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Typography in Graphic Design


Typography is a word that has its origins in the old Greek language; typos means form and graphe means writing in Greek. So typography is a technique and an art in the same time that helps us to communicate visually our language. In order to understand typography we have to know about typeface, point size, line length, leading, tracking, kerning. Therefor I will give a short description of these terms, bellow: Typeface is a set of characters that have a similar design. They are so many typefaces existing on the market today and new ones are being developed continuously. The art and craft of designing typefaces is called type design and the designers are called type designers. In the world of digital typography, which is so much developed today, the type designers are also called font designers or font developers. Point size Line length is the width occupied by a block of typeset text; it is measured in inches, picas and points. The text inside the line can be flush left (aligned to the left margin) and ragged right, flush right and ragged left or justified all lines are equal in length and the text is aligned along both the left and right margin. Leading is the distance between the baselines of successive lines of type. In our days, especially in word processing software, leading is known as line spacing or interline spacing. Tracking means adjusting the space between groups of letters. Kerning means adjusting the space between pairs of letters. Letterform means the shape of a letter; also means the study and design of individual letters. Letterforms are designed for metal print or computer.

The origin of letterform

In the ancient time, people used pictures to transmit their messages or to communicate. They are called pictograms. A series of pictures found a couple of thousand years ago BC demonstrate that. 2600-1900 BC Writings from Indus Valley civilization The earliest script in India so far known is the Indus Valley pictographic script. Over 4000 symbol bearing seals have been discovered in the Indus Valley.

After a while, the pictograms were replaced by the ideographs. These are the symbols that represent an idea, a picture or a group of pictures. They were used especially by the Native Americans and Egyptians. Some say that Chinese alphabet is based on ideographs or pictographs. But this is wrong because most characters contain phonetic parts too. Therefore it is recognised today that Chinese characters evolved from earlier form of hieroglyphs. For many years people used to communicate their ideas by drawing pictures called pictograms. A San, or Bushman, pictographs found in the Tsodilo Hills of Botswana. Some of the paintings have been dated as 24,000 years old, making this one of the oldest such sites yet discovered. 300,000 BC 50,000 BC Paleolithic 70,000 BC African Python God 70,000 BC Python Worship 70,000 BC African religion Predates Hinduism 38,000 BC 32,000 BC tusk

3 In South Africa, in the remote Ngamiland region of Botswana, it was found the oldest cult object. This was a mysterious rock that looked like the head of a huge python and was six meter long by two-meter tall rock. On it they discovered also three-to-four hundred indentations that could only have been man-made. Hieroglyphs were first introduced by Egyptians and they represents objects, ideas but also sounds. Egyptian hieroglyphs typical of the Graeco-Roman period, sculpted in Relief. Glyphs: owl, viper, 3-strokes (plural), 'bread bun', cloth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hieroglyph

4 In Greek, hieroglyph means sacred carving as the characters were in craved in stones. Hieroglyphics are found on the wells caves, inside pyramids, crypts, burial chambers, on papyrus scrolls. It is said that the hieroglyphics were used in the Ancient Egypt for more than 3,000 years. However, they were difficult to make and learn and because of this, mainly royalty, scribes, priest and politicians used them. In the 1st century A.D. the hieroglyphics werent used any more. In 1799, during the Napoleons reign, his army found near Alexandria, in a pace called Rosetta, a broken piece of rock with carved text written in 3 different languages, but meaning the same thing. Two of those languages were Egyptian languages scripts-hieroglyphic and demotic (a cursive hieroglyphic style of writing) and one in classical Greek. This Rosetta Stone was created in 196 BC and not long after it was discovered by the French, the English took it to their country in 1802. Today it can be seen at the British Museum in London. The british scientist Thomas Young and the French scholar Jean-Francois Champollion were stydying the hieroglyphics craved on this stone, trying to decipher the principles of hieroglyphs writing. This stone is 114.4 cm, 72.3 cm wide and 27.9 cm thick, weighing almost 760 kg. It was supposed to be initially of granite or basalt but today they say it is made of granodiorite of a dark grey-pinkish colour. Image Rosetta stone at the British Museum London Image Rosetta stone close up

Greek Alphabet

Below is a table listing the Greek letters, as well as their forms when romanized. The table also provides the equivalent Phoenician letter from which each Greek letter is derived. Pronunciations transcribed using the International Phonetic Alphabet. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_alphabet

6 The Greek alphabet is over 2500 years old and it was borrowed from Phoenicians. While Greeks were trading with Phoenicians, they saw them writing things down and thought that was very clever so they decided to add a couple of vowels to the Phoenicians alphabet and start using it themselves. This is how the Greeks started their written language. They have left us wonderful fables, myths and legends, huge epics, stories and plays. They used to write to each other letters to share their daily life. What we use today from the Greek alphabet are the vowels. Even the word alpha-bet is made up of the first two letters of the Greek alphabet: alpha and beta. In our times, people changed the Greek alphabet so the letters we use today do not look the same as the one of the Greek alphabet and they are pronounced in a different way too. The order of letters is also different from the one of the Greek alphabet. Look at the picture bellow: http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Ancient_Greek

Facts about the Evolution of Alphabets


(from History of the Alphabet taught by Prof. Robert Fradkin at University of Maryland) The evolution of the Cuneiform character set Sumerian pictures evolved into syllabic symbols used by many languages for almost two thousands years before the Phoenicians developed the single-sound symbols we know as an alphabet. The cuneiform script underwent considerable changes over a period of more than two millennia. The image below shows the development of the sign SAG "head". Stages: 1. shows the pictogram as it was drawn around 3000 BC 2. shows the rotated pictogram as written around 2800 BC 3. shows the abstracted glyph in archaic monumental inscriptions, from ca. 2600 BC

4. is the sign as written in clay, contemporary to stage 3 5. represents the late 3rd millennium 6. represents Old Assyrian ductus of the early 2nd millennium, as adopted into Hittite 7. is the simplified sign as written by Assyrian scribes in the early 1st millennium, and until the script's extinction. Cuneiform tablet from the Kirkor Minassian collection in the US Library of Congress, ca. 24th century BC. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuneiform A list of Sumerian deities, ca. 2400 BC

The evolution of The Phoenician character set from the Prote-Sinaitic glyphs There are the pictographs found in the Sinai peninsula, ca. 1500 BC and are assumed to be the source of the sound symbols developed several centuries later by the Phoenicians. A specimen of Proto-Sinaitic script containing a phrase which may mean 'to Ba'alat'. The line running from the upper left to lower right may read mt l bclt. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Bro nze_Age_alphabets

8 The evolution of The Greek character set from its Phoenician roots 1. The eventual evolution of the Arabic Character set from its Phoenician roots 2. Not pictured are the developments of Aramic and Nabatean, which led to the modern Arabic script. The Phoenician characters, which is Greek rotated 90 degrees, or the non- symmetrical characters that flipped horizontally when the direction of Greek switched from left to right.

The evolution of the Square Aramaic/Hebrew character set from the Phoenician character set

What we call square Hebrew certainly *was* the Aramaic script. http://www.ancientsudan.org/images/14_articles_ElephantinePa pyrusCol6cmh.gif

The Hebrew alphabet is a descendant of the Aramaic alphabet, which is itself a descendant of the Phoenician alphabet. http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/06/22/the-beauty- of-typography-writing-systems-and-calligraphy-part-2/

Cyrillic script spread throughout the East and South Slavic territories, being adopted for writing local languages, such as the Old East Slavic. Its adaptation to local languages produced a number of Cyrillic alphabets, discussed hereafter. The early Cyrillic alphabet

The evolution of the Modern Cyrillic character set from the Greek character set

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Capital and lowercase letters were not distinguished in old manuscripts. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrillic_script

The evolution of the Latin character set ( http://terpconnect.umd.edu/~rfradkin/alphapage.html ) Some scientist said that Greek adopted the Phoenician alphabet at the beginning of the 8th century B.C. , perhaps in Euboca. Euboca is the second largest Greek island in area and population, after Crete. It is said that this island was once part of the mainland and an earthquake separated it. There were found Greek inscriptions from 770 750 B.C. that matched Phoenician letter forms of c. 800 750 B.C. An eg. Is the Dipylon inscription and the Cup of Nestor both from 8th century B.C. They belonged to a private person and were dedicated to God. The text of the inscription runs: Literal translation: Whoever of all these dancers now plays most delicately, to him this ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dipylon_inscription

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The "Nestor's cup" from Mycenae

The so-called Nestor's cup from Pithekoussai, Ischia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestor's_Cup This is an inscription on this pottery vessel dated to ca. 740 BC, is one of the oldest example of the use of the Greek alphabet. It was found in 1871, in the ancient Dipylon cemetery, near Dipylon Gate. Today can be found in the National Archaeological Museum of Athens. More about Nestors Cup This Cup of Nestor from Mycenae is a golden goblet excavated by Heinrich Schliemann in 1876 along with other objects, one of gold. It looks like the one from The Iliad which Homer described it in this way Beside these she set a cup, a magnificent work Nestor had brought from home, studded with gold. There were four handles on it, around each one a pair of golden doves was feeding, below were two supports. When that cup was full, another man could hardly lift it from the table, but, old as he was, Nestor picked it up with ease.

Roman Inscriptions
Because Greek was spoken in the eastern half of the Roman empire, we have left today almost the same numbers of Roman inscriptions in Greek as in Latin. Often the officials putted the inscriptions up in both languages. Such examples found in Cyprus and its on an ex-slave womans tombstone. Her name was Julia Donata.

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Plaque with bilingual inscription, Early Imperial, 1st century A.D. Roman, Cypriot; said to be from Larnaca (Kition), Cyprus, Limestone

This funerary plaque is unusual in that it has inscriptions (CIL III, 6731 = IGR III, 983) in both Latin and Greek, each of which follows conventions appropriate to the respective language. It reads in Latin above: "Julia Donata, the freedwoman of Olympus, lies here," and in Greek below: "Good Ioulia Donata, the freedwoman of Olympos, farewell." Statuette of a temple boy, 3rd century B.C.; Hellenistic Cypriot; Said to be from the temple of Apollo Hylates at Kourion Terracotta

Some 300 statuettes of seated children, like this one, have been found in sanctuaries on Cyprus. The great majority depicts boys about two years old, usually seated with one leg bent, and shown nude or wearing a short tunic that allows the genitalia to be seen. Many are bedecked with earrings, finger rings, and pendant amulets across the chest. The significance of these seated children is not known, although they are conventionally referred to as "temple boys" in scholarly literature. It has been suggested that they represent children consecrated as servants to a divinity, a custom well attested in Eastern civilizations. More likely, however, they were placed in temples to mark a rite of passage in a boy's life and to secure for him divine protection. This terracotta statuette is said to be from the temple of Apollo Hylates at Kourion. Herakles would have been a particularly apt protector for a young boy, having first displayed his great physical strength as an infant, when he strangled two serpents in his cradle. There were found some inscriptions in other languages too like the one found on grove stone in Palmyrene, which is an ancient form of Aramaic. One of all these languages continued to flourish during the Roman Empire. That one is the Hebrew language. Bowl Fragments with Menorah, Shofar, and Torah Ark, 4th century Roman or Byzantine Glass, gold leaf These fragments of gold glass, dating from the fourth century, originally formed the decorative base of a bowl or cup. The base was created by affixing a pattern in gold leaf to the bottom of the vessel and then covering the decoration with another layer of glass. The use of this gold-glass technique flourished in the third and fourth centuries in Rome. This fragmented base is among the few surviving works that depict Jewish objects; most remnants of such drinking vessels are decorated with Christian or secular motifs. The majority of the surviving examples were found in tombs, especially in the catacombs in Rome. The decoration of this base, like that of other Hebrew examples, is divided into two semicircular registers. The upper register depicts symbols of Jewish culture. In the center is an open Torah shrine. The gable of the ark is supported by two columns with Corinthian capitals. The doors of the shrine are open, revealing four shelves holding six scrolls. Seven- branched menorot sit on either side of the ark. To the far right stands a shofar, or ram's horn, and to the left a round object which may be matzoh, the unleavened bread eaten at the Jewish festival of Passover. Surrounding the left menorah are a scroll and the remains of an

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etrog a fruit used in the harvest festival of Sukkothwhich can be seen on the edge of the fragment. Although little of the lower register remains, it depicts a banquet hall with garlands on the walls and cushions surrounding a table upon which rests a smaller three- legged table holding a fish. Such banqueting scenes are also seen in Christian and pagan funerary art. They are symbolic of the agape, or fellowship meal, honoring the deceased. Both the upper and lower registers are surrounded by an inscription, reading I BIBAS CVM EVLOGIA COKP(ARARE)Drink with praise together. The inscription, the symbols in the upper register, and the banquet scene below suggest that this fragment of gold glass may have been the base of a drinking vessel used during the Passover festival and buried with its owner to bless him in the afterlife. Bowl Base with Old and New Testament Scenes, ca. 350400 Byzantine, said to have been found in 1715 in the Roman catacomb of Saint Callisto Glass, gold leaf

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A youth with the inscription "live" in Latin is surrounded by images of miracles. Christ appears with a wand beside the Three Hebrews in the Fiery Furnace, at the Wedding at Cana, and Curing the Paralytic. Tobias pulls the liver from the large fish to cure his father. Lamp with Jewish Symbols, made 350450 Byzantine; Terracotta This is one of the few surviving lamps decorated with Jewish symbols. It displays a menorah flanked by an etrog (citron) and a lulav (palm branch), both indistinct.

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Bowl Base with Saints Peter and Paul Flanking a Column with the Christogram of Christ, made late 300s Byzantine, from Rome Glass, gold leaf Saints Peter and Paul, identified by the inscriptions in Latin, are shown with the short curly hair and pointed beard typically associated with each man. According to Christian tradition, they were both martyred in Rome. Glass vessels such as these were made for Jews and Christians, possibly as tokens for pilgrims visiting the holy sites in Jerusalem or for use in burial rites. They appear to have been mass- produced in a single workshop, since the vessels for the two religions closely resemble each other in shape and style and differ only in the symbols decorating them. This vessel, intended for a Jewish patron, shows a menorah, a shofar, and a lulav in relief. Ritual elements used in Jewish festivals in synagogues were typically used to represent Judaism in this period rather than the Star of David, which appears much later.

Hexagonal Bottle, 500629 Byzantine; Possibly from Syria, Glass, mold-blown

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Picture with The Roman Republic Not many inscriptions survived from the Roman Republic. More we have from Imperial period the time of the 1st emperor Augustus (27 B.C. 14 A.D.) until the third century A.D. There must be hundred of thousand of Roman inscriptions found by the archaeologists. They all tell us about the life in the Roman World. These inscriptions had three different sizes and were made on various media such as stone, metal, pottery, mosaic, fresco, glass, wood, and papyrus. The largest one were dedicated to the gods or emperors, were official documents such as imperial letters and decrees. The middle size ones were done on coins and represented the names, titles of rulers, their portraits sometimes we found this inscriptions on bronze tablets. On the street walls at Pompeii there were found a type of casual inscriptions called graffiti. The small size Roman inscriptions were seen on papyrus letters. It was found one in particular that contain a shopping list. Another interesting fact is that Romans used to like to write down a lot of details about a person who died, such as their age, occupation and life history. These things were inscribed on funerary monuments and are called epitaphs. An example of this kind of art called funerary art is the altar made of marble of Cominia Tyche. Marble funerary altar of Cominia Tyche

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The woman whose portrait bust dominates the front of this funerary altar is identified by the Latin inscription below her. It reads: To the spirits of the dead. Lucius Annius Festus [set this up] for the most saintly Cominia Tyche, his most chaste and loving wife, who lived 27 years, 11 months, and 28 days, and also for himself and for his descendants. Cominia wears an elaborate hairstyle that reflects the high fashion adopted by ladies of the imperial court in the late Flavian period (A.D. 6996). The inscription, on the other hand, emphasizes her piety and chastity, virtues that Roman matrons were traditionally expected to possess. The jug and patera (shallow bowl with handle) on the monuments sides allude to the common practice of pouring offerings to the dead. The altar is known to have been in a house near the Forum in Rome in the sixteenth century and to have entered the collection of Cardinal Francesco Barberini during the seventeenth century. (http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/130014064) The Romans letters derived fro stone carvings, are upright, with serif and variation of thick and thin strokes. The Times New Roman font we use today is a Roman typeface and has also lowercase letters added to the roman uppercase letters we have inherited from our ancestors.

Carvings

http://courseweb.stthomas.edu/mjodonnell//cojo256/pdf/type1.pdf

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II Industrial and technological advances


printing press, linotype, moveable type, fonts, hot metal press, desktop publishing, internet Part of the series on theHistory of Screen-printing 1907 printing Dye-sublimation 1957 Phototypesetting 1960s Woodblock printing 200 Photocopier 1960s Movable type 1040 Pad printing 1960s Intaglio 1430s Laser printer 1969 Printing press 1454 Dot matrix printer 1970 Lithography 1796 Thermal printer Chromolithography 1837 Inkjet printer 1976 Rotary press 1843 3D printing 1986 Flexography 1873 Stereolithography 1986 Mimeograph 1876 Digital press 1993 Hot metal typesetting 1886 Offset press 1903

History of printing

A printing press is a machine for printing text or pictures on paper or cloths by applying pressure to an inked surface. The ink is transferred into that paper or cloth. It is known that this invention is one of the most revolutionizing once of the second millennium. In 1440, the German Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press. His invention was based on screw press that existed before. A screw press is a type of machine press in which the ram is driven up and down by a screw. The screw press was invented by romans in the first century C.E. and it was used for making the wine and olive oil. Ball-drive screw press http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screw_press

The press invented by Gutenberg in 1436 was wooden and it was the first form of printing to use movable type. In 1440 Gutenberg was able to print slips of paper, which were sold by the Catholic Church to remit temporal punishment in purgatory for sins committed in this life. Only the wealthy class of people bought these indulgences. Here is a brief history of Johannes Gutenbergs life from this link: http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventors/gutenberg.htm Inventor of the printing press, Henne Gnsfleisch zur Laden, commonly called Johannes Gutenberg, was born about 1400 and died in 1468 at Mainz, Germany. Gutenberg was the son of Friele (Friedrich) Gnsfleisch and Else Wyrich. Johannes last name was derived from the house inhabited by his father and his paternal ancestors "zu Laden, zu Gutenberg". 888 The Diamond Sutra, a Buddhist scripture, was the first dated example of block printing. 1041 Bi Sheng in China invented movable clay type 1400 Johannes Gutenberg born in Mainz, Germany 1423 Europeans use xylography (art of engraving on wood, block printing) to produce books. 1430 Gutenberg moved from his native town of Mainz to Strasburg 1436 Gutenberg begins work on his printing press. 1437 Gutenberg was sued for "breach of promise of marriage" by a young lady of Strasburg 1440 Gutenberg completed his wooden press which used movable metal type. 1440 Laurens Janszoon Koster (Coster) is credited, by some, with inventing movable metal type 1444 Gutenberg returns to Mainz and sets up a printing shop 1446 Gutenberg prints the "Poem of the Last Judgment" 1448 Gutenberg prints the "Calendar for 1448" 1450 Gutenberg' formed a partnership with the wealthy Johann Fust 1450 Gutenberg begins work on a Bible, the first is 40 lines per page. 1452 Gutenberg begins printing the 42-line Bible in two volumes. 1454 Gutenberg prints indulgences (notes sold to Christians by the Pope, pardoning their sins) 1455 First block-printed Bible, the Biblia Pauperum, published in Germany. 1455 Gutenberg completed work on what is estimated to be 200 copies of the Bible 1455 Gutenberg was effectively bankrupt. Investor Johann Faust gains control of print business 1457 First known color printing, a Psalter (a collection of Psalms for devotional use) by Faust. 1460 Gutenberg reestablished himself in the printing business with the aid of Conrad Humery 1461 Albrecht Pfister printed the first illustrated book Edelstein which featured a number of woodcuts. 1465 Gutenberg is appointed to the court of Archbishop Adolf of Nassau 1458 Johannes Gutenberg died February 3, in Mainz, German 1499 Printing had become established in more than 2500 cities around Europe. 1499 An estimated 15 million books have been press printed, representing thirty thousand book titles CAPs: Johannes Gutenberg, Johann Gutenberg, Bi Sheng, Laurens Janszoon Koster, Johann Faust, Peter Schoffer, Albrecht Pfister, Conrad Humery, Archbishop Adolf of Nassau, William

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20 Caxton, Gutenberg Bible, 42-line Bible, Mazarin Bible, Diamond Sutra, Poem of the Last Judgment, Calendar for 1448, Psalter, Aesop's Fables (More info at: www.gutenberg.de/english/erfinder.htm ) Lynotype is a machine used in printing. It was also called a line casting machine. This machine makes one line at a time.

Linotype machine Model 6, built in 1965 (Deutsches Museum), with major components labeled.

Type slug - Print side

Type slug, side view

21 www.brtitanica.com - a useful site for linotype etc watched a video on vimeo http://vimeo.com/43462615 Linotypefilm.com Watched a video about linotype at http://archive.org/details/typesett1960 Morevideo www.linotypefilm.com/resources.html

Add the poster from The Museum of printing, NorthAndover www.museumofprinting.org/MOP_poster.pdf (I have printed 3 page poster) Ive watched on Youtube more videos about manual typesetting www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LCESWE1jw0 The linotype machine is made of four major sections: 1. magazine 2. keyboard 3. casting mechanism 4. distribution mechanism Lets describe these components now: The keyboard has 10 characters, hasnt got a shift key and uppercase letters are separated from lowercase letters. The lower-case letters are on the left and are in black; the upper-case letters are located on the right and are in white. Between them there are the blue keys for punctuation and digits. Matrices Another important components of this machine are the matrices. They are molds for the letterforms, in a line. Each matrix corresponds to one letterform for a particular character of a font of type, which is engraved into one side of the matrix. The characters size can be up to 14 points or even 16 to 24 points. The matrix has two letter forms on it and they are two positions in which they can be placed: normal or auxiliary positions (the slanted form of the character known as Italic) (the upright form of a character known s Roman) Once all the matrices are assembled together to form a line, then the line is casted as a single piece, called a slug. A slug is a piece of metal. This process is known as hot metal typesetting. Magazine this is the place when the matrices are kept when not in use. Once the operators press a certain key on the keyboard, its corresponding matrice is related. They are many magazines for one Linotype machine because some has larger fonts and other normal fonts. The magazine is a flat box with vertical separators that form channels. Each chanel correspond to a single character of a font type. In general, the magazine has got 90 channels but they are some with 28 channels also. [Extract from Wikipedia] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/linotype_machine Movable type Movable type is a system used in printing and typography. It uses movable components to recreate letters or punctuation of a document. Around 1040 AD in China, during the Song Dynasty, Bi Sheng (990 - 1051) created the first movable-type system in the world.

22 Around 1230, in Korea, during the Goryeo Dynasty appeared the first metal movable type system for printing. In 1377 was printed Jikji a book using the same movable type system, just 78 years prior to Johannes Gutenbergs 42 time Bible (1452 - 1455). This book is a Korean Buddhist documentand its title means Anthology of Great Buddhist Priests Zen Teachings. In September 2001 UNESCO confirmed Jikji as being the worlds oldest metalloid type and included it in the Memory of the World Programme. These movable-type systems was very expensive because the thousand of ceramic or metal tablets needed for the scripts were hard to carry, especially in the case of Chinese writing system that has thousands of characters. The great invention of Johannes Gutenberg around 1450 of the printed press was a great help. After that the movable type system spread in whole Europe and in many countries the type was casted based on a matrix and hand mould. Gutenberg was the first to create his type pieces from an alloy of lead, tin and antimony. Lead (a soft, malleable poor metal, Pb, plumbum, a heavy metal used in building constructions) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/lead Metallic, gray, lead A sample of recently solidified Galena, lead lead (from a molten state) Tin (Sn, stannum, silvery, malleable post-transition metal, not easily oxidized in air, used to coat other metals to prevent corrosion)
Silvery (left, beta) or gray (right, alpha) Droplet of solidified molten tin

23 Sample of cassiterite, the main ore of tin. Antimony (stibium, Sb, a toxic chemical element, a lustrous gray metalloid; in ancient times was used for cosmetics)

A 21st century reproduction barn lantern made of punched tin.

Antimony, silvery, lustrous, gray

Native antimony with oxidation products

Stibnite Woodblock printing was a slow process especially for alphabetic scripts whereas movable- type process was quicker, more durable and the lettering was more uniform, leading to typography and fonts. If we think of the low price of the Gutenberg Bible and of its high quality, we will understand why the movable type and printing press spread so easily in Europe.

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The Hot metal typesetting In the 19th century a new invention called the hot metal typesetting made movable to decline. Hot metal typesetting (1886) This method injects molten type metal into a mold that has the shape of one or more glyphs. The resulting sorts and slugs are later used to press ink onto paper. In the 19th century they were two different systems of type-settings: - monotype composition caster system - super-caster Monotype composition caster system means that the lines of texts are casted and delivered with the aid of perforated paper-ribbons produced on the keyboard and all characters are cast separate. The texts produced could be up to 36 points in large-composition. The Super-caster, another machine produced by Monotype, was similar in function to the Thompson, bath, pivotal and others casters but designed to produce single type (including even larger sizes) for hand setting. Another way of printing the texts was to cast a whole line as one slug. This system was used by at least five enterprises: - Linotype - Intertype Corporation - the Typograph, produced in Germania - The Monoline, a very basic machine

Desktop publishing

The abbreviation of Desktop publishing is DTP. In 1983, James Bessen developed a program called Type Processor One, that run on a PC using a Graphic card for WYSIWYG display. In 1984 this program was sold on the market by Bestinfo. In 1985 Apple created the Laser Writer printer who made DTP flourish even more. Soon Aldus introduced PageMaker software, which became the DTP industry standard software. Before DTP appear, we know that people could produce typed documents only with a typewriter which was limited in terms of the size and type of font that could be used. A step ahead was made when with the help of desktop publishing; people could print pages with text and graphic elements at 300 dpi resolution. This was a revolution for both the typesetting industry and the personal computer industry. In 1980 most newspapers and print companies stop using systems like Atex and start working with DTP based programs. The use of the PageMaker LaserWriter - Macintosh 512 k system was at a time an important discovery but it had also its faults like: suffered many crashes, the display on the Macs tiny 512 x 342 1-bit monochrome screen wasnt good, couldnt control well the letter spacing, kerning (the space between characters in proportional font). The American multinational computer software company founded in 1982, having its headquarters in San Jose, California, US was started to develop really good technologies that took DTP even further. Now Adobe made scalable Post Scripts - fonts which were saved into ROM memory of the LaserWriter and LaserWriter Plus printers. Because of these PostScripts the designer could test their files on a local printer and then go to a DTP service bureau to print them at a higher resolution (optical resolution) 600 + dpi on printers like those from Linotronic. Linotronic are high-quality printers that permitted to print files at up to 2540 dots per inch (dpi). In this way the quality of the files printed on Linotronic exceeded the quality of the majority of phototypesetting systems. The Linotronic printing was too expensive to be used at home or at offices but were able to fulfill the dreams of many designer in term of printing very good work. The technology advanced even more when the Macintosh II was released. This was the 1st personal computer of the Macintosh II series in the Apple Macintosh line and offered colour

25 display. It was designed by hardware engineer Michael Dhuey (computer) and Brian Berkeley (monitor). Its SCSI (Small Computer System Interface) allowed the users to attached high capacity hard drives to it. Macintosh based system continued to be the most used computer on the market. However, in this time, appeared a new DTP software called Ventura Publisher for IBM PC compatible computers running the GEM extension to the DOS operating system. This happen in 1986. The last version of Ventura Software Inc. was 4.1.1. and appeared in 1993. Ventura was superior to the PageMaker because offered the designer the possibility to use tags/style sheets, generated inches so was used mainly for long format documents. Desktop Publishing moved into the home market in 1986 with Profesional Page for the Amiga, Publishing Partner (now PageStream) for the Atari ST, GSTs Timeworks Publisher on the OC and Atari ST and Calamus for the Atari TT030, even for 8-bit computers like the Apple II and Commodore 64 software was published: Home Publisher, the Newsroom and geoPublish. Though in the beginning desktop publishing had a bad reputation because the designer were professionally trained and created bad layouts. The same happen with early Web-Publishers. But, slowly Desktop Publishing became a carrier and people who wanted to become a carrier and people who wanted to become a desktop publisher had to learn the technical skills and the creative skills too. DTP is also a secondary skill to art directors, graphic designers, multimedia developers and marketing communicators. Page layout means the way in which the text, the images are displayed on the page. Sometimes images can only be modified as an external source. Embedded images can be modified with the layout application software. The text also can be linked to an external source of text. In this way more than one editor can change it in the same time. Graphic design styles such as colour, transparency and filters may also be applied to layout elements. Typography styles may be applied to the text automatically with style sheets. They are also style sheets for images, not only for text. They can reflect to the border shape, colour, transparency, filters and parameter designating the way text flows around the object called wraparound or runaround. The word processors we use today offers us more then DTP software used in the past in terms of layout, margins and line spacing, indexing, spell checking. There are some common aspects between the DTP publishing and Hypermedia publishing (i.e. Web design, Kiosk, CD-ROM). The layout engine used by some of the web designers who used WYSIWYG editors (like those in Dreamweaver or Microsoft Frontpage) are similar to a DTP program. Still, the professional web-designers will prefer to write HTML code by hand because if they use WYSIWYG editors, they can experience code bloat. (long, slow code with compilation errors) I also looked at the website: www.namethatfont.net where they are a couple of logos that belong to famous companies on the market and I have to guess what type of font they are using. Eg. What type of font is used in the google logo type? The font used in writing the word google is Catull and its a commercial font and can be bought from this website: www.myfonts.com/search/catull/fonts A font is composed by a set of characters of a single size and style of a particular typeface. The typeface is a set of characters that share common design features. They are designed by typeface designers.

Fonts

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typeface An important link from where I also did my research is: www.planet-typography.com/news/typeface/anselm.html http://abc.planet-typography.com/20th/index.html

27 Starting with 1980, computers fonts broadened the definition for the term font. These fonts were made of vector shapes that could be scaled freely so different sizes that could be scaled freely so different sizes of a single style were generated. An example is the typeface Bulmer that had fonts like Bulmer roman, Bulmer italic, Bulmer bold and Bulmer extended. This type font was designed in 1792 and was named after the printer who used them so well in his Shakespeare Press editions. Its designer was William Martin who wanted to create the English answer to the sharp, fine letterforms of Italys Bodoni and Frances Didot type foundries. Because type did more than imitate the starkness of the modern-style Didot-Bodoni types. By condensing the letterforms, giving the strokes higher contrast and bracketing the serif slightly Etymology The font comes from the French word fonte which means something that has been melted. This is because of the old way the type was produced: casting molten metal at a type foundry.. Metal type Letterpress was a form of printing that starting with the first invention of Johannes Gutenberg in the mid. 15th century and continued till the 19th century. I watched the video Letterpress printing process with a Heidelberg Windmill from Youtube account of ajalonprinting. Another video abut letterpress is: Unique tips for the Weidelberg Windmill from the Youtube account of boxcarpress metal type was used in traditional manual printing to typeset an entire page. Line spacing called leading because the strips for the line spacing were made of lead rather than the harder alloy used for other pieces. In 1880s 90s, hot lead typesetting was invented. This meant that the type was cast as it was set, either piece by piece (as in Monotype technology) or in entire lines of type at one time (as in Linotype technology). The Monotype technology was invented by Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione(1609 -1664). He was an Italian painter and etcher, the only Italian to have invented a print making technique. When he start to make the monotype, he normally worked from black to white. Font Wight When we are talking about a font weight we are referring to the thickness of the character outlines relative to their height. When a designer creates a typeface he can produce different weights for that font: ultra- light, extra-bold, normal, bold. The fonts designed to be used in poster were often quite bold; those for writing the text were light. Other terms to describe the weight of a font are: - hairline - Demi-bold/semi-bold - Thin - Bold - Ultra-light - Extra-bold/extra - Extra-light - Heavy - Light - Black - Book - Extra-black - Normal/regular/ roman/ plain - Ultra-black/ultra - Medium A fonts slope is the angle to which the font was slanted. Regular fonts are upright but if they are slanted to the right, they become more cursive in style, in this case they are called italic fonts. (www.typesoffonts.com/font-characteristics.html)

28 When a font is italic, the edges of characters become so closed that they touch other and therefore ligatures may appear. The Upper-case italic letters may have extra swashes. Swashes marked with red color. A swash is a typographical flourish on a glyph, like an exaggerated serif. Font Width Most typefaces have proportional character widths or are monospaced. The width of a font describes how much each character has been stretched or compressed. When we name a font from its width perspective, we can say that they are: compressed, condensed, ultra-condensed, narrow, wide, extended or expended. Front Metrics When we talk about the font metrics we give details about the x-height, cap height, ascender height, descender height, bounding box of the overall font. These basically are the values for the size and the space of that font. Optical font Size The font is designed to meet different purposes: either for a writing a book or a poster. We can say either for reading or display. Therefore the font sizes can be classified as: -Poster (larger than 72 point) -Display (19 18 points) -Subhead (14 18 pints) -Regular (10 13 points) -Small text (8 10 points) -Caption (6 8 points) Serif Serifs are the details on the end of some of the strokes that make up letters and symbols. A typeface with serifs is called serif typeface. A typeface without serif is called sans- serif typeface. Sans comes from the French word sans that means http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serif_font without. Sometimes sans-serif typefaces are called Grotesque (In German grotesk ) or Gothic and serif typefaces are called Roman. (They are three latin-script typefaces: roman, blackletter and italic). Very well known roman typefaces are: Bembo, Baskerville, Caslon, Bodoni, Times Roman and Garamond. It is said that low screen resolution makes serif fonts very hard to read but these type of fonts are used in traditional printed materials (books, newspapers). Some of the magazines use sans serif typefaces stating that they are cleaner because of the lack of serifs.

Legibility and readability

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Legibility refers to perception and readability refers to comprehension. A good typographer aims to achieve excellence in both. The typeface chosen should be legible. That is, it should be read without effort. Sometimes legibility is simply a matter of type size. More often however, it is a matter of typeface design. In general typefaces that are true to the basic letterforms are more legible than typefaces that have been condensed, expanded, embellished or abstracted. However, even a legible typeface can become unreadable through poor setting and placement, just as a less legible typeface can be made more readable through good design. In our days we read more from the computer or mobile screen, from our Kindle, Nooks, or tablets. Good typography can not be handcrafted anymore therefor we need today better skilled typesetters and designers who can adopt the thousands of typefonts for the web. A typographer or digital designer designs for the web, has to take into consideration the type of browser that will be used for displaying the pages with the fonts that he created. In 1996, Microsoft released the Core fonts for the Web programs: Arial, Georgia and Verdana. I would like to end my essay on typography in graphic design with a collection of quotes I found on the web this weekend: As the saying goes, type is a beautiful group of letters, not a group of beautiful letters. Matthew Carter Typography has one plain duty before it and that is to convey information in writing. No argument or consideration can absolve typography from this duty. Emil Ruder Faces of type are like mens faces. They have their own expression; their complexion and peculiar twists and turns of line identify them immediately to friends, to whom each is full of identity. J.L. Frazier Wouldn't it be interesting if there were only one typeface in the world? Designers would really have to think about the idea behind their designs instead of covering ir up with fancy typefaces. One, universal typeface would really strip away all the flashy emptiness in design. And, of course, that one typeface would have to be Helvetica. Erik Kessels Anyone who would letter space black letter would steal sheep. Frederick Goudy

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