Typography & Typeface Design

spirit Is e in truth(prenominal)where. It may be a bit of click, more(prenominal)over It Is definitely true. We excite sex In an age of mass consumption and mass communication, and e very(prenominal)where we fancy we jakes find examples of visualize. As an industrial send off student l, natur al integrityy, scat to focus at product visualise, exactly there ar of course of instruction of business m either any(prenominal) other design check overs. However, there is one design discipline that I for some reason never perceived as design, until I was scribbling In my notepad one day. I was bored and drawing variations of the letter At first, it was just mindlessly doodling, but then I established what I was actually doing.I wasnt just drawing the letter, I was designing it. It may headphone Like a trivial discovery, but for me It was a revelation that identical a shot triggered my curiosity. The truth is cause memorial tablet design is everywhere, and because of t his it easy to forget that faces be products of design too. Somebody knowing the logo of your favorite soft drink brand, psyche intentional the font that is displayed on the emergency exit sign, and somebody intentional the very garner you be airing at right now.Even In product design baptismal fonts and writing can play a study role. Once I started to collide with notice of the amount f musical composition around me, it became almost overwhelming, and I couldnt help but starting to wonder. Who designed these grammatical cases and with what purpose? Where do they come from and how did they become such a adult part of our everyday life? But above all, what can I as an industrial designer learn from studying this huge but for me uncharted design discipline?Typography In the middle of the leave HISTORY If we trace physical composition back to its roots, it is fair to say that it typography and fifty-fiftyt design emerged somewhere mid-1 5th speed of light with the Introduction of conveyable symbolcast affecting in forever handwritten, but movable type printing al humiliateded for new possibilities and systematic typography. Johannes Gutenberg designed the first character Texture. The design was firmly influenced by the gothic dah of the German bea scribes. This style is called black letter or gruesomelisted.This new form of printing spread unwavering across Europe, and played a major role during the Renaissance. In Italy the German gothic style was replaced by the Venetian style, which was based on the instructional capitals on roman buildings and monuments. These new compositors cases were designed in a very structural way, and were very detailed and balanced. They in front long became he main boldness for western civilization. The Italians likewise reintroduced the papist c erstpt of minuscule, or little garner. The minuscule where kept in a allow for at low level easy access, while the capitals where kept in a case ab ove that one.This is where the terms lowercase and uppercase come from, which are until now employ today. Eventually all these different elements melted together and these causas are referred to as Roman types. Late 15th coke Italian printers realized that they could print text in a slanted way, so that the erect space a word occupied could be minimized. This way they could print more ext on a page. This style is called Italics, and is named after its place of bloodline Italy. So in the earlyish 16th century there where 3 main type classifications of Western typography Roman, Blacklisted and Italic.However, people started combining Roman and Italic type, and nowadays Italics are oft only used for emphasis, quotes and call or titles. During the 17th and 18th century nerves evolved further, and typeface designers were experimenting with different stroke-weights and seriph styles. Serifs are the little strokes at the end of sheaths In the 19th century the industrial revolu tion kook place. The rise of advertisement demanded for large-scale typefaces that Egyptian, or Slab-serifs, and were recognizable by their thick block like serifs.Early in the twentieth century a new sweat within typography emerged innovative typography. Modern typography was part of the modernisticist elbow grease, which was a movement that strove for a new, modern interpretation of art, architecture, literature, etc. Modern typography strove for an universal form of communication, and by this is meant that they did not wish the typeface to interfere with the message in both way typefaces should be neutral, and their arm should be dictated by its function. They cherished information to be displayed in a visually linear and tell way.One of the most characteristic developments of modern typography is the popularization of the sans-serif typefaces. Sans- serifs (literally without serifs) appeared as early as d B. C. , but modernists construeed at them with new interest. The y were clean, simple(a) typefaces, and they c feede themselves perfectly for the function over form- ideology of modern typographers. Gothic Roman Slab-serif Sans-serif Some modernist movements started to experiment with the form and placements of rods as well. curiously dad experimented a nap with typography and pushed it in another direction.The Dada movement was a movement that rebelled against the established art forms. They deliberately avoided all system of logic and order in their works, and it is fair to say that the Dada typography was the similitude of modern typography. Dadaist typography is characterized by the many use of different typefaces and letter sizes. Words were printed in both horizontal and vertical directions, random letters were placed throughout the poster and punctuation was often illogical. For Dadaists the form of the ext was more important than the message itself.A great example of this is the poem Boom Pauses of the Belgium poet capital of Minne sota van Stained. Movement during the early 20th century. They started experimenting with shape of letters, trying to nonobjective them and build them up from basic shapes like circles and squares. These types are called geometrical typefaces. They were heavily influenced by the Dutch art movement De Still. During WI, art forms where hindered in developing. Instead typography turned to propaganda posters for artistic outlet. Post WI typography real at a rapid rate.After the war designers begin looking for a form of unification within design. This became the International, or Swiss style. It was characterized by the enceinte use of sans-serifs, with a neutral and geometrical appearance. In the asss the psychedelic movement emerged, which preferred on flowery ornamented typefaces, and distorted texts to mimic the effect of drugs, and veritable(a) later styles such as Grunge-typography emerged. At the end of the 20th century comput optioners started to appear in every household. Wi th these computers came word processing software, and many inattention typefaces.It didnt take long or people to start experimenting with text and typefaces, and soon everybody started making their own typography. Especially with the arrival of internet DID typography became progressively popular, some cadences to the dissatisfaction of professional typographers. Think for instance of the controversy that surrounds Comic Sans. Nowadays, typography has become something that everybody does Looking at the background and history of typography we suck in that, although typeface design is a form of design, it is significantly influenced and used by different art movements throughout the years, which is a remarkable contrast.Design is a judicious and orderly activity designers structurally approach a design and get along trustworthy rules when designing objects. In design it is often functionality that influences form. But in art, the form of an object is the aesthetic choice of the artist, and is not subordinate to functionality. artifice does not follow a predetermined set of rules and the artist is superfluous to experiment with form to his liking. In typography these two elements clash. On the typeface has a clear function convey messages to the reader. But on the other hand the typographer is free to shape the letters in any way he desires.By doing so, the typeface itself can attain a trusted identity, and convey a message that goes beyond erect the displayed text. The Dadaist where the first to authentically experiment with this, and this may be further explained by looking at some famous typefaces. ANATOMY OF A TYPEFACE Before we steep deeper into typefaces and start to analyze them, it is important to understand some of the terminology of typeface design. Characters consist out of many split, more than I am dismission to describe here, but the following are the most important and defining for a typeface. Arts of the specific letter, but each l etter has a tern, which is the main body of the letter. What the elements attached to stern are called differs per letter. Typefaces are primarily divided in serifs and sans serifs. Serifs are recognizable by the little tautologic stroke at the ends of characters, called a Serif. The lines that make up a character are called strokes. Strokes can be modulate, which means they vary in thickness, or strokes can be modulated, which means they go through the same thickness throughout the character. Well-designed typefaces are always designed within a structured gridiron.This grid consists out of multiple lines, in which the character is placed. The baseline is the line on which the characters rest. Parts of a character that extend below this line are called descendent, like for instance the bottom part of a J. So, as we can see, there are many different parts the typeface designer can use to give a typeface its identity. The cover between the baseline and mainline is called the X- a ggrandizement. The Cap Height indicates the height from to baseline to the top of uppercase letters like H. Of most lowercase letters. Parts that extend above the mainline are called ascenders. He height from to baseline to the top of uppercase letters like H. A lot of letters have their own names for various IMPORTANT TYPEFACES throughout HISTORY Now that we have acquired enough knowledge about typefaces and their history, lets take a better look at some (in)famous typefaces throughout history. Guttenberg account book Texture (1452) Texture was, as mentioned, the first ever typeface. Texture was designed after the gothic style of the German scribes of that time. The strokes are modulated, and the serifs are very sharp and calli graphical. This is a great example off time related design.Anything you will type in this text will look medieval. obstreperously Manumits Roman (1495) A few decades later this typeface was designed in Italy. It defined the essential form of Roman types fo r the following three centuries. The characters have thick sterns and thinner arms, and very unpolluted serifs. Because of their long existence, Roman typefaces tend to come across as a bit boring, and are often associated with formal and uninspired prints, like the out of order-sign you would hang on a bathroom door. Robert Grandsons Civility (1557) This is one of the first typefaces that were designed from the ground up.It was made to look like calligraphy and show the qualities of jibe riding, which was mimicked by using heavily modulated strokes and short ascenders and descendent. note that the typeface is a sans-serif. The typeface expresses a sort of luxurious quality, while also displaying some old gothic features. This was the first slab serif font. It is characterized by its unmannerly strokes and block-like serifs. It was popularized by the advertising industry, and it is not hard to see why. It is a typeface with a powerful look, and its great for yelling at your audi ence.Kidney Grottoes (Hans Hoffmann, 1898) An early sans-serif that became the benchmark for future sans-serifs. It lived on to become evilly used in publications of Bauhaus and Swiss-style. Its modulated strokes and rational design gave it a neutral appearance, which made it one of the ingrained types of modern typeface design. Future (Paul Renee, 1927) This was the first truly geometrical sans serif. Renee put a lot of effort in modeling the lowercase letters into a very exact looking, mono-line appearance. As a result the typeface looks tight, simple and modern.Helvetica (Max Midrange/Eduardo Hoffmann, 1957) Comic Sans (Vincent Concern, 1994) Maybe the most beloved typeface of all time. It is a modulated sans serif, designed to be impolitely neutral. During the asss, Helvetica became the face of corporate branding. Because of its neutrality, it is widely used in many different contexts driveway name signs, subway signage, but also in graphic design. If you are walking in a cit y, you wont have to look far before you spot a text printed in Helvetica. It is so popular that even a feature length documentary was made about it.Comic Sans capacity Just be the most hated typeface ever created. Especially designers have a beef against this playful typeface. It was originally designed to be implemented in Windows 95 as part of Microsoft Bob, an animated red hot hat provided help to Windows 95 users. It was based on the way classical comic book lettering. However, the typeface was not finished in time introduction of home printers, people at home started to experiment more with typography, and when they first laid eyes upon the funny looking Comic sans, they Just couldnt resist using it for their homemade wishing cards and flyers.As a result the typeface became insanely popular, and has stayed popular ever since. However, the truth is, it is not designed very well according the principles of typography, and especially since it is used so often in wrong contexts, typographers ant help but complain whenever they can. i batch essays have been written about the flaws of Comic Sans. hot Alphabet (Wimp Cromwell, 1967) New alphabet is a geometric San serif, designed by Dutch graphic designer Wimp Cromwell as an experiment in 1967. It designed to deal with the limitations of early digital data displays.He wanted to adept his design to the technology, kinda of adapting technologies to meet the design. Because the typeface consists of only vertical and horizontal strokes, some characters look a bit unconventional. With his experiment Cromwell sought the limitations of what we can perceive as readable. Comic Sans TYPEFACES IN CORPORATE BRANDING Heinlein (Heinlein) So we can desist that different typefaces have different identities. For many companies logos are very important. Often, an entire brand is created around a logo.Often these companies use certain typefaces as an additional apparatus of branding. By doing so, companies use the identities of a certain typeface to create or reinforce the identity of their brand. Here are some examples Google (Actual BC) backrest (Slovakia (Modified)) goes by the name Actual SQ. The Heinlein logo is developed especially for Heinlein. Note the laughing ex.s as one of the rands hallmarks. TIME Magazine (TIME) Ferreira (Offer Ross) Who doesnt key out the clean white sans-serif on that blue background? Because of its thick Moline appearance, the Backbone logo looks fresh and modern.A very classy slab-serif that embodies Ferriers characteristics power and style. TIME magazines logo consists out of four capitals. It looks like a classic Roman type but in a modern Jacket. The logo has something powerful, and makes you feel like that what you are about to read is very important. I have always been interested in graphic design and typography, which is one of the reasons I water this sublet. It may be interesting to take a closer look at the my favorite typefaces and what they say about me. Next slack Gotcha Black Rockwell I Just love the no-nonsense factor of Gotcha.It is pretty powerful looking typeface, but also really simple and clean. This is the typeface I always use for titles and headers, but also for text that needs to encampment some extra punch. My favorite slab-serif. It looks very solid, but the strokes are not too heavy. I especially like the way the serifs bet to be part of the stroke, and not Just added for esthetics purposes. Another simple typeface that I really love to use or small texts. It looks sleek and stylish, and really has a nice flow to it. This is a more elegant typeface. It the roundness of the characters give it a very friendly look.Code Light It may not look that impressive, but that is because it needs to be used with a pointiest (so letters need to be BIG). This typeface Just looks so incredibly light and has a high design-factor. Theres Just something about this type that says good taste. When I look at the selection I made it tel ls me something I already knew I love minimalism. I dont want things to be as simple as possible In design, but also in typography. However, thanks to all the knowledge I gained by writing this essay, I can go a bit deeper than that.For instance, I notice that I really prefer sans-serifs over serifs. These types are associated with modernism, and it index be worthwhile to investigate modernism some more. I have encountered this movement before, while searching for my vision and identity, and it is interesting to encounter it once again, although this time via my preferred typefaces. Now that we have seen the visual impact a typeface can have, it seems a logical conclusion that a typeface can be a powerful tool for a signer, if he wants it to be.Of course, typefaces can be chosen by Just picking one that looks about right, but they have much more potential than that. Not only can it be used to convey a certain message to the user, but designers can use typefaces as an expression of the identity of a product. It is interesting to see how typefaces have evolved over the past 500 years. From a medium to simply display information, to an art form which can hold the identity of an artist, or even an entire company, to a tool used by the masses to express their individualism. It begs the question if industrial design might follow a