COVER

Anatomy of Type

Anatomy of Type

Individual letter forms have unique parts which have changed in visual form over the centuries. A nomenclature helps identify the major components of their construction. The evolution of letter form styles over time is a result of optical adjustments to these basic components by type designers over the ages.

Overlap to discover the remarkable range that exists between historic families of type even though they have the same point size. What does this mean for the designer? When it comes to mixing families of type what can be done and what cannot be done? What are the only 2 anatomical attributes that all families share?

The designer must take into account that the different fonts have varying different sizes. The designer cannot mix the historic families due to this vast difference. The only 2 anatomical attributes that are shared are the baseline and the stroke.

Stem

Stroke

Bowl

Serif

Eye

Ear

Ascender

Counter

Shoulder

Spine

Apex

Aerobrakings

Descender Crossbar Terminal Hairline Loop Fillet Spur Leg Link

Capline Meanline x height Baseline

Aerobrakings Aerobrakings Aerobrakings

Anatomy of Type

Anatomy Cropping

Determine which letters are an exception to norm of upper half legibility or right side legibility and cover the small white ll rectangles. Test the principle with your word. How much can you remove and still read the word? What do you become aware of?

You can remove quite a bit of the letter as long as you leave enough of the identifying features. I came to notice that you could remove a good portion of the letter and still identify what it was.

Each individual square and its letter form should be seen as an independent typographic composition that investigates form and counterform, gure ground relationships, asymmetry / symmetry, static and dynamic placement.

Aerobrakings Aerobrakings Aerobrakings

Typographic Kinetics

Form and Counterform

Every letter has a personality you can identify. Fragmentation is not the goal in and of itself. Everything is adjustable and its a case-by-case decision of how far to go. The form you seek is one that to be able to read the word. So this determines the degree of fracture. Its the part(letter form) towhole (word). Both must be juggled to value.

As in music, elements can have a counterpart or a counterpoint relationship. Typographic counterparts are elements with similar qualities that bring harmony to their spatial relationship. Elements have a counterpoint relationship when they have contrasting characteristics, such as size, weight, color, tone, or texture. Counterpoint relationships bring opposition and dissonance to the design.

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The Structure of Letters

Typographic Page

The most elementary forms of letters are a visual code of simple strokes that is recognizable through out experience with handwriting. Each of the upper and lower case letters is distinct in structure. All are built by combining vertical, horizontal, slanted, and curvilinear strokes. Letter forms derive their character from combinations of these basic strokes and not from being light or bold, wide or narrow, roman or italic, serif or san serif. An entire alphabet can be categorized using only six basic underlying visual combinations of strokes as the example illustrates.

In this project we had to choose a chair and use that and the designers initials to create a composition that showed the relationship between the two.

Stroke Categories

Uppercase

Lowercase

Size and Weight

Size and Width

DL

m
Size and Case

Weight and Width

Weight and Slant

Size, Weight, Case, Face, and Slant

Size, Weight, and Width

M L
Weight And Face

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Typographic Page

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was manufactured, and the materials that

designers full name, the date that the chair

As this project progressed we added in the

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designers history.

Horizontal Hagtag

created and use them to create hangtags for

We had to use the studies that we had already

the chair and designer, as well as adding in the

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Vertical Hangtag

We had to use the studies that we had already created and use them to create hangtags for the chair and designer, as well as adding in the designers history.

Michele De Lucchi was born in Ferrara, Italy in 1951. He studied architecture at Padua University and Florence Art College, where he achieved his degree in 1975. While in college De Lucchi established the Cavart group in 1973. After graduating De Lucchi returned to Florence University as an assistant in the Department of Architecture. While assisting at the University he established the Architetture e altri Piaceri studio in Florence. In 1977 De Lucchi moved to Milan where he continued

to work on his designs. In 1979 he became a design consultant for Olivetti,where later her was the design director from 19922002, and in 1980 he participated in the Studio Alchimia group. In 1981 De Lucchi joined Ettore Sottsass, as well as numerous other designers, as he founded the Memphis Design group. In 1983 De Lucchi designed the First chair, as well as a prefabricated house at the Milan Trienial. Shortly after that De Lucchi established a group of young designers named Solid. HE also

teamed up with Giancarlo Fassina and designed the Tolomeo lamp. Since then he has held numerous teaching positions, as well as numerous architectual projects. He won the competition to redesgin the Duutsche Bank branch ofces and was involved in the Citizen Ofce project for the Vitra Design Museum. Today he is heralded on one of Italys most successful architects, theorists, and industrial designers.

Michele De Lucchi was a designer for Memphis in Italy. In 1983 he designed the First Chair, which is made from metal and wood. He studied in architecture and achieved in degree from Florence Art College in 1975.

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