OUGD401 - Lecture Notes: A History of Typography

• Eric Gill - Gill Sans

• Typography exists in the intersection of visual & verbal communication

• Form of meta-communication - system which frames another system
• Paralinguistic
• Kinesics - The emphasis

• Type of classification
• Humanist
• Old style
• Transitional
• Modern
• Slab serif (egyptian)
• Sans serf

• Age of print began in 1450's - Guttenberg press invented - moveable type & mass production

• Most letters come from roman encryption's 

• Guttenberg gothic script - first read on press - replaced by humanist typefaces - cross bar on 'e' slightly angled e - supposed to reflect handwriting

• Geoffrey Tory - thought type should relate to human proportions & size
• Nicolas Jenson - Centaur based on humanist

• Venice - introduction of typography as a discipline - old style - refined versions of humanist design - Garamond

• William Caslon - 18th C
• John Baskeville - Baskerville  late 18th C

• Move away from calligraphy

• Modern typefaces - 1784 Didot - used in fashion
• Bodani
• High Contract
• Abrupt Serifs

• Victorian era - introduction of slab serifs - reference to oriental etc - nothing to do with egyptian type
• for mass production
• for posters - bold etc
• Fat face - hyper-bold typestyle

• Sans serif - Akzinden Grotesk - international - modern, progressive, not historical

• Times new roman - 1932 - Stanley Morison
• Fraktur - 1850 - 1941
• Cooper black - 1921
• Helvetica - 1957 - Max Miedinger

• Post modern - rule breaking - not mechanical - Carson - grunge

• 1990 onwards thousands of fonts created