ELLEN LUPTON | thinking emertatning } economical Jessenti A CRITICAL GUIDE FOR DESIGNERS, WRITERS, EDITORS, & STUDENTS—————— BASKERVILLE Designed by Jahn Baskerfoile, 1257 BODONI Designed hy Giambattista Bodoni, 1790s svorr CASLON Designed by Carol Fwombly, 1990, based on pages printed by Hilliam-Caslon, 1734-70 CENTAUR Designed by Brie Rogrs 9 The ale, by Fn Wry, i based on the i hand of Ld dg trib CENTURY EXPANDED Designed by Morris Puller Benton, 1900 | CLARENDON ‘Named for the Clarendon Press, Oxford, who commissioned it in 1845 DIDOT esigned [Link] Hoefler; 19g, insp the types of Francois Ambroise Didot, 1784 |; FEDRA SANS Designed by Peter Bilak, 2001, who was asked | [Link] a “de-Prostestantized Univers" FILOSOFIA Designed by Zuzana Licko, 1996, a revival of the types of Bodoni FRUTIGER Designed by Adrian Frutiger, 1976 FRANKLIN GOTHIC Designed by Mortis Fuller Benton, 1904 FUTURA Designed by Paul Renner, 1927, who sought an hones! expresion of technical processes.” GEORGIA Designed by Matthew Carter, 1996, for display on sereen GILL SANS Designed by Eric Gill, 1928, It has been described as Britain's Helvetica, oon GARAMOND Designed by Robert Slimbach, 1989, based on pages printed by Claude Garamond in the sixicenth ceatury GOTHAM Designed by Tobias Frere-Jones, 2000, inspired by lettering found at © Port Authority Bus Terminal, New York CityHELVETICA Designed by Max Miodinger, 1957 HOEFLER TEXT Designed by Jonathan Hoefler,c. 1995 INTERSTATE Designed by Tobias Frere-Jones, 1993, inspired by U.S. highway signs oom [ENSON Designed by Robert Stimbach, 1995 META Designed by Erik Splekermann, 1991 MRS EAVES Designed by Zuxane Licko, 1996, inspived by pages printed by Join Bsterele NEUTRAFACE Designed by Christian Schwartz, House Indusies, 2002, based on letering created by the architect Richard Neutra inthe 1040 and 1950: NOBEL Designed by Tobias Frere-Jones,1993, based on 1929 types by the Dutch ypoarapher Sfoerd Henrik de Roos. Freredones describes Nobel as “Futura cookedin a dirty pan” NEWS GOTHIC Designed by Morris Fuller Benton, 1908, QUADRAAT Designed by Fred Smeijers, 1992 SABON Designed by Jan Tschichold, 1966, inspired by the sixteenth-century types of Claude Garamond SCALA Designed by Martin Majoor, 1991 THESIS SERIF Designed by Lucas de Groot, 1994 TRADE GOTHIC Designed by Jackson Burke, 1948-60, inspired by sneteenth eur potesques UNIVERS Dasigned by Advan Frutiger, 1257 VERDANA Designed by Matthew Carter, 1996, for display on screen WALBAUM Designed by Justis Erich Walbaum, 1800at A CRITICAL GUIDE FOR'DESIGNERS, ‘WRITERS, EDITORS, & STUDENTS PRINCETON ARCHITECTURAL PRESS» NEW YORKPublished by Princeton Architectural Press 47 East Seventh Slecet New York, New Yark 10003, for free catalog of books, call [Link] Visit our web site at [Link], {©2004 Princeton Architectural Press Al rghts reserved Printed in China 70605 5432. Firstedition No part ofthis book may be used or reproduced in ny manner without written pecmission from the publisher except in the contest of reviews. Every reasonable attempt has been made to identity owners of copyright. Errors or amissions wil be corrected in subsequent editions Libmaty of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Lupton, Elen “Thinking with ype ta ertial guide for designers, writers, editors, & students Ellen Lupton, — 1st ed. p. can, — (Design brie) Includes bibliographical ref ISBN c56898-448-0 (alk 1. Graphie design (Typorzaphy) 2, Type and type-founding. Lite. HL. Series. 2246.18 eie2 dea ATENEO DE Ellen Lupton Mack Lamster Princeton Architectural Press Elizabeth Johnson Jermifer Tobias and Ellen Lupron. Eric Kames and Flke Gasselseler Dan Meye Seala, designed by Martin Majoo: ‘Thesis, designed by Lucas de Groot Nertie Aljian, Nicola Bednarek, Janet Behining ‘Megan Carey, Penny (Yuen Pik} Cho, Russel Fernandez, jan Haus, Clare Jacobson, Nancy Eklund Tater, Linda Lee, Katharine Myers, Jane Sheinman, ‘Scots Texment, Jennifer Thompson, Joe Weston and Deb Wood of Princeton Architectural Press kevin Chipper publiser, MANILA LIBRARIESCONTENTS INTRODUCTION ACKNOWLEDGMENTS LETTER Anatomy Size Classification Families Big Favitlies Designing Typefaces Logotypes Screen Fonts Bitmap Fonts Letter Bxercise TEXT Kerning Tracking Line Spacing Alignment Vertical Alignment Hierarchy Web Hierarchy Webs Accessibility Paragraph Exercise Word Exercise ‘Text Exercise GRID Golder Section Single-Colurnn Grid Mult-Column Grid Modular Grid Grid Exercise Data Tables Data Table Exercise APPENDIX Dashes, Spaces, and Punctuation Editing Editing Hard Copy Editing Soft Copy Proofieading Free Advice Bibifograplty index= oe rn eneann a unoENS nce eh Twa TWEENS A 8? woon’s sausaeantita Advertisement, lithograph, 1884 “A woman's healthy face busts throug sheet of text, her bright tumplexion proving tke product's eficacy better than wy writen air, Both test and image have heen drawn by hand, reprced via cof ithography: Prin here wt uctual size,INTRODUCTION ‘THE ORGANIZATION OF LETTERS ona blanks 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. Some 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, I sought a book that is serene and intelligible, a volume where design and text gently collaborate to enhance understanding, I sought a work that is small and compact, economical yet well constructed—a handbook designed for the hands. | sought a book thet 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, ftom the printed page to the glowing screen, Thad no alternative but to write the book myself. Thinking with Type is assembled in three sections: LETTER, TEXT, and Garp, building from the basic atom of the letterform to te organization of words into coherent bodies and flexible systems. Fach section opens with a narrative essay about the cultural and theoretical issues that fuel typographic design actoss a range of media. The demonstration pages that follow each essay show not just how typography is structured, but why, asserting the functional and cultural basis for design habits and conventions,“The first section, xerrer, reveals how early typefaces referred to the body, eraulating the work of the hand. The abstractions of neoclassicisn bred the sirange 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 1980s, typography became a natrative form that revived its connections with the body. “The second section, Ext, considers the massing of letiers into uous field whose grain, larger bodies. Designers approach text as a con color, density, and silhouette can be endiessly adjusted. Technology bas 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 toa fiuid and open ecology. The third section, Grup, 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 1940s and 19508 created 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 multimedia. ‘Throughout the book, examples of design practice demonstrate the elasticity of the typographic system, whose rules can all be broken, Finally, the appeN p1x contains handy lists, helpful hints, dire warnings, and resources for further stucly. ‘This book is about thinking with typography—in the end, the ‘emphasis falls on with. Typography is a 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 future. Type is with you everywhere you. go—the street, the mall, the Web, your os ‘This book aims to speak to, and with, 1s, designers and producers, teachers and students, ble word. all the readers and writ whose work engages the ordered yet unpredictable life of the 8ACKNOWLEDGMENTS AS A DESIGNER, WRITER, AND VISUAL THINKER, Lam indebled to my teachers at the Cooper Union, where I studied art and design from 1981 to 1985. Back 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 Craig, staked out an odd place between those world stems to collide with Bevington, and Jam st fascination with abstract s allowing the moder the strange, the poetic, and the popular. The title of this book, Thinking with Ty Craig's primer Designing with Type, the utilitarian classic that was our text book at Cooper: If that books was a handyman’s guide to basic typography, this one is a naturalists field 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 language to develop and deliver ideas. As a student, discovering typography jwes finding the bridge connecting written language to visual art, “To write my own book for the twenty-first century [have 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 Moulthzop and Nancy Kaplan, world-class scholars, critics, and designers of networked media and digital interfaces. Theix cis an homage to James is seen throughout this book, My colleagues at Maryland Institute College of Art have built a 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 siidlents, past and future. My editor, Mark Lamster, has kept this project aliv across its seemingly endless development, I also thank Eric Karnes and Gasselseder, Kevin Lippert at Princeton Architectural Press, Timothy Linn at Asia Pacific Offset, 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. influence \d conscious, Tlearn something every day from my children, Jay and Ruby, and from my parents, my twin, and the amazing Miller family. My friends— Jennifer Tobias, Edward Bottone, Claudia Matzko, Darsie Alexander, and Joy Hayes—sustain my life. My husband, Abbott Miller, is the greatest designer | know, and J am proud to include him in this volume.Sie pk Gleb 2. Conrel MRS ceed Aikewcey “ones AD, Wiis Hot oe talline tration andl onpinate kn hunlarien sketches and prototypes.LETTER:TYPE, SPACES, AND LEADS 3—————_—_ 5 LETTER THIS 15 NT A BOOK ABOUT FONTS, It isa 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 requires knowledge of how— and why-—letterforms have evolved Words originated as gestures of the body. The first typefaces were directly modeled on the forms of calli Jouaunes bodily gestures—they are manufactured images designed for infinite repetition. The history of typography reflects ¢ 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 letters 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 books and documents by hand, printing with type allowed for mass production: large quantities of letters could be cast raphy. Typefaces, however, are not from a mold and assembled into “forms.” After the pages were proofed corrected, and printed, the letters were put away in gridded cases for reuse. Movable type had been employed 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 marks, making it well-suited to mechanization, Gutenberg’s famous Bible took the handmade manuscript as its model. Emulating the dense, dark handwriting known as “blackletter,” he reproduced its erratic texture by czeating variations of each letter as well BeBAMOM 45 pumerous ligatures (characters that combine two or more letters into AMAL 5 single form) facob-aben Origa Begpee: OMG AO ACMA sey eens and revises “Las ofthe tec” Ben afinoe-cunctamy walkaMeeg AUEIMD cic) Adore Miler, Design Wraing Rear Wri amis Tages eanr-parunlos tf O0) 7 Gr phic Design (how Yoris Kiesk, 1996: London: Phaidon, meugores Dustiiecaprinas Muni 1999) °°wtcoras jrwsoy feared to print in Maina, eof typogrmphy, before fos appellatur marici je euirdicitur Frater mat pease npn a mitini fratrum & mat rasdnibed pn atrueles matrum fratr tyn; ‘6fobrini ex duabus ed _ tafuntin anciquisau Lorem ipsum dolor si consectetuer adipiscing e] contaua, designed from 19120144 by Bra topes, ba reivelof [uctus ullamcorper, au “fess yp emphases its i Integer pharetra, nisl t ante, tortor egestas pede urna ac neque. ac mi eu purus tincide sirke vanum laboraverunt si Dominus custodie stra vigilavit qui cos! num est vobis ante lt tgere postquam sede imanducatis panem m dederit dilectis sui ensional quality ALMIIVXTA LXX aaa typefaces aswell as their gothic (rather tha ‘As Noordei explains, Jenson “adapted the notr f designed dy the Dutch eypographer teacher, and theorist Gerrit Noordei. This ly constructed fot designed in the 39908, pres the dynamic, st origins German ltsers 1o talon fashion (somewhae rounder, somewhat lighser), ant thus created rome ype.” XCRCNG UL, LOT the iii itti i wekis, and howl - poses Yee She ctuecbacmaaae 5 that istowete, of thath and of: that he cometh t in thoi of the chircl | HR ‘ one partie, & that othe ” causeof thecomyngeof ben of iove and of ladnes Lorem ipsum dolor sic consectetuer adipisciny Integer pharetra, nisl u luctus a auy | Lorem ipsum dolor < consectetuer adipisci Integer pharetra, nis ullamcorper, augue t ante, vel pharetra pec neque. Mauris ac mi tincidunt faucibus. P dignissim lectus. Nun SALA ws introduced in 1991 By the Dutch ¢ypographer Marin Major. Although has hie origins of type, as se i eters such asa msl Prk de Norra 8g, He sought 0 recapture the dark ty of Jenson 1995 bySed me forte tuo atrea ic timor eft ipfis N on adco leniter nol? ‘vt mens oblito puly £ lie phylacides inn Non potuit cea jam Sed cupidus filfisatti heffalis antiquam X llc quiequid ero fr rraidt ey fiti Litto X Hh foymofie weniar Quas dedit argini. Quarum nulla tua fir Gration, eo tellus Quanmis te Longe rei Cara temen lachry Fevers yes desig fr ‘Aldus Manaus 1500, They are conti as tw0 separa npfces PEA jANnon Roman and italic types Jor the Imprimerie Royle, Pars 1642, coordinated ino a trger te fil. HUMANISM AND THE BODY In fifteenth-century Italy, humanist writers and scholars rejected gothic scripts in favor of the letvera antice, a classical mode of handwriting with ‘wider, more open forms, The preference for Jettera axttica 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, printing 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. Italic letters, also introduced in fifteenth-century Italy (as their hame 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 wri where it could be written more rapidly than the carefully formed lettera 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 capital the vo styles still were considered fundamentally distinct. In the sixteenth century, printers began integrating roman and italic forms into type families with matching weights and x-heights (the heigint of the main body of the lowerface 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, ing shops, comme Yay desia remarqué,*S. Augu: 4! oy she wnples vine Rin demandeaux Donatiftes en vnefem- 7.8880! arma tp, see Gen Lable occurrence : Quay done? lens gue Basie Noni ete ‘Beewer Vancouver: Hartley and tons hfs, oublions now camment rows anans “a Mats, 2000) accofinané de parler? Feferituredu grand Dien B,fet ‘? berrex [16 q ‘angued that | designed model SFRESE enerfors for 5 1 printing pss uanan bo: Regarding the lter A, he wrote: of Leuls XIV. Instructed by royal commitie “ihe crosestroke covers the man's orga of Simonneai designed hi ebverson a fiely meshet generation, to signif that Modesty and Charity yr A royal lypefee (romain du roi) wats hen fre required, before all le, in those who see reted by Philippe Grandjean, bases on faquainiance with wellshaped eters. Sinranncau’s engravings By WILLIAM CASLON, SS PETG ia DovsL ABCD Goonies By JOHN BASKERVILLE nos’cham fe 58 printer ‘ A B ( D EK quemad fin wine Am indebted to you for two if to me ACO EF ei tiat Letters dated from Corcyra, County, 7508 and wittiaM eAstow erated 17608, He aimed to sumass Cast by ercating ‘ymefaces in eghteenttecemary sharply detailed eters with more vivid contrast plan wit evi, upright ‘etweor thick anal thin elements. Whereas haracters that appear, as Robert Casdn’ tetters wore widely se ins is own ine Bright has writen, Baskervile's work was denounced by many of his “more modeled and les written confeonporais us aneatewr and extremist, than Renassance forms a AUSTERLITII emia ie AU GIAUT LIL SENLIGHTENMENT AND ABSTRACTION Renaissance artists sought standards of proportion in the idealized human a body. ‘The French designer and typographer Geofroy Tory published a series fm, of diagrams in 1529 that linked the anatomy of letters 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 Geattoy ‘Tony's diagrams were produced as woodcuts, the gridded depictions of the bf romain da roi (king's alphabet) were engraved, made by incising a copper ad. Micadee, plate with a ba cea aes typefaces derived from tee =~“ Jarge-scale diagrams reflect the linear character of engraving as well as the fe 45, scientific attitude of the king’s committee. AB OF Engraved letters—whose fluid lines are unconstrained by letter- Py ey cy Mess secanicl grié—olfeved an apt mediums for formal lettering NOG DP wogsaved reproductions of penmanship disseminated the work of the great cighteenth-century writing masters. Books such as George Bickham's The Universal Penman (1743) featured roman letters—each engraved as a auazomenntearT unique character—as well as lavishly curved scripts. Samples of Roman Prine” Eighteenth-century typography was influenced by new styles of gata Hard 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, instruments that rendered a fluid, swelling path. Baskerville, himself’ a master calligrapher, would have admired the thinly sculpted lines that ed writing books. He created typefaces of such accused him of “bli appeared in the engya “This acenstion was reported a eae inaleite fom starpness and contrast that contemporazie: hisadnieerRenjomin the Reuders in the Nation; for the strokes of your letters, being too thin and Franitin, Forthe full eter, se arrow, hurt the Eye.” To heighten the startling precision of his pages, 7 Ries athe: Baskerville made his own inks and hot-pressed his pages after printing. Fa Print (Londobs Frederick ‘The severe vocabulary of Baskerville was carried to an extreme by Muller Limited, 1975), 68. Giambattista Bodoni in Italy and Firmin Didot in France at the turn of the See alto Robert Brings, * eleenth century. Their typefaces—wl ave a whol: Fe prtiae | melee y. Their typefaces—which have.a wholly vertical axi Sil Vancouver Harley and Marks 1992, 1997) the gateway to a new vision of typography unhinged from callig ing all extreme contrast between thick and thin, and crisp, waferlike serifs—were aphy. ‘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[Link] MARONIS BUCOLIGCA ECLOGA I. cui nomen TITYRUS. . Meuisoeus, Tiryrus. rrvre, tu patuke recubans fib tegmine fagi Silveftrem tenui Mufam meditaris avena: Nos patric fines, et dulcia linquimus arvas Nos patriam fugimus: tu, Tityre, lentus in umbra 5 Formofam refonare doces Amaryllida filvas. T. O Melibece, Deus nobis hec otia fecit: ‘Namque crit ille mihi femper Deus: illius aram Scepe tencr noftris ab ovilibus imbuet agaus. Ille meas errare boves, ut cernis, et ipfum 10 Ludere, quee vellem, calamo permilit agrefti M, Non equidem invideo;miror magis: undique totis Ufque adeo turbatur agris. en ipfe capellas Protenus eger ago: hanc etiam vix, Tityre, duco: Hic inter denfas corylos modo namque gemellos, 15 Spem gregis, ah! filice in nuda connixa reliquit, Spe malum hoc nobis, fi mens non leva fuillet, De ceelo taétas memini preedicere quercus: Swpe finiftra cava pradixit ab ilice cornix, Sed tamen, ifte Deus qui fit, da, Tityre, nobis. 20 T. Urbem, quam dicunt Romam, Meliboee, putavi Stultus ego huic noftrz fimilem, quo fepe folemus Paftores ovium teneros depellere foetus. Sic canibus catulos fimiles, fic matribus hoedos A Noram;sine. (L611) Book page. 1737 Prine by Joka Baskerile “The typefaces created by john Bade he ihe cea wie nara ae shakin thei day for thesia, upright forms and tat crs bese hick and thi lees sition Yo oman et fc, hs page ules ai cptals tr ‘eae capil gery etterspaced), small capitals (ele to corns with Ioserai et)and nontining robe umerl (dsgned wiser descedes, and cama ay eight 0 work “sth owerne cares) acin (niet) ook pape 801 Prine by Fria Dot "Theyefcs cul by he Did De ice ee en more ‘aba ad sore han hose Basel, with aie, | tial ers dw tre ast jo thet this, “Ninian printers and _pographers called hese plains pfices“meser | sh pee eeu Willan Oa Ort tn Quit of he Pes Boo (jes Yr Lite, dren obd Company 1926): margins are abort LA THEBAIDE, ou LES FRERES ENNEMIS, TRAGEDIE. ACTE PREMIER. SCENE L OGASTE, OLYMPE. socasrE. Tis sont sortis, Olympe? Ah! mortelles douleurs! Qu’un moment de repos me va coitter de pleurs! Mes yeux depuis six mois étoient ouverts aux larmes, Ft le sommeil les ferme en de telles alarmes! Puisse plutdt la mort les fermer pour jamais, Et m’empécher de voir le plus noir des forfaits! Mais en sont-ils aux mains?1825; At 10 o'Clock in the Morning: Ra |, | EXTRA CONDENSED (}p4ftces s given to the inflated, are fi in natrow ing the remt i y.0: eat ces Ik of the Soh wre Meta ove ted de por propent sil an These bor ues wre [J-Boulb Suh ty frontal, Achough ed int 805, twentieth cl aod ms, Sntrodt this syle wns quickty denounced neutrality, amboyantl } by purines a “a pag Aecorated gothies My person was hideous, my stature gigantic. What did this mean? Who was I? What was. ‘Accused creator! Why did you create a monster so hideous that even you turned away from me in disgust? Mary Shelley, Fran 3831MONSTER FONTS Although Bodoni and Didot fucled 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 Didot 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 clements 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 structuzes, and the vertical stress of traditional letters migrated in new directions, Itt IT PUTT liWirerrry ‘pc hitaran Rob Roy Lead, the material for casting metal type, is too soft to hold its shape at large aly (926-004) sulicl_ sizes under the pressure of the printing press. In contrast, type cut from mechanized design : = Kolgatiaents wood could be printed at gigantic scales. The introduction of the combined genera spectacular pantograph and router in 1834 revolutionized wood-type manufacture. vadey fala ver ix "The pantograph is a tracing device that, when linked to a router for carving, Sean pantograp! 1g bias oh allows a parent drawing to spawn variants with different proportions, This agro shows how Ps if t0 Spi ‘ prop: Re adsuarese weights, and decorative excresences. amc Eypian oF This mechanized design approach treated the alphabet as a flexible sebonprchel, system divorced from the calligraphic tradition. The search for archetypal, seecissfimenen perfectly proportioned leterforms gave way to a view of typography as an Seif wer vansorinad elastic system of formal features (weight, sitess, stem, crossbars, serif, pecs eemaphic rat angles, curves, ascenders, descenders). The relationships among letters in a stokes into independent A eraic pene, font became more important than the identity of individual characters. ul be ely adjusted For extensive analysis and examples of decorated types, see Rob Rey Kelly ‘American Wood Type: 1828-1900, Notes othe Fvolution of Decorated anu Lange Letters (New York: Da Capo Press, 1969). See also Ruari McLean, “An Examination of Egyptians,” Tents on Type: Critical Writings on Typography. cd. Steven Heller and Philip B. Megys (New York: Allworth Press, 200), 7j | | 1 ' Valuable “@ puaves’s IMPORTED BOOKo; 6] conxstancts {a1¥3) | Lithographic tad eed, 1878 | He The rise of avertstng in the f MAILED FREE ig { sineteenti cencury timated | ‘on application ‘| anand for large-cal ould commend tran space, Here, an is oti abil logrant i for the ou whifea cer approaches from ‘around the comer A dozen di fn this poster for w ste ruse, size and sy of typse ach linet of the letters | | | | lal Ato The peso i te a ——FULL MOON, TMPERANTE. BANT | TEMPERANCE BAND | Prof. Y, Yeager, Leader, will give a HOGNLIGH EXCURSION On the Steamer BELLE! To Osbrook and Watch Hill, On Saturday Evening, July 17th, Leaving Wharf at 74 o'clock. Returning io’ Westerly eat 103 o'clock. Kenneth will be at Osbrook. | TICKETS, - ~ FORTY CENTS. Pr craig Wear sina ar, stealOno urn IALISTISCHE LLECTUEELEN GOETH 2 dd abcdefghi jklmnopar tuvwxy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 1906, Edward Johnston revived the search for an essential, standard alphabet and warned against the “dangers” of exaggeration, Johnston, inspited by the nineteenth-century Arts and Crafts movement, looked back to the Renaissance and Middle Ages for pure, uncorrupted leiterforms, Although reformers like Johnston remained romantically attached to history, they redefined the designer as an intellectual distanced from the commercial mainstream, The modern design reformer was a critic of society, striving to create objects and images that would challenge and ete: | revise dominant habits and practices. c ‘The avant-garde artists of the early twentieth century rejected Fernisiie Granaed er] historical forms but adopted the model of the critical outsider. Members of the De Stijl group in the Netherlands reduced the alphabet to saves ronsroy nel perpendiculae elements, At the Bauhaus, Herbert Bayer and Josef Albers Be et oe set constructed alphabets from basic geometric forms—the circle, square, and Jnciplons While dending _triangle—wvhich they viewed as elements of a universal language of vision, ¢anineral dp lei, Such experiments approached the alphabet as a system of abstract Preeti the relationships. Like the popular printers of the nineteenth century te telshment of medieval raat rs 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 om Futur, sce Christopher produced by hand rather than as mechanical typefaces (although many Burke, Foul Rewer Tse At ave now available digitally). Futura, designed by Paul Renner in (Dewan es Wek ge, 1927, embodied the obsessions of the avant garde in a multipuxpose, {98)-On the experimental commercially available typeface. Although Renner rejected the active Iypeieesofthe 19208 and movement of calligraphy in favor of formas that are “calming” and abstract feege nee a he tempered the geometry of Futura with subtle variations in stroke, curve, and proportion. Renner designed Futura in numerous weights, viewing on Typ (London Hypien Press, 2063), 35-45. 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neu JLphiberthis “sare” version of Garwmond ain contrast wi is own nsw alphabet, oe forms ace the gridded invari seen parseesalation fonts or isla reas nd pies i 1985 These fonts have sine a oeprated into Ene’s tev Lo-Res fon fama designe for pri ad digital nel. See Rudy VanderLans and Zuzana Licko, Eig: Graphic Design into the Digi Reals (Nese Yer Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1993) TYPE AS PROGRAM Responding in 2967 to the rise of electronic communication, the Dutels 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 scan 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. Jbcdeg¢dhtjELnanopqr Fuuutya Yj In the mid-1980s, personal computers and low-resolution printers put the tools of typography in the hands of a broader public. In 1985 Zuzana Licko began 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 themselves the “new primitives,” pioneers of a technological dawn. Emigre Oakland [MpEtO By the early 1999s, 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 more information is designed for publication directly on ser Living with computers gives funny ideas. Wim Crouwel, 1967erten | 28 CURATOR: JOSEPH WESNEF Linda Ferguson Steve Handschu JamesHay Matthew HollandSCU'_PTURI Gary Laatsch | =F"Brian Liljeblad Dora Natella © Matthew Schellenberg gf) Richard String Michell Thomas PTURE n Opening Recep tion: Friday June 8,5:30-48:30 pm ai I Robert Wilhelm Cc < N 2 ; etroit Focys Gallery,,95 2 9025 743 Beaubien, Third Floor ET ROIT, MIC HIGAN 48 226 Hi 7 nyVEDNESDAY - SATURDAY jours:Noon to6 pnrren | 29) TYPE AS NARRATIVE In the early 1990s, as digital design tools began supporting the seamless reproduction and integration of media, many designers grew dissatisfied with clean, unsullied surfaces, seeking instead to plunge the letter into the harsh and caustic world of physical processes. Letters, which for centuries had sought perfection in ever more exact technologies, became scratched, bent, bruised, and polluted. Template Gothic: flawed technology i 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 2 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 19905. Dead History: feeding on the past P. Scott Malsele'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 imovation CcDdFeFiGg 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 uncertainty. Their 1990 typeface Beowulf was the first in a 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. Erik van Blokland and Just van Rossum, 2000| Mrs Eaves: Quadraat: Gotham: See. BACK TO WORK Although the 19908 are best remembered for images of decay, typeface designers continued to build a repertoize of general purpose fonts designed to comfortably accommodate broad bodies of text. Rather than narrate the story of their own birth, suel workhorse fonts provide graphic designers with flexible palettes of letterforms coordinated within larger families 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 afier his mistress and housekeeper Sarah Eaves}, became one of the most popular typefaces ofits time. 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 leok back to sixteenth-century printing from a contemporary point of view, as seen in serif. Introduced in 1992, the Quadraat family if forms in numerous weights and styles. their decisively geomet has expanded to include sans-s blue-collar curves In 2000 Tobias Frere-jones introduced Gotham, derived from letters found at the Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York City. Gotham expresses a alongside the aesthetics no-nonsense, utilitarian attitude that persists today of grunge, neofisturism, pop-culture parodies, and straight historical revivals that are all part of contemporary typography, When choosing a font, graphic designers consider the history of typefaces and their current connotations as well as their formal qualities ‘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 projeet at hand "There is no playbook that assigus a fixed meaning or function to every typeface; each designer must confiont the library of possibilities in light of cumstances. a project’s unique ctterre | 30 | “ae | | | ahem isa reliable type family initially designed for the Nederlandse @ | Staatscourant, the daily newspaper of the Dutch state, Ithas a roman, an 1 ann tnd ponsetipt formats, fr both PCand Mae platforms. OpersType is de e | Web site, 2004 Designots and publishers: Feed Smeljers and Rudy Geeraer's This Flash-based We site fora tal type fury allows users text fons on the fp. The designers laweiced their ov “label” er renting fons ct as fr Font Shop Internation Display here isthe typefce amkersurreR (32 24, font that has projective memory that reminds: ag hank 4.a font wth anes 5. fet hts a neces 6, font withot tempor! infection, witha ts eg 2 oli for aa Bot ufc by he treo any a3 te wig 2. lent whe a 20, Meshal Laban fnt hl stubbornly pris nag IL atom tht takes aroringe ofthat riod a 12, on thot dove someting other ast on ana ks 12. fort wth the opaciy o ed 44s recoinot ont —oery etter the uly eid of rede 25, font hat sods dal 26.2 font at wits 2.3 fouin eee 18. font tht responds and reacts tothe meaning teams an 29.3 font that assumes the inielligsnee cla 20. a font that might sense your level of eiston (4 0 21.3 Font pron to sudden oulburts aX 22, a font thal exceeds the (po gash 28, a font whose parents are Father Time a the Noth 28, an ambient font, a fon witaerrer 33 Riswntosbetwoen the Ses Pat refuses fo ter imperatives or commands lo tonta synching font a fort without a vole of ts own pat sions tile speaks Jttat oelesefortesly between longuages for speaking in tongves rat spots n islet ropaitan font for uptown, the ghelto,end suburbia athe ie snitancouly transite tian the olintive songs of lonely wales chs fonts, 2 font-fuckingFont Vint that emerges vile, pestorms,evolvos, and posses aay fans dates ut tine Hook, 2000 Desiguer and author: Bruce Mant Publisher: Phaidon Dotograph: Dan Meyers dn this possncustral manifesto, pric designer Bruce Maw inagines typeface that comes alive with simulated inteligencei terre 35 Some dements ma) ented sightly above the op high skin, seanencHy is the height of the main bey ofthe lowercase letter (or the heigh ofa lowercase x), cecuing its asceners and dewenders. body Although kids learn to write using riled paper that divides leer excl half, mast Iypofices are not designed that vy The height usually occupies slihsip more than half ofthe cap height. The bigger the xheight sin relaton to the ‘ap hgh, the bigger the ltrs wit ook a fel of ext, he eatet density occurs benwwer the baselines and the top ofthe seg. the ds the tp ofeapita leer The cap height of a typeface descrnes is point from the baseline riue paseuine is where al the letersi, This isthe most stable taxis along a line of tet, and it ise crcl ede for aighing text tute inages or with other te. Hey, look! They supersized my x-height. ANATOMY The ewes a the botiom of leters such aso ore hang Slight low the baseline ‘and semicolon alo bascine Ifa ype were not pailioned this wap It would appear to teeter precariously, lacking a sense ofp rong Tio Blacks of text fare often algaed along fs share baseline Here, 1/38 Seala (pb ype with 28 ps of ine spacing) is paired wth 7/9) SeaSIZE 12 pons equal pea ° (72 poms) equal snl Go-nornr ScALA ‘A tyeface is measured _from the top ofthe pital ler to the . tam ofthe Lowest descend, plus small bul space > Ina pe ieee os | inthe high of iishe WIDE LOAD ‘The set width isthe body ofthe eter plus the space beside TIGHT WAD “Te ltrs inthe condensed version ofthe tpefce. Ihave @ narrvser set with WIDE LOAD TIGHT WAD ‘rvpE CRIM Te proportions of the llers have been ditallydigorted in onder o create wider for narrower tethers a Levren/demanstrations 36 werew Attempts to standardize the measurement of type began in the eighteenth century. The point system, used to measure the height of a letter 3s vwell as the distance between lines is the standard used today. One point equals 4/72 inch or 35 millimeters. Twelve points equal one pica, the tunit commonly used to measure column widths. Typography also can be measured in (leading inches, millimeters, oF pixels. Most software applications let the designer choose a preferred unit oof measute: picas and points are a standard default Spica - 8p 8 points ~ p88 pls 8 picas. 4 points ~ Sp4 [Link] Helvetica with 9 points of line spacing Big Helvetica wiorn A letter also has a horizontal measure, called its set with The set width is the body of the 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 a typeface by fiddling with its horizontal or vertical scale This distorts the proportion of the letters, Forcing heavy elements to become thin, and thin elements of torturing a letterform, to become thick. Instead choose a typeface with the proportions you need. such as condensed, compressed, or extended.este 37 jarrseats jae IeTensTaTe REGULAR Do I look fat in this ‘These ters areal the sane point size, but they have diferent scheighs lie wigs, and proportions. When two typefaces are set in the same point size, one often looks bigger than the other. Differences [Link], line weight, and character width affect the leters’ apparent scale. nice x-hei 4bert wiivisica a8-re mens eaves 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 appear bulky and out 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 unwvaricn Every typeface wants to know, “Do | look fat in this paragraph?” Its all a matter of context. A font could look perfectly sleek on screen, yet appear bulky and out of shape in print. apg amverica j20 novoNt ght paragraph? Mrs Faves, designed by Zucana Licko in 2996. jets the twemticdl-century appetite for spersizitaheghte. The fo, inspired by the cghteert-centuny designs of Jon Baskerville is nayued afer Sarah Eaves, Baskerville’ mistress, housekeeper, and collaborator The couple lived together for ston years before narying in Rigger sheights, tntrduced in the twentieth century, make fons look larger by maximizing the area within the overall point size Every typeface wants to knov, “De 1 ook fat in this paragraph?" I's alls matter of contest. A font could) look perfectly sleek on sexeen, yet appear bulky and out of shape in print. Some typelaees are drawn with Ineavier Lines than others or have taller x-eighes. Mrs Eaves his 4 low waist and a small boy 9/12 Mas EAVES Every typeface wants to know: " look fat in this paragraph?” matter of context. A font could look perfectly sleek on screen, yet appear bulky and out of shape in print. Mrs. Eaves has a low waist and a small body. aig mrs eaves ‘The deft type size in many sofware applications is 12 ps Although this puneraly creas rewiable type on sereen displays, 12-p lex type usualy looks big an horsey om a printed pg. (12 ps isa good size for childrens books.) Sizes between 9 and 11 pls are common for printed txt. This caption is 75 pscerren | 41CLASSIFICATION ‘These hypefaces have harper serfe ada more vertical axis Te roma fypefaces of the ‘ifecnth end sisteenth centuries than haan leters, When the ants of Join Raskersie were introduces i the vd ihren ‘onalated loasial calligraphy ‘Sabon was desired bp Ja Techichold in 1966, base ‘on the ssleen contr ther shar forms ant Iypefces of Claude Garamond century high consrast were considered? shocking. TYPE CLASSIFICATION A basic system for classifying typefaces was devised in the nineteenth century, when printers sought to identify a heritage for their own craft analogous to that of art history. Humanist letterforms are closely connected to calligraphy and the movement of the hand, Transitional and modem 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 historic characteristics. Sans-serif typefaces became Helvetica, designed by Max cunmon in the tweet Misdinger in 1957. ae of century Gill Sans, designed bythe world’s mest widely used 5 typefaces. ths uniform, upright character mates it similar to in 1928, has humanist aacteristes. Note the small, ling counter i the leter ‘in the calligraphic variations r indine w ansitional serif testers, These fonts are also refered tas ‘anonyiaus sas rf." eorren 42. Aa The typefaces designed by Ginmsbotrstn Bodoni in the late cighteonts and ea ninco ensures are adv abstrach ne the thin, seh sei ais; nl sharp contrast _fom thick to thi strobes Ntnerous bo ana decorative Anpfces were introduce in the nineteenth century for use bi cadverilsing. Egyptian nts have heavy, abite serif Some sans-serif types are built round geometie formes ns Futura, desigiet by Poul Renner in 3927, the Os ae peer circles, and the peaks ofthe A and Mave sharp analteres | 43 Sabon [Link] sano Baskerville rare nASieRvILLt Bodoni 14-Pr noD0N? Clarendon 14:07 CLARENDON Gill Sans ayer en says Helvetica grt weaveriea Futura quer Furor This is not a book about fonts. It is a book about how to use chem, Typefaces are essential resources for the graphic designer, just as glass, stone, steel, and other materials are employed by the architect. 912 sanon This is not a book about fonts. It is a book about how (o use them. Typefaces are essential resources for the graphic designer, just as glass, stone, steel, and other materials are employed by the architect, 9fta mascenvecee This is not « book about fonts. [tis book about how to use them, Typefaces are essential resources for the: raphic designer, just as glass, stone, sieel, and oh materials are employed by the architect, 9.5/2 woDON) nook ‘This is not a book about fonts. It is « book about how to use them, Typefices are assuntial resources for the graphie designor, Just as glass, stone, steel, and other materials are employed by the architect, 8)12 clanzNvow ucHT This is not a book about fonts. It is 2 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. _ g/ta crit 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. Bys2 newerica Rectan This is not a book cbout fonts. Its @ book about how to use thom. Typefaces are essential resources for the graphic designer, just os gloss, stone, steel, and other materials are employed by the architect. B.s/12 muTuRa nooK CLASSIFICATION Selecting type with wie and wisdom requires knowledge fof how and why Jereriorms evolved 7/9 Selecting ype wi ‘vit and wisdom requires knowledge fo how and sey Jeaterforrs evolved, 79. Selecting ype with ‘stl sons requies led fhe ad chy Teter evolve 7519 Selecting type west Feqaiees nonldge ac bow and shy 619 Selecting ype with wicand wisdom quires knowledge of how and why lercerforms evolved, 79 Selecting toe ith and ior rogues knowlaage of ators ect. 619 Selecting type with writ and wisdom quires nowdedge of how ond why leer evolved, 65/9warren | 44 THEYPRESUMPTION OF,GOOD WILL «4 forausny Nae. MONE? eat wide sky, essed, apr. Tivewith it. Neve: in your ne NOT du you bf 1 tinal Fe GROWS: fle shadow NEE MUST: comy Hea REMEMBERING! weaPYOU MCSWEENEY'S TeLCURARMS || geet ace CARRY [Link] Dave Eegers| [=f [20 nova. eee ighly drag layout is isermex| 45 FAMILIES ‘The idea of organizing typefaces into matched “families dates back to the sixteenth century, when ‘Adobe Garamond was designed by Robert Simbach i 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. Fhe tree ols pio lar standard, upright version of a typeace, I is typically conceived ‘as the parent of larger family Italic fonts, which are based on cursive writing, have forms distinct from roman. “The ial form is web simply « meskanically slanted version ofthe oman: i «separate typeface, Note tha the leer a has a diferent shape in the roman an italic variant of Adobe Garamond, SMALL CAPS HAVE A HEIGHT THAT IS SIMILAR TO the lowercase X-HEIGHT. ‘Sal aps (eepitals) are designed to negra witha line of text, where fisze capitals would siand oud swkwwrdly. Smal copia tare slighly taller tham the eight oftwerease letters. ADORE GanAMOND EXPER (SMALL CATS) Bold (and semibold) typefaces are used for emphasis within a hierarchy. ‘old versions of traltional tex fons were added in the temic century 40 mec he need for empaic forms. Sanssrif femiles cen include a broad range of weights (in. bold, black, et.) Bold (and semibold) typefaces each need to include an italic version, too. “Te ype desler tres ome she bl versions fe smar in contms to the roman, without making the overal form too heavy, The counters need so stay clear aid open at sal sizes. ‘A fall type family has two sets of numerals: lining (123) and non-lining (123). ADOBE GARAMOND BOLD AND SEMEOLD ITALEC ADONE GARAMOND REGULAR AND EXPERT NUMERALS Lining numerals occrypy teniformt units of horizontal space, so tat the nannbers tie up when used bn tabulated colar. Non-ining numerals also called “text” or ‘ald se" nemerals Inve « sual body size plus ascenders an descenders, 0 that sey mks wal olin with owereae eters A ppe family can pe faked by s/ancing; or inflating, or SHRINKING letters. Mmatie not SMALL CAPS ‘vee cain ‘TYPE CRIME: PSEUDO ITALICS PSEUDO BOLD PSEUDO SBLALL CAPS The wide, wygain'y Pas around the These shrunken forms ofthese skewed egrs these eters versions of fullsize deters look forced! feo! blame and dul. cea ave puny tn uraeral ‘nud starve,BIG FAMILIES THESIS FAMILY cerren | 46 Designed by Lacas de Groot, LucasFonts, 1994 ‘Thess is one of the word’ langst ype files, 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 theix 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uarren | 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 Design by Tobias Frere-Jons, Font Bureau, 1993 ann pp Scala Scala Sans Scala Italic Scala Sans Italic Scara Caps SCALA SANS CAPS Scala Bold Scala Sans Bold Scala Sans Bold Martin Majoor's Scala, tnd roghout this hook, fngun asc serif typefice. Major later add w sa. serif ubfamaly os well as SCALA JEWEL CRYSTAL SCALA JEWEL DIAMOND SCALA JEWEL PEARL SCALA TEWEL SAPHYR ‘ax ornancental jewel” Majoors shows how the serif and sans gait abo self frm have a commons BIG FAMILIES | wtvens was dsigied bythe Swiss sypographer Adrian | A traditional roman book face typically has a smell family—a "nuclear" group i consisting of roman, italic, small } ind possibly bold and semibold with an italic variant). Sans-serif ilies often come in mai weights and sizes, such as thin, light, black, compressed, and condensed, | In the 190s, many type designers clude both serif Small capitals and sans-serif v and nom-lining numerals (a courtesy | traditionally reserved for serif fonts) are included in the sans-serif’ of Thesis, Scala, and many other big contemporary families,DESIGNING TYPEFACES ‘EABCDEF GHIJKLMDESIGNING TYPEFACES T terre 49 abecedjkkmn ABECDEFCEEL MNOSTIFUNMWY | For more than five hundred years, typeface i production was an industrial process. Most type I was cast fiom lead until the rise of photo typesetting in the 1960s and 19708; early digital typefaces {also created in that period) still required specialized Castaways Drawing and finished type, 2001 Amand type direction: Andy Cruz Typeface design: Ken Barber Fou engineeting: Rich Reat House Industries CCasiaways is om a erie of git forts hase 0 covumerial signs in Las Vagos. The oigtal signs were crated by lettering artss who worked by hand to make custom graphics and logos, Howse Industries i dite ‘ype found that creates typefces inspired by popular aac and design history, Designer Ker Barber makes pencil doawings Bp hand and shen diizes the oxthines. and languages. until the inteoduetion of desktop computers that typeface design became a wi ible field. By the end of the twentieth century, digi foundries” had appeared around the globe, often run by one or two designers. | | 1 ! i} Producing a complete typeface remains, however, an enormous task, Even a relatively small type family has hundreds of distinet ch: each requiring many phases of refinement. The typeface designer must also dete is to be spaced, what software platforms it will use, and how it will function in different sizes, media, pine how a fontLocoryPES Ingenieurbiro Informations- und Funktechrik Johannes Hubner Fax 0351 Hadbner rmail@johannes-huebrer a entity program, 1998 Design: Joclien Stankowski This iden ase the prep lieve contests for an engineering fi Hata tmdemark, ertions ofthe mark changeLOGOTYPES Locorvess use lypography or lettering to depict the name of an organization in a memorable way Whereas some trademarks consist of an absteact symbol or a pictorial icon, a logotype uses letters to create a distinctive visual image. Logotypes can be built with existing fonts or with custom-drawn letterforms. Modern logotypes are ofien designed in different versions, for use in different situations. A logotype is part | of an overall identity program, which the designer conceives a8 “language” that lives (and changes) > LLogotypes, 2003 De ence: Anton Gineburg ‘porns in museum pereilraiiriys than element of the the classic sips eter in “0 sua pe, 2004 Designers: Abbott Miller and Jeremy Hoffman, Pentagram The sides of square eve been gently contoured work off in reference 1 Noguchi i Museum. The concave the eypefce BalanceBITMAP FONTS barre |56 bitmap fonts are designed for digital display, ditmap fonts are designed for digital display al a specific size. Bitmap fonts are designed for digital display. Bitmap fonts are designed for digital display. bitmap fonts are designed far digital display at a specific size, Bitmap fonts are designed for digital display at a specific size. Oakland, and | display at 3 spe for dliaital alspiay at specitic Bitmap fen Bitmap fe size. Bitmap fonts are designed for digital display at a specific size. 8-00 PINELLA RE Disigned by Chester 2003 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 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 d I display at a specific size. } authoring aptictionevese | 57 aizMap rons are buill out of the pixels (picture elements) that structure a sereen display. Whereas a PostScript lelter consists of a vectorized outline, a bitmap character contains a fixed nunaber of rectilinear units that are either “on” or “off.” Outline fonts are sealable, meaning that they can be reproduced in 2 high-resolution mediura 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 stall text) Ina bitmap font, the pixels do not melt away as the letters get bigger. Some designers like to exploit this effect, which calls altemtion to the letters’ digital geometry Pixel fonts are widely used in both print and digital media. Corporate Corporate Corporate Corporate A bingy font is designed o be used ata specific size, such as 8 pees, because fs body is precisely cousiructed eof sree units. A bitraap font should be displayed om screen in ven mui of Its oo size (enange 8p type to 16,24. 32, nd oon) BITMAP FONTS ESDEKHOHOEL NETHIF & LEE SSTRALSTRAAT 15-0 1011 JK AYNSTERDAH 22/05/03 13:12 000000 #0074 BED. VERZENDIGIST. TYPOGRAFIE TYPOSRAFIE, TVPOGRAFTE, TUPOGRAFLE TYPOBRAFIE TYPOBRAFIE TYPOBRAFIE TWPOGRAFIE, TYPOSRAFIE, ‘TYPOGRAFIE, ‘TYPOBRAFIE ‘TPOBRAFIE SUBTOTAL 920.15 BTW LARS 27.44 STUKS, i EREDIT 520.15 ‘OK ANTIOUARIRAT TEL #020-6203980 FAK?020-639529%4 Receipt, 2003 “This cash register receipt, pres wih a ier fom Isom a design and !ypogrephy bookstore in Armserdam. (The author Ist debt from his sransoction.)LETTER EXERCISE rere Create a prototype for a bitunap font by designing letters on a grid of squares. Substitute the curves and diagonals of traditional leterforms with reeiinear a a elements. Avoid making detailed “staircases,” which are just curves and diagonals in disguise. This exercise looks j back to the 1910s and 1920s, when avant- garde designers made experimental typefaces out of simple geometric pai The project also reflects the structure of =F digital technologies, from cash register receipts and LED signs lo onscreen font a oO a display, showing how a typeface funetions ystern of elements Maryland tsttute Callege of Art ip ip tfoHbLe Mob“Typographic installation in Grand Cental Station, [New York City, 1995 Desiguer: Siephen Dosle Client: The New York State Division of Women Sponsors: The New York Siate Disision of Women, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Revlon and Meraill LynchTEXTPoster, 1996 Designer: Hayes Henderson Rather than represent cyberspace as an ethereal pid the designer has used blotches of ovelapping text to bul an ces, omg body.TEXT LETTERS GATHER INTO WORDS, WORDS BUILD INTO SENTENCES. In typography, “text” is defined as an ongoing sequence of words, distinet from shorter headlines or captions. The main block is often called the “body,” comprising the principal mass of content. Also known as “running text,” it can 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, rom pictures, captions, and page mumbers to banners, buttons, 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 of—the flood of words by breaking up text into pieces and offering shortcuts 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 enhancing the readability of the written word, one of design's most humane functions is, in actuality, to help readers avoid reading.Searufmranrumpleneeettierem) funnier phe: non confintente am, eet tes a 4 nee jcarLommnies qtetimenctoms rambrlancm tits Cintas manuim mann amamarent | 65, Marshall Metahan, The Gutenberg Galazy (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1962). On the ture of intellectual propery, see lawrence Lessig, Free Clr: How Big Media ses Tevhmolgy an the Law Jo lock Dow Culture and Contra Cremiity (New York: Penguin, 2004) ERRORS AND OWNERSHIP notion o ‘Typography helped seal the literary 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 object Printing with movable type was the first system of mass production, replacing the hand-copied manuscript, As in other forms of ‘mass production, the cost of setting type, insuring its correctness, and 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 corzect « work as it passes from handwritten ‘manuscript to typographic galley, “Proofs” are test copies made before final production begins, The proofreader’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 of a 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. Bleetreie sedlining issepheeing the hieroglyphic eFtheedites, 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 classic typographic page emphasizes the completeness and dlosure of a work, its authority as a finished product. Alternative design strategies in the twenticth and twenty-first centuries reflect the contested nature of authorship by revealing the openness of texts to the flow of information and the corrosiveness of history. ‘Typography tended to alter language from a means of perception and exploration toa portable commodity, Marshall McLuhan, 1962Be lente gy ipecrsm oper oe nan gon eramberaerg ovine mane ight fren a er IalbaliinamespemTane carom tbh mail Fe ae pence frien ae etn 4 E general xrurureof the mink prides in speech destined ina beensig ©] Bnet abesess atin who are not caly determinate ean | Be eee een oe a | 5 iy alee ee es ae | etingas anymemotimaris;“Langunge howeer,isonly cocang | tat hay, | ee ieee Seaa aioe) cate a {| Fey matey be wins ace te pe sn Ligh | eee eeeea eel atecpaaty le cning ae a . ‘eodingor, nother won, for control and selesepulation” (3G 3) whore dein | We begin to dice how the simutiancty of Stermining, cing the cue wid] | ie pel geen ire aimviaie| Fee a | Fmlinpuage tonardansoningorwhae Deridascesasthe inflacl fo Gee meoniiceaiace a wk cll come | ‘must mane, regs a1 were, nonscizophrenic language, smeuinly Be ee ices | ae to Te Oe 1 ie ee Cie } i ee eee ey idee | H | Ee "Whatever es singularicy in chisrespect, the lingsttic system of gemene eg | THE TELEPITONE BOOK: Eb ieraccor ks would merybeh sce tome, jap orale mn ji recHNoLDGY, seNtZ0 le tiabecuanple ofthelaw of desabization® — (MC). emg be pa | So ae aie wefulonote — tbeDeridaundermands language interms prima ecfcrOilx Buk 1985 f Vn Pee ee ee een tee ota {i ceo es ie a GAGE CARRE OA uk | egracoll sane sero | ace | Sgujapo itor tlin hea, ere cua i ona | ior iewsigralinvoraigs slictrns okes | mah | Pubs Un : pede. ou eee |, Cae Ni Phetograpl: Dan Meyer Trenton ge eel non whet “toni i Tis oo, phobia sty (eal eel ho gets andte wen) | oon fing esa il Thaleebe canimhormy Guesrench noieen | ok Bul ' Iechnology, uses typography tingly eprdace the elec and eauma of a chance encom, anleveydid fr Cpa a heel mee iompe sdhlogc rman the quetin fate =o a | argument of the text. This on ‘ied by Laing andthe onesrised in turn by Derrida, Foritmow 20). He rea spread, for example, isfactured || appeasthat Laing pliceshis bes on the sustained! sya “The xe bay Irimegerhic esis TT dieyschehs Oantasons abaya. fleet =e Dol one vec rg || Ivotéonbdrin™ Morar, Devidadocnon empl tn th ge. re ite sacred gl within anal goal: big,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, a 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 locks of “furniture” hold the margins of the page. Although we take 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 muhiple characters. Spaces were introduced afier the invention of the Greek alphabet to make words intelligible as distinct units, ‘Tryreadingalincoftextwithoutspacingtosechowimportantithasbecome. ‘With the invention of typography, spacing and punctuation assified from gap and gesture to physical artifact. Punctuation marks, which were used differently from 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 breakthrough 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 Yaker Ong Oity and position in this space.” Typography made text into a thing, a material object Lie Toe Tiling with Known. dimensions and fixed locations. 1 ‘The French philosopher Jacquiés Derrida, who devised the theo 1981). See also Jacques of deconstruction in the 1960s, wrote that although the alphabet represents Derrida, Of Grammiviology, sound, it cannot function without silent marks and spaces. Typography aed manipulates the silent dimensions of the alphabet, employing habits and Fopkne Unseciy tess, techniques—such as spacing and punctuation—that are seen but not heard 1095) ‘The alphabet, rather than evolve into a transparent code for recording speech, developed its own visual resources, becoming a more powerful technology as it left behind 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rexr | 68 LINEARITY In his essay “From Work to Text,” the French critic Roland Barthes presented two opposing models of writing: the closed, fixed “work” versus the open, unstable “text.” In Barthes's view, the work is a tidy, neatly packaged object, proofread and copyrighted, made perfect and complete by the art of print: 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 j cut across and through in a yast stereophony...’The metaphor of the Test is that of the network.” Writing in the 1960s and 1970s, Barthes anticipated the Internet as a Roland Barthes, “From decentralized web,of connections. ‘Work Ti rege, Barthes was describing literature, yet his ideas resona Haar typography, the visual manifestation of language. The singular “body” of ‘said Wang, ayaa | the traditional text page has long been supported by the navigational features | ‘of the book, from page numbers 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 a fixed sequence of pages, a body lodged ina grid of known coordinates. te for All such devices are attacks on linearity, providing means of entrance and escape from the one-way stream of discourse. Whereas 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 crawl” that marches along the bottom of } the television screen to the ticker-style LED signs that loop throtigh the urban environment. Film tilles—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. Linearity 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 | Atext...is a multidimensional space in which a variety of writings, none of them original, blend and clash. Roland Barthes, 1971 | a