THE
LOOK
OF
W
WORDS
e speak. We write. We publish.
Throughout history, we have needed to share our thoughts,
feelings, impressions, and findings both audibly and visually.
Between the earliest discovered cave paintings and e-mail lie
perhaps 32,000 developmental years of language into both a
lexicography of words as well as one of visual style.
from the Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc caves in France, perhaps as long as 32,000 years ago
Most of us can read, write, and create meaningful content with
language. But, the visual application of words to books, newspapers,
magazines, advertising, packaging, signage, branding, and motion
graphics has largely been left in the hands of professionals.
While graphic design is a burgeoning career track with top schools
offering all levels of education and training, everyone with a
computer also has the resources on hand to produce visual
communications and to publish them. There are thousands of
typefaces available and programs to use them creatively.
Whether you pursue a graphic design career or produce work as a
lay person, typography will be involved. It is no longer just about
what you say or how you say it, but also what your communications
convey visually. The visual presentation of any message can
enhance or alter its meaning…and add clarity, power, humor, and
flair as well.
Visual language is our new literacy. In this workshop, Typography:
the Look of Words, Etta Siegel, graphic designer and educator will
give you an entertaining entry to the world of typography, introduce
you to some of the best work, and possibly inspire a few type
afficionados (typophiles). At the very least, you will start noticing
all the typography around you and leave knowing the difference
between Bodoni and Helvetica.
THE BEGINNINGS

Egyptian Hieroglyphics; tomb of hatshepsut

(Egypt, 18th dynasty, 1479-1458 BC)

Pictographs on tortoise shells Sumerian tablet on creamy stone, 26th century BCE;
(Xia Dynasty, china 2200-1766 BCE) cuneiform script

Early visual language made

use of available tools, mediums,
and surfaces and began with
pictographic forms (pictures).
Later, Western languages
employed phonetic symbols
(based on sounds). As
languages evolved, most
books, tablets, scrolls, and
other uses of lettering were
Phasistos Disc (Crete, 1700 BC) produced by hand and were
one-of-a kind.
Wang Xianzi Imitation by Tang Dynasty
(TatoWard Calligraphy Museum)

Girolamo dai Libri: Leaf from a Psalter

(Verona Italy 1495)
(Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Trajan Column inscription

(Italy, 113 AD)
THE FORMATIVE YEARS
Moveable type and printing
(China: 1275 AD and
Germany: 1454 AD), enabled
the earliest reproduction of
manuscripts, though the
process was entirely by hand.

During the industrial

revolution, machinery for
hot metal typesetting and
printing enabled extensive
and faster reproduction.
These inventions inspired
a period of intense creative
Theo van Doesburg and Kurt Schwitters: experimentation and the
Kleine Dada Soiree (1922) launch of modern design,
typography, and the
graphic arts.

Georgi and Vladimir Stenberg:

Russian constructivist film poster (1929)

Wood type theatre posting Cassandre: Etoile du Nord Alexander Rodchenko

(London, late 1800s) Wagon-Lits poster (French, 1927) Books on Every Subject poster
(Russian constructivist poster, 1925)
BEYOND THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION…
Josef Muller-Brockmann:
Poster for Zurich concert hall (1955)
Lou Dorfsman: CBS Cafeteria “Gastrotypographical Wall” (American, 1918-2008)
Paul Rand (American, 1914-1996
After WWII and the Bauhaus, a new
era of creative typographic work
emerged… International
Typographic Style with Armin
Hoffman, Josef-Muller Brockmann,
and others… branding with Paul
Rand, Chermayeff and Geismar
and more… magazine design with
Alexi Brodovitch, etc. …crafted
Armin Hofmann
(Basel, Switzerland 1959)
and conceptual lettering with Herb
Lubalin and Lou Dorfsman…
Illustrative design with Push Pin
Studio. The type foundries produced
hundreds of new typefaces and
commercial art was re-named
graphic design, implying a greater
sophistication and aesthetic as well
as technical awareness.
…THE HOT TO COLD TYPE YEARS

Push Pin Studio: Seymour Chwast Chermayeff & Geismar:

(New York, 1982) Sculpture at 9 W 57th St
(New York, 1972) Herb Lubalin (American, 1918-1981

By the 1970’s “cold” (photographic)

typesetting supplanted hot type,
and offset printing replaced most
letterpress. As, at every turn in
history, the invention of new tools
and methods inspired exploration
of new aesthetic and creative forms
and re-explorations of old ones.

Alexi Brodovitch, in Harpers Bazaar (1938) Massimo Vignelli: New York Subway Maps —
(1972 and 2008)
THE DIGITAL AGE

April Greiman Paula Scher: Philippe Apeloig

Your Turn, My Turn 3-D Public theatre poster for Noise-Funk (French www.apeloig.com)
(1983) series (1996)

From the early-to-mid 1980s In the last few years a new format
forward type has been created of type called Open Type has
digitally on computers. Graphic come into use. It allows the same
designers work on MACS (some fonts to be used cross-platform
on PCs). Everyone can set their (both on MACs and on PCs).
own type directly. Printing is
still offset and now also digital.
There is also a revival in the use and
appreciation of letterpress.
 David Carson Stefan Sagmeister
(American: www.davidcarsondesign.com) (Austrian-born,American based: www.sagmeister.com)

It is also interesting that today,

with manufactured type so
available… high tech/high touch
applies. Many designers have
reutrned to hand-lettering and
use it either alone or in
Louise Fili combination with type.
(American: www.louisefili.com)
TYPOGRAPHY IN FINE ART

While graphic designers use

typography heavily in the
service of client-originated
projects, fine artists have also
embraced it in their work.
Now, with type so easily
accessible by everyone, many
fine artists, illustrators, and
designers are using it creatively
in fine-arts and illustration.
It is also becoming used far
more creatively in architecture.

Jenny Holzer: benches and projections (American)

www.jennyholzer.com

Andy Warhol: Cambell’s soup red Robert Indiana (American) Bruce Nauman (American)
& green poster (1965) www.robertindiana.com “One Hundred Live and Die” (1984)
(paint and silk-screen, not typeset)
GRAFFITI LETTERING
Bates
Delta
Graffiti lettering is now a
mainstream commodity. Many
graffiti artists have become
world-famous; many are
highly paid for commissioned
work; many have become
Revok
professional graphic designers,
letterers, and typeface designers.
Hundreds of graffiti-style fonts Ces
are available and you can even
go online and create your own
words in many graffiti styles.
 & NOW…

Write a Bike by Juri Zaech Craig Ward Like Minded Studio (in Sydney)

With the new tools of the trade in

everyone’s hands, typographic work,
from the design of thousands of new
typefaces to their application in all
media (including motion graphics),
has become mind-bogglingly
experimental, exciting and globally
shareable. We have truly entered a
new age of visual communication.

Jordan Metcalf Sabeena Karnik: Paper Typography

(Mumbai, India)
… A NEW AGE OF VISUAL COMMUNICATION

Nik Ainley (from Why Not)

MaricorMarican Marian Bantjes Letman

Most significantly, typoography

today has shifted from a trade and
artform practiced by few to
a mainstream utility, craft, and
artform employed to some degree
by almost everyone. It has become
a new and necessary literacy for all
as the articulation and aesthetics
of any communication is
inseparable from its intent.

Alex Trochut Watch this video. Pleaseletmedesign.com