The origins of typography.pdf

8/16/2019 The origins of typography.pdf

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The origins of typography

TYPOGRAPHY isthe balance andinterplay of letterforms on the page,a verbal and visualequation that

helps the readerunderstand theform and absorb thesubstance of the

page content.A specimensheet oftypefaces andlanguagesby William

Caslon I fromthe 1728.


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The first use of symbols toportray abstract thought mighthave been the pictograms orpictographs painted on cavesand cliffs. The figures representconcepts, objects, activities, places

or events. Cuneiform alphabetsand hieroglyphs are based onpictographs. Pictograms, picturesthat resemble what they signify,

evolved into ideograms, picturesthat represent ideas.

A San, or Bushman, pictograph found inthe Tsodilo Hills of Botswana. Some of thepaintings have been dated as 24,000 years old,making this one of the oldest such sites yetdiscovered.


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Hieroglyphics means ‘sacred carvings.’ Until 1822, hieroglyphics werethought to be pictographic. In the era of the Old Kingdom, the MiddleKingdom and the New Kingdom, about 700 hieroglyphs were in use. By theGreco-Roman period, they numbered more than 5,000.

An example ofhieroglyphicscarved into stonefrom the LouvreMuseum in Paris.


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Found in 1790 in Egypt, theRosetta Stone contains threeinscriptions of a single text, adecree of the priests of Memphisin honor of Ptolemy V. (196BC). French scholar Jean Francois

Champollion (1790-1832) intranslating the Rosetta Stonerealized the phonetic value ofhieroglyphs; they have more than

symbolic meaning and served as a‘spoken language.’

The Rosetta Stone residesin the British Museum


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The origins of typographyText on the Rosetta Stone appearsin hieroglyphs, Demotic and Greek,

allowing Egyptologists in 1822 todecode hieroglyphics. Hieroglyphsinclude three kinds of glyphs:n Phonetic glyphs. Single-

consonant characters like analphabet.n Logographs. Charactersrepresenting morphemes, the basicsounds of the language.n Determinatives. Ideogramsthat narrowed the meaning of alogographic or phonetic word.

HIEROGLYPHICS

DEMOTICS

GREEK


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Chinese writing is made up of logograms,with each character corresponding toa spoken syllable, usually with a basicmeaning. Logograms also are used inJapanese and Korean writing. A completewriting system in Chinese characters

was developed 3500 years ago, makingit perhaps the oldest surviving writingsystem. Chinese characters are deriveddirectly from individual pictograms or

combinations of pictograms and phoneticsigns.

“Strength,” brush calligraphy by Lixin WangThe large characters mean strength. The small characteron the right says, “Strong enough to lift a mountain,and the power is unparalleled in the world.”


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More than 5,000 yearsago, the Sumerians ofsouthern Iraq inventedcuneiforms, one of theworld’s earliest systemsof writing, because

they needed a means ofaccounting. The systemused signs, originallypictograms, to represent

numbers, things, words and the sounds of words. A picture of a person’shead could be used to mean “head” or could stand for the sound of the wordfor head, or “sag” in Sumerian. By using signs to represent syllables, thesystem could be used to express concepts, immaterial things that existed

only as thoughts such as valor, honor, freedom and evil.


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By the 8th and 7th centuriesB.C., the Phoenicianshad colonies around theMediterranean and extensivetrade networks, extendingas far as the Atlantic coast

of Africa and the BlackSea. According to Biblicalaccounts, their artisans andartists were unparalleled,

and they sponsored, togetherwith King Solomon, ambitious naval undertakings. The Phoenician alphabet,considered the first ‘Western’ alphabet, was based on the principle that onesign represents one spoken sound. It gave rise to Aramaic, Greek and Berber

alphabets. These are purely symbolic codes used in combination to representspoken sounds.


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The origins of typographyTo move from pictures toletters is to go from the

specific to the universal.Letters that are not tiedto a specific thing canexpress abstract ideas,

things that do not exist inthe material world, suchas honesty, love, hate orcourage.

SPECIFIC UNIVERSAL

Face

Egyptian Hebrew Phoenician Greek Roman 3500 B.C. 1500 B.C. 1100 B.C. 600 B.C. 114 A.D.


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The Romans used their

alphabet to express ideas,to record information forposterity, and forliterature. Roman letters,derived from stonecarvings, are upright,with serifs and variationof thick and thin strokes.Roman typefaces we usetoday, such as TimesRoman, follow this stylebut with lowercase lettersadded.

ABOVE: The base of Trajan’s column, Rome, inscribed about 113A.D. BELOW: A detail of the lettering. Note the use of serifs.


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Serifs originally were chisel strokes usedto finish the bottoms of letters.Roman lettering represents a ‘modern’form, but printing didn’t come along foranother 2,000 years.

A

G

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQR

STUVWXYZ& 1234567890$

GgyQa&3The moderntitling fontTrajan,designed byCarol Twombly,was based onthe lettering on

Trajan’s Columnin Rome.Twombleyalso designedLithos, anotherfont based onancient writing

styles.


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The origins of typographyDuring medieval times, language waskept alive by religious scribes, who

copied sacred texts by hand. Theirwork influenced letter shapes. AsErik Spiekermann notes, much ofour typography today derives from

handwriting.

RIGHT: The Carolingian script of the 8th Century looks much like modern roman typeface, asthis illustration from the Epistolary of Giovanni da Gaibana of 1259 illustrates. LEFT: An exampleof “black monumental textus precissus” from the Luttrell Psalter of 1340.


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We attach meaning to type, to the shapeof the letters. Textura, or black letter, hasbeen connected with Nazi Germany, butit also appears in trademarks of many

newspapers.

RIGHT:Germany:Psalter,

Middle 13thCentury. LatinText.. FARRIGHT: Posterfor Germanpropagandafilm, Triumphof the Will.BOTTOMRIGHT: TheChicagoTribuneTower.


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Uncial, a more open stylepracticed by scribes, is theprecursor to lower-caseletters. To keep quills sharpand strokes uniformrequired skill and sensitivity.

First created inLatin around700 A.D., theLindisfarneGospels weretranslated into OldEnglish some 250years later.


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As letter forms became more symbolic and less like pictures, the size, formand shape of each letter became important. Lettering began to be seen as an

art form.

Luca Pacioli, from Divina Proportione,Venice:, 1509Pacioli, a Franciscan monk, is mentionedseveral times in the notebooks of Leonardoda Vinci. His Summa di Arithmetica,Geometria, Proportioni e Proportionalità appeared in 1494. He published this workin 1509. In an appendix to the book, each of

the capital roman letters is broken down intoits component parts, showing its underlyingproportions.


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Designers are interested in type that isreproducible. Modern typography beginswith the invention of movable type andthe printing press.

LEFT: Block print, Hanshu, history of western Han.Fujian Province, China, 1304-1334. ABOVE: Ceramic

moveable type, Ch’ing-li period (1041-1048).


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TYPE TECHNOLOGY 1

Type Technology

Gutenberg’s contribution: A way of mass producing individualpieces of type in metal that could be used over and over again.A punch (top right) was carved by hand, then driven into softermetal to form a matrice (bottom right) that was used in a moldto form type slugs (top left).


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Gutenberg’s legacy is ‘hot-metal’ type setting, a way of mass producingmoveable type cast in metal. The character forms, strongly influenced typedesign for centuries. Gutenberg’s font had more than 300 characters toimitate textura style of the scribes.

a

b d

c e

a. drawingb. punchc. matrixd. sluge. printed page


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GermanyGutenberg’s masterpiece was his42-line Bible. It had 1,286 pages inall. Today, 48 survive out of perhaps180 that Gutenberg printed circa1456. This example is from one

of two complete Bibles that residein the British Library. You canview high-resolution images at thelibrary’s Web site.


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ItalyAldus Manutius founded AldinePress in Venice with the goal ofpreserving classic Greek texts. Hisartisans advanced typefacedesign beyond imitating hand-drawn characters by using Romanletter forms. He is credited withdeveloping italics, with the namederived from italianate .

Florilegium diversorum epigrammatum inseptem libros, printed by the Aldine Pressin Venice 1525. The Aldus trademark, orcolophone, the dolphin and anchor, was printedin the back of the book before the advent of

the title page.


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BritainWilliam Caxton printed first booksin English, using the textura styletype similar to Gutenberg’s. By 1509,English printers were using Romantype, influenced by the French.

Godefrey of Boloyne or Last Siege and Conquesteof Jherusale . Printed by William Caxton, London,1481.


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TYPE TECHNOLOGY 2

Type Technology

Early printers used a composing

stick (A) to build lines of typeinto galleys (B) that werelocked into the press bed (C).

A

B

C


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TYPE TECHNOLOGY 3

Type Technology

The printer worked at the typecase,containing all the letters, numbers and

“sorts.” The flatbed press with the handscrew, derived from a wine press, servedprinters for hundreds of years.


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TYPE TECHNOLOGY 4

Type Technology

Today hand set type is used for special jobs that require a

refined, classic look.

WWW.ROSETTA-TRANSLATIONS.CO.UK


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TYPE TECHNOLOGY 5

Type Technology

As presses became mechanized, thetypesetting function had to adapt to

mass production. The Linotype machineallowed type to be composed on akeyboard. When a line was complete,the operator would cast this onto aslug. One by one, the lines of type

formed a galley.

MIKE CARROLL

WWW.SOUTHCOUNTYMUSEUM.ORG


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TYPE TECHNOLOGY 6

Type Technology

High-speed presses use cylinders androllers. The stereotype system produced

cylindrical plates. The Linotype slugswere set in a galley, then a papiermaché mold was produced (left). Itwas used to make rounded plates thatcould be bolted on the press (right).PHOTOS BY MIKE CARROLL


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TYPE TECHNOLOGY 7

Type Technology

Gutenberg's raised type iscalled relief printing (A).Other process of printinginclude intaglio or gravure(B) and planographic suchas offset lithography (C).

CA

B


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TYPE TECHNOLOGY 8

Type Technology

Phototypesetting introducedthe era of “cold type.” Strips

of photo paper containingthe text were pasted into“mechanicals” to be madeinto plates.

MINDGLOVE

FILM OR PAPER

MOVING PRISM ESTABLISHES

TYPE POSITION

SPINNING DISCHOLDS NEGATIVE

IMAGE OF THECHARACTERS

LENS TURRETDICTATESTYPE SIZE

MIKE CARROLL


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TYPE TECHNOLOGY 9

Cold-type mechanicals

are transferred to theprinting plate througha photographic process.Most commercial printingtoday is done on offset

presses, a lithographicprocess that uses light-weight aluminum plates.

Type Technology


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TYPE TECHNOLOGY 10

Type Technology

Offset printing allows better

reproduction of photographs,and it is a superior process for colorbecause the press has a lighter touchon the paper and can use a finerhalftone screen.


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TYPE TECHNOLOGY 11

Type Technology

A word about halftones: A press using white paper and black inkcannot print shades of gray, so photos must be converted to halftonesto reproduce correctly and look natural. A halftone is made byconverting the photo to a series of dots. The bigger the dots, thedarker that part of the photo will appear.


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TYPE TECHNOLOGY 12

Computers first used bitmapped text (right) to create characters on a screen.The letters were composed of individual square picture elements, or pixels.But when bitmap type is enlarged, it gets jagged. Postscript type describescharacters in a font by vectors, data points that form an outline. Thesecan be enlarged without jagged edges. To be printed, the Postscript type is

turned back into a bitmap by a raster image processer (RIP).

Type Technology


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TYPE TECHNOLOGY 13

Type Technology

When type is rasterized, the smooth typeis converted to square picture elements, or

pixels. High-quality typesetting machinesrasterize at 2,400 pixels per inch, so thesquare pixels are not visible. But for low-resolution applications, such as Web pageson a computer screen, the computer uses

anti-aliasing to give the type a smooth look.

CoJo 256


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TYPE TECHNOLOGY 14

Type Technology

Digital printing uses technology similar to the laser printer to produce pagesdirectly from a computer file.

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The origins of typography.pdf