We have started a new unit, typeface and letterforms. I found this very daunting, because, it is a completely new, huge world to me that i have never explored... We watched a film about Helvetica and it was very interesting but like i said i feel really overwhelmed.
I wanted to know what happened before more in depth and really look into it as best i could.
I decided to calm my nerves by looking into the history of type face, and to, i guess start at the beginning... for myself.
while researching i found out that a lot of people agree that the creator of typography was a German man named Johannes Gutenberg. But before he came along books needed to be scribed, by hand. Obviously this was very time consuming, So Guttenberg created Blackletter.
I think this was modeled after the scribe's. It has thick vertical lines, and thin horizontal connectors. This was hard for printing, as it looked very dense and squished together.
So then came Roman Type, the first roman type was created in the 15th century invented by Nicolas Jenson.
Jenson was inspired by the lettering found on ancient roman buildings, they were based on straight lines and regular curves, making them very clear and legible, compared to the dense darkness of Blackletter. It quickly spread across Europe. The next major innovation in typography ( from what i can find ) was Italics, they seem to be slanted stylized versions of roman type.
In the 18th century in England, William Caslon created a new typeface.
A Frenchman named Didot and an Italian named Bodoni Created typefaces that we call Modern.
Most Serif typefaces fit into one of these category ( Old style, Transitional or Modern ). But i had no idea what these category's meant... so i decided to research that...
But first what is a serif and a sans serif ??
It is a slight projection finishing off a stroke of a letter in certain typefaces...
William Caslon's Great grandson, William Caslon iv, Created the Sans Serif. Quite easy, now i get it.
Ok, so back to the category's....
Old style Typeface's have Thick Serifs, and low contrast between thick and thin strokes.
A Transitional Typeface has letters with thinner Serifs and a higher contract between thick and thin strokes.
And a Modern typeface has letters with VERY thin serifs, and EXTREME contrast between thick and thin strokes.
During the second industrial revolution, advertising created a new need for typeface... Letters seemed to be made taller and wider for things like posters and billboards.
Paul Renner, from Germany created the typeface, Futura, that was based on simple geometric shapes. This is called the Geometric Sans.
Around the same time, Eric Gill created a typeface called Gill Sans,
This is similar to a geometric sans, but with gentler more natural curves. This is called a Humanist Sans... The next step in the world of sans serifs was in Switzerland in 1957 with the introduction of Helvetica....
I wanted to know what happened before more in depth and really look into it as best i could.
I decided to calm my nerves by looking into the history of type face, and to, i guess start at the beginning... for myself.
while researching i found out that a lot of people agree that the creator of typography was a German man named Johannes Gutenberg. But before he came along books needed to be scribed, by hand. Obviously this was very time consuming, So Guttenberg created Blackletter.
So then came Roman Type, the first roman type was created in the 15th century invented by Nicolas Jenson.
In the 18th century in England, William Caslon created a new typeface.
This style of Caslons typeface is now referred to as Old Style. A few years later John Baskerville, also English, created a new typeface, Baskerville, that we now call Transitional.
A Frenchman named Didot and an Italian named Bodoni Created typefaces that we call Modern.
Most Serif typefaces fit into one of these category ( Old style, Transitional or Modern ). But i had no idea what these category's meant... so i decided to research that...
But first what is a serif and a sans serif ??
It is a slight projection finishing off a stroke of a letter in certain typefaces...
William Caslon's Great grandson, William Caslon iv, Created the Sans Serif. Quite easy, now i get it.
Ok, so back to the category's....
Old style Typeface's have Thick Serifs, and low contrast between thick and thin strokes.
A Transitional Typeface has letters with thinner Serifs and a higher contract between thick and thin strokes.
And a Modern typeface has letters with VERY thin serifs, and EXTREME contrast between thick and thin strokes.
During the second industrial revolution, advertising created a new need for typeface... Letters seemed to be made taller and wider for things like posters and billboards.
Paul Renner, from Germany created the typeface, Futura, that was based on simple geometric shapes. This is called the Geometric Sans.
Around the same time, Eric Gill created a typeface called Gill Sans,
This is similar to a geometric sans, but with gentler more natural curves. This is called a Humanist Sans... The next step in the world of sans serifs was in Switzerland in 1957 with the introduction of Helvetica....
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