from my teachers was how to think with type: how to use visual and verbal iage to develop and deliver ideas. As a student, discovering typography lang was finding the bridge connecting written language to visual ar. ‘To write my own book for the twenty-first century Uhave had to educate myself all over again, In 2003 | enrolled in the Doctorate in Communications Design program at the University of Baltimore. There | have worked with Stuart Moulthrop and Nancy Kaplan, world-class scholars, critics, and designers of networked media and digital interfaces. Their nfluence is seen throughout this book. My colleagues at Maryland Institute College of Art have built 4 distinctive design culture at the school; special thanks go to Ray Allen, Fred Lazarus, Elizabeth Nead, Bernard Canniffe, Jennifer Cole Phillips, Rachel Schreiber, and all my stuilents, past and future. My editor, Mark Lamster, has kept this project alive and conscious across its seemingly endless development. | also thank Eric Karnes and Elke Gasselseder, Kevin Lippert at Princeton Architectural Press, Timothy Linn at Asia Pacific Offget, William Noel at the Walters Art Museum, Paul Warwick Thompson and Barbara Bloemink at the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, and all the designers who shared their work with me. learn something every day from my children, Jay and Ruby amazing Miller farnily. My friends— and fom my parents, my twin, and the Jennifer Tobias, Edward Bottone, Claudia Matzko, Dar and Joy Hayes—sustain my life. My husband, Abbott Miller, is the greatest designer I know, and | am proud to include him in this volume. ie Alexander,Miherer Saar MhAger fee} 2 eet ee, Woy Pot oN mantis scayoon began designing thet with this mapkin sketch made on a ra 6. The typefce was released by FontSiop sketches and prototypesLETTER‘TYPE, SPACES, AND LEADS 3lll 1436 auucqueap titasillisd tantd bowti noftos-rit ied intrefatifty Seeger peut debomoty LETTER THIS 1s NOT A HOOK ABOUT FONTS. [tis a book about how to use them “Typefaces are an essential resource employed by graphic designers, just as glass, stone, steel, and countless other materials are employed by architects. Graphic designers sometimes create their own fonts and custom lettering, More commonly, however, they tap the vast library of existing typefaces, choosing and combining them in response to a particular audience or situation. To do this with wit and wisdom requites knowledge of how— letterforms have evolved. Words originated as gestures of the body. The first typefaces were and why- directly modeled on the forms of calligraphy. Typefaces, however, are not bodily gestures—they are manufactured images designed for infinite repetition. ‘The history of typography reflects a continual tension between the hand and the machine, the organic and the geometric, the human body and the abstract system. These tensions, which marked the birth of printed letiers over five hundred year ago, continue to energize typography today. Movable type, invented by Johannes Gutenberg, in Germany in the carly fifteenth century, revolutionized writing in the West. Whereas scribes had previously manufactured boolks and documents by hand, printing with type allowed for mass production: large quantities of letters could be cast bled into “forms.” After the pages were proofed, from a mold and as corrected, and printed, the letters were put away in gridded cases for reuse. Movable type had been eniployed earlier in China, but it had proven less useful there. Whereas the Chinese writing system contains tens of thousands of distinct characters, the Latin alphabet translates the sounds of speech into a small set of maarks, making it well-suited to mechanization, ide manuscript as its model. Dlackletter,” he Gutenberg’s famous Bible took the hane Emulating the dense, dark handwriting know reproduced its erratic texture by creating variations of each letter as well as numerous ligatures (characters that combine two or more letters into MMMTG AA 4 single form). iacob-3 Dang pe: UES MAMTA ey a vses“Las the Leen sfinos-cundam vatanmesGUEIND js | Ato Wile mils a Tageis eeamt-parulys 5 00) ov cropie Design New York ki Writing Resear: Wring $k, 1996; Londow: Phaidon, mugoree Dugetiteaprinas.Qanbuy 5)icoLas sso fam printing pes n Venice. His ners tial tes transition fom thick 60 thin reflects the path of a ‘rondtnibbed pen > euit dicitur frater mar lord, yet thechirchemal : uerree | 14. ce foe WCE SOT Gover vee ilosappellatur mariti the iii wekis, and how! «= ted by the design | ramen i i that istowete, of thathe ori: i: rateiz appellant qu od ce diet he cocneth fe mitini fratrum 8 mal in thoffyce of the chisel {7""""" atrueles matrum fratt tynges yee pea rie ‘6fobrini ex duabus ed one Perey & that te ne : causeof' ‘01 _ tafuncin antiquisau peo ce; pie eee Lorem ipsum dolor si Lorem ipsum dolor sit | cENTAUn, designed from vote tog by Brace utr fs designed bythe ypographe, teacher, ad theorist crit Noontzi, This Aliptlly constructed fom, designed inthe 999, As Noord explains Jenson to talian jeshion (somewhat rounder, sme / luctu ‘ » tortor egest, consectetuer adipiscing ¢] consectetuer adipiscing wa: deies Integer pharetra, nisl « Integer pharetra, nisl u 2 ullamcorper, att luctus ullamcorper, aus “82 ante, ve] tortor egestas ante, vel f i te Ada Joo neque. N pede urna ac neque. M tnd ac mi eu purus tincidt ac mi eu purus tincide tae cone pede urna : vanum laboraverunt Lorem ipsum dolor < si Dominus custodie consectetuer adipisci \stra vigilavit qui cos! Integer pharetra, nis num est vobis ante lt ullamcorper, augue t tgere postquam sede ante, vel pharetra pec imanducatis panem neque. Mauris ac mi m dederit dilectis sui tincidunt faucibus. P | ALMLIVXTA LXX dignissim lectus. Nun ofc as wel as their gothic (rather than humanist origins. scat was inreduerd in 2990 by the cd the German lets Dutch ypegrapher Martin Majoor. Although tt lighter), and dhs this thoroughly contemporary iyseface hax created roman type.” geome serif and rational, anos moduler forms, i reflects the calligraphic origin of ‘ype, a sen in letersi 0.Sed ne forte tuo atrea Hic timor eft ipfis N on adeo leniter noft ‘vt mens oblito puln £ llic phylacides inn Non potuit cas inn $ ed cxpidis filfis ati theffitis antiquan I llic quicquid evo fa Trait ey fiti litto 1 lic foymofie uenian Qtas dedit arzuni, Quarim nulla tie fi Gration eo tellus f Quiannis te longe re; Cara tamen lachry onan te ys dese for Alive Moni 61500, They ave concer as wo separate pcs Je9 1ANNON Romar and alc types “rte Imprimerie Royale, Pai, s62,coorinated into a arg type fry, comme fay des-ia remarqué,"S, Augu. 106 ftin demande aux Donatiftes en yne fem- Foot, of roman type, see Gerrit lable occurrence : Quay done ? lors gue Saya Yori HUMANISM AND THE BODY In fifteenth-century Italy, humanist writers and scholars rejected gothic scripts in favor of the lettera antica, a classical mode of handwriting with ‘wider, more open forms. The preference for lettera antica was part of the Renaissance (rebirth) of classical art and literature. Nicolas Jenson, a Frenchman who had learned to print in Germany, established an influential printing firm in Venice around 1469. His typefaces merged the gothic traditions he had known in France and Germany with the Italian taste for rounder, lighter forms. They are considered among the first—and finest—roman typefaces. Many fonts we use today, including Garamond, Bembo, Palatino, and Jenson, are named for printers who worked in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, These typefaces are generally known as “humanist.” Contemporary revivals of historical fonts are designed to conform with modern technologies and current demands for sharpness and uniformity Each revival responds to—or reacts against—the production methods, Drinting styles, and artistic habits of its own time. Some revivals are based ‘on metal types, punches, or drawings that still exist; most rely solely on printed specimens. ltalic letters, also introduced in fifteenth-centuxy Htaly (as their ame suggests), were modeled on a more casual style of handwriting, While the upright humanist scripts appeared in prestigious, expensively produced books, the cursive form was used by the cheaper writing shops, whete it could be written more rapidly than the carefully formed leitera antica, Aldus Manutius was a Venetian printer, publisher, and scholar who used italic typefaces in his internationally distributed series of small, inexpensive books. The cursive form saved money because it saved space. Aldus Manutius’s books often paired cursive letters with roman capitals; the two styles still were considered fundamentally distinct In the sixteenth century, printers began integrating roman and italic forms into type families with matching weights and xcheights (the height of the main body of the lowesface letter). Today, the italic style in ‘most fonts is not simply a slanted version of the roman; it incorporates the curves, angles, and narrower proportions associated with cursive forms 1 the camplex origins Ses eter nie funni de parler? teferituredu grand Dien #2, 880 Beate Marks, 2000), if ancouver: Hartley and tas lifras,enblions none comment none anions saps (Vnicowrer atey an seeLoren | 16 dngued that designed meet sere shold eens fo reflect the ideal te printing press uma body, Reguding te eter A, he wrote: of Louis XIV. Inst by royal commit the eraser cowrs the man's ong of Simounrni designed his Kelson w finely meshed generation 0 signify that Movksy and Chetty grid. & royal typeface (rain du rei uss thea fare required, before alee, in those who seek éreate by Philippe Grandjean, based 01 acquainsance with wllhaped este.” Simonneau’s engravings By WILLIAM CASLON, S Pp E G I \ ABC gene mw By JOHN BASKERVILLE teach Resa pier AB € D quemad fin, "i" Am indebted to you for two if tone ABCDEF “#""!""" Tetters dated from Corcyra. Comin: 08 a He aimed to spas Cas by erating fed letters with mare void contrast, Lapefces in eighteentiecentury Brylane wid crisp. upright ‘between thick and thin clemers. Wires saracters that apps, Robert Cason’ eters were widely wsed i is own tie Sighs has writen ashere work was denounced by any ef kis ‘more modeled and tes writen ‘ontempararies as amateur and extremist han Renata AUSTERLITI wsihdicaicitts A GALLIS E MAXI in GermanyENLIGHTENMENT AND ABSTRACTION Aabcdef Renaissance artists sought standards of proportion in the idealized human body: The French designer and typographer Geofroy Tory published a series SS RB ofiagrams in 1529 thet linked the anatomy of leters to the anatomy of man. A new approach—distanced from the body—would unfold in the age of scientific and philosophical Enlightenment. ‘A committee appointed by Louis XIV in France in 1693 set out to construct roman letters against a finely meshed grid, Whereas Geofioy Tory’s diagrams were produced as woodcuts, the gridded depictions of the ) romain du roi (king's alphabet) were engraved, made by incising a copper ZCC, plate with a tool called a graver. The lead typefaces derived from these =~“ Jarge-scale diagrams reflect the linear character of engraving as well as the GG, Kenic attinde of the king’s committee AB CF Engraved letters—whose fluid lines are unconstrained by letter- i press's mechanical grid—offered an apt medium for formal lettering NOP Engraved reproductions of penmanship disseminated the work of the great cightcenth-century writing masters. Books such as George Bickham's The Universal Penman (1743) featured roman letters—each engraved as @ cxonce Bickast, 174. unique chavacter—as well as lavishly curved seripis, pape ares it Eighteenth-century typography was influenced by new styles of “alow tan handwriting and their engraved reproductions. Printers like William Caslon in the 1720s and John Baskerville in the 17508 abandoned the rigid nib of humanism for the flexible steel pen and the pointed quill, jristraments that rendered a fluid, swelling path, Baskerville, himself a master calligrapher, would have admired the thinly sculpted lines that ig books, He created typefaces of such appeared in the engraved writi sharpness and contrast that contemporaries accused him of “blinding all his admirer Benjarnin * the Readers in the Nation; for the strokes of your letters, being too thin and Fronkln. for the fallletee see narrow, hurt the Eye." To heighten the startling precision of his pages. i ita amaiehe Baskerville made his own inks and hot-pressed his pages after printing. Fe (ioadohs Faden ‘The severe vocabulary of Baskerville was carried to an extreme by Miler Lined, 1975). 68. Giambattista Bodoni in Italy and Firmin Didot in France at the turn of the oa Roi ma ee nineteenth century. Their typefaces—which havea wholly vertical axis, extreme contrast between thick and thin, and crisp, waferlike serifs—were Se (Vancouver: Haley and Marks. 1992, 1997) the gateway to a new vision of typography unhinged from calligraphy. “This accusation was reported to Baskerille ina letter from The romain du roi was designed not by a typographer but by a government committee consisting of two priests, an accountant, and an engineer. Robert Bringhurst, 1992P.VIRGILIT MARONIS BU COLILG «A ECLOGA I. cui nomen TITYRUS. . Meuisoeus, Tityrus. 1TvRE, tu patule recubans fub tegmine fagi Silveftrem tenui Mufam meditaris avena: Nos patric fines, et dulcia linquimus arva; Nos patriam fagimus: tu, Tityre, lentus in umbra 5 Formofam refonare doces Amaryllida filvas. T. O Meliboee, Deus nobis hc otia fecit: Namque crit ille mihi femper Deus: illius aram Sepe tener noftris ab ovilibus imbuet agus. Ille meas crrare boves, ut cernis, et ipfium 10 Ludere, quee vellem, calamo permifit agrefti. ‘MM, Non equidem invideos miror magis: undique totis ‘Ufque adeo turbatur agris. en ipfe capellas Protenus weger ago: hanc etiam vix, Tityre, duco: Hic inter denfas corylos modo namque gemellos, 15 Spem gregis, ah! filice in nuda connixa reliquit, Scepe malum hoc nobis, fi mens non leva faiffet, De ceelo tadtas memini praedicere quercus: Sape finiftra cava priedixit ab ilice comix. Sed tamen, ifle Deus qui fit, da, Tityre, nobis. 20 T. Urbem, quam dicunt Romam, Meliboce, putavi Stultus ego huic noftrae fimilem, quo fepe folemus Paftores ovium teneros depellere foctus. Sic canibus catulos fimiles, fic matribus haedos A Noram;vyinats (L517) Book page 1757 Printed by John Baskerville “The mpefces we by Joh ashen be the eighteens century wvee rear ble— ‘ave socking in tei day for tie sharp, upright forms and sab canta beeen thick tnd hin eleme's In ation oa roman it fre, ths page lines talc capitals lage sale copitls (gereously Tesespaced), sal capitals {sled io coordinate with Toserease text), and noting or ldstyle numerals (designed With axenders decentes, and 4 anal boy height io work © itive vharaclers) cine (rcv) Book page, 801 Pied by Fics Dio Tacs bye Die fant rnc eer or struct aid severe shan those Ofte wi ee Vinee lf ont tak feta oti i Milan pried pipes cle ne slings mer,” ot pages are reproduced fiom Wiliay Dana Orcuth, 1m Questo he Pee Beek (aw Yer: bie, Brow and Company, 1926); margins ae ot acura, LA THEBAIDE, ou LES FRERES ENNEMIS, TRAGEDIE. ACTE PREMIER. SCENE L JOCASTE, OLYMPE. socasrE. Tus sont sortis, Olympe? Ah! mortelles douleurs! Qu’'un moment de repos me va coiter de pleurs! Mes yeux depuis six mois étoient ouverts aux larmes, Et le sommeil les ferme en de telles alarmes! Puisse plutdt la mort les fermer pour jamais, Et mempécher de voir le plus noir des forfaits! Mais en sont-ils aux mains?At10 or mas Morning: | k QUANTITY OF OL Saile.“-. ing the remi typ 39 2k of the Seb ro un re ae ion on single page evaggeated the polavizasion (J. Boulb of eters into thick a LGYPCIAN, or slab, peices cor inet ” refine deta toa oo bcaetg, Suc yp i | ae = NRE | slab serifesit its on wright fonts fier sewed bn the sind mass, Inrodced in 866, eth center fo comvey ths seo iy devon vainly aber raphical de RIE f ‘My person was hideous, my stature gigantic, What did this mean? Who was I? What was 2. ‘Accursed creator! Why did you create a monster so hideous that even you turned away from mein disgust? Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, 1831 WLMONSTER FONTS Although Bodoni and Didot fueled their designs with the calligraphic practices of their time, they created forms that collided with typographic tradition and unleashed a strange new world, where the structural attributes of the letter—serif and stem, thick and thin strokes, vertical and horizontal stress—would be subject to bizarre experiments. In search of a beauty both rational and sublime, Bodoni and Didat had created a monster: an abstract and dehumanized approach to the design of letters. With the rise of industrialization and mass consumption in the nineteenth century came the explosion of advertising, a new form of communication demanding new kinds of typography. Big, bold faces were designed by distorting the anatomical elements of classical letters, Fonts of astonishing height, width, and depth appeared—expanded, contracted, shadowed, inlined, fattened, faceted, and floriated. Serifs abandoned their role as finishing details to become independent architectural structures, and the vertical stress of traditional letters migrated in new directions. ITT? T THUY PII Te TTTy nag ‘Ano TATINANTIQUE TUSCAN ay ‘pe historian Red Roy Lead, the material for casting metal type, is too soft to hold its shape at large pel erent) suulied sizes under the pressure of the printing press, In contrast, type cut from the mechanized devs 4 could be printed at gigantic scales, The introduction of the combined sieges tha seed to frien gecaciler pantograph and router in 1834 revolutionized wood-type manufacture. vanity fdiplay eves in “The pantograph is a tracing device that, when Tinked to a router for carving, the nnetocuth entry Thiago sows haw the basi guar se form—callel yan This mechanized design approach treated the alphahet as a flexible slab was ut, pinched, system divorced from the calligraphic tradition. The search for archetypal, ples, ond cet spe a Kevspeiegfonanen, perfectly proportioned letterforms gave way to a view of typography as an Seip wee ranjorned elastic system of formal Features (weight, stress, stem, crossbars, serifs, fom caligrephic end- angles, curves, ascenders, descenders). The relationships among letters in a stokes int indepen : : ei Seat’ font became more important than the identity of individual characters. oul be fee adjusted allows a parent drawing to spawn va ith different proportions, weights, and decorative excresences For extensive analysis and examples of decorated types, see Rob Roy Kelly American Wood Type: #828-1900, Notes on the Bvlution of Decora and Large Leters [Sew York: Da Capo Press, 1969), Sce also Rusti Melean, “An Examination of Egyptians,” Texts on Type: Critical Writings on Typggraph ed, Steven Heller and Philip B, Meges (New York: Allworth Press, 2001), 70-76,— . ‘ ; | | | | DURYEA'S UM FORTED . Lithographic trade card, 1878 4 nineteenth century stimulated turban space, exe, a mia is { . shown posting a bill in flagrant . ee eee | area 7" oa rare at strc ieee | : aimize the sate ofthe lees Hone. Although the yp the as atic and | in she spe cemered aFULL MOON, ST. MICHAEL?S ~ TEMPERANCE AND | EXCURSION BELLE! To Osbrook and Watch Hill, ; oe La oa aa eeeee GOETH STOFFREFORM AND REVOLUTION Some designers viewed the distortion of the alphabet as gross and immoral, tied to a destructive and inhumane industrial system. Writing in 1996, Edward Johnston revived the search for an essential, standard alphabet and warned against the “dangers” of exaggeration, Johnston, inspired by the nineteenth-century Aris and Crafts movement, looked back to the Renaissance and Middle Ages for pure, uncorrupted letterforms. Although reformers like Johnston remained romantically attached to history, they redefined the designer as an intellectual distanced from AD i 1 L 33 society, striving to create objects and images that would challenge and Bite revise dominant habits and practices 13 Bae ‘The avant-garde artists of the early twentieth century rejected Sposa Sosceadome| historical forms but adopted the model of the critical outsider, Members of the De Stil group in the Netherlands reduced the alphabet to Iowan jouxsrow bua! perpendicular elements. At the Bauhaus, Herbert Bayer and Josef Albers ths 90g of esentia™ 1 one cg eet consteucted alphabets from basic geometric forms—the circle, square, and Imerpins Whe dering triangle—which they viewed as elements of a universal language of vision. omneial splay letering, ‘Such experiments approached the alphabet as a system of abstract eS cate relationships. Like the popular printers of the nineteenth century, avant- Inpro garde designers abandoned the quest for an essential, perfectly shaped alphabet, but they offered austere, theoretical alternatives in place of the solicitous novelty of mainstream advertising, Assembled, like machines, from modular components, these experimental designs emulated factory production. Yet most were On Futura seeChrisopiter produced by hand rather than as mechanical typefaces (although many Burke, Paul Romer The si gre now available digitally). Futura, designed by Paul Renner in einer Ne Nags, _ 1927, embodied the obsessions of the avant garde in a multipurpose, gt) On icesperimentl cornmercially available typeface. Although Renner rejected the active Iypeicesoftie 1920sand movement of calligraphy in favor of forms that are “calming” and abstract, Fee en he tempered the geometry of Futura with subtle variations in stroke, curve, and proportion. Renner designed Futura in numerous weights, viewing on Typo (London: Hypien Press, 003). 253-45. his font as a painterly tool for constructing a page in shades of gray. ‘The calming, abstract forms of those new typefaces that dispense with handwritten movement offer the typographer new shapes of tonal value that are very purely attuned. These types can be used in light, semi-bold, or in saturated black forms, Paul Renner, 1931ek: vom ee NEU JLphJwber Fes foude-2wnt exowwe presented this canned version ofa Garamond an contrast ws is ou naw aihabe, whose frms ace he pred ‘arcs othe rev rmpana neo ceed ‘areerslution fos for stip seers and printers in 15. Tse ons have since Ine mera into Loigre's estes Lo-Res fon fly, sige fr pvt and gtd rei See Ruy VandetLans and Zuzana Licho, mip: Graphic Design int the Dig Rents (New York ‘Yan Nostra Rein, £993}: ‘TYPE AS PROGRAM. Responding in 1967 to the rise of electronic communication, the Duteh designer Wim Crouwel published designs for a “new alphabet” constructed from straight lines. Rejecting centuries of typographic convention, he designed his letters for optimal display on a video screen (CRT), where curves and angles are rendered with horizontal scat lines. In a brochure promoting his new alphabet, subtitled “An Introduction for a Programmed Typography.” he proposed a design methodology in which decisions are rule-based and systematic. Jbcdegdht 4jELanopqr Fuuurys In the mid-r980s, personal computers and low-resolution printers put the tools of typography in the hands of a broader public. In 1985 Zuzana Licko ‘Degan designing typefaces that exploited the rough grain of early desktop systems. While other digital fonts imposed the coarse grid of screen displays, and dot-matrix printers onto traditional typographic forms, Licko embraced the language of digital equipment. She and her husband, Rudy VanderLans, cofounders of Emigre Fonts and Emigre magazine, called thernselves the “new primitives,” pioneers of a technological dawn, Emigre Oakland [ell By the early 1990s, with the introduction of high-resolution laser printers and outline font technologies such as PostScript, type designers were less constrained by low-resolution outputs. The rise of the Internet as well as cell phones, hand-held video games, and PDAs, have insured the continued relevance of pixel-based fonts as more and mote infgrmation is desi -d for publication directly on screen. Living with computers gives funny ideas. Wim Crouwel, 1967rerten 28 CURATOR: JOSEPH WESNEF Linda Ferguson Steve Handschu JamesHay Matthew HollandSCU! PTUR! Gary Laatsch =_F-Brian Liljeblad PTURE | 5 Dora Natella © Matthew Schellenberg | Cy) Richard String S Michell Thomas | mi | Robert Wilhelm | pening Recep tion: Friday June 8,5:308:30 pm Cc ae < ee etroit Focys Gallery 4 as Beaubien, ThirdFloor TROIT, MIC HIGAN 48 226 Hours:Noon to6 p nJVEDNESDAY - SATURDAYsrs | 29 : TYPE AS NARRATIVE In the early 19908, as digital design tools began supporting the seamless reproduction and integration of media, many designers grew dissatisfied | with clean, unsullied suirfaces, seeking instead to plunge the letter into the harsh and caustic world of physical processes, Letters, which for centuzies hhad sought perfection in ever more exact technologies, became scratched, bent, bruised, and polluted Template Gothic: flawed technology Barry Deck’s typeface Template Gothic, designed in 1990, is based on letters drawn with a plastic stencil. The typeface thus refers to a process that is at | once mechanical and manual, Deck designed Template Gothic while he was | a student of Ed Fella, whose experimental posters inspired a generation of digital typographers, After Template Gothic was released commercially by Emigre Fonts, its use spread worldwide, making it an emblem of “digital typography” for the r9ges. Dead History: feeding on the past P, Scott Makela's typeface Dead History, also designed in 1990, is a pastiche of two existing typefaces: the traditional serif font Centennial and the Pop | classic VAG Rounded. By manipulating the vectors of readymade fonts, Makela adopted the sampling strategy employed in contemporary art and music. He also referred to the importance of history and precedent, which play a role in nearly every typographic innovation. CcNdEeFfGg HhiiJjKk | “The Dutch typographers Erik von Blokland and Just van Rossum have combined the roles of designer and programmer, creating typefaces that ‘embrace chance, change, and uncestainty. Their 1990 typeface Beowulf | was the first in a series of typefaces with randomized outlines and programmed behaviors. ‘The industrial methods of producing typography meant that all letters had to be identical... Typography is now produced with sophisticated equipment that doesn't impose such rules. The only limitations are in our expectations. Exik van Blokland and Just van Rossum, 2000i BACK TO WORK Although the 1990s are best remembered for images of decay, typeface designers continued to build a repertoire of general purpose fonts designed to comfortably accommodate broad bodies of text. Rather than narrate the story of their own birth, such workhorse fonts provide graphic designers with flexible palettes of letterforms coordinated within larger families, { : | Mrs Eaves: working woman Zuzana Licko, fearless pioneer of the digital dawn, produced historical revivals during the 1990s alongside her experimental display faces. Her 1996 typeface Mrs Eaves, inspired by the eighteenth-century types of John Baskerville (and named after his mistress and housekeeper Sarah Eaves), became one of the most popular typefaces of its time Quadraat: all-purpose Baroque Designed in the Netherlands, typefaces such as Martin Majoor’s Scala (used for the text of this book) and Fred Smeijers's Quadraat offer crisp interpretations of typographic tradition. These typefaces look back to sixteenth-century printing from a contemporary point of view, as seen in 1992, the Quadraat family has expanded to include sans-serif forms in numerous weights and styles. Gotham: blue-collar curves In 2000 Tobias Frere-Jones introdiiced Gotham, derived from letters found at the Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York City, Gotham expresses a no-nonsense, utilitarian attitude that persists today alongside the aesthetics, of grunge, neofuuturism, pop-culture parodies, and straight historical revivals that are all part of contemporary typography. When choosing a font, graphic designers consider the history formal qualities. their decisively geometric serifs. Introduces of typefaces and their current connotations as well as th “The goal is to find an appropriate match between a style of letters and the specific social situation and body of content that define the project at hand. There is no playbook that assigns a fixed meaning or function to every typeface; each designer must confiont the library of possibilities in light of a project’s unique circumstances.| amet "Amhem is areliable ype family initially designed for the Nederlandse Staatscourant, the daily newspaper ofthe Dutch state. Ithasa roman, ftalic anel matching smal esps, lining figures, nontining figures and. scheight lining figures in four weights. As well as thacit has two weights of Fine titling vatiamts in roman and italie. Amber is available in TrueType and PostScript formats, for both PC and Mae platforms. OpenType is du in February 2004. Website 04 nl publishers: Feed Smmeijers and Realy This Flashshased Web ligt aye four allows users to test fonts on the fy Te designers lawcihed ser own “label” af eating fonts uc for Font Shop 5p Ine played here is the typeaee2. fon hat hs projective memory tht reminds yout a 5. fon vith alee 4. font whan afm aoe 6, font without temporal etlecton, without tino 7 an apolitical font, ont tt ei 8, font unaffected by the force of gravity an the weight! nin 130, ¢ Marshal MeLahon font that stubbornly poring ae 11 a font that takes advantage of al that pron ete 12, font that des something other th ston eae nahin 13. font withthe copay to bse wih 14,» recombinant font — every lttorforn the unruly eld ofa paditale iit oni 35, font that sounds as oda 46, fot that wats a U2 font that tear 20, font that responds and reset to the meaning i amie ne 18 font shat assumes the inoligese #8 20. font that might sense your level of alist, fet 21a font prone to sudden cubs 22 a font thal exceeds the papa 23,3 font whose parents are Father Time and te ahh 24. a ambient fom, 2 fon laGada refers to ulleripratines or cunimans rote fort ip-syching font, 2 fort without a vole of its own nit tens wile i speak oa toggles clertlesely botwoen langues efor ing font Pent that overs, fold, performs, evel, and passos enay i btie something other than 2 recording ats tert every time you “play” it han metabolism of ty fees fancied esta mer hao sa et bel Se Detrcsskin,. isthe distance frem the baseline tothe The cap height ofa ypefaes eters ils point sin Some elements my extend slightly bore weap height the reverte &sthe height rain body ofthe ow (or the height ofa lowercase erclding is ascenders nd dhscenders body thou bids lor to write wing ruled paper tha divides, eters exaelly in lf most types are not designed that ‘ony. The sight usually cps lightly more than half ofthe cap height The bigger the sbeght it rlavon tothe op height, te higge he eters of test, the greet density occurs benveen the baseline and the top of the sig af capital ften rate uascuie is where all the letersi This isthe most stable axis along a line f test, and it 4 crucial edge for atigning text with images or with other tex Hey, look! They supersized my x-height. ANATOMY The cures atthe bot leters such as 0 0F¢ hang Slghly below the bosline Commas an sericolons also ne Ifa bypefice were not posiioned this wy ross the ba it would appear to leer prevariousy lacking a sense of physical grounding To Blacks of txt sashace Here, 14/98 Sol Gigpl ype withsize 1 points equal pica 0 fea inch B Go-vorer scata A iypefce is measured From the top of the capital letter othe . htt of the lowest descender, plus a srl hfe space. > tn cape the point size isthe height of he rpe lug, & WIDE LOAD The st wis the body ofthe eter pls the space hese i TIGHT WAD “The leer in the condense version of the peice hui narrower set with WIDE LOAD TIGHT WAD ‘SYPE CRIME: The proportions of the letters have beer Agia disiorted in onder ta create wider Lerten /demonstations 36 HeicHtr Attempts to standardize the measurement of type began in the eighteenth century. The point system, used to measure the height of a letter as vwell as the distance between lines (leading), is the standard used today. One point equals 1/72 inch or 35 millimeters. Twelve points equal one pict, the unit commonly used lo measure colurin widths. "Typography also can be measured in inches, millimeters, or pixels, Most software applications Tet the designer choose a preferred wnit of measure: picas and points are a standard default. 8 picts 8p 8 points ~ p8, 8 pls 8 picas, 4 points ~ 8p4 point Helvetia with 9 points of Tine spacing = 8/9 Helvetica wiptit A letter also has a borizontal measure, called its et wiih, The set width isthe body ofthe letter plus a sliver of space that protects it from other letters. The width of a letter is intrinsic to the proportion of the typeface. Some typefaces have a narrow set width, and some have a wide one You can change the set width of typeface by fiddling with its horizontal or vertical scale This distorts the proportion of the letters, forcing hheayy elements to become thin, and thin elements to become thick. Instead of torturing a letterform, choose a typeface with the proportions you need, stich as condensed, compressed, or extended. ig Ge oolester 37 srr sexta J2nC INTRISTATE REGULAR sas wooN! Sar mes RAVES Do I look fat in this paragraph? ‘These ltrs real the same pont size, but they have diferent ehelghs line weights, nd proportions. ‘When two typefaces are set in the same point size, one often looks bigger than the other. Differences in xheight, line weiglit, and character width affect the letters’ apparent scale, nice x-height Abe wiaverica 48-rr oes zavus Every typeface wants to know, ‘Do | look fat in this paragraph? It's all a matter of context. ‘Afont could look perfectly sleek on screen, yet apoear bulky and oul of shape in print. Some typefaces are drawn with heavier lines than others, or they have taller x-heights.. Helvetica isn’t fat. She has big bones. g)ta mevverien Every typeface wants to know, "Do | look fat in this paragraph?” It's all a matter of context. A font could look perfectly sleek on screen, yet appear bulky and out of shape in print. 13/r4 univerica Mrs Foves, designed by Zuzana Licko in 1996, rejects the aweith-cemtury appetite for supersized scheight. The ft, inspire by the tighteenth-connany designs ofl Baskerville Isnamed afer rah Faves, Baskervile's mises, housekeeper, and collaborator The coupe lived together for seen years fore nary in 176. Bigger weights, introduced inthe twentieth century, mate fonts loo larger by muaximazing ‘he aren within the oneal point size, Every typeface wants ¢o know; "De [look fat in this paragraph?" It's alls matter of contest. A font eould ook perfectly sleek on screen, yet appear bulky and out of shape in print. Some typefaces are drawn with heavier Lines than othees or have taller x-heights. Mrs Eaves has a low waist and 2 small body. Every typeface wants to know: "Do I look fat in this paragraph?” It's all a matter of context. A font could look perfectly sleek on sereen, yet appear bulky and out of shape in print, Mr Eaves has a low waist and a small body. raft mes eaves “The defaal type size in many software applications is 2 ps Althougle his generally creas readable type on srcen displays, spt tex! pe usualy looks big and horey on a printed poe. (12 pls isa good size fr childer's books) Sizes between 9 and 11 >is are common for printed text. This caption is 7.5 ps| Revolver = 2aCLASSIFICATION The ramar sypseces of fifeenth aye sists centuries ulated sasicaleallgraphy Sabore was design by Jane Tih (on the sisseeethcentury Iypefces of Clauie Garamond. ld in 1986, base LAa ese typefices have sharper sea ad more wetical avis than kusmaisteters, When the ons of Joh Baskerile were introduced in the midcghtcenth tre tr sherp forms an igh conirast wore considers shocking TYPE CLASSIFICATION. A basic system for classifying typefaces was devised in the nineteenth century, when printers sought to identify a s to that of art history. Hureanistletterforms are graphy and the movement of the hand. Transitional their own craft analogo closely connected to call heritage for and modern typefaces are more abstract and less organic, These three main, groups correspond roughly to the Renaissance, Baroque, and Enlightenment periods in art and literature, Historians and critics of typography have since proposed more finely grained schemes that attempt to better capture the diversity of letterforms. Designers in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries have continued to create new typefaces based on histori unser typeces became ‘mon in th tent centuny Gil Sans, disipned by Fre Git jn ag28, has humanist claarateites. Note tke sal, tng cownser in the leer, ‘ral the calligraphic variations inline wright, characteristics. Haltica, designed bp Max Mienger in 195 the word's most widely used Iypefces. ts uniform, upright character makes it similar to transitional seri letrs, These fons are also refer to at ‘anonymous sans erie” Aa ‘The ypefaces designed by Ginmbrtista Bodo i the ave eh enres are radically abstract [Note he thin, senight serif ‘axis and sharp contrast eighteen ad ely nin Fron thick to thin stro Aa Nutnerowe bold decor fnpefaces were introduced ithe for use in ints we hineteenth cont adverisng. gyi heavy, abi serif a Some sansserif types are but sound geoetie formes, ny Futura, designed bp Pat Renner 1937, the Os are eet circles, ara the peaks ofthe & and M are sharperrr 43, Sabon 14:rr saB0N Baskerville gee DASKERUTLLE Bodoni 14:Pr noDoN Clarendon srr ctanennow Gill Sans yer on sans Helvetica Lgrr xriverrca Futura rqerr vurons This is not a book about fonts. It is a book about how to use them. Typefaces are essential resources for the graphic designer, just as glass, stone, steel, and other materials are employed by the architect 9/12 sanon is is not a book about fonts, It is a book about how to use them. Typefaces are essential resources for the graphic designer, just as glass, stone, steel, ‘and other materials are employed by the architect. 9/12 nAskenvttin ‘This is not a book about fonts. It is « book about how to use them. Type sssential resources for the ‘graphic designer, just as glass, stone, steel, and other materials are employed by the architect 9.5/12 bopont aa0x ‘This is not a book about fonts. It is a book about: how to uso them. Typelaces are essential resources: for the graphic designer, just as glass, stone, steel, and other materials are employed by the architect Bj12 claweNDON GAT “This is nat a book about fonts. Ics 00k about how to use them. Typefaces are essential resources for the graphic designer, just as glass, stone, steel, and other materials are employed by the architect. _ 9/12 Gut sans REGULAR This Is not a book about fonts, It is a book about how to use them. Typefaces are essential resources for the graphic designer, just as glass, stone, steel, and other materials are employed by the architect. 8/ia werverica neGuLAn ‘This is not a book about fon's. It's @ book about how to-use them, Typefaces are essen‘ial resources for the ‘araphic designer, just os glass, sione, slee, and other materials cre employed by the architect. 8.5/1 eurunA 00% CLASSIFICATION Selecting eype with wit and wisdom rexqires Knowle fof how and why Jerertorms evolved 79 Selecting type with ‘vit and sso raguces kaowledge fo ow and why Jeterforms evolved, 7i9 Selootne te with wit and wisdorn ean knowledge sf wa why leterornsexalved 2519 Betesing typ wit reultes knowledge 619 Selecting ype wit cand wisdom Fequies inowledge cof how and wy Iorertors evived zs Solcing ype wie ‘wt and wieder roquios krowdge of Ianoroms vole 619) Selecting type wth wit ane wisdom recites knowledge oF how an why leterorms evche. 65/9uervow | 44 | EMCSWEENEY’S| i i i i il 1 \} \\ \| KNOW THEM. REMEMBERING! |! KNOW THEM eYOUR | 1 i} Tae TALK! WEAK ortiNG Ms} | CARRY IT.canvm REMEMBERING! | KEEP 1T SWEET. FYouMUST =F4 we ; SOR TOITATE REMEMBERING! | MORE rorYOUR wal And yet: F SAKE 749 THEIRS q EFFLORIESCENCE Da yon sense it? CANADA | LATE SUNATER 500 US, EARLY FALL | sii | 2°02) $Ssurrren | 45 FAMILIES “The idea of organizing typefaces into matched Jamilies dates back to the sixteenth century, when Adobe Garamond wns designed by Robert slimbac in 1988 printers began coordinating roman and italic faces. The concept was formalized at the tum of the twentieth century ‘The roman font is the core or spine from which a family of typefaces derives. The roman fom, also called “pla” or “raglan” the standard, upright versian ofa aypoice. 1s ypcaly conceived fs the parent of larger fay Iralic forts, which are based on cursive writing, have forms distinct from roman. ‘The aie form i no simply a mechanically lanted version of the roman: 5a separate typeface. Noe that the leer a has a diferent ‘Shape inthe roman and italic variants of Adobe Garamond. GHT THAT IS SIMILAR TO the lowercase X-HEIGHT. ‘Small caps (rapitals) are designed to integrate with a line of test, where fli capitals would stand out aura, Small capitals fre slight taller than the height ef fowercase liters SMALL CAPS HAVE A HE. pone CANAMOND EXPERT {SMAIE CAPS) Bold (and semibold) typefaces are used for emphasis within a hierarchy. Bold versions of trtonal text fois were aun the twenties century 20 meet the need for emphatic ors. Sans-serif fries fle include a broad range of weights (thin, bold, back, et.) Bold (and semibold) typefaces each need to include an italic version, too. “The type designer tries to make the bold versions et somitar in conteat to the rena, without making the overall form 00 heavy. The eoyters need to stay clear an ope. at smal sizes, fining (123) and non-lining (323). Lining numeral oeerpy wniforne units of horizontal space, 50 that the numbers le up wher used fn tabulated columas. [Nondining numerals als called “text or “ld syle” numerals, have a small body size plus ascenders ad descenslers. so tat, they rns wel oa ine wit lowercase eters A fill type family has wo sets of numerals A ape family can Be faked by s/ancing, or inflating, or SHRINKING letters. Thewide, ungnty Padded wound the Thee shrunken firms ofthe slowed ee, tee eters versions offilsize teers look fred fel nt and dail caps repay dna unnatural and stared.BIG FAMILIES THESIS FAMILY arrrer | 46 Designed by Lucas de Grool, LucasFons, 1994 “Thess is one ofthe worlds langst type fens, This is not a book about fonts. It is a book about how to use them. Typefaces are essential resources for the graphic designer, just as glass, stone, steel, and OTHER MATERIALS ARE EMPLOYED BY THE ARCHITECT, SOME DESIGNERS CREATE. their own custom fonts. But most graphic designers will tap the vast store of already existing typefaces, choosing and combining each with regard to the audience or situation. Selecting type with wit and wisdom requires knowledge of how and why letterforms have evolved. The history of typography reflects a continual tension between the hand and machine, the organic and geometric, the human body and the abstract system. These tensions MARKED THE BIRTH OF PRINTED LETTERS FIVE CENTURIES AGO, AND THEY CONTINUE TO energize typography today. Writing in the West was revolutionized early in the Renaissance, when Johannes Gutenberg introduced moveable type in Germany. Whereas documents and books had previously been written by hand, printing with type mobilized all of the techniques of mass productionever | 47 Interstate Light Interstate Light Compressed Interstate Light Condensed Interstate Regular Interstate Regular Compressed Interstate Regular Condensed Interstate Bold Interstate Bold Compressed Interstate Bold Condensed Interstate Black Interstate Black Compressed Interstate Black Condensed Designed by Tobias Perens, Font Burean, 1903 nnn ppp Scala Scala Sans Scala Htalic Scala Sans Italic Scata Caps SCALA SANS CAPS Scala Sans Bold Scala Sans Bold Scala Bold Martin Majors Seal, sa irouphout his hoo, SCALA L CRYSTAL, SCALA JEWEL DIAMOND Majoors dog above SCALA JEWEL PEARL SCALA JEWEL SAPHYR shows bow she serif and sans seniors have a conson BIG FAMILIES Serie ae eam pete ae i Fi ag He ae See of Ud | Raid eat Vices erp ‘uns conceived asa total system fom isn A traditional roman book face typically group consisting of roman, italic, small caps, and possibly bold and sernibeld (cach with an italic variant). Sans-serif famili weights and sizes, such as thin, light, black, compressed, and condensed. In the 1990s, many type designers created families that include both serif has a small family—a “min ofien come in many more and sans-serif versions. Small capitals and nondining numeral traditionally reserved for serif are inchided in the sans-serif versions of Thesis, Sea and many other bigDESIGNING TYPEFACES ‘ZEABCDEF G H IJ KL M zcerren | 49 BEDE Castaways Drawing and finished type, 2001 Ast and type directign: Andy Cruz “Types design: Ken Barber Font engineering: Rich Rost House Industries Cito fom a eres of digital fonts based on ‘commercial signs Las Vagos, The orignal signs were created by fteringavtsis who worked by hand to make som graphs ad lgos, House Industries sa digo ype found tha creates fypefaves inspired by popular cature eed design history. Designer Ken Barherpnakis onc drawings by hand ad then diitizes the oalines, MMNOST DESIGNING TYPEFACES albeccaljkkunn ECSEL For more than five hundred years, typeface production was an industrial process. Most type was cast from lead until the rise of photo typesetling in the 1960s and 1970s; early digital typefaces {also created in that period) still sequited specialized equipment for design and production. It was not until the introduction of desktop computers that typeface design became a widely accessible field. By the end of the twentieth century, digital “type foundries” had appeared around the globe, often run by one or two designers, Producing a complete typeface remains, however, an enormous task. Even a relatively small type family has bundreds of distinet chat each requiring many phases of refinement. The typeface designer must also determi is to be spaced, what software platforms it will use and how it will fenction in different sizes, media and languages, how a fontLocoTyrEs serran | 52 Ingenieubiro Infermations- und Funitechri Johannes Hubner Yel 0361-4272181 aay Identity program, 1998 Banaustrafe 21 1109 Oresdon woes the etter Has at the mark hannes-huebner de HiUbner =x annes-huebnerdeLocoTyPEs LoGoTyres use typography or lettering to depict the name of an organization in a memorable way. Whereas some trademarks consist of an abstract symbol or a pictorial icon, a iegotype uses letters to create a distinctive visual image Logotypes can be built with exist or with custom-drawn letierforms, Modern logotypes are often designed in different versions for use in different situations. A logotype is part fonts an overall identity program, which the designer logotypes, 2003 Designer: Anton Ginzburg “These logotypes fora fashion i lexan manier, Writing the museum sen Moran St the ave wile a element of 2004 Designers: Abbot Miller and Jeremy Hoffman, Pentag 1 reference tothe work of seme Noguchi tamesake ofthe Noguchi Museum, Te concave agave coordinates wih the kypefice Balance hi als ae satee BITMAP FONTS terra | 56 | bitmap fonts are designed for digital display, fitmap fonts are desiqned for digital display at @ specific size, Bitmap fonts are designed for digital display. Bitmap fonts are designed for digital display. Bitmap fonts are designed for digital display at a specific size, Bitinap fonts are designed for digital display at a specific size. nigre, 1085 imigre, Enyperr, Ona ancl Univeral fom fi Bitmap fonts are designed for digital display at spec ze. Bitmap fonts are designed for digitat display at specific size, Bitmap fonts are designed for digital display at specific size. Bitmap fonts ere designed for digital displey at a specific size. Designed by Chester for Thirsty Bitmap fonts are designed for digital display at a specific size. Bitmap fonts are designed for digital display at a specific size. Bitmap fonts are designed for digital display at a specific size. Bitmap fonts are designed for digital display ot a specific size. Bitmap fonts are designed for digital display at a specific size. Bitmap fonts are designed for digital display at a specific size. igital display at a specific size. i | i | | | Bitmap fonts are designed for Sent ree conronare: Designed by ) These fonts are designed himedia aedhoring applicationwerren| 57 Bima FoNTS ate built out of the pixels {picture elements) that structure a screen display. Whereas a PostScript letter consists of a vectorized culling, a bitmap character contains a fixed number of rectilinear units that are either “on” or “off.” Outline fonts are scatable, meaning that they can be reproduced in a high-resolution medium such as print at nearly any size. Outline fonts are offen hard to read on screen at small sizes, however, where all characters are translated into pixels. (Anti- aliasing can make legibility even worse for small text) Ina bitmap font, the pixels do not melt away asthe letiers get bigger: Some designers like to ‘exploit this effect, which calls altention to the letters’ digital geometry. Pixel fonts are widely used in both print and digital media 8px Corporate 16,, Corporate 24, Corporate 32,..Corporate A bitmap int i designed to be wsed at a spelfic see, sce as 8 pivels, becouse ts Bey is precisely ‘ansructe out of screen units bitmap font Should be display on sreen in ver uiples of fits root size (enlange Sp type 106,24. 32. aed soon) BITMAP FONTS IBDEKHPHOEL NLTHOF & LEE SSTAALSTRART 15-8 1011 JK FANSTERDAK 22/05/03 13812 it 9000 #0094 BEDL VERZENDKOST.. 42.50 TVPOGRAFTE 6.00 TPOGRAFIE 16.50 TPORRAFIE 19.50 ‘TPOGRAFIE 5.5 TWPOGRAFIE 5.35 TUPOGRAF IE 32.00 TYPOGRAFIE 59.00 ‘TPOGRAFIE 40.00 TWPOGRAFIE 30.40 ‘TPOGRAFIE 87.25 TYPOGRAF IE 20.00 ‘TUPCIGRAF TE 37.70 SUBTOTAL 520.15 BTW LaAG 29.44. STUKS 130 RT 520.15 OOK ANTTOUARTAAT TEL!020-6205960 FAK: 020-6393274 xiner & are Receipt, 2003 ‘This cash register reel, pind ih abana fr, Issam a design and typegraphy bookstare tn Amsterdam. (The author stl ie debt from this sansaetion.)LETTER EXERCISE oo Create a prototype for a bitmap font by designing letters on a grid of squares. raditional letterforms with rectilinear a a elements. Avoid making detailed “staircases,” which are just curves and back to the t9ros and 192¢s, when avant- ea ners made experimental pefaces out of simple geometric parts The project also zeflects the structure of 7 digital technologies, from cash register receipts and LED sighs to on-screen fon a a a: display, showing how a typeface functions as a system of elements Esumples of tude work from Malan! tutte Colege af an Hi“Typographic installation in Grand Central Station, New York City 995 Designer: Stephen Deyle Client; The New York State Division of Women Sponsors: The New York State Division of Women, the Metiopolitan Thansportation Authority, Revlon, and Merrill LynelyTEXTreer | 62 Poster, 1996 Designer: Hayes Henderson Rasher then represent cierspace asa ethereal gi, he designer has ased blotches of everdayping tex to build an tins, oops badTEXT LETTERS GATHER INTO WORDS, WORDS BUILD INTO SENTENCES, In typography, “text” is defined as an ongoing sequence of words, distinct shorter headlines or captions. The main block is often called the “running " comprising the principal mass of content. Also known a text,” itcan flow from one page, column, or box to another, Text can be viewed as a thing—a sound and sturdy object—or a fluid poured into the containers of page or screen. Text can be solid or liquid, body or blood. ‘As body, text has more integrity and wholeness than the elements that surround it, from pictures, captions, and page numbers to banners, butions, and menus. Designers generally treat a body of text consistently letting it appear as a coherent substance that is distributed across the spaces ofa document. In digital media, long texts are typically broken into chunks that can be accessed by search engines or hypertext links. Contemporary designers and writers produce content for various contexts, from the pages of print to an array of software environments, screen conditions, and digital devices, each posing its own limits and opportunities, Designers provide ways into—and out ofthe flood of words by breaking up text into pieces and offering shorteuts and alternate routes through masses of information. From 4 simple indent (signaling the entrance to a new idea) to a highlighted link announcing a jump to another location), typography helps readers navigate the flow of content. The user could be searching for a specific piece of data or struggling to quickly process a volume of content in order to extract elements for immediate use. Although many books define the purpose of typography as enbancing the readability of the written word, one of design’s most humane functions is, in actuality, to help readers avoid reading.Toot 7 eres earnfurr ant nnplenrcdetiiorem emer ipfte-non confimieri aim mrimiminffiinfinprmesy carLonmes quetimenctominay qurambutancin ntfs th : mes Manttrm Mar amar cabis-Wamnfeo tiene abr 2 Hee ‘babrndan 1M ace seen tonaremafalem ommibsdieb: t Nite ery s filtos filtonm moy-jueituxt | 65 Marshall McLuhan, The Gutenberg Galazy (Foronto: University of Toronto Press, 1962). (On te future of {intellectual property, see Lawrence Lessig, ree Culture: How Big Media es Trnagy andthe Law to Lack Down Culinre aid Contr Creativiny (New York: Penguin, 2004} ERRORS AND OWNERSHIP ‘Typography helped seal the literary notion of “the text” as a complete, original work, a stable body of ideas expressed in an essential form. Before the invention of printing, handwritten documents were riddled with errors. Copies were copied from copies, each with its own glitches and gaps. Scribes devised inventive ways to insert missing lines into manuscripts in order to salvage and repair these laboriously crafted objects, Printing with movable type was the first system of mass production, replacing the hand-copied manuscript. As in other forms of suring its correctness, and mass production, the cost of setting type, running a press drops for each unit as the size of the print run increases, Labor and capital are invested in tooling and preparing the technology, rather than in making the individual unit. The printing system allows editors and authors to correct a work as it passes from handwritten ‘manuscript to typographic galley. “Proofs” are test copies made before final production begins. The proofteader's craft ensures the faithfulness of the printed text to the author's handwritten original Yet even the text that has passed through the castle gates of print is inconstant, Each edition ofa book represents one fossil record of a text, a record that changes every time the work is translated, quoted, revised, interpreted, or taught. Since the rise of digital tools for writing and publishing, manuscript originals have all but vanished. Bleetomie sedlining-is seplacing the bieeoglpphies of the-editor, On-line texts can be downloaded by users and reformatted, repurposed, and recombined. Print helped establish the figure of the author as the owner of a text, and copyright laws were written in the early eighteenth century to protect the author's rights to this property. The digital age is riven by battles between those who argue, on the one hand, for the fundamental liberty of data and ideas, and those who hope to protect—sometimes indefinitely— the investment made in publishing and authoring content. A lassic typographic page emphasizes the completeness and closure of a work, its authority as a finished product. Alternative design strategies in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries reflect the contested nature of authorship by revealing the openness of texts to the flow of information and the cozosiveness of history. ‘Typography tended to alter language from a means of perception and exploration toa portable commodity. Marshall McLuhan, 1962Book, 1985 Designer: Richard Eckersley Author: Avital Ronell Compositor: Michael Jensen Publisher: University of Nebraska Press Photograph: Dan Meyers This boo, philosophical step of writing as @ matefid ; technology ses typography to emphasize the rhetorical argument ofthe text, This spread, for example, is factared bp typographic rivers,” spaces ‘ha connect vertically through the page. Rivers vila the ven, unified estar hat sa || sacred goa! within traditional Iapographi desig. | (On fle Wy Largs How snledeaMl Tain ny aqgumentarsomesingnlsr denon cone orstaheranong you wire proper ame Laight fix rane non? And hen, 8 mowing proyersamerntamout ta kawng someone? (Gy) Dera demonstra fois part hat the nae peal xeuture ofthe mark parcpates ina speech destined ina Tanccto xblesce (lzingtnn) whore rote determinate or int as ras anypouilecesbion concerned iy eam: nls geatreencofinkiminaton-Thisinvoles>—languigecp eating: ayyseriofmks;“Language howe, SCA oe anor, thaesysens oferta hiseuroustenleney 36 thecpop city: they samen nce owas increasing the res af anim inetninton ar olf arte opacity Koreans and oe cenlingor, inher wos for con} and slFagalation” (MC. 3). Weta to dice bow se smlemcty of determining, enig arciern —supecning forme dep coperation with he nent inlangage towaedancoing orwharDertdasces2sthe antec sorvesof ralontindeternioteness This doubleciged coda, ne mst remat—sepady, at were, nonscinoprenie—Iangg och ating her he “Sch competion between randomness nd edediryps dk vey astenaticy ofthe stem wile itso bo es eagle the ree nmable ray of the sym. hater is singly inhi ropes, the linguistic ecm of theseracesor marks would merdy be it seerstome, jsp tislaroumple ofthe bw ofdetubiracon® (MG). Iemayte Uwefttonote thaDerfendertande Languageinterms prime iy oCuaes and mas, whee Laingmge —conceras signs inthe firtplice, and in parclarthe been apport ar wei sipilfing:e whicoseibly ee bidden eindit, oe the dion nection betwen signs and siges orsigas anreferets, Ling Jedioasune the lencyofasiogle, signs, lealiable —batimié proeree—ratier thaytrace or tesidal — murk—ffom where Soule ely detenined who speaks ant whoo ‘THiratoo tet cxcusion'sco*My —Chances*which may ie ingly sepoduce the end wats ofa chance encoun ent engage a dake besween the question of ues ‘belly Laing anttheanessnedin any Deri. Feriemow appease Taing pacshis beso the metined —_ systonsicy fthemem which Deriashows alway calyto—fllunder2 levofdesahilation”” Mercer, Derrdadoes nor suggest genie rain light eons makecona =o a a a ne a ag =a ies oS = ag a os Ree aesur | 67 SPACING Design is as much an act of spacing as an act of marking. The typographer’s art concerns not only the positive grain of letterforms, but the negative gaps. between and around them. In letterpress printing, every space is constructed by a physical object, « blank piece of metal or wood with no raised image. ‘The faceless slugs of lead and slivers of copper inserted as spaces between words or letters are as physical as the relief characters around them. Thin. strips of lead (called “leading") divide the horizontal lines of type; wider blocks of “furniture” hold the margins of the page. Although we tale the breaks between words for granted, spoken language is perceived as a continuous flow, with no audible gaps. Spacing has become crucial, however, to alphabetic writing. which translates the sounds of speech into multiple characters. Spaces were introduced after the invention of the Greek alphabet to make words intelligible as distinct units, ‘Tryreadingalineoftextwithoutspacingtosechowimportantithasbecome. With the invention of typography, spacing and punctuation ossified from gap and gesture to physical artifact. Punctuation marks, which were used differently fom one scribe to another in the manuscript era, became part of the standardized, rule-bound apparatus of the printed page. The communications scholar Walter Ong has shown how printing converted the word into a visual object precisely located in space: “Alphabet letterpress printing, in which each letter was cast on a separate piece of metal, or type, marked a psychological dreakthrough of the first order...Print situates words in space more relentlessly than writing ever did. Writing moves words from the sound world to the world of visual space, but print locks words into Wialier Ong, Oralty and Fiteraey: The Tehlogiing ‘ofthe Neri (London nnd New Yorls Methuen 1981, See also Jacques Dertiéa, Of Grammtalgy tnins, Gaya Chakravory Spivak (Baltimore: Joan Hopkins Univers Pues, 1976). position in this space.” Typogeaphy made text into a thing, a material object with known dimensions and fixed locations. ‘The French philosopher Jacqués Derrida, who devised the theory of deconstruction in the 1960s, wrote that although the alphabet represents sound, it cannot function without silent marks and spaces. Typogeaphy manipulates the silent dimensions of the alphabet, employing habits and techniques—such as spacing and punctuation—that are seen but not heard. The alphabet, rather than evolve into a transparent code for recording speech, developed its own visual resources, becoming 2 more powerful technology as it left bebind its connections to the spoken word. That a speech supposedly alive can lend itself to spacing in its own writing is what relates to its own death. Jacques Derrida, 1976text | 68 LINEARITY “From Work to Text,” the French critic Roland Barthes presented sus the open aged object, two opposing models of writing: the closed, fixed “work” v unstable “text.” In Barthes’s view, the work is a tidy, neatly pa proofread and copyrighted, made perfect and complete by the art of printing. The text, in contrast, is impossible to contain, operating across a dispersed web of standard plots and received ideas. Barthes pictured the text as “woven entirely with citations references, echoes, cultural languages (what language is not?), antecedent and contemporary, which cut actoss and through in a vast stereophony....The metaphor of the Text is that of the network.” Writing in the 1960s and 1970s, Barthes anticipated the Internet as a Roland Barthes, “From Work to Tex.” Jmage/ decentralized web, of connections. nothes was descbing bterature, yet his ideas resonate for aa typography, the visual manifestation of language. The singular “body” of and Wang, 1977), 155-64 ional features the traditional text page has long been supported by the navi ‘of the book, from page mumbers and headings that mark a reader's location to such tools as the index, appendix, abstract, footnote, and table of contents. These devices were able to emerge because the typographic book is 2 fixed sequence of pages, a body lodged in a grid of known coordinates. All such devices are attacks on linearity, providing means of entrance and escape from the oneaway stream of discourse. Wherees talking flows in a single direction, writing occupies space as well as time. Tapping that spatial dimension—and thus Liberating readers from the bonds of Linearity—is among typography’s most urgent tasks Although digital media are commonly celebrated for their potential as nonlinear potential communication, linearity nonetheless thrives in the electronic realm, from the “CNN craw!" that marches along the bottom of the television screen to the ticker-style LED signs that loop throtigh the urban environment. Film titles—the celebrated convergence of typography and cinema—serve to distract the audience from the inescapable tedium of a contractually decreed, top-down disclosure of ownership and authorship. .inearity dominates many of the commercial software applications that have claimed to revolutionize everyday writing and communication, Word processing programs, for example, treat documents as a linear stream. (In contrast, page layout programs such as Quark XPress and Adobe InDesign allow users to work spatially, breaking up text into columns and A text...is a multi-dimensional space in which a variety of writings, none of them original, blend and clash. Roland Barthes, 1974ter | 69 pages that can be anchored and landmarked.) PowerPoint and other processing, see Nancy Kapli®, presentation software programs are supposed to illuminate the spoken word thie tobienst! Ours by guiding the audience through the linear unfolding ofan ral address Image andthe Word,” Typically, however, PowerPoint enforces the one-way flow of speech rather ‘uodey/Weitey Torts. 32 than alleviating it. While a single sheet of paper could provide a map or are ae oe) summary ofan oral presentation, a PowerPoint show drags out in time Be Tle, “The Cognitive le of PowerPoint,” (Cheshire Not all digital media favor linear flow over spatial arrangement, Com: Grphics Tres. 2003). however. The database, one of the defining information stzuctures of our time, is an essentially nonlinear form. Providing readers and writers with a simultaneous menu of options, a database is a system of elements that can be arranged in countless sequences. Page layouts are built on the fly fromn freestanding chunks of information, assembled in response to user feedback. The Web is pushing authors, editors, and designers to work inventively with new modes of “microcontent” (page titles, key words, alt tags) that allow data to be searched, indexed, bookmarked, translated into audio, or otherwise marked for recall. Databases are the steucture behind electronic games, magazines, On the aethetics of the and catalogues, genres that create an information space rather than a linear dts see lev Manvel. sequence. Physical stores and libraries are databases of tangible objects found Caen ite inthe built environment, Media critic Lev Manovich has described language 2002) itself as a kind of database, an archive of elements from which people assemble the linear utterances of speech. Many design projects call for the emphasis of space over sequence, system over utterance, simultaneous structure over linear narrative. Contemporary design often combines aspects: of architecture, typography, film, wayfinding, branding, and other modes of address, By dramatizing the spatial quality of a project, designers can foster understanding of complex documents or environments, The history of typography is marked by the increasingly sophis cated use of space, In the digital age, where characters are accessed by keystroke and mouse, not gathered from heavy drawers of manufactured units, space has become more liquid than concrete, and typography has evolved from a stable body of objects to a flexible system of attributes. across numerous screens. Database and narrative are natural enemies. Competing for the same territory of human culture, each claims an exclusive right to make meaning of the world. Lev Manovich, 2002“e wifes ™ ‘hw \ _tpright srspai. “virtuous unepoileg righteous ‘0-to-miéetig sunday: 5o-eoomneetinn Interactive media, 2003 Designers: Phumb Design Inc. ‘This diptal thesaurus presents words witha threrdimensional web of relationships. The central term is tink to noes representing ‘hat wor dierent senses. The mare connctions each of these elite nodes contains, the bigger end closer it appears on the sree, Clicking on a satelite wort brings Hat frm othe center.intirsligy® harmful, mafH@" —inwrious © wrong malevolent g, ° unright \ ° “yi pad ® on evil eee) = s e WEP PRRd aries monstrojs sixious faatiousinous Succeeding the Author, the scriptor no longer bears within him passions, humours, feelings, impressions, but rather this immense dictionary from which he draws a writing that can know no halt. Roland Barthes, 1968Karzeet’ EmeCoy MicHArEL mcCoy [Nothing pulls you jnto the territory between act w cone pio givin it blertne whee wor Sonu exis een de gomTabe 0 he pote. Re held been die sl msky, aires ies canis, oni beneen ae a, Gratin ) casipygin amc foot Feige eis slsewsiont tbs al roves fr Heiegaer nthe“ Fi wanting he nil fhe wk” oe rem LS tng shes wa essing 9 bat Tha freon ideas ee fn the eh The mya, we pla frmthat ean cn sneasemt an ten Finds ocherows ceavalesigne The Seno x alain tat enable tudes a Gcby We encour te 9 sgn worl ant 1 woot tines che ein i cially ins ‘Watching sb process of trylntsabronhing new vas ain Auenes on th indie ge of i erpaatiun of dee fepeienclbaliuluaysston (yp rece eat fr exam, te dex pear ee aching rela esmosla idccaslgiats, an rpc designers mai Ye a nse, Ty ave binging a very pee Pealeaee vate au eed The ‘once warning the old previo clay tke table and ve qiecret name eral Vale the BaskaUs, Cranhecok never embacal slag echingemind sepiionly,otierto Suara ethan eth len Sindbis or hea yin ticopany of ne ais and designees whe mre em Eo edn te same search The nena at Crank een 0a fn het of : ‘henner Sosa faba i ao ie, vy haan clave alle colony va, cncdito, a aublimity oie? : Mach ofthe work dquo a Crantiook hasbeen dred nctatng tess spleen oraflesesine fester AdBook, 1990 Designers: Katherine MeCoy, B, Scott Makela, and Mary Low Krol Publisher: Rizoll Photographs Dan Meyers Under the Wrecion of igkerine and Michael McCoy the graduate progr in phic ond inlet desige Cranbrook: Academy of Art vasa ang eee for tayerimenal desig fom ts 1gye through the enty spas. Katherine McCoy devcloped a mode of typography os course," whic the designer fan reader acivelp interpret. br cathor tev BIRTH OF THE USER Roland Barthes’s model of the text as an open web of references, rather than a closed and perfect work, asserts the importance of the reader over the writer in creating meaning, ‘The reader “plays” the text as a musician plays an instrument. The author does not control its significance: “the text itself plays (like a door, ike a machine with ‘play’) and the reader plays twice over, playing the Text as one plays a game, looking for a practice that reproduces iv’ (102), Like an interpretation of a musical score, reading is a performance of the written word. Graphic designers embraced the idea of the readerly text in the 1980s and early 19908, using layers of text and interlocking grids to explore Barthes's theory of the “death of the author.” In place of the classical model of typography 2s a crystal goblet for content, this alternative view assumes that content itself changes with each act of representation. Typography becomes a mode of interpretation. Redefining typography as “discourse,” designer Katherine MeCoy imploded the traditional dichotomy between seeing and reading, Pictures can be read (analyzed, decoded, taken apart), and words can be seen (perceived as icons, forms, patterns). Valuing ambiguity and complexity, her approach challenged readers to produce their own meanings while trying. also to elevate the status of designers within the process of authorship. Another model, which undermined the designer's new claim to power, surfaced at the end of the 1990s, borrowed no} from literary criticism but from human-computer interaction (HCl) studies and the fields of interface and usability design. ‘The dominant subject of our age has become neither reader nor writer but user, a figure conceived as a bundle of needs and impairments—cognitive, physical, emotional. Like a patient or child, the user is a figure to be protected and cared for but also scrutinized and controlled, submitted to research and testing, How texts are used becomes more important than what they mean, Someone clicked hexe to get over there. Someone who bought this also bought that. The interactive environment not only provides users with a degree of control and selfdirection but also, more quietly and insidiously it gathers data about its audiences. Rarthes’s image of the text as a game to be played still holds, as the user respond to signals from the system. We may play the text, but itis also playing ts Design a human-machine interface in accordance with the abilities and foibles of humankind, and you will help the user not only get the job done, but be a happier, more productive person, Jef Raskin, 2000nese | 94) Graphic designers can use theories of user interaction to revisit On sicen rsd, some of our basic assumptions about visual communication. Why, for see Jon D, Goulet example, are readers on the Web less patient than readers of print? It is Biren commonly believed that digital displays are inherently more difficult to read from Mapes Sumas fac than ink on paper. Yet HCI studies conducted in the late 1980s proved that 29»5 W987 497-57 cxisp black text on a white background can be read just as efficiently from a scrcen as from a printed page The impatience of the digital reader arises from culture, not from On the ssless use see the essential character of display technologies. Users of Web sites have Jakob Nielsen, Designing | Web Usability tnanapols different expectajions than users of print. They expect to feel “productive,” New Riders, 2000). arch mode, not processing mode. not contemplative, They expect to be in Users also expect to be disappointed, distracted, and delayed by false leads, “The cultural habits of the screen ave driving changes in design for print, while at the same time affirming priat’s role as a place where extended reading can still occur. ‘Another common assumption is that icons are a more universal Ov the lure of inex mode of communication than text. Icons are central to the GUIs (graphical Kens see fel sk Ee ae oe ty acetal eee a ofien provide a more specific and understandable cue than a picture. Teons ——injraaive Spica Ra Mass: Addison-Wesley, 2000) don’t actually simplify the translation of content into multiple languages, because they require explanation in multiple languages. The endless icons of the digital desktop, often rendered with gratuitous detail and depth, fanction more to enforce brand identity than to support usability. In the twentieth century, modern designers hailed pictures as a “universal” language, yet in the age of code, text has become a more common denom- | inator than images—searchable, translatable, and capable of being reformatted and restyled for alternative or future media, Perhaps the most persistent impulse of twenticth-century art and } design was to physically integrate form and content. The Dada and Futurist poets, for example, used typography to create texts whose content was inextricable from the concrete layout of specific letterforms on a page. In the twentyefirst century, form and content axe being pulled back apart. Style sheets, for example, compel designers to think globally and systematically | instead of focusing on the fixed construction of a particular surface, This way Web users don’t like to read... They want to keep moving and clicking. Jakob Nielsen, 2000 EeeOn ransmedia design thinking, see Brenda Laurel, Chapa Bntrerencar |Cambridge: MIT Press, 2001) Jef Raskin tals about the scarciy of human attention as ell as the myth of white space in The Humane Ieaces New Directions fr Designing Interactive Systems, ied on p74 of thinking allows content to be reformatted for different devices or users, and it also prepares for the afterlife of data as electronic storage media begin their own cycles of decay and obsolescence. In the twentieth centus nodern artists and critics asserted that each medium is specific. They defined film, for example, as a constructive language distinct from theater, and they described painting as a physical medium that refers to its own processes, Today, however, the medium is not always the message. Design has become a “transmedia" enterprise, as authors and producers create worlds of characters, places, situations, and interactions that can appear across a variety of products, A game might live in different versions on a video screen, 2 desktop computer, a game console, and a cell phone, as well as on t-shirts, lunch boxes, and plastic toys. ‘The beauty and wonder of “white space” is another modernist myth that is subject to revision in the age of the user. Modern designers discovered that open space on a page can have as much physical presence as printed areas. White space is not always a mental kindness, however. Edward Tule, a fierce advocate of visual density, argues for maximizing the amount of data conveyed on a single page or screen, In order to help readers make connections and comparisons as well as to find information quickly, a single surface packed with well-organized information is sometimes better than multiple pages with a lot of blank space. In typography as in urban life, density invites intimate exchange among people and ideas. In our much-fabled era of information overload, a person can still process only one message at a time. This brute fact of cognition is the secret behind magic tricks: sleights of hand occur while the attention of the audience is drawn elsewhere. Given the fierce competition for their attention, users have a chance to shapetthe information economy by choosing what to Jook at, Designers can help them make satisfying choices. “Typography is an interface to the alphabet. User theory tends to favor normative solutions over innovative ones, pushing design into the background. Readers usually ignore the typographic interface, gliding comfortably along literacy's habitual groove. Sometimes, however, the interface should be allowed to fail. By making itself evident, typography can illuminate the construction and identity of a page, screen, place, or product. If people weren't good at finding tiny things in long lists, the Wall Street Journal would have gone out of business years ago. Jef Raskin, 2000TYPOGRAPHY, INVENTED IN THE RENAISSANCE, allowed text to become @ fixed and stable form, Like the body of the letter, the body of text was. transformed by print into an industrial commodity that gradually became more open and flexible. Critics of electronic media have noted that the rise of networked communication did not lead to the much feared destruction of typography {or even to the death of print), but rather to the burgeoning of the alphabetic empire, As Peter Lunenfeld points out, the computer has revived the power and prevalence of writing: “Alphanumeric text has risen from its own ashes, a digital phoenjy taleing flight on monitors, across networks, and in the realms of virtual space.” The computer display is moze hospitable to text than the screens of film or television because it offers physical proximity, user control, and a scale appropriate to the body. ‘The book is no longer the chief custodian of the written word Branding is a powerful variant of iteracy that revolves around symbols, icons, and typographic standards, leaving its marks on buildings, packages, allum covers, Web sites, store displays, and countless other surfaces and spaces. With the expansion of the Internet, new (and old) conventions for displaying text quickly congealed, adapting metaphors from print and architecture: window, frame, page, banner, menu, Designers working within this stream of mukiple media confront text in myriad forms, giving shape to extended bodies but also to headlines, decks, captions, notes, pull quotes, logotypes, navigation bars; alt tags, and other prosthetic clumps of language that announce, support, and even eclipse the main body of text. ‘The dissolution of writing is most extreme in the realm of the Web, where distracted readers safeguard their time and prizé function over form. This debt-of restlessness is owed not to the essential nature of computer monitors, but to the new behaviors engendered by the Internet, @ place of searching and finding, scanning and mining, The reader, having toppled the author's seat of power during the twentieth century, now ails and lags, replaced by the dominant subject of our own era: the w whose scant attention is our most coveted commodity. Do not squ > a figure nder it, Hypertext means the end of the death of literature. 5 art Moulthrop, 199) rext | 76 m clectronic writing, sce Peter Lunenfeld, Snap to Grids A User's Guide to Digital Ans, Medi and Cultures (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2001) Jay David Bolter, Writing Space Computers, Hypertst, and dhe Remediation of Print (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Exbauin Associates, 200) andl Stuart Moultrop, “You Say You Want a Revoltion? Hypertext and the Laws of Media,” The New Media Poade, el. Noal Wari Fruin and Nick Monfor, (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2003), 6gt-705ine = se H- wees - vs Yeb site, 2005 sin of visual deny and annozates Hinks to ater 3 5 s z= 3 mS 2 3S is @ 3BEYOND NOSTALGIA Enbvoidery wocdanvingy wl nioutely detailed caramic slszes are ottechnigiesyweostally associatewilh contemacraryactand deen Those ageold msthods sonstheless psy «prominent parti fae wre ol ever cute anistsanddesoners)ineusing Berend Sick Win Deluayesand Hella ogous Berend Sti wor esamb)en amalganeot mod volar eb {ute old rats; ane nw subject matter For one ef his-besthnown pieses|Utie, 1099), Stk pasion gaping lemaisrmouthslnavovscut {aye sina umberet phalusesjand necentuaieathe ip suilnes wilh legantlines ci crs-ttching ane other oranenta embroldery. “Thorouificallon ton pis the-epsctalor kway from hecho rome tape internation spt suddenbrtho stains aheiwveny chow Econo emerge from those unmistakably luricius lis The peblice ‘ion of Fenech hilosopnor Giorces Batalles uook fs armes Eras ‘Usk hae meds usavare of ust naar ligloasdestasyisnlertied ‘wth sexual death and volenoe: StAle:subjet fe the same: His ‘usintembiokeryteshn quechellengestbeypoersyithhich past oak, 2003, Designers: COMA, AunsterdamNew York Author: Louise Schouwenberg Publisher: Phaidon Photographs Dan MeyersTHe BEGINNING Llookedinto the form without realy knowing it at firs; [sow walls Ipjng across space The tilting planes cinbad and cut ito each other, ‘oer, shatzering any notion of building in the conventional sense. [nd the sialogue bagon between Dariel Libeskind and myself, how oul sucha form be built? that is then clad and 1 Second to transparency. a faite orwasit culls out of ‘U5t0 look for the radies ae Tsk, 2002 Designer: Januzzi Smith Auilior: Cell Balmmond Publisher: Peestel Photograpl: Dan Meyers "This book sw manifesto Jor as “infernal” ape ssrucal englnering and architecture, Thrugout the Book, the typography combines lst Pcl fash ight talignonents, crop a say but Inston: sean or fissure inside the test column, and needa gs on the eter edges This consrucion beautify expresses the principle of formality anuersored bp the iegrtion of heces vith he aypogray ofthe Hook90 VERTICAL ALIGNMENTset 91 Qe eo ery Oo O° STACKED CAPITALS Roman letters are designed to sit side by side, not on top of fone another. Uppercase Jetters form more stable stacks than lowercase letters. Centering the column helps to even out the differences in width. (Iheletter Fis a perenaial problem) VERTICAL ALIGNMENT Vi Vv ae ° Oo OD e é seat re = o E ie iP 70Q ny Ge i © Saas = 2 it t Ee a Z 9 ‘ 3 Ons = i 1 * Sp E g 6 fit oO 0 P< ‘Teen crime: SCALA LOWERCASE, VEREICAL BASFLINES HACKED towencase lop tobetiom. bins 10 top bth aretons STACKED LOWERCASE VERTICAL waszuiwEs Stacks of lowercase ‘The simplest way to make a line of letters are especially text form a vertical line is to change awkward because the orientation of the baseline from the ascenders and horizontal to vertical. This preserves descenders make the the natural affinity among letters sitting, vertical spacing ona line. appear uneven, and ‘There is no fixed rule determining the varied width of whether type should run from top to the characters makes bottom or from bottom to top. It is more the stacks look common, however, especially in the US,, to run text on the spines of books from top to bottom. {You ean also run text up and down simultaneously.) precarious. English is not Chinese, John Kane, 2002ext | 92 Carrefour de Paralléles — PuNdyuYydS wi uaja|jeiedand FrenchHIERARCHY Pa } HIERARCHY Hierarchy auiaeancatt nenancit } ree ie a) nara Reine Face © chert Chenin Gnd D, Seraphim ae oe i 11 Ruling body of clergy Ruling body of clegy RuLive nony or cumnew Pope oe ie Hii ‘B. Curdinal Cardinal, Cardinat i © Archbishop Achbchop seh \ DDihep Bahop Bitep 1} UI Parts ofa text * Parts of a text PARTS OF ATEXT | A. Work Work Work i B Chapter Chapter Cine i G Secon Sean = \\ D, Sabton ahaa Sect HiERARCHY A typographic kierarchy expresses an organizational system for content, emphasizing some data and diminishing others. A hierarchy helps readers scan a text, knowing where to enter and exit and how to pick and choose among its offerings. Each level of the hierarchy should be signaled by ‘one or more cues, applied consistently across a body of text. A cue can be spatial (indent, line spacing, placement on page) or graphic (size, style, color of typeface). Infinite variations are possible. ange serphin or cuERcy aciap work ants OF dupe REDUNDANCY Writers are generally trained to avoid redundancy, as in the expressions “future plans’ or “past history.” In typography, some redundancy is acceptable, even recommended, For ‘example, paragraphs are traditionally marked with a line break ard an indent, a redundancy that has proven quite practical, as each signal provides backup for the other. To create an elegant economy of signals, try using no more than three cues for each level or break in a document. CREATING EMPHASIS WITHIN RUNNING TEXT Emphasizing a word or phrase within a body of text usually reqttires only one signal. Malic is the standard form of emphasis, There are many alternatives, however, including boldface, sMaLL caPs, of a change in color. You can also create emphasis with a different font; a full-range type family such as Scala has many font variations designed to work together. If you want to mix font families, such as Seala and Futura, adjust the sizes so that the heights align ' BOLD, ITALIC, UNDERLINED CAPS! TypE cei Emphasis ca be created uth just one shiftnext | 95 HIERARCHY Various forms of dysfinetion appear among populations ‘exposed to typography for long periods of time, Listed here are a numberof frequenly observed afictions, syropiitia An excessive attachment to and fascination with the Shape of eters, offen tothe excision of other interests and objet chokes Typophilacs usta die penniless and alone. srvroritonty The firationaldishike of leterforms,ofien marked by a preference for icons, dingbats, 2nd—in fatal cases—bulles| and daggers. The feats ofthe typophobe can often be quieted (bur not cured) by steady doses of Helvetica nd Times Rowan, mussicerous ryvochtoxnaia A persistent ae that one has sleced the ‘wrong typeface, This condition is often paired with ox (optical ‘emning disorder), the need to constantly adjust and readjust the paces betwee leer, ryrornieans “The promiscuous refusal to make a lifelong Ellen Lupton “Thinking With Deskin: le Lupton > “Thrking With Desig’ Terrevent Thing with Goagr Erase genic deer ice underccnadration.con/speskuporcives | Design Writing Design Culture Now The Nato | Trent WER HIERARCHY Most Web sites ate controlled by hierarchies in an even more systernatic way than print documents. A site's file structure proceeds from a root down to directories holding various levels of content. An HTML page contains a hierarchy of elements that can be nested one inside the other. The site’ organization is reflected in its interface—from. navigation to the formatting of content. Typography helps clucidate the hierarchies governing all these features. Dynamic Web sites use databases to build pages on the fly as users search for specific content. Databases cut across the planned hierarchy ofa site, bringing up links from different levels and content areas—or from other Web sites. Typographic style sheets are used to weight the information gathered, helping users find what they need. so |) Book Results joss) arch by dtlen Lupton (10 June, 1959) Skin: Surface, Substance, and Design By Ellen Lupton, Jennifer Tobias, Aiia Imperiale, Grace Jeffers, ahd Randi Matas (March, 2002) jonal Design. by Donald Albrecht, Elan Luaton, Steven Holt, and Slaven Slov Holt (L5 March, 2000) fixing Messages: Graphic Design in Contemporary Culture by Elen Lupton (September, 2996) __ Letters from the Avant-Garde: Modern Graphic / jesign by sllen Lupton andi Elaine Lustig Cohen (March. 1995), ww ag.com, Scart engine, 2094 A search engines applies a ypographic hierarchy to the results calls up, using coor, size, weight, and cundesining to dijeretiave is pars,WEB ACCESSIBILITY Many designers are passionately committed to building accessible sites for the Web. This medium ‘was invented in order to provide universal access to information, a goal it may some day achieve, regardless of a user’s physical abilities or access to specialized software. cading Style Sheets (CSS) allow designers to plan alternate layouts depending on the user's software and hardware, For example, cell phones and personal digital assistants display Web sites in a textonly format, while some users have outdated browsers or lack the software “plug-ins” required for displaying certain kinds of files. Style sheets can also be used to design print-friendly versions of interactive documents cas ‘Web site, 2001 Designers: Red Canoe Publisher: Kavanagh Prodhictons: This Hasl-enobled ste was crated for docamentary lm bout desegregation. 1 includes «a textbused, HTML version, desired for users without access to Mash. The HTML version is alg easy to print and is use to journalists or researchers desiring direct access to the text.text ror WEE ACCESSIBILITY Visually impaired users employ automated screen readers that “linearize” Web pages into a continuous text that can be read aloud by a machine. Techniques for achieving accessibility include the captioning of all layout tables (or, better yet, the avoidance of tables altogether), the consistent use of “alt tags" (which identify image files), and the placement of page anchors in front of repeated navigation clements that enable users | t0 go directly to the main content. Various software programs allow designers to test the linearization of their pages Hiscorical Gontext Oiler amie A FORGOTIEN AST ee eG: Arum ne ‘Web ste, 2003 Designer: Colin Day, Exclamation sera e Commaniations Publisher: The Clapham Institute Thissie was designed to he acess to toate sighed anil nonsighed users, Av righe is MSY Aven veion of he page above, rere One of the defining principles of the Web is that it should provide all people, regardless of physical or technological readiness, with access toinformation. Patrick Lynch and Sarah Horton, 2001PARAGRAPH EXERCISE raraGrariis do not occur in nature. Whereas sentences are grammatical elements intrinsic to the spoken language, paragraphs are a wholly literary convention designed to divide content into portions that are more appetizing to readers (and waiters) than an endless stream of discourse. In the seventeenth century, it became standard to mark the beginning of a new paragraph with an indent, and to mark its close with a Tine break, Before then, typographers sometimes left extra space between paragraphs or sentences (without a line break}, preserving the clean edges of the text block, Despite the ubiquity of the indentjline brealt convention today, numerous alternatives can be used in its place, Inventing new ones is an intriguing typographic exercise. ‘This exercise indebted to Geonge Sade and ‘Wiliam, Bevington at the Cooper Union arte hrs ofthe nya wi thal bg yuri it comyng shal neuer ende ne Saati And to thi ign repeal oat f thes wey aad how brett tere bediicomyngera ou {ord yer hethtcheanaeehencionnexpeia buco thotlleeasofthathecameinfmayne oats eothewod tolls comch tegen dome egpet Sia: of te ce of re Cae ee Let ae ye ta of gadaes ace iges eee fe “athe coma ouiincumaetanatan ey "Aad by cause ofthe comyng at the ies ios Arr Page desl, 1892 Designet: William Morris Publisher: Kelmscott Press Willian Morris admire the dense pages of the early Renaissance, Here, he has sed 8 paragraph spol in place of tine breaks and indents The table i covered ith a tablecloth which isl protected by 2 plastic tablecloth. Drapes and double drapes ate atthe windows. We have carpets, slipcovers, coasters, wainscoting, lampshades. Each trinket sits on a dois, eal ower in its po, and each pot in its sacer Eremthing is protected and surrounded, Even in the garden, each chistes encircled with wiee neting each path is outlined by bricks, mosaics, a fagstones. This could be analyzed 26 an sions sequestration, 3s an obsessional symbatsn: the obsession ofthe cottage ovnes ann sal capitalist not only to possess, but to underline what he possesses two of three Himes, There, as ether places, the notations and overworking, — Jeon tadrlrd,1960 The table i covered with table cloth whieh itselF is protected by a plate lable cloth, Drapes and double drapes are atthe windows, We have carpets, slipcaress, coasters, wainscoting, Jampslades. Bac trinket sits ox a doy eel lower in its poland each pot its sae: renting iv protected and surrounded, Even i the garden, ch eso is encircled with wite meting, eal path is out Tined.by bricks, mosaics, oF fagstones. This could be analyzed as ait ansious sequestration, as an ‘obsessional syenbolism: the olisession ofthe cottage owner and small capitalist not only 19 porses, bul te undedine ‘wat he possesses to or tse ites, There as other pees the unconscious speaks in the redundancy of sigs. their connotations and averworking, = Jeo Banbilrd, 1969‘The able is covered with tablecloth which selfs protected bya plastic tablecloth, Drapes aud double deapes are a the ‘windows. We havo carpet, slipcovers, coasters, wainscoling, lampshades. Each trinket sits oa del, eae Hower in ts po, sand each points saucer, erthing is proce and surrounded, Even in the garden, tach duster fs enctled wih wire meting, each path is out lined by brik, mosaics, or agstones. ‘his could be analyzed as an anvious sequestration, as an ab- sessional symbols: th obsession ofthe cottage ewer and ull capitalist not only, 0 possess, but 19 undedine what he possesses two or three tines There, as other places, the unconscious speak in the redundaney of signs, in thee con rion al overwork. — een Badrilan, 136 Thetable is coveted wth table cath which isl protected bya plastic table oth. Drapes and double drapes are atthe vvindows. We have eepes, slipcovers, coasters, wainscoing, Jamnpshades. Eich trinket sits ona diy each flamer in is pat, aa ech pti its sauces “Behing is potected and surrounded, ach ster isencteled ith wire netting, cach path is out ye in the garde, lined by bricks, mosses r agstones. This could be analyze as an ansous sequestration, a5 an ‘hsssionalsyrbelism: the obsession of the ctiage owner and smal eapalist not only to possess, But to undedtine what he possesses tao othr times. Ther, as ater places, the ‘unconscious speaks inthe redundancy of signs, in thei con: tations and ovecworking — jen Barat, 1969, LENE BREAK AND 1/2 LINE SPACE PARAGRAPHS “The ables covered wih a table cl which iselF 6 protected bya plastic tle cloth, Drapes anu! double drapes are at the windows. We have carpets, slipewers,ceasters, wainscoting lampshades, Esch trinket sits on adil, ech Rlawer ints pot, ancl each pot in its sauces. Everying is protected and sur rounded. Even in the garden, each cluster is encircled with wire meting, each path #9 ontlined by bricks, mosaics, or Aagstoues, This eould be analyzed as an anwious sequesta tion, a an obsessional symbolises the obsession af the cotage owner and small eapitalise no ony to possess, but to underline what le possesses tho oF tec times. Thee, ae ater places, the unconscious spealss in the redundancy of signs in theie connotations and overworking, Jean Baird, 1969 “he able s covered with table cloth which self prolected by plastic table cloth. Drapes and double drapes are at the ‘windows, We hive carpets slipcovers, coasters, wainscoting lampshades. Fach tinket sis en a del, each Hower i its pol, and each pot i its saueet i Tventhing i potsctd and sie rounded, Zven in the garden, each dlusice is enctcled with, wire netting, each pati is eullined by bricks, mosses, or fagsones. This could bo analyzed 38 an anxious ssquestea tion, 26 an obsessional symbolism: the oiession of the cot tage owner and small capitalist not ony to possess, bu underline what he possesses two or thee tines. There, as other places the unconscious speaks i the redundancy of signs, in their connotations and overworking, — Jan Baudritart, 1969 ‘The first word of the first line is the critical word of that particular body of text. lett start flush, atleast. WA. Dwiggins} WORD EXERCISE next | 104 ‘You can express the meaning ofa word oran idea through the spacing, of letters on the page. Designers often think this way when sizi creating logotypes, posters, or editorial / | and place i headlines. In this project, physical sition transiti processes such as disruption, and migration are expressed through i ener eer eerten ee “The round Os in Futura make ita fun typeface to use for this project Examples of student wort from 1 Maryan Insitute Cllege of Art i, ‘ , ‘ dis‘uption © © mpression€ yexpansion | satan WILLIAM WORD EXERCISE jon t iS, migration elimina jon ao 4 fos , ‘TEXT EXERCISE Use modes of alignment (flush left, Qush right, justified, and centered) to actively interpret a passage of text. The passage here, from Walter Ong’s book Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word, explains how the invention of printing, with movable type imposed a new spatial order on the written word, in contrast with the moze organic pages of the manu- script era, Each project comments on the conflicts between hard and soft, industrial and natural, planning and randomness, that undeslie all typographic composition. Examples of student work fom ‘Marya Institute Collegeof Art in ie ol pil mp on by ee ean ie fl on ech ering emo om ee vu: ba ri ce woe she si ofits or ee Passages of flush eft ond lus igh text hinge frome central axis jonwsciix KUDOS ondomly spaced words break fe fv a rigidly justified column. Inhinderng cel pt Trae rol koe ll er long, centered lies are bridges between narrow, ragged columns NENTAMIN LUTZlon ton wing ee did Wing ro wa fi he wand wd ld fal se Bot pit ek sere err in chi ee Ceo of psn beeing in, cd Pee cesta thee oF pe de cies deel fi ele al al the eat, gor cating onc ere Ties Ginsu fot ‘The beginning ofthe paragraphs moved to the end ies ods ioe ees ha Se fo te nd weld awit al nk eyhiog punt, nts eam Ietuadein, com of pac ewbts rane fre ae , ist ea al jel Sockercn ail ite edie Site onto of Sav ia mana This an oben word of ‘sine se ements beak asp from a fustified column, TEXT EXERCISE ine senwonh ingen mae yt weg ng os words cr nun wold wd of inl pe bt pit ack polo pnb pce. Coal ee tela dy at Is adi = esl ea leap paleo ply npr is nig he Hes ply mln lio he ie ee se retro cx tasin esi winea Geel eos bere aan A single tne ides ont of justified block, For tlcly poeta LS ons eon Ses fe Gone machine me Senihing in iad, ree te sent foc catia irente ee tpi ste el vatiy ‘ipa ets refer Throne pe sone pale intl on he prone mt tee stat ofen seu re ad Tint sins ernie ‘abl bole faa, cts ‘Text i forced into a grid of ragged squaresext | ro8109 Second Skin NANCY DALVA DISSECTS GEOTEREY BEENE Magazine, 1995 Designee: Abbott Miller Photoprapher: Jack Deutsch Publisher: Patsy "Tarr Like diagram from ar anatomy Book, the typograpy maps the Boy sen throug tie skin of the page.= = = == atasom = ! Concept for Web site Design: 2x4, New Yorkook, 4725 printed by Nigolas Jenson, Venice allection ofthe Walters Art Museum, Baltimore During the frst century of printing the Frenchoborn printer Niolas Jenson tstablshod a printing business in Vince, a ivi commercial center, This book: rates an clean, unbroken text blk set in one of the fst roman ‘ypc. The page has no Une breaks or bade. Pe ate rnd Sips connect ta afm pcr te medlmtae wer Easuarers macledien Netlink SecallGendcim paris Ait fp te EL rem un decd Nie Ene i cleey anion Tic muace eepmcssee menial homey exe PERSE De tate anges Ae te Dum (ee eT tat ont deme cesenm etic siete arches nderotertiee Geto TIS vlan aps eiauraet ue ble dmas ol PSeteRS TR pecdiea!cmaalseommistiaronmnntyern, poet sigs aio Quam eae tyne SERS eee parser sent Seem eerie eee ee paleneppinte Vamenta “Tall mancourt pecon oert pepe te RIPE Sienna. gunna detent ASST eeepc ot tras pet fede Exim Hees Gaeta fap lew/u sien timoraegee [Eetthper ens aha nog grs tne Qed ellsecrmgremegitctitctinn Nagata ‘agen ews ta oui corres een wees Au nen en gear Sigel ee teeta een epee ane cnene Eisler reeteg tel eleearo me Upson ose ataessseasones Serene soe tiers en Seopa eee poe ca he eacien en foe eee cece eget rene (Siesta iignantacoeta re eters nes iron (ecimiercitre Shee tlue epics ner poeta reer mes aed Sheet teen eh dey eugpa cis we cnigepic ne (cetaceans ple ft oa eee cares osc pece eeepc aero ee ar Recetas ert Rar cae ae noeGRID A GRID DREAKS SPACE OR TIME INTO REGULAR UNITS. A grid can be simple or complex, specific or generic, tightly defined or loosely interpreted. ‘Typographic grids are all about control. They establish a system for arranging content within the space of page, screen, or built environment. Designed in response to the internal pressures of content {text, image, data) | and the outer edge or frame (page, screen, window), an effective grid is not a rigid formula but a flexible and resilient structure, a skeleton that moves in concert with the muscular mass of information. Grids belong to the technological framework of typography, fom the concrete modularity of letterpress to the ubiquitous rulers, guides, and coordinate systems of graphics applications. Although software generates | illusions of smooth curves and continuous tones, every digital image or | mark is constructed—ultimately—ftom a grid of neatly bounded blocks. The ubiquitous language of the Gut (graphical user interface] creates a gridded space ini which windows overlay windows in a haphazard way { In addition to their place in the background of design production, grids have become explicit theoretical tools, Avant-garde designers in the 1gr08 and 1920s exposed the mechanical grid of letterpress, bringing it to } the polemical surface of the page. ln Switzerland after World War Il, graphic designers built a total design methodology around the typographic grid, hoping to construct with it a new and rational social order, ‘The grid has evolved across centuries of typographic development. For graphic designers, grids are carefully honed intellectual devices, infused with ideology and ambition, and they are the inescapable mesh that filers, at some level of res lution, nearly every system of writing and reproduction.ate ores tae Be inlivinmyob Lvr ec eeeeeeok il Sete Sata apes rt igonaregcodces. verte ca deems: arote st 360 Sas. arses SM setae ete Fe rae Sra ene Ea ae naaeea ecesate caer mee ieee oon ie. ig sea Statue se hasta Faget eri brow via mebeanis par ei auToargentoas 2¢- poa-wetpcitue vr ‘wlgoaiieisencra mia aigeraraad codes: insmubt ma per pes babere eedulaa joLmpulros codices o> ‘meadsro0. leagues chime at fepmagintsiustt ‘gecowzermenutrabebe ‘Ss:mlacinatmeoLabere ‘alls é. ligne mal ‘gsvuler adios ‘ssa cb “Guarpi argareenton need "ives: dem Ditate {Geb vtindi tf id ante nomen obsblct plesrore arbiter ge- uzun guesvoceuiten ns tata pe fllus out desire oectautlyo Demure boltstaste mo ababeaama LEED fn eyes qu ecuawerit fnedermasqetipieresia- es fea pam fea Tegtaat sie bala Me beoe: euomé eufdesamcticlnacbaba Due urembal. miobaprautyeck brio}. ypottob ates cut Famouicraroece berms ows regione, erp ls aug agar fins beat fg eriit radian mean potoab:cenomen city Fiseane cerben ‘Eeplarargucenum. Butuan dient ten, Sets ilona wievtctser ndings Bic Sve ie let Dike arya ‘ande.st fob cdrnetede i Bie i {Silanes fabilabonte CE mle ‘Glodaratenieeinagsasaem ‘explctquticampcroetdomnoptet, se tl ) eaieieatnanreset Bt petunia day ‘reseed isanei enclose dmes ior ausunse ciaat iseouisren enna strane teense ane emete pene einen fides on bem pc kc eee ee inatnras caiman dean greahiannrieane repatera speaane ay tanec ieee anon en ene e Kees staaloncgg cat Seeman saceeaite male, cs hl Heap Fo a ‘Po ie ytae s feceiceca nee eecicee ny utes quetigputee capnotrépinds fans oe esas Sg Svea eae Herts conscran Sociee cmene nee Soe aaa eran eaee oe a aes 1 GT a ere trata 3 See ete ed Heise or cetera eet crete ee See na ee asae ‘Soest omipucdt ab Oe ccutruraali cot Segadiea are emeegetgeat oped ns eet alban iar aus fb acme canon cerraar Sesriem rene Cn ee erent eee aes oe eateries abcubtenundpuemecneraoraa eras iaaramat ne Sol ee: emt 114 LATIN minne (Her) Book page, 1497 Printed by Anton Koberper A tomcat grid engulf second st of colar ach age i a dense mass inci with narrow autre ‘andl open spaces where iuminated capitals would rave bev ald by hand ‘The layout chang fons age to page<< ll s—“ enn [as GRID AS FRAME Alphabetic writing, like most writing systems, is organized into columns and rows of characters. Whereas handwriting flows into connected lines, the mechanics of metal type impose a stricter order. Each letter occupies its own block, and the letters congregate in orderly rectangles. Stored in gridded cases, the characters become an archive of elements, a matrix of existing forms from which each page is composed. Until the twentieth century, grids served as frames for fields of text. The margins of a classical book page create a pristine barrier around a flush, solid block of text. A page dominated by a solitary field of type remains today’s most common book format, although that perfect rectangle is now “broken with indents and line breaks, and the margins are peppered with page numbers and running heads (text indicating the book or chapter title) In addition to the classical norm of the single-column page, various alternative layouts existed during the first centuries of printing, from the rid of Gutenberg’s Bible to more elaborate layouts derived bwo-column from the medieval scribal tradition, where passages of scripture aze surrounded by scholarly commentary, Polyglot (multilingual) books display a text in several languages simultaneously, demanding complex divisions of the surfice. Such formats permit multiple streams of text to coexist while defending the sovereignty of the page-as-frame. The philosopher Jacques Derrida has described the frame in Western art as a form that seems to be separate from the work yet is necessary for marking its difference from everyday life. A frame or pedestal elevates the work, removing it from the realm of the ordinary. The work thus depends on the frame for its status and visibility Typography is, by and large, an att of framing, a form designed to melt away as it yields itself to content. Designers focus much of their energy ‘on margins, edges, and empty spaces, elements that oscillate between present and absent, visible and invisible. With print’s ascent, margins became the user interface of the book, providing space for page numbers, running heads, commentary, notes, and ornaments. The frame... disappears, buries itself, effaces itself, melts away at the moment it deploys its greatest energy. The frame is in no way a background... but neither is its thickness as margin a figure. Or at least it is a figure that comes away of its own accord. Jacques Derrid: