27/11 Type, Typography and Printing

Stephan Fry - The Gutenberg Press

Gutenberg developed the movable type printing press in the 15th century. Took years and years to create.
The process of printing bibles (key artefact Gutenberg wanted to create) had 300 letters, variables on how they interacted with each other, wanted to mimic the handwriting of scribes. Letters looked Gothic, black letter appearance.
Images were added by illuminators, they would paint decorative detail around the boarders.
History of graphics isn't build on creativity, it was to fulfil a need at the time. The materials need to be considered here as well, materials we don't use now, e.g. cow hyde.
Printing revolution has a massive effect over Europe, 20 million books printed over 15 years. Started as something private people related to church could profit from, became a vehicle for decent, documents produced that challenged the church, and later challenged the monarchy etc. Printing was used as a weapon.
1960s phototype setting, photographic reproduction.

Type styles

Blackletter - used to reflect the calligraphy of original bibles written by monks.
Roman form - later form of type. Developed from letters used by roman empire, looking on roman stone engravings.

Bastarda - first of gutenberg's typefaces.
Textura - typeface used in Gutenberg's bible printing, more refined version of Bastarda.

Jenson  - refined typeface down to a considered range of glyphs, could all be based on one specific alphabet. Changed the way people used writing in everyday language.
(Nicolas Jenson 1470).

Griffo's Roman - more precise and refined than Jenson.
Griffo's Italic - designed to mimic cursive script. smaller, more compact, could fit more on a page. Main benefit of typeface.
(Francesco Griffo 1495).

Fraktur - Blackletter typeface, refined and exaggerated style. Used widely by the Nazi's, because of connotations of medieval Germany. Most used typeface in protestant reform literature produced in 16th century.
(Leonhard Wagner 1513). 

Garamond Roman - Even more refined and perfected roman form, developed from Griffo's. Most common roman type.
(Claude Garamond).

Baskerville - clear precise typeface, more condensed than Garamond, more delicate. Used a lot in enlightenment literature (18th cent) cultural phase about rationality, that wasn't based on rationality but on the emerging sciences. Common type used, especially in stuff produced in England. Type could be more delicate because paper development let to more delicate paper-forms.
(John Baskville 1757).

Bodoni - Industrial revolution, science and rationality, impacted typeface. Still roman, still serif but really refines. More variation within families e.g. Bodoni condensed. Long time in development from first letter press.
(Giambattista Bodoni 1788).

Figgins Antique - Mass production, industrial revolution at its height. Working in factories, assembly lines etc. Need to have public communication eg advertising. Slab serif/ display type, made for display purposes.

Thorowgood's Grotesk - used for mass publishing for public announcements. Grotesk fonts developed (Sans Serif). Seen as inappropriate to have no serifs, largely rejected because of this. Thorowgood experimented in sans serif to improve display legibility.
(William Thorowgood 1815).

Clarendon - Slab serif but more elegant than Figgin's. With lots of different variations, and typefaces within that style.
(William Thorowgood 1815).

Franklin Gothic - More engaged with sans serif lettersforms. Became popular due to communication, large need to communicate effectively. Sans serif font. Used mostly in newspapers and ads.
(American Type Founders 1904).

Avant Garde - Designed to be able to be compatible with phototype setting, reproduction technology (1960s technique). Designed for display, rather than body text. Has joined uppercase letters, heavily geometric.
(Herb Lubalin 1970).

Verdana - Sans serif for digital use, slightly adjusted so can be used on screen. Microsoft approached Mathew to design typeface to be used exclusively for computer publications - owed by Microsoft.
(Mathew Carter 1996).