Ty p o g r a p h y

Course Projects
Spring 2015

Typography

GRPH 22301

11:00 1:50 p.m.

Tuesday + Thursday

208 Woods Art Building

A Survey of
the History
of the Western
Alphabet
Matthew Bailey

Olivia Konert

Morgan Bruggeman

James Lindsay III

Kevin Buglewicz

Emily Nemec

Madeline Christensen

Pha Nguyen

Jessica Dolan

Sydney Rotthaus

Jennica Fernen

Jayme Sederberg

Jordan Geisert

Courtney Sehn

Lani Hanson

Matthew Standley

Natalie Henning

Huy Tran

Shawnee Johns

Alexandria Trumbley

Elizabeth Johnson

Department of Art + Art History

University of Nebraska-Lincoln

3150 BCE1450 CE
By Kevin Buglewicz, Pha Nguyen, and Sydney Rotthaus

Survey of the History of the Western Alphabet

Years of Study: 3150 BCE 1450 CE
By Kevin Buglewicz, Pha Nguyen, and Sydney Rotthaus
Spring 2015
GRPH 223 Stacy Asher
Typeset in ITC Caslon

Table of Contents
8

Zeitgeist

10

The Origins of Writing

14

Egyptian Typography

18

Typography in Greece

24

Typography in the Roman Empire

28

Christianity Influences
Typography

32

Typography Spreads Worldwide

38

References

Zeitgeist
c. 1350 BCE 1450 CE

he turn of the first century, or what is now

referred to as the Common Era, was a time

of great transition in the world. From typography

to technology, and all the way to civilization and
culture; the way people interacted with their peers
and their environment evolved significantly in this
specific time period, which is certainly exciting as a
surveyor of history.
Beginning in the 14th Century BCE, the people of
the world had only what they could see, which limits
understanding of the world, but at the same promotes
curiosity and innovation. Knowledge of the world
beyond ones immediate location was nonexistent,
meaning the people were forced to make sense
with what they could. Some worshipped Gods, who
seemingly brought upon the goodness in life. Others
researched and learned. As time went on, and
humans methods of recording history improved,
a general uprising of knowledge occurred.
People not only began to understand the
world, but also each other. Really, the world
grewthough not in size.
At the beginning of the Common Era, the
worldly religions began to emerge, and
as the people on Earth realized their
differences, conflict arose. Battles
over territories and belief systems
ensued, and a toll was taken on the
way history was being recorded.
Thankfully, many records survived,
and what we can see now is how the
evolution of the human condition had a
direct correllation with the discovery,
development, and creation of
typographic traditions that are
still commonplace today.

Lascaux Cave discovered in 1940 in France. This

section of the cave is the Hall of the Bulls.

The Origins of
Writing
North Africa, c. 1350 BCE

11

riting is relatively new to man compared to

spoken languages which evolved over tens of

thousands of years ago. Writing started as signs that

were understood as symbolic values to communicate
with. Then proto-writing began to take shape in the
form of tokens and seals after 10,000 BCE. By 3000
BCE advancements in carvings and inscriptions
began to occur. Specialized tools were made to
support different writing surfaces such as clay, stone,
papyrus, skin, bone, wax, metal, and wood.
The great thing about written language is that it
offers access to nearly the entire history of some
scripts. The earliest known script is the Sumerian
cuneiform. The Sumerian cuneiform is considered
the ancestor of all writing and offers an abundance of
documented evidence about its beginnings. Several
alphabetic scripts also document evidence about
their beginnings such as the ancient Greek and Latin
provide much information that maps their evolution.
The earliest indications of writing were cave drawings
and carvings from the Upper Paleolithic (35,00015,000 B.C.), which are scattered in the caves at
Lascaux, France. Theses drawings and carvings are
still questioned if they can in fact be considered
writing, since it challenges the definition of writing,
however cannot be completely ruled out.
After 8000 BCE numeric and pictography signs
began to appear on clay tokens. Pictography (or
pictogram) is seen as another early stage of writing.

Pictorial signs show early stages of writing and

development of phonetic scripts.

12

ictography connects us to the development

of phonetic scripts. Pictograms are seen

everywhere in todays world, such as the signage

on the womens and mens restroom doors.
These pictograms were combined with logograms
and ideograms, and were used from there to
communicate. These images were arranged in an
order so it could be more easily communicated.
Pictography and the rebus system is not applied the
same in all non-alphabetic scripts, which gives each
written language its own uniqueness.
The shapes we see in the first glyphs, letters,
and signs are similarly related to our present day
alphabet. Letters used in some type first appeared in
Development of the alphabetic letterforms
from ninth to the first century BCE

a schematic system that consisted of around twenty

signs and used Egyptian hieratic script and principles
of cuneiform syllabaries. The early alphabet was
flexible and easy to make changes to and advance
over the years. Mark making has always been one of
the most basic forms of graphic expression and we
have been doing it for thousands of years through
writing. Fully developed writing represents language
in a strong system of signs that has been used for
years and has only advanced.

13

Egyptian Hieroglyphics
Paint on Papyrus

Egyptian Typography
North Africa, c. 2500 BCE

15

rom African pictography in etchings on clay

tablets directly to beautiful inks on the walls

of great tombs and ornate pottery, the imagery of

humankinds early typography quickly spread around
2500 BCE to the great Egyptian Empire in the form of
Hieroglyphs.
Hieroglyphics show pictures, human beings or object
that were familiar to most people in ancient Egypt.
Upon their creation, Hieroglyphs were written with
the intention of being read from right to left, left
to right or in a column from top to bottom. This
complex system showed evidence that great thought
went into the iconography and pictography in the
creation of the individual symbols. Moreover, all
Egyptians alike were able to discern what each
message meant individually. Knowing how to read
was not the same thing as it means today; one needed

Along with Hieroglyphics was the Egyptian discovery

only the knowledge of simple cultural symbols to

of a new form of paper called Papyrus. The earliest

understand the stories being told with them. In this

papyrus roll is Egyptian, dating to c. 3000 BC.

way, Hieroglyphics were somewhat universal to

Papyrus was made from the pith of a water plant

the Egyptian Empire, and successfully became the

growing mainly in the Nile River. The pith was sliced

vernacular of the people. Hieroglyphs can be divided

vertically into thing strips, and one layer of strips

into three categories: sound signs which we call

with fibers running vertically was superimposed on

phonographs, ideograms which are both sound and

another layers were hammered together and adhered

sense signs, and determinatives which are sense signs

by means of the plants natural gum. The sheet was

that cannot be pronounced.

dried and the surface polished. The sheers were

about 16 in wide and 9 in high and were pasted
side by side to form a continuous roll (khartes) (as
papyrus does not fold well). It was also written on
wooden tablets, metal or stone. There were 2 types
of ink people can choose from. One was made from
carbon mixed with a thing vegetable gum to give it
adhesive properties. Most writing on papyrus rolls
was done with this type of ink. And the other type is
iron-tannin ink. Pens were made of reed, and a stylus
was used for wax tablets.

16

Egyptian Hieroglyphics

Jean Francois Champollion

here are over seven hundred Hieroglyphic

For the next fourteen hundred years hieroglyphic

symbols, and each one is something familiar

writing remained a mystery that no-one could

and relatable to the ancient Egyptian culture.

solve, though many people have tried. The key

Hieroglyphs were carved and painted on the walls of

was finally discovered in 1799 at a place known as

tombs, temples, pyramids, and statues, along with

Rosetta. They found something that was about four

everyday objects and personal possessions. The

feet high and was covered with what seemed to be

ancient Egyptians called their writing words of the

three completely different kinds of writing. One of

gods, because they believed that Thoth, the god of

the texts was written in Egyptian hieroglyphs. A

learning, had invented writing. The word hieroglyph

second of the three texts was written in demotic, an

was first used to name these signs after 300 BC,

extremely cursive script that developed around 700

when the Greeks in Egypt saw them carved on the

BC from hieratic; the latter is itself a cursive version

temple walls. After the Greeks, under the command

of hieroglyphic writing. Although the Egyptian scripts

of Alexander the Great, took control of Egypt in 332

could not be read, the third inscription was in Greek

BC, Greek became the official language of Egypt,

and could therefore be translated. Young

spoken by the Greeks themselves and used for official

Frenchman named Jean Francois Champollion

documents. But the ancient Egyptian language

eventually solved the mystery, under twenty years

continued to be spoken and its scripts written by the

of studying and learned eleven languages, including

Egyptians for at least another seven hundred years.

Greek and Hebrew.

17

16th Century Map of the Greek Islands

Typography in Greece
Greece, c. 1500 BCE

19

lthough Greece was divided into numerous

regions and states, the same language was

spoken, distinguishing Greeks from barbarians (a

word they applied to all non-Greek speaking people,
especially the Persians in the 5th century BC).
Greeks were therefore monoglots. Greek is an
Indo-European language, originating at the end
of the 2nd millennium BC with the migrations of
Indo-European language. During the 17th and 16th
century BCE the Greek language began to develop
and is recognizable in the Linear B script written on
clay tablets in the Mycenaean period. From about
1200 BC there were widespread movements of people
throughout Europe, these events may have resulted
in the distribution of various dialects in historic
Greece. There were three major dialects in ancient
Greece, Aeolic, Doric and Ionic. Each of these were
from different tribes, the Aeolians lived in the islands
of the Aegean, the Dorians, from the Greek coast
of Peloponnesus, including Crete, Sparta and other
parts of West Coast Asia Minor. With the unification
by conquest of many parts of Greece by Phillip II of
Macedonia, and many parts of the east by Alexander
the Great, local dialects declined, and a new uniform
Greek dialect emerged known as koine (common
dialect). It was based on the Attic dialect rather than
the semi barbarous Macedonian dialect. Its use
spread throughout the Greek Empire.

20

North African Hieroglyphics, which served as the

inspiration for Greek Symbology.

n Minoan Crete in the 2nd millennium BC a pictographic form of writing (found mainly on sealstones or selaings)
emerged, sometimes miscalled hieroglyphic. The small number of symbols probably represented open syllables.

From this script Linear A probably developed early in the second Palace Period. Linear A was a syllabic script used
throughout Crete and some other Aegean islands c. 1700-c. 1450 BC, and it is only partly deciphered. It sees to
have been used for administrative documents and in religious sites, and is found on clay tablets, stone vases and
double axes. During the Mycenaean period a syllabic script known as Linear B was used 1450-1200 BC. It was
written on clay tablets, as many of the signs are similar or identical, Linear B probably developed from Linear A at
Knossos during the early Third Palace Period. Clay Tablets: Linear A and B scripts have been found on thousands on
unbaked, sun-dried clay tablets.

21

The signs of the Greek lettering system were most

commonly written on damp clay with a sharp instrument. Parchment and papyrus: Skins or parchments
may have been used for writing from an early date.
Parchment (pergamene) was made from skins of cattle, sheep and goats, and manufacture may certainly
have been improved at Pergamum. It was made up in
to leather rolls known as diphtherai.

22

23

Majuscule typography on the Pantheon in Rome

Typography in the
Roman Empire
Italy, c. 1500 BCE

25

Lapis Niger, mid-sixth century BCE, is one of the

Roman inscriptions from the

oldest Latin inscriptions in Rome.

Colosseum in Rome.

26

he alphabet clearly did not begin with the

a permanent part of the letter. The Romans had

Romans. However, the Roman alphabet is

guidelines to provide them for overcutting letters,

where we start to see the alphabet become slowly

but there was no distinct serif treatment. This serif

modernized. The Roman alphabet has a lot to them

however was just a simple detail that really helped

that can and has been studied for years. The early

complete the Roman alphabet. The way each Roman

stages of the Roman alphabet no explanation to the

letter was made was also not explained. Roman

creative process on how it came to be. Which is one

letters varied in widths, and some strokes were thin,

of the reasons we analysis and try to understand it

while others were thick. Stylistically the Roman

now. No Roman ever explained the serif and why

alphabet has a lot going on, and a lot we can study

it was used, the serif was taken for granted in the

such as open-lobed Ps, splayed Ms, long-tailed Rs

Roman alphabet. It was a common item in ancient

and other alphabetic facts. The Roman culture used

Rome and after the late Republic the serif never

written language all the time, because the Roman

left the Romans side. The Roman alphabet is one of

culture was highly literate. The streets of Rome were

the main origins of the serif. It is believed that the

covered with signage. Scales in these inscriptions

serif was originally a guideline that was accidentally

often demonstrated social hierarchy. Carving letters

made when carving letters, which then turned into

in stone was a common theme for the Romans.

Carving letters was a multiple-stage process. Rusted

In 281 BCE, after the Romans conquered the

letters were carved into marble and were often not

Etruscans at Cumae the Romans took 21 letters from

read in a system that made sense, but seemed to be

their scripts 26, and then added some of their own.

everywhere. A good example of carved lettering is

The, in 410 CE when Rome was attacked by northern

the Lapis Niger from mid-sixth century BCE, which

invaders marks the end of the Classical period.

is one of the oldest Latin inscriptions found in

Rome. The marks from this milestone also provided
evidence of political power and cultural influence.
When you observed signage in Roman culture you
automatically knew the social hierarchy and the
impact of Roman authority.

The Roman Alphabet

27

A page from the original Gutenberg Bible, the first

artifact created using movable type. (Late 1400s)

Christianity Influences
Typography
Europe, c. 400 CE900 CE

29

s the Roman Empire rapidly transformed the

traditions of culture, art, architecture and

typography in Europe, knowledge and traditions

were kept alive within Christian monasteries. Here,
highly-trained Christian monks would spend hours
in dark studies hunched over desks producing
manuscripts in scriptoria. Scriptoria comes from
the root word scriptorium which translates to
place of writing. During this time period, later
dubbed the medieval era, a vast number of monastic
scriptures were drafted, thus creating an era that is
to this day extremely well documented. Different
monasteries within the Christian faith had opposing
beliefs of typographys true role in scriptures, and
the duty of scribes changed over time as a result.
In the beginning, monks would enhance upon the
teachings of their religion, making them more clear
and relatable to the public through personification
of objects and the transformation of the religious
law into thematic parables and stories. As time went
on, however, the scripture became less and less
about Christianity itself, and began to reflect more
on the time period historically. This is one of the
reasons why historians know so much about this
era Christians did a thorough job in recording their
presence on Earth.

Painting of a Spanish monastic scriptorium

14th Century

30

No two manuscripts were alike, but most used the

same typographic systems and nomenclature. This
means that the general identities of the typefaces
used in scripture were the same, in terms of individual letterforms and their components. Primarily, the
typography seen in this context would be majiscule,
meaning all capital letters. More precisely, the common type form used was called uncial, which was an
early relative to the Roman alphabet, characterized
by broad single strokes and round majiscule forms. In
classical Latin uncialis could mean both inch-high
and weighing an ounce, and some have even drawn
conclusions to the translation, block of wood. This
typography was not unfamiliar to change, however.
Over the years, uncial majiscule typography evolved
greatly in detail, becoming significantly more ornate
as time went on. Later manuscripts created by the
Roman Catholics can be observed having several
flourishes, stroke width exaggerations, and more
contrast in size. Other characteristics of uncial script
include definitive spacing between words, wide gutters, and justified alignment.

Greek-Coptic manuscript of the New Testament

using uncials, 10th Century

31

Gutenberg printing press, invented in the mid1400s

Typography Spreads
Worldwide
Eighth-Century CE Onward

33

A RenaissanceStyle printing press, utilizing

Gutenbergs movable type.

34

ontrary to popular belief, the most innovation

At this time in Europe, people were perfecting

in the world of typography did not occur in

letterforms rather than creating typography.

Europe (or Western culture at all, for that matter).

Rotunda, for example, is a form of rounded Gothic

It was in China, in truth, where typography sprang

letter flourished in southern Europe, which was

towards the future around the eighth century.

made around the thirteenth century. A few attempts

Everyone in the world knew that books were

at masss printed typography were made, including

becoming more and more necessary for recording

woodblock transfer type, but this method was not

observations of the world, preserving history, and

fast enough to keep up with the demands of reading

marking stories for future generations to learn

consumers. Around 1450, a German goldsmith,

about. In Western Christian culture, the need for

Johannes Gutenberg, developed a printing system

books was especially important, as scribes wanted

by both adapting existing technologies and making

for the teachings of biblical script to be preserved

inventions of his own. By utilizing new tools for

forever. It was around this time that the Chinese

typesetting, mass-produced assembly-line-style

produce the first extant printed manuscript, the

typography was possible. This creation of what is

Diamond Sutra, which was a printed book descibing

now called movable type in Europe led to the first

the teachings of Buddha.

books, and ultimately the future of typography.

he first widely produced book using

Gutenbergs printing style was, not

surprisingly, the Bible. Characterized by closelyset Latin type in 42 lines per page, water-based
ink, wide margins and gutters, and in some
copies ornate illlustrations, the Gutenberg
Bible as it came to be called, had a total of
48 copies printed, and was distributed around
Europe around 1455. Its good reception among
viewers made Gutenbergs printing style the
standard of typography to come. The copies of
the Gutenberg Bible that remain in existence
today are considered some of the most treasured
artifacts of human history, and are valued at
millions of US dollars.

35

36

37

38

References

Catitch, Edward M. The Origin of the Serif. Davenport,

Iowa: The Catfish Press, 1968. Print.

Senner, Wayne M. The Origins of Writing. Lincoln, Ne-

braska: University of Nebraska Press, 1989. Print.

Diringer, David. The Alphabet A Key to the History of

Mankind. New York: Philosophical Library Inc., 1948. Print.

Baker, Arthur. The Roman Alphabet. New York: Art Direc-

tion Book Company, 1976. Print.

Ober, J. Hambleton. Writing: Mans Great Invention.

Baltimore: Peabody Institute, 1965. Print.

Drucker, Johanna and McVarish, Emily. Graphic Design

History A Critical Guide. New Jersey: Pearson Education, 2013.

Print.

Watson, Rowan. Illuminated Manuscripts and their Mak-

ers. New York: Abrams Books, 2003. Print.

Davies, W.V.. Egyptian Hieroglyphs. Berkeley and Los

Angeles: University of California Press, 1987. Print.

Katan, Norma Jean and Mintz, Barbara. Hieroglyphs The

Writing of Ancient Egypt. London: British Museum Publications

Limited, 1980. Print.

Adkins, Lesley and Roy A. Handbook to Life in Ancient

Greece. New York: Facts On File, 1997. Print.

Allan Haley, Richard Poulin, Jason Tselentis Tony Sed-

don, Gerry Leonidas, Ina Saltz, Kathryn Henderson with Tyler

Alterman. Typography Referenced. Beverly, MA: Rockport Publishers, 2012. Print.

Wiles, Kate. Secrets of Scriptoria. London: History Today,

2014. Print.

39

Survey of the History of the Western Alphabet

Years of Study: 3150 BCE 1450 CE
By Kevin Buglewicz, Pha Nguyen, and Sydney Rotthaus
Spring 2015
GRPH 223 Stacy Asher

The

Invention of
Printing
A D 1450 - 1800

The 15th through 18th centuries will be remembered

for tremendous advancements in printing, design,
and typographic form The development of the
printing press influenced the development of full
typefaces and their production rather than the
job-specific approach that most typography was
developed for. Nicholas Jenson was responsible for
the development of the first full roman typeface,
which was based on humanistic characteristics
and was highly legible. Aldus Manutius proved
influential in the world of printing and production
while his punch cutter Francesco Griffo developed
the first italic as a handwritten style designed
to conserve space so that the books Manutius
published could take a smaller form. The Italian
Renaissance of roman typography influenced
the French which led to a period in which many
developments occurred in both typography and
printing. The push towards a higher quality of
printing was led by several printers including Robert
Estienne, Simone de Colines and Geofroy Tory.
Apprenticing for de Colines and Estienne, Claude
Garamond learned the trade of punch cutting and
printing. After Estienne died, Garamond became
the first to produce and sell typefaces to other
printers. His style of type design moved even
further from the style of calligraphy and his type
designs were further developed by Jean Jannon who
produced a set of roman and italics which were
mistakenly attributed as Garamonds all the way
into the 20th century because of their resemblance.

Papermaking and book binding ..........

2
German Illustrated Book .....................
3
The Mainz Psalter .................................
6
Incunabula .............................................. 7
The Anatomy of a Letterform ........... 9
Blackletter ............................................... 12
Roman Typefaces .................................. 13
Johann Gutenburg ................................ 16
William Caxron ...................................... 17
Johann Fust & Nicolas Jensen ............ 19
Peter Shoffer ......................................... 21
Claude Garamond ................................ 24
Gwriffo Francesc ................................. 25
Aldus Manutius .................................... 28
Jean Jannon ........................................... 29

Papermaking
and Book
Binding

European papermaking in the 15th and 16th centuries

was characterized by the use of water-based mills. The small
team of men that worked at these paper mills made paper by
hand using the vat method. These teams were able to make
about nine reams, or 4,500 sheets, in a thirteen-hour day. The
quality of the paper produced depended on the quality of materials being used to construct the paper. Making higher-grade
paper required the use crushed and fermented white linen rags
and clean spring or well water. This combination of materials
would ultimately yield high quality, white writing paper.

Quality materials, such as coarse rags, netting, canvas,
colored linen, pieces of rope, and other flax or hemp based fabrics, to yield browner, more common papers. By the 17th century,
the papermaking industry had advanced technologically, and
many mills were now using machines with Hollander beating
engines. These machines were able to shred the raw materials
to create the pulp more efficiently than the human workers at
water-based mills. The Hollander machines allowed paper makers

to keep up with the increase in paper d e m a n d t h a t c a m e

a l o n g w i t h t h e im provements in the printing process. The
Hollander also increased the demand for linen rags and other
raw materials.

History has greatly influenced the typographic forms
of today, and it is very informative to look at how the anatomy
of any given letter can be traced back to some point in typographic history. The basic element in each letterform is a linear
stroke, due to the fact that typography evolved from handwriting making series of marks with our hands. The early typographic forms were also influenced by the marks made by the
reed pen and stone engravers chisel. The reed pen, from ancient
Rome and medieval times, was held at an angle and produced a
pattern of thick and thin within each stroke. The chisel was
used to make mainly capital letters with minimal curved strokes.
Curved strokes developed with pen writing, and were used to
cut down on the number of marks needed to write a series of
characters.

1. paper making in ancient chinsa <paper.lib.uiowa.edu>

2. paper making in early european 15000s <www.pinterest.com>

German
Illustrated
Book

Books printed from Gutenbergs invention of typography until the

end of the fifteenth century are referred to as incunabula, the latin
word for cradle or baby linen. Incunabulas references to birth
and beginnings caused seventeenth-century writers to adopt it as
a name used for books printed between Gutenbergs invention of
typography in the 1450s and the end of the fifteenth century.
After Gutenbergs invention of movable type, typographic printing
spread rapidly. Printing had become a practice used in over 140
towns in Europe by the 1500s. Book Publications of several
editions began, after the first print was created.This increase
in editions also increased study possibilities for people who
could purchase a more affordable book. A large sum of design
innovations started and took place in Germany, where woodcut
artists and typographic printers came together in order to develop
the illustrated book and broadsheet. Eventually it became common
practice for Scribes and artists to make layouts for illustrated books
and broadsides. (History of Graphic Design | History of Graphic
Design.)

1. Think Smart Designs Blog: Printing Comes to Europe - Graphic Design History 3.

The
Mainz
Psalter

The Psalterium (Mainz Psalter) is the second earliest
printed book, after the Gutenberg Bible. This is the first volume to
include a date of printing, August 14, 1457. It was commissioned
by the Mainz archbishop. This book introduced several innovations,
it was the first book to have a colophon containing the works title
printer, and date of publication. In the colophone it mentioned that
the entire book was produced with the aid of printing methods, like
decoration, which was no longer added by book illuminators. It was
also the first book to be printed in 3 colors. It was the first importatn publicaton issued by Johann Fust and Peter Schoeffer after
their separation form Gutenberg.
Only 10 copies of the completed book have survived.

The Psalter combines printed text with a two-colour
woodcut since both woodcuts and movable print are a relief
processes, they could be printed together on the same press. The
Psalter is printed using black and red inks, with two-color initials,
and large colored capitals printed in blue and red inks These capitals
were partly the work of the Fust master a known artisan, who later
also worked for Fust and Schffer again on the 1462 Bible. The
musical score accompanying the psalms was provided in manuscript, and may have been the model for the type style. Printing in
two colors, although feasible on the moveable press of Gutenbergs
time (as shown by the Mainz Psalter), was apparently abandoned
soon afterward due to being too time-consuming, as few other
examples of the process in its fulfillment are in existence. Only 10
copies of the completed book hae survived, 6 of the long issue and
4 of the short issue. (Digitising the Mainz Psalter.)

1. The colophon of the Psalter. (Digitising the Mainz Psalter)

2. Iluminated initial from the title page on vellum in black and red, with woodblock two colour initials. (Digitising the Mainz Psalter)

Incunabula

Incunabula is a term coined by seventeenth century
English book collectors to call the first printed books of the
fifteenth century. These books were previously called fifteeners
but were changed to sound more elegant. The word is formed by
two Latin words that literally mean in the cradle or in swaddling
clothes. The very first Incunabulum is the Gutenberg Bible
of 1455. There is some debates over whether this is corrected
considered the first printed book, as books had been printed in
Europe since the fourteenth century using solid block type and
not moveable type. The books at this time, some of which were
still being hand copied, were in high depend by a large amount of
readers. Books made in 1500 are the last incunabula because they
are printed in the final year of the fifteenth century.

Scholars started to study the typography in the books
because they hold the most important clues to the origins of the
incunabula. Many of the Incunabula lacked any indication of
printing or the printers names. It was because of this that scholars
began to group letterforms together by their characteristics.

The first catalog of incunabula owned by the U.S. was
Census of Fifteenth Century books owned in America. The catalog
identified 13,200 copies of 6,292 titles in American libraries.

Religious literature was printed in large amounts during
the incunabula period, but especially in Germany. The Bible was
printed 11 times in Italian, 15 times in German, and 94 times in
Latin. (Incunabula | Printing.)

1. Found in the ca. 1477 Vitae sanctorum patrum (Early Printed Books.)
2. Coat of arms (Category Archives: Incunabula. )
3. 2004 National Diet Library, Japan (External View of Incunabula (2) | Incunabula - Dawn of Western Printing.)

The
Anatomy
of a
Letterform
History has greatly influenced the typographic forms of today,
and it is very informative to look at how the anatomy of any
given letter can be traced back to some point in typographic
history. The basic element in each letterform is a linear stroke,
due to the fact that typography evolved from handwriting
making series of marks with our hands. The early typographic
forms were also influenced by the marks made by the reed pen
and stone engravers chisel. The reed pen, from ancient Rome
and medieval times, was held at an angle and produced a pattern
of thick and thin within each stroke. The chisel was used to
make mainly capital letters with minimal curved strokes. Curved
strokes developed with pen writing, and were used to cut down
on the number of marks needed to write a series of characters.
Many of the characteristics used to design todays typefaces are
based on the principals of Roman and Greek writing styles,
such as stress placement, proportions, stroke-to-height ratio, the
different parts of a letterform, and many, many more.
(The Anatomy of Typography)

1. Shows how letterforms according to the human body. <http://www.wccs.k12.in.us/cchs/departments/fine.../TypographyHistory.ppt>. 2. Basic letterform for capital
letters. <http://www.wccs.k12.in.us/cchs/departments/fine.../TypographyHistory.ppt>.

10

12

Black
Letter

Blackletter is sometimes also called Gothic script or
Old English script. It was mostly used for manuscript books and
documents in Europe from the end of the 12the century to the
20th century. Blackletter was a dominant letter shape of medieval
typography and was only used in extant works that were known
to have been printed by Johannes Gutenberg. German designers
fell out of favor of blackletter and replaced it with sans serif
typefaces, but in 1933 Hitler declared the new typography to be unGerman and declared Fraktur to be the peoples font. In Germany
blackletter persisted until 1941. There are four major families that
can be identified in blackletter: Textura, Rotunda, Schwabacher,
and Fractur. These styles were often associated with the different
regions in which they were used and developed. Textura is closely
related to the calligraphic style because it includes a lot of ligatures.
Schwabacher typefaces are often a more simplified, rounded
stroke. Cursiva is most closely related to cursive letters and can be
recognized by the presence of desenders and looped ascenders.
Granktur is characterized by broken stokes and is the most
common blackletter. (Type Classification : Design Is History.)

Blackletter began to become less popular during the
1500s because they were difficult to read as a body text and roman
and italic typefaces were easier to print with movable type.

Blackletter can still be seen today in pl aces like
newspaper nameplates or diplomas. More recently they have
become associated with beer labels and Disneyland. (Blackletter /
Gothic Lettering.)

1. Gutenberg Bible (The Blackletter Typeface: A Long And Colored History.) 2. Blackletter being used for the Disneyland sign. (The Blackletter Typeface: A Long And
Colored History.) 3. Examples of blackletter in newspaper nameplates. (The Blackletter Typeface: A Long And Colored History.) 4. Examples of blackletter as beer lables.
(The Blackletter Typeface: A Long And Colored History.)

Roman
Typefaces

Main: Fragment of Adolf Ruschs

1470s edition of Rationale
Divinorum Officiorum; The
Daily Gargle
Above: Sweynehym & Pannartz,
1465.
Left: Rome: Conradus
Sweynheym and Arnoldus
Pannartz type sample; Livius,
Titus. Historia Romanae
decades

The art of printing from movable metal type was
mastered and used widely midway through the 15th century, and
this is when letter cutters began to attempt to make their letter
forms as much as possible like the handwriting of manuscript
scribes. The earliest instances of printed matter were produced
in black-letter typethe heavy-bodied, essentially spiky letter
forms associated with the Middle Ageswhich today in many
places is simply called Gothic. Black letter was an elaborate,
ornamental type, but it was difficult to read and wasteful of space
and expensive paper.

Models for a new type that would be easier to cut
and read were found in the scriptoria, where scribes were
experimenting with a letter face that they believed had been used
in ancient Rome. By comparison with black letter typefaces, it
was a simple, straightforward, unembellished shape. Historians

now trace its ancestry less to Rome than to Charlemagne and the
official letter form developed for his decrees by an English
monk, Alcuin, in the 9th century. The first use of a recognizable
roman type was either by Adolf Rusch at Strasbourg in 1464 or
by two German printers, Sweynheim and Pannartz, at Subiaco,
Italy around 1465, the honor depending on how loosely the
words recognizably roman are interpreted. A Venetian printer
actually patented a cutting of a roman face later in the 1460s but
subsequently died and thus invalidated the patent a year later.

Within a century of its first introduction, roman type
had swept all others before it and left Germany as the sole
country in which black letter held dominance until well into the
20th century. Adapted by many type designers of genius, it has
been the standard typeface of book typography, and steered
the way for future forms of type for years to come.

16

Johann
Gutenberg

Johannes Gutenberg was born in 1395 in Mainz Germany.
He was the son of Greile zum Gensfleisch and his second wife,
Else Wirick zum Gutenberg. Johann later adopted her maiden
name. Little information exists about him, but it is known that he
had acquired skills in metalwork. Gutenberg moved to Strassburg
between 1428 and 1430 after being exiled form Mainz in a
struggle between the guilds of the city and the patricians. While
in Strassburg Gutenberg taught crafts, and engaged in the art of
gem cutting. A couple of Gutenbergs partners, who loaned him
considerable amounts of money, insisted on drawing up a five-year
contract between them. The three other men were Hans Riffe,
Andreas Dritzehn, and Andreas Heilmann. The contract contained
a clause stating that if there was a death of one of the partners,
his heirs were not to enter the company, but to be compensated
financially.

Andreas Dritzehn died in 1483. His heirs began a lawsuit
against Gutenberg to try and avoid the terms contract and to be
made partners. They lost the suit, but found out that Gutenberg

Portrait of Johann Gutenberg Gutenberg Tallmnya, a Nyomtatott Knyv.

was working on a new project. A carpenter had advanced sums

to Andreas Dritzehn for the building of a wooden press, and a
goldsmith had sold Gutenberg 100 guilders worth of printing
materials. Gutenberg was well along in completing this invention,
and wanted to keep the nature of it a secret.

By 1450 Gutenberg was able to persuade Johann Fust, a
wealthy financier, to loan him 800 guilders for tools for printing.
Two years Later Fust made another 800 guilders for a partnership
in the enterprise. Fust and Gutenberg eventually split because Fust
wanted a fast return on his investment and Gutenberg was striving
for protection and wanted to take his time. Fust then won a suit
against Gutenberg where his was required to pay the sum of both
loans and compound interests.

Gutenbergs masterpiece, the forty-two-Line Bible was
completed in 1455 at the latest. The sale of the Forty-two-Line
Bible alone would have made many times over the sum owed to
Fust by Gutenberg, but these tangible assets were not counted
among Gutenbergs property at the trial.

17

William
Caxton

William Caxton (c. 1415 c. March 1492) is
credited with introducing England to movable type in
the mid 15th century. He actually printed one of the first
commercial advertisements ever a sign for the goods being
sold in his shop.

Caxton is also credited with printing one of the
first books in the English language with movable type.
Eight fonts were produced for Caxtons press when he
commissioned a Flemish calligrapher-turned-typeface
designer to create Blackletter-style typefaces, which are
considered to be the ancestors to the Old English typefaces
used today.

His best known publications are Chaucers
Canterbury Tales, the Golden Legend, and Malorys Morte
DArthur. He also translated historical works and romances
and wrote prefaces to his books. As publisher of more
than one hundred publications, Caxton established a new
readership for major works in English.

Caxton never printed a Bible, as this was forbidden
by law; from 1408, explicit Church permission was required
to translate or even to read translations of scripture in
English, permission which was never granted. It was not
until the Church of England broke from Rome that this
proscription was lifted. The book known informally as
the Caxton Bible was printed in 1877 for the Caxton
Celebration in South Kensington.

1. William Caxton showing specimens of his printing to King Edward IV and

his Queen. Published in The Grabhic in 1877 refering to The Caxton Celebration. The Caxton Celebration, commemorating the 400th anniversary of the
first printed book in England, took place in London in the summer of 1877;
The Graphic, June 30, 1877, p617.

19

Johann
Fust

Johann Fust (c. 1400 October 30, 1466) is believed
to have been a money-lender or banker. Due to Fusts connection with Johann Gutenberg, he has been called the inventor of
printing, and both the instructor and partner of Gutenberg.

While he is viewed as a benefactor who saw the value
of Gutenbergs discovery and supplied him with the means to
carry it out, Fust is also portrayed as a speculator who took
advantage of Gutenbergs need and robbed him of the profits
of his invention. On the right, we see a portrait where Fust
is described by the artist as Gutenbergs wealthy business
partner. Johann Fust and Peter Schoeffer are both known for
continuing a partnership after their mutual work on the Guttenberg bible, and after Fust sued and won a case against Johann
Gutenberg in 1455 for the right to take back his loans that he
permitted to Gutenberg years prior for the continuation of the
Gutenberg bible.

Nicolas
Jensen

Nicolas Jenson (1420 1480) was one of the
first in his field to cut and use a typeface based on traditional
Roman typefaces, rather than the northern European
gothic forms being used at the time. H is ea r ly letterforms
had strong vertical stems and transitions from thick to thin
that evoked lettering done with a pen.

Jensons typefaces influenced typography in its 19th
and 20th century revival. Many typefaces were modeled after
his, including Bruce Rogerss Montaigne, Morriss Golden
Type, and Robert Slimbachs Adobe Jenson.

Slimbach created Adobe Jenson to have a low
x-height and inconsistencies to differentiate letters from
one another. These features couple to make this typeface
appropriate and readable for large blocks of text.

Above: Gutenberg, his wealthy business

partner, Johann Fust (right), and his assistant,
Peter Schoeffer (in back), with printed page.;
Alamy.com
Left: Sample of roman typeface by Nicolas
Jenson, from an edition of Laertius, printed
in Venice 1475; English Wikipedia

21

Peter
Shoffer
Peter Shoffer was born in 1425 in Gernsheim, Germany.
Schffer studied in Paris, as a copyist, and then became an
apprentice to Gutenberg in Mainz. Peter Shoffer printed the
Mainz Psalter, a triumph of that bibliographers consider
letterpress typographys greatest achievement. He observed
Sir Irvine Masson, author of the definitive study of the Psalter: Schoeffer never again attempted such a tour de force.
He entered the printing business as the partner of Johann
Fust, whose daughter he later married. After the break with
Gutenberg and the fall of Mainz, three-color printing Schoeffer and Fust established their printing works at the Haus zum
Iseneck on the Brand, known later as the Printing House.
Schffer cast the first metallic type in matrices and used it for
the second edition of the Vulgate Bible. By the time of his
death he had printed more than 300 books. Examples of his
craftsmanship are the 1457 Mainz Psalter and the 1462 48line Bible. The Psalter was the first printed book to give the
date and place of printing and the printers names.

1. Peter Shoffer of Germany <http://www.biografiasyvidas.com/biografia/s/schoffer_peter.htm>

22

24

Claude
Garamond

Frenchman Claude Garamond (ca. 1480 1561) was
the first to ever specialize in type design and punch-cutting as a
service to others. Due to his position as the first type designer
and punch-cutter to sell his punches in retail to other printers,
Garamond led on the establishment of the trend for many
other typographers, punch-cutters, printers, and publishers
to make the same sales in retail, which helped spread new
typefaces. He quickly became one of the leading type designers
of his time. Several contemporary typefaces, including those
currently known as Garamond, Granjon, and Sabon, reflect his
influence.

In the 1500s, French printers began to adopt
the Venetian typographic traditions, and people such as
Garamound took notice. Garamond moved away from
designing type with calligraphic evidence and made advances to
some of Francesco Griffos first italic letters. As a punchcutter,
Garamond placed a priority on type design and casting, and
he gained prominence as the founder of one of the first
independent type foundaries.

Of the many Garamond revivals and variations, few
come close to the exact specifications with which Garamond
created his initial typeface, making some designers skeptical
of using this font. Garamond has been labled organic as a
type family but also known to be quite blobby among typefaces
because of the unrefined serifs. However, the subtle slant to the
peaks of Garamonnds T and Z are said to give those letters
a varied whimsical appearance.

1. Claude Garamond born c. 1480 in Paris, France, died 1561 in Paris, France; www.linotype.com

25

Gwriffo
Francesco
Francesco Griffo da Bologna started his career as a goldsmith, and later worked for the most important publisher of
the day, the house of Aldus Manutius of Venice. He devised
types for the mechanical craft of printing and not for an
alternative to hand-written manuscript. His initial project
in Venice was to invent a typeface called Bembo, which is
regarded as the most modern in appearance of all 15th century types. He was the inventor of the cursive or italic style
which made a fortune for the printer Aldus Manutius. Bembo
was cut by Francesco Griffo, Stanley Morison supervised the
design of Bembo for the Monotype Corporation in 1929. In
February 1496, Griffo designed a typeface for the essay De
Aetna by the Italian scholar Pietro Bembo, which achieved
great popularity under the name Bembo. In 1929, the British

Monotype Corporation released a family of Bembo fonts.

A 1524 pattern book by the Italian calligrapher Giovanni
Tagliente provided a template for the italics. Griffos typefaces have been very influential. Typefaces based on his work
include Monotype Poliphilus roman, Bembo Book roman, and
Bembo Titling, Morris Fuller Bentons Cloister Old Style italic, Jack Yans JY Aetna roman, Bitstream Aldine 401 roman,
and Franko Luins Griffo Classico roman and italic; more
distant descendants include the romans of Claude Garamond,
Giovanni Mardersteigs Dante, Robert Slimbachs Minion and
Matthew Carters Yale Typeface. During a quarrel, he seized
an iron bar and inflicted wounds leading to the death of his
son-in-law. He disappeared from history after that and is
thought to have been executed by hanging in 1518.

1. Fancesco, of Italy <http://turing.lecolededesign.com/i2/DesignGraphique/TypoBembo/Design%20Graphique/pietro-bembo_web.jpg>

28

Aldus
Manutius

Aldus was an entrepreneur and an innovator, and soon
became the most prolific publisher and printer in Renaissance
Italy. He invented pocket editions of books with soft covers
that were affordable for a wide range of readers, organized the
scheme of book design, normalized the use of punctuation,
and used the first italic type. If you recognize Aldus name, it
may be because the company that created Pagemaker, the first
widely used layout software, and that spurred the whole desktop
publishing revolution, was named Aldus, and used his image
as their logo. Early in the sixteenth century Aldus founded
the Aldine Academy of Hellenic Scholars, through which he
promoted the works of the great classical philosophers and
scientists in their native Greek language.

The Aldine works were readily recognizable by a
distinctive trademark depicting a dolphins body wrapped around
the shaft of an anchor. Among the greatest achievements of
Aldus Manutius were the Aldine fonts. He was the first printer
to develop an italic roman font. The Aldine italic fonts were
modeled from the handwriting of two Italian scribes. For the
design of his italic, Aldus turned to Francesco Griffo, who made
the molds in which the type would be cast. Then Aldus decided
he needed a new typeface that he would use first to publish an
essay titled De Aetna by the famed scholar Pietro Bembo. The

italic fonts were significant politically because they were used

for printing government documents in Venice and other Italian
city-states. Aldus published the copyright notice in his Ovid
collection of 1502.

The exhibition that opened this week at the Grolier
Club in Manhattan, Aldus Manutius: A Legacy More Lasting
Than Bronze, gathers nearly 150 Aldines, as books from the
press Aldus founded in Venice in 1494 are known, for a more
sober tribute. Gutenberg may have invented the movable-type
printing press, used to create his monumental Bibles. But anyone
who has ever sat in a cafe, or in the bath, with a paperback owes
a debt to Aldus and the small, cleanly designed editions of the
secular classics he called libelli portatiles, or portable little books.
He was possibly the first printer to compare manuscripts to
arrive at the most reliable text. He was the first to use italic type.
He was the first to use the semicolon in its modern sense. And
then there were the unwitting firsts, like what may be the earliest
known version of This page left intentionally blank, preserved
in a 1513 edition of the Greek orators included in the show,
along with instructions to the binder to remove the extra leaf.

1. Manutius of Italy <http://www.labyrinthdesigners.org/alchemic-authors-641-1597/aldus-manutius-hypnerotomachia-poliphili/>

29

Jean
Jannon
Born 1580; died 1658. French punchcutter and printer in
Paris and Sedan. He worked as a printer for the Calvinist
Academy in Sedan. He was arrested by order of Cardinal
Richelieu and his equipment, including his font punches and
printing matrices, was confiscated. When his typefaces were
rediscovered centuries later, they were erroneously attributed
to Claude Garamond and consequently served as the source
for many Garamond revivals at companies such as American
Type Founders and Monotype. His punches and matrices are
now preserved in the Imprimerie Nationale in Paris.

1. Jannon of France <http://tonyamacalino.com/1/post/2012/11/saving-our-stories-aldus-manutius-and-the-technology-of-storytelling.html>

31

32

Bibliography
Vervliet, Hendrik D. L. French Renaissance Printing Types: A Conspectus. London: Bibliographical Society, 2010. Print.
Clemens, Raymond, and Timothy Graham. Introduction to Manuscript Studies. London: Cornell UP, 2007. Print.
Carter. Rpb. Bem Day, and Philip Meggs. The Anatomy of Typography. Typographic Design: Form and communication. 2nd ed.

Canada: John Wiley & Sons, 1993. Print.
Fust & Schoeffer. The University of Manchester: University Library. The University of Manchester, 1 Jan. 2011. Web. 6 Nov. 2014.
Roman | Typeface. Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica, n.d. Web. 14 Apr. 2015.
Wallau, Heinrich. Johann Gutenberg. The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 7. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910. 13 Apr. 2015

Peter Schoeffer, Scribe, Printer and Publisher - Gutenbergs Apprentice. Gutenbergs Apprentice. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Apr. 2015.
Typefaces as History: Aldus Manutius and The Noble Bembo. The Book Designer RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Apr. 2015.
Schuessler, Jennifer. A Tribute to the Printer Aldus Manutius, and the Roots of the Paperback. The New York Times. The New York
Times, 26 Feb. 2015. Web. 14 Apr. 2015.
Aldus Manutius 1450 - 1515. First Impressions. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Apr. 2015.
Font Designer Jean Jannon. Jean Jannon. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Apr. 2015.
The Paper Project - History of Paper 1000 - 1500. The Paper Project - History of Paper 1000 - 1500. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Apr. 2015.
Blackletter / Gothic Lettering. Blackletter / Gothic Lettering. Web. 13 Apr. 2015.
Bio Bio.com. A&E Networks Television. Web. 13 Apr. 2015.
Johannes Gutenberg | Biography - German Printer. Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica. Web. 13 Apr. 2015.
History of Graphic Design | History of Graphic Design. History of Graphic Design | History of Graphic Design. Web. 13 Apr. 2015.
Incunabula | Printing. Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica. Web. 13 Apr. 2015.
An Introduction to Incunabula. Introduction to Incunabula. Web. 13 Apr. 2015.
Type Classification : Design Is History. Web. 14 Apr. 2015.
Digitising the Mainz Psalter. CHICC Manchester. 22 Nov. 2011. Web. 14 Apr. 2015.
Gutenberg Tallmnya, a Nyomtatott Knyv. Gutenberg Tallmnya, a Nyomtatott Knyv. Web. 14 Apr. 2015.
External View of Incunabula (2) | Incunabula - Dawn of Western Printing. External View of Incunabula (2) | Incunabula - Dawn of

Western Printing. Web. 14 Apr. 2015.
Category Archives: Incunabula. Nonsolusblog. Web. 14 Apr. 2015.
Early Printed Books. The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple. Web. 14 Apr. 2015.
Farley, Jennifer. The Blackletter Typeface: A Long And Colored History. The Blackletter Typeface: A Long And Colored History. Web. 14

Apr. 2015.
Think Smart Designs Blog: Printing Comes to Europe - Graphic Design History 3. Think Smart Designs Blog: Printing Comes to Europe -

Graphic Design History 3. Web. 14 Apr. 2015.

Emily Nemec | Madeline Christensen| Jayme Sederberg

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Table of Contents
Zeitgeist
The Enlightenment
Louis Simonneau
Philippe Grandjean
Pierre Simon Fournier le Jeune
William Caslon
The Renaissance
John Pine
John Baskerville
Robert Clee
Jean Joseph Barbou
Giambattista Bodoni
Firmin Didot
Hermann Berthold
Geofroy Tory
George Bickham
Printing Technologies
Bibliography

4
5
7
8
9
10
11
13
15
16
17
19
21
22
23
25
26
27

Zeitgeist

rom the 1700s in to the 1800s, three

significant periods were met, The Enlightenment, the Rococo, and the Renaissance.
The enlightenment period was known as
the times of questioning where the enlightenment thinkers questioned traditional
authority. Better known as the Age of
Reason, caused for a big change, produced
many books, essays, inventions, discoveries,
laws, etc. The movement shifted away from
authoritarian control. More information
about The Enlightenment will be discussed
on the following chapter.

Moving onto the Rococo period,
which originated in Paris, adopting later into
France and then into other countries (i.e.
Austria and Germany). The characteristics
were shown from the lightness and elegance as well as curves and natural forms in
ornamentation. Rococo derives from rocaille,
the shell-covered rock work used in the
decoration of artificial grottoes. This period
formed the vast use of very elegant and
prestine-like shapes, very curvy in nature,
creating shapes similar to that of the letters,
C and S.

Now the Renaissance, literally
meaning, Rebirth, surged for the interest
in Classical values. The Renaissance formed
new discoveries with new continents, scientific findings, inventions, and more importantly pertaining to typography, innovations
of paper and printing. The renaissance also
gave form to that of humanist activity. It
was mainly the art that defined the spirit
of the Renaissance, forming into not only
something to look at, but its own knowledge,
art became much more valuable. It became
based on observation of the world, finding
the balance and harmony of its time.

The Enlightenment

he Enllightenment was also

known as the Age of Reason. It occured
from the 1650s to the 1800s. During this
time is when logic, analysis, and uniqueness started to be the main focus in place
of conventional authority. The powerhouses
that use to be in charge, such as the Catholic
Church, began to be challenged. There were
also changes happening within civilization,
philosophy, and the government. Furthermore, new ideals of freedom and equality
for all, were implemented. Throughout the
Enlightenment, type design progressively
changed from Old Style fonts to Modern
Style fonts. Philosophers had a huge impact
on the community because they wrote and
published works that many people read. The
Enlightenment was affiliated with French
thinkers of the 18th century, also called
philosophes.

One of the many philosophes was
Denis Diderot. Diderot was a French writer
and philosopher as previously stated. He was
mainly fascinated by reading and literature.
However, his passion for literature was not
enough for his father. By not following in
his fathers footsteps into the law or medi-

cine fields, Diderot was seen as a disappointment.He started his career path with many
self-employed writing jobs. By the 1740s, he
started to translate English books. However,
Diderot was most known for his contribution to the Encyclopedia, which was the
most significant encyclopedia that was published in France. On the side, Diderot published tales and comedies. Before the Encyclopedia started, Diderots Essai sur la merite
et la virtu (1745) and Pensees philosophique
(1746) were his most popular works. During
the 1750s, the Encyclopdie was published. It
had such a powerful impact on France and
Europe that more than 25,000 copies were
sold by the year 1789. The Encyclopdie was
the first encyclopedia that gave the mechanical arts some attention. It was known
for representing the Enlightenment, and its
main goal was to change the way people
think. Its complete title is Encyclopdie, ou
dictionnaire raisonn des sciences, des arts et
des mtiers (Encyclopedia, or a Systematic
Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts, and Crafts).
The Encyclopdie uses Didot as its typeface.

Front page of the Encyclopdie with

its full title. 1

Portrait of Denis Diderot, the famous

French writer and philosopher. 2

Louis Simonneau

ouis Simonneau was born in

1645 and died in 1728. He was an engraver
in Paris at the Imprimerie Royale. He was
one of the central designers of the Romain
du Roi, which Louis XIV commissioned.
Romain du Roi translates to Roman of
the King, meaning the Roman alphabet
which was used for the first time in 1702.
Simonneau created a new typeface that was
moving away from Old Style typefaces.
When he was creating his typeface, he was
closely watched by the French Academy of
Science. Therefore, his typeface was greatly
influenced by math and science. He did not
create his typeface completely on his own.
Simmoneau worked alongside Philippe
Grandjean, who punchcut the letters for
him. Simmoneaus typefaces are transitional.

French Academy of Science, where

Louis Simmoneau created his
typeface. 3

Philippe Grandjean

hilippe Grandjean was born in 1666

and died in 1714. He helped Louis Simonneau in the creation of the Romain du Roi,
which began in 1692. Romain du Roi were
italic and Roman types. It was designed at
the request of King Louis XIV in 1692, who
wanted to use the typeface for the Royal
printer. Both Granjean and Simonneau were
watched closely by various mathematicians
and philosophers. Romain du Roi was a
modern font with serifs that were flat and
thin. In the end it was a set of 82 fonts,
which were not finished until 1745. It took
half a century to create the complete set of
fonts.

Examples of the Romain du Roi

typeface. 4, 5

Pierre Simon Fournier le Jeune

ierre Simon Fournier le Jeune was

born in 1712 and died in 1768. Fournier was a French typefounder and he was
also a punch-cutter. He is the designer of
the typefaces fournier and Narcissus. His
typefaces are best known for the decorative
elements that he added onto them. Fournier
stated, regarding one of his fonts, The petit
ceil leaves more space between lines of type,
which gives a lighter and more graceful
air. But it is more fatiguing to persons of
delicate eyesight. (Updike 262) He also
is known for his creation of a regulated
measuring system. This particular measuring
system would remodel the typography world
permanently. Fournier started the creation
of this measuring system in 1737. He began
with a measurement called pouce, which is
a French measurement. He then sectioned
that into 12 lines. Fournier then continued
to split the 12 lines into six points each. In
order to regulate all his fonts, he related each
font to the system. When Fournier was just
24-years-old, he opened his own type foundry. The Rococo period was attracted to his
typefaces because of their unique elegance.

Examples of Fourniers typefaces. 6

Examples of Fourniers typefaces. 7

William Caslon

illiam Caslon lived from

1692-1776. He was an English type designer. In London during the year 1716, he began his own personal engraving shop. While
he was working in his shop, a printer named
John Watts liked Caslons work so Watts had
Caslon start working for him. When Caslon
was working under Watts, he cut type for
Londons presses. In 1720, Caslon created an
English Arabic typeface which was utilized
in a New Testament. Caslon then moved on
and started working under William Bowyer,
who was also a printer. While working for

Bowyer, Caslon cut a roman, italic typeface.

This particular typeface was used for the
first time in 1726. It would later be named
Caslon. Caslons typeface eventually became
extremely popular. Caslon is an Old Style
typeface. It was used all through the British
Empire. At the beginning of the 18th
century, between 1720 and 1726, he created
another typeface. When Caslon was creating
this typeface, he based it from the OldFace which was from Holland. During this
time, several of the typefaces came from
Holland. Caslon became known as The
Father of British Typography.

Portrait of William Caslon 8

Example of the Caslon typeface 9

10

Renaissance

uring the Renaissance, many

elements were altered within graphic design
by Italian scholars and printers. They altered
type design, ornamentation, illustration, and
page layout. The first change to occur, moving towards the new Renaissance designs,
were the decorative borders in French books,
and the roman alphabet original designs
which were designed by Arnold Pannartz
and Konrad Sweynheym. Italy and Germany received the typographic text in the
form of a manuscript styled book that was
printed. The book included movable types.
A few of the many prominent designers
of typographic books in this period were
Johannes de Spira, Erhard Ratdolt, and Aldus Manutius. During this time period, the

11

designers adored floral ornamentation, such

as wildflowers and vines. The 18th century
brought about massive alterations in graphic
design. Mainly, type design, page layout, and
typography were being changed. When the
Romain du Roi was first printed at the
start of the 18th century, a conversion to
transitional roman typographic design with
an elevated contrast between the thick and
thin strokes, a greater balance in the typographic letterforms, and sharpened horizontal serifs began.

Examples of Renaissance letterforms

and their fascination of floral ornamentation. 10, 11

12

ohn Pine was born in 1690 and died

May 4, 1756. He was an English
engraver who published many notable
illustrated books.

He lived in London and owned
a print shop there which allowed him to
publish books with his own engravings.
Although it is not certain where he learned
his craft, however he might have studied
under the Frenchman, Bernard Picart. One
of his first and most notable works was
a group of engravings of the ceremonies
attending King George Is establishment
of the Order of the Bath (1725) Another
highly revered work of Pines was a copy
of the Magna Carta. Pines engraving of
this piece of historic literature consisted
of an engraved facsimile of the original
text of the Magna Carta, surrounded by a
series of 25 coats of hand-colored arms of

John Pine
the Barons, panel at foot containing notes
and a representation (hand-colored) of
the remains of King Johns Great Seal, all
panels surrounded by oak leaf and acorn
borders Other producation include copies of
the tapestries celebrating the defeat of the
Spanish Armada and hanging in the House
of Lords, and several maps of London.

In 1755 he and a number of other
English artists formed a committee to found
a royal academy, but he died 12 years before
the plans became a reality. From 1743 until
his death he was Blue Mantle Pursuivant. A
Bluemantle Pursuivant of Arms in Ordinary
is a junior officer of arms of the College of
Arms in London, in the Heralds College.
This is were he lived out the last years of his
life. His two sons, Robert Edge Pine and
Simon Pine, were both painters.

This page from Pines work shows the heralds in procession at the ceremony to
install the first Knights and Esquires of the Bath.

13

Magna Carta first edition in 1733

was engraved and printed on vellum

as a facsimile of the original.

The Procession and Ceremonies Observed at the Time of the Installation of the

Knights Companions of the Most Honourable and Military Order of the Bath,

was produced by the engraver John Pine (later Bluemantle Pursuivant of Arms)
in 1730, from original drawings by Joseph Highmore, depicting the processions
and ceremonies at the time of the first installation of Knights and Esquires of
the Bath in 1725.

14

ohn Baskerville was born

in Wolverly, England in 1706 and died
in London in 1775. Baskerville is most well
known for his namesake typeface, which
he orignally designed in 1757. Baskervilles
type was unlike anything that had come
before it. Considered by contemporary
historians to be the quintessential example
of a transitional face, it featured rounded
characters, a perpendicular axis, strong
contrasts between thicks and thins and
very fine, sharp serifs, all of which clearly
distinguished it from the old-style faces
it followed and predated the high stroke
contrasts od such later Modern typefaces
such as Bodoni.

It took John Baskerville six years
to complete the drawings for his type and
another two to oversee its cutting. When
finished, he discovered that conventional
printing presses could not adequately
capture its subtleties and redesigned his
own. In place of wood, he used a machined
brass bed and platen and a smooth vellum

AaBbCcDdEe
FfGgHhIiJjKk
LlMmNnOoP
QqRrSsTtUu
VvWwXxYyZ
z1234567890
15

John Baskerville
tympan (a sheet that was placed between
the impression surface and the paper to be
printed) packed with fine cloth to ensure
that the two planes of the press met more
evenly. Most paper used in the mid-18th
century was made on crude wire mesh molds
that left deep vertical ribbed impressions.
This too was unsuitable for capturing the
delicacy of Baskervilles type.

Setting up a mill on his own land
in Birmingham, Baskerville manufactured
what we today refer to as wove paper, made
on very fine meshes that resulted in smooth,
silky stock. To further polish its surface, he
created a device consisting of two heated
copper cylinders between which he pressed
his paper after printing it.

During the period in which
Baskerville lived, printers made their own
inks, and their proprietary formulas were
highly guarded trade secrets. Baskerville
invented an ink that was both quick-drying,
allowing him to print the reverse sides of his
paper faster, and uncommonly rich, black
and lustrous in appearance.

caption

The title page of his edition of

Paradise Lost by Milton, Printed By

John Baskerville,

One of the surviving punches cut by

John Handy for John Baskerville in

the eighteenth century.

Ironically for a confirmed atheist, his

greatest work was a folio edition of

the Bible, which. represented a mon-

umental advance upon the standards

and practices of the time.

16

obert Clee was an

accomplished English engraver in the 18th
century, strongly influenced by the Rococo
movement. He used the skill of copperplate
engraving to achieve the curvilinear
decoration and fine detail achieved in
both text and image by designers during
the Rococo Era. Robert Clees became
known for engraved trading cards he used
this copperplate technique to create for
merchants to expand businesses adn gain
customers.

Because of the need of such
detailed embellishment, this type of
engraving became an important technique
for book illustrations during this period.
Lines were etched into a smooth metal
plate; ink was pressed into these carved
lines; the extra ink was wiped clean from the
surface. A sheet of paper was then placed

17

Robert Clee
onto the plate with sufficient pressure to
transfer the ink from the printing plate to
the paper. This allowed book illustrations
to be produced with finer lines and greater
detail than woodblock printing. In order
to make text more compatible with these
fine-line engravings, designers increasingly
made casting types and ornaments with finer
details.

The Rococo Style originated in
Paris in the early 18th century but was soon
adopted throughout France and later in
other countries, principally Germany and
Austria. It is characterized by lightness,
elegance, and an exuberant use of curving,
natural forms in ornamentation. The word
Rococo is derived from the French word
rocaille, which denoted the shell-covered
rock work that was used to decorate artificial
grottoes.

ean Joseph Bardou established himself

as a bookseller in paris in 1746 and
in 1750 he issued the series of Latin
classics called by his name. He also printed
in superior style the New Testament in
latin and various other works. Since many
artists specialized in book illustration in
the seventeen and eighteenth centuries
graphic design often involved a collaboration
of specialists. In the work below, Joseph
Gerard Barbou, the printer, used types and
ornaments by Fournier, full-page engravings
by Eisen, and complex spot illustrations
and tailpieces by Pierre-Phillippe Choffard.
This superb example of Rococo book design
combined the ornamented types, decorative
initials, elaborate frames and rules, and
intricate illustrations typical of the genre.
Another artistic collaboration that created
beautiful prints is Louis Ren Luce, the
designer, and Jean Joseph Barbou, the
printer. The print (right) ornaments page
from Essai dune Nouvelle Typographie,
1771. These meticulously constructed
cornices and borders express the authority
and absolutism of the French monarchy.

Jean Joseph Barbou

Essai dune Nouvelle Typographie, 1771. Louis Ren Luce, the designer, and
Jean Joseph Barbou, the printer.

Tales and Novels in Verse

Two-page spread from Jean de

La Fontaines Contes et nouvelles

en vers (1762), printed by Joseph

Gerard Barbou and illustrated by

Charles Eisen.

18

Giambattista Bodoni

iambattista Bodoni was born

in Saluzzo, Italy on February 16, 1740. He
was born into a printing family. At the age
of 18, Bodoni went to Rome and became
a pupil of Abbate Ruffierei in the Vatican
polyglot press of the Propaganda Fide. In
1768, Giambattista Bodoni was appointed
to head of the ducal printers in Parma the
Stamperia Reale. His employer, Duke
Ferdinand, had nothing less in mind than
to accumulate the greatest wealth of Italys
writings in his print shop.

During his work at the Stamperia
Reale, Bodoni first studied the fonts
of Pierre Fournier of Paris; This led to
development of his own typefaces. Three
years after beginning to work in Parma,
Giambattista Bodoni produced his first
font pattern book with the title Saggio
tipografivo di fregi e maiuscole. In order
to keep Giambattista Bodoni at his court,
Duke Ferdinand allowed him to establish
his own printing works in 1791 in his palace,
In 1806, Bodoni printed the Lords Prayer in

AaBbCcDdEe
FfGghIiJjKk
LlMmNnOoP
pQqRrSsTtU
uVvWwXxYy
Zz1234567890
19

155 languages, in 1808 the Iliad by Homer.

Around 1800, Giambattista Bodoni
developed a completely new kind of type
which refrained from decorative padding
and was conceived solely on the criteria
of symmetry and proportionality. In this
way, the classical font Bodoni emerged,
a masterpiece of typography, which would
be used untold times by other typesetters.
Bodoni was the first in the Modern or
Didone class of typeface, characterized
un bracketed serifs and highly contrasted
stroke-widths.

Giambattista Bodoni, also known
as the prince of typographers and printer
of kings, died in 1813 in Parma. He
achieved a purity of form with sparse pages,
generous margins and line-spacing, and
severe geometric types; this functional
purity avoided any distractions from the
act of reading. He drew inspiration from
Baskerville as he evolved his preferences
from Rococo-derived designs toward
modern typefaces.

The Manuale Tipografico, 1818

After the death of type designer and printer

Giambattista Bodoni his widow and foreman published the Manuale tipographico,
displaying specimens of the approximately
three hundred type fonts, it also included
a collection of flowering ornamentals and
geometric patterns designed by Bodoni. The
page (above) shows the dazzling contrasts
and vigorous proportions found in found in
Modern Style typefaces. Thick and thin oxford rules echo and complement the letters
stroke weight.

In 1806, Bodoni printed the Lords Prayer in 155 languages

20

Firmin Didot

irmin Didot, born in Paris France

on April 14th, 1764, was a French painter,
engraver, and type founder. His family were
active designers for about 100 years in the
18th and 19th centuries. They were printers,
publishers, typeface designers, and inventors.
All founded by Franois Didot, the father
of 11 whom also had their manufactory
located in Essonnes. Didot was also known
for inventing the word stereotype, which in
printing refers to the metal printing plate.

In 1783, Firmin cut his first
typefaces and rewroked his fathers roman
alphabets. Later on in 1797 he was granted
a patent for his developments and had his
typeface used in his brothers series mentioned below. In 1812 he was made the
director of the Imprimerie Imperiale type

foundry.

Firmin usually cut the letters and
his brother, Pierre, used them in printing.
One example of this is the Editions du
Loucre series. Firmin was credited with
establishing the use of Modern typefaces
along with Giambattista Bodoni.

The typeface Didot was named
after the Didot family, its considered a
modern classification based on a collection of types developed from 1784 - 1811.
Firmin cut the letters and cast them in Paris.
The type was taken from inspiration from
John Baskervilles experimentation of stroke
contrast and a more condensed armature.
Firmin then died on April 24th, 1836 in
Mesnil-sur-lEstee, France.

ABCDEFGHIJKL
MNOPQRSTUVW
XYZ
abcdefghijklmnopq
rstuvwxyz
1234567890
Didot Regular 20pt typeface (top)
Firmin Didot portrait (left)

21

Hermann Berthold

ermann Berthold was born

on August 19th, 1831. He was the son of
a calico-printer, an entrepreneur, printer,
and German typefounder. He founded the
Berlin Institute for Galvanotype which was
dedicated to electroplating. He soon became
dedicated to the type foundry. The type
foundry generally wored from brass instead
of lead or zinc which gave it more strength
and precision. In 1878 Berthold was given
responsibility for all German foundreis in
order to set new standards for typography.

In 1833 Berthold built the Berthold House, now known as the Oechsler
Villa in Heringsdorf which showed examples of neoclassical architecture called
Baderarchitecktur.

In 1858 Berthold established the
H. Berthold AG type foundry, based in
Berlin. The foundry is best known for the
development of the type Akzidenz-Grotesk
in 1896. This type formed the basis of most
sans-serif fonts such as present day Helvetica. The foundry was taken from predecessors
such as John Baskerville and Justus Erich
Walbaum.

Akzidenz-Grotesk was believed to
be derived from Walbaum or Didot, design
wise and the contemporary versions descend
from a late-1950s project directed by Jimmy
Lazar. The sans-serif typeface was known
as Standard in the United States. Akzidenz is German for schrift and grotesk
meaning sans-serif. Later on in 1978, with
the aid of Professor Foerster, made a basic
unit measurement for type. Birthing the
first system of typographic measurement.
The unit was that 1m was equal to 2,660
typographic points. Berthold ran his foundry
until 1888 and then died in 1904 at his villa
in Grunewald.

Hermann Berthold Portrait (top)

Akzidenz-Grotesk typeface (bottom)

22

Geoffroy Tory

eoffroy Tory, born in Bourges

around 1480, was a French humanist and
engraver. Tory is known mainly for adding
accents on letters in French such as the
apostrophe, cedilla, and other simple punctuation marks. He heavily influenced French
publishing. Early in his life he decided to
attend a local university in Paris where he
developed an interest in Latin literature.

Later on Tory left Bourges for Italy
and studied in Rome at Sapenzia and later
on in Bologna where he studied under Philip Beroaldus. After his studies he returned
back to Paris in 1505 where he would work
as a bookbinder, editor of texts, and corrector for the press. In 1508, Tory developed
his first book, the Pomponius Mela. Upon
developing this book, Tory started to gain
a large reputation, later on becoming one
of the youngest professors to teach at the
College du Plessis a year later.

In 1514 he married the widow of
his friend, in which later had a daughter
whom he named Agnes. Tory decided to
teach all of his lifes work to her. Unfortunately Agnes died at the age of 9 for reasons
unknown. The death of his daughter put
Tory into a period of depression, during
which he wrote several pieces of poetry, also
making his printers mark that of an urn, representing what his daughters ashes were in.
The poetry that he wrote generally consisted
of talking about how lucky he was to have
his daughter and the influence she brought
upon him.

After his depression Tory discovered The Book of Hours. He made a copy
of it in which is dedicated to him and still
known as the most famous. This book consisted of 16 full page borders and 13 large
woodcuts. There are 17 known copies of the
23

1531 version. Through this he gained specific

privileges with King Franois I to publish
his own works.

Later on in 1529, Tory published a
very important and influential work of that
time, the Champfleury. Champfleury translates to flowery fields, also a French idiom
for paradise. The Champfleury was divided
into 3 books. It was mainly about the proper
use of French, ranged from the alphabet to
the proper use of grammar. Subtitled The
Art and Science of the Proportion of the Attic or Ancient Roman Letters, According to
the Human Body and Face In the Champfleury, Tory used a square-shaped grid.
This book also set the standard to French
publishing, which is still seen in the present.

In 1530 he became the official
printer to King Francis I and two years later
the librarian at the University of Paris. Its
unknown as to when Tory died, however its
assumed before October 14th, 1533 because
the lease claimed that his wife was widowed.

Some other facts about Tory was
that he was greatly inspired by the human
body, which was shown in the Champfleury.
he believed that the proportions of letters reflected the human form, writing, the crossstroke covers the mans organ of generation,
to signify that Modesty and Chastity are
required, before all else, in those who seek
acquaintance with well-shaped letters.

2-page spread of Geoffroy Torys Champfleury (top)

2-page spread of Geoffroy Torys The Book of Hours (left)

Page taken from Champfleury (bottom)

24

George Bickham

eorge Bickham the Elder,

born in 1684, was an English writing master
and engraver. He is best known for his work
in The Universal Penman, which helped
popularize the English Round Hand script.

In 1712 he wrote copy books and
business texts, linking between writing and
mathematics. In 1733, Bickham collected
from 25 London writing masters to create
and engrave samples of penmanship, forming the Universal Penman.

Later on Bickman published The
British Monarchy, a collection of 188 plates
of historical notes, 43 plates of the view of
English and Welsh counties. It wasnt really
a map, but it had map-like qualities. George
Bickham the Younger, his son, kept the
engraving tradition alive.

George Bickhams British Monarchy page (top)

The Penmans Advice (left)

25

George Bickham the Elder, Engraver portrait

Printing Technologies

ne of the printing technologies

of the era that was created during the 1700s
and 1800s is the Stereotype. The Stereotype
is also known as the cliche stereoplate or
just stereo for short. The name is originally
meant for a solid plate of type metal. Type
metal is the metal alloys used for the typesetting, the composition consists of lead, tin,
and antimony.

The Stereotype was invented by
William Ged in 1725. Ged used the plates
for the Bible.

The words cliche and stereotype
were both originally printers words before
other meanings came into play that are used
now.

The stereotype is used in letterpress,
newspaper, and other high-speed press runs,
the process is made by locking in type in
place in form of a mat, the mat is then used
as a mold to cast the stereotype.

Another piece of technology that
was made during the 1800s was the Rotary
press, invented by Richard M. Hoe. The
rotary press printed one sheet on a flat plate,
however the difference was that the plate
was continuously wrapped around a rotating
cylinder, allowing for multiple copies to be
made. This was innovative at the time because it sped up the process of printmaking.

In 1886 the Linotype was made,
a very important invention, the first real
advance in printing. The linotype was a machine where the operator could sit and type
at a keyboard, whereas the machine would
arrange the characters typed out in lines of
type. The linotype was invented by Ottmar
Mergenthaler.

The last piece to mention that made
its process into the 1800s is the technology
advancement to photo engraving. This

process allowed photographs to be printed

on press. The process used screens to produce
half-tones, small dots, through the use of
chemicals. The first example known was
made by Joseph Niepce.

Stereotype plate mold (top)

Linotype machine (middle)

Rotary press machine (bottom)

26

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Didot (typeface). Wikipedia. Wikimedia
Foundation, n.d. Web. 9 Apr. 2015. <http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Didot_(typeface)>.

I used these sources to find the
information about Firmin Didot, his family,
and some information about the Didot
typeface. Wikipedia helped start me off in
finding information and gave me a good
general idea. Linotype was a great place to
go to as well.
Hermann Berthold. MyFonts. MyFonts,
n.d. Web. 9 Apr. 2015. <https://www.myfonts.com/person/Hermann_Berthold/>.
Hermann Berthold. Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 9 Apr. 2015.
<http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_
Berthold>.

29

Akzidenz-Grotesk. Wikipedia. Wikimedia

Foundation, n.d. Web. 9 Apr. 2015. <http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akzidenz-Grotesk>.
Berthold Type Foundry. Wikipedia.
Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 9 Apr.
2015. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berthold_Type_Foundry>.

I used MyFonts and Wikipedia to
find the information on Hermann Berthold.
The information given told me about his life,
the type foundry that he founded and some
information about the famous typeface that
they made, Akzidenz-Grotesk. The information was a bit hard to decipher since it was
in French, however using my prior knowledge of French and checking the translated
version allowed me to get what I needed.
Geoffroy Tory | Biography - French Printer. Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica, n.d. Web. 9 Apr. 2015.
<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/
topic/600302/Geoffroy-Tory>.
Geoffroy Tory. Wikipedia. Wikimedia
Foundation, n.d. Web. 9 Apr. 2015. <http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffroy_Tory>.
A Brief History of Typefaces. (n.d.): n.
pag. Thinkingwithtype.com. Thinking With
Type. Web. 9 Apr. 2015. <http://www.
thinkingwithtype.com/misc/type_lecture/
Type_Lecture.pdf>.

I used these sources to figure out
all that I needed about Geoffroy Tory and
his life. It was interesting to read so much
on his French influence and of his daughter.
The Thinking With Type pdf was very useful
in using examples of his work during the
Humanist period.
George Bickham the Elder. Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 9
Apr. 2015. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
George_Bickham_the_Elder>.


There wasnt too much about
George Bickham, but what I could find
mainly was on Wikipedia. This website
told me about what he was mainly known
for, The Universal Penman and the British
Monarchy, and the fact that he was a master
at engraving and English writing.
Key Historical Developments in Printing
Technology. Key Historical Developments
in Printing Technology (n.d.): n. pag.
MTSU School of Journalism. Web. 9 Apr.
2015. <http://mtsujournalism.org/vcom_materials/history/print_timeline.pdf>.
Stereotype | Printing. Encyclopedia
Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica, n.d. Web. 9 Apr. 2015. <http://www.
britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/565675/
stereotype>.
Stereotype (printing). Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 9 Apr. 2015.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotype_
(printing)>.

These sources helped me scour the
Internet and find out what kind of printing
technologies were made during the 1700s
and 1800s. I found out that the Stereotype,
Rotary Press, Engraved Photo technology, and Linotype was made. These are all
important advances, much help from the
MTSU School of Journalism for making it
easy to understand.

30

Industrial Revolution
From 1760-1830

CONTENTS
2

8
10
12
18
16

29

14

13
20

26

22
24

30

27
28

26

25
31

St. Nicholas Restaurant advertising shell oysters

Lose Weight the easy way try LARD-BE-GONE advertistment

THE EXPLOSION
OF ADVERTISING
B

y the 1880s, advertisement seemed to take on a

driving aspect of its own, and focused on the creation
of wants and needs in the growingconsumer population. In order to create a market for certain items, clever
businessmen would advertise products in careful language,
designed to influence potential buyers into seeing the necessity of owning particular products. Evidence of this is seen
in the growing number of appliances such as cooking stoves,
washing machines, and sewing machines produced at this
time, and found within
modern households.
Advertisements appealed to women especially, detailing
how the possession of a cooking stove, for instance, was guaranteed to reduce the toil and labor of the kitchen, and thus
free time for nurturing the family according to the values
and standards of the day.

the kitchen, and thus free time for nurturing the family
according to the values and standards of the day.
Women were intended, in a sense, to be the principle
consumers of the new market economy. In creating wants and
needs in a population of consumers, advertisement was instrumental in paving the way for successful capitalism in America.
Advertising played an increasingly important role in the financial performance of American newspapers and magazines.
In 1880, advertising represented 44 percent of publishers
revenue; that is, $39 million of the $89 million in total revenue
that publishers of all types of periodicals received. In the aggregate, daily newspapers received 49 percent of their revenue
from advertising and 51 percent from readers. Less frequent
periodicals were much less reliant on advertisers: 39 percent of
their revenue came from advertising

Exvelsior Ginger Ale printed in 1885 by John Klee

Perhaps the most significant trend discernible during the

last two decades of the nineteenth century was not the raw
growth of advertising, as impressive as it was; rather, it was
the utilization of advertising to introduce new products, to
homogenize tastes, and to create demand. The last decade
also witnessed the growth of national, as opposed to regional,
advertising campaigns.
Eleven million advertisements appeared in some 2,000
American newspapers in 1847, according to an estimate made
the following year. . . . By 1854, with the population only 25
per cent. larger, the estimated number of publications in the
United States had grown 100 per cent., or to 4,000. These
figures present a quick index to the increasing interest in newspaper advertising which made it possible to maintain so many
papers.

Naylors Dog Show Poster (1879)

THE FIRST
PHOTOGRAPHIC
PRINTING PLATE

he carbon process of photography was invented by Alphonse-Louis Poitevin in 1855 and further developed
between 1864 and 1874 by Joseph Swan and John Sawyer,
whose research led to the introduction of so-called carbon tissue,
which became a key component of both photogravure and rotogravure printing during the nineteenth century and the first half of the
twentieth century.
The light sensitivity of dichromate-sensitized carbon tissue
attracted the attention of Kl, who was aware of the Talbot process
and was trying to improve upon it by depositing a grain-forming, resinous powder directly on the surface of a copper plate. In 1877 Kl
succeeded in depositing a highly uniform layer of resin on a copper
plate; he then bonded resin particles to the copper plate by heat.
He later experimented with transferring dichromate-sensitized
carbon tissue to a resin particle copper plate and exposing it under
a positive. This was followed by the removal of the paper substrate
from the copper platecarbon tissuepaper substrate sandwich. The
resin grain coated copper plate was then etched, through the exposed but undeveloped carbon tissue, using a series of ferric chloride
solutions of decreasing concentrations.
The industrialization of the printing process continued with
the development of the cylinder press, invented in London by the
German designers Koenig and Bauer. This carried the paper over
the type on a rolling mechanization. One of the first steam-powered presses was installed at The Times newspaper in London in
1814. Mechanization quickly spread to most major newspapers,
but book-publishing houses continued to make use of hand-presses
throughout the 19th century.

ROBERT
THORNE

he first truly fat roman typeface is believed to have been

introduced by prominent London type founder Robert
Thorne, in 1803. This was a period of invention and discovery , when Europe was experiencing an enormous expansion
of trade and commmerce. As innovation in printing technology
improved and enterprising new trades began to flourish, so did
the demand for print advertising.
Job printers who formerly relied on printing books soon discovered new sources of commercial print work. Thorne responded to this new surge in advertising by designing his improved
printing types expressly for job printers composing short lines
of large text. His bold new, call caps fat face, which looked more
like a Didone on steroids, proved to be wildly succesful and was
largely
responsible for altering the appearance of advertising in this era.
The Slab Serif or Egyptian is also home to further subsets
of typeface styles, like the Fat Faces which are fundamentally
Didones (or Moderns) on steroids.

Take a Modern style typeface, give its thicker strokes even more
weight, triangulate some of those serifs, and you have a Fat Face.
You might be familiar with types like Poster Bodoni. Bodoni is of
course a Modern style type but, carrying all that extra weight, its
a Fat Face. The Fat Face, then, is basically an Obese Didone.

Genius is nothing
but a great aptitude
for patience.
Although Thorne never published another book of specimens
after 1803, he came very close to completing one, and he continued turning out bold new fonts at his Fann Street Foundry until
his death in 1820.
After Robert Thornes death, the Fann Street Foundry was put
up for auction, and purchased by William Thorowgood in 1820
from winnings he received in a state lottery. Although Thorowgood had no previous experience in type founding, he quickly
learned his ps and qs. Months later, he published 132 pages of
Thornes composed specimens which remained after his death,
including the first showing of his original fat face with the ill-fitting title of Five-lines Pica, No. 5.

7
Portrait of Robert Thorne

VINCENT
FIGGINS
T

he British punch-cutter and typefounder Vincent Figgins

(1766-1844) ran a notable London typefoundry and is
credited with designing the first Egyptian (slab serif) typeface, which he simply named Antique and released in 1815.
Figgins was originally apprenticed to the typefounder Joseph
Jackson, a student of William Caslon I, and established his own
typefoundry in Swan Yard, Holborn Bridge, in 1792.
Figgins designs reflected a trend in the early nineteenth century toward the use of bolder types, rather than the lighter faces
popular at the end of the previous century.
The new style of types met with a mixed reception, with descriptions of them ranging from the most brilliant typographical
innovation of the nineteenth century to them being described as
a typographical monstrosity. Figgins is also believed to have introduced the term sans-serif , with the introduction of a typeface
of that name in 1836.

Specimen of Printing Types by Vincent Figgins

WILLIAM
CASLON
IV
W

illiam Caslon IV is best known as the designer of the

first sans serif typeface, though sans serif lettering had
existed for some time. He was the great grandson of
the original William Caslon,son of William Caslon III who had
purchased the Joseph Jackson foundry in 1792 creating a second
Caslon foundry. William IV took over the business in 1807 and
was evidently very creative. He invented two part matrices for
casting large letters and a method of casting wedge shaped letters
for cylinder printing.
In 1816 William IV issued a specimen book that showed a
single line of upper case sans serif letters labeled 2 Line English
Egyptian or about 28 points in size. Though Egyptian has come
to refer to slab serif types only, it originally referred to all monotone or monoline stroke types. It is not known why he cut the
sans, whether it was cut for a client or as an experiment, but there
was no interest in it and several years would pass before more
sans serif types appeared.
In 1819 William IV sold the foundry to Blake, Garnett & Co.,
which was formed specifically to purchase the company. They
moved the company from London to Sheffield, England where it
flourished and eventually became the Stephenson Blake foundry.
William IV concentrated on developing a coal-gas system for
lighting.

Portrait of William Caslon IV

MANUAL
TIPOGRAPHICO
Manuel of Typography by Giambattista Bodoni

10

Scanned Portrait of Giambattista Bodoni

elebrated printer and type designer Giambattista Bodoni

set the standard for printing the alphabet his Manuale
tipographico (1818). The two-volume setpublished
posthumously in a limited edition of 250features 142 sets of roman and italic typefaces, a wide selection of borders, ornaments,
symbols, and flowers,as well as Greek, Hebrew, Russian, Arabic,
Phoenician, Armenian, Coptic, and Tibetan alphabets.
Official printer for the Duke of Parma, Bodoni (1740-1813)
declared that well-designed type derived its beauty from four principles: uniformity of design, sharpness and neatness, good taste,
and charm.
His typefaces display an unprecedented degree of technical
refinement, and epitomize purity and grace.
The culmination of more than four decades of work, the
Manuale tipografico represents one of historys great est typographical achievements. The Bodoni typeface is still widely used
even today, both in digital media and in print, and meticulous
reprint of Bodonis masterwork gives readers a rare opportunity
to explore the origins of the Bodoni typeface and learn about its
creator.
Duke of Parma gives Bodoni permission to open his own
printing works.The first books to be published are volumes of
Greek, Roman and Italian classics.
Bodoni died in 1813; his widow, Paola Margherita, finished
the book he was working on at the tiem of his death, the Manuale

Scanned Pages from the Manuel of Typography

Tipographico, which was finally published in 1818.

He was a rare example of an early type designer who actually
made some money out of his work; at the height of his success he
was even recieving 300 francs a year from no less than Napoleon
Bonaparte. However, what is now percieved as a general decline
in printing standards in the nineteenth century took its toll on the
fine strokes of Modern face, which explains in part the reaction
printing works.The first books to be published are volumes of
Greek, Roman and Italian classics.
Bodoni died in 1813; his widow, Paola Margherita, finished
the book he was working on at the tiem of his death, the Manuale
Tipographico, which was finally published in 1818.
He was a rare example of an early type designer who actually
made some money out of his work; at the height of his success he
was even recieving 300 francs a year from no less than Napoleon
Bonaparte. However, what is now percieved as a general decline
in printing standards in the nineteenth century took its toll on the
fine strokes of Modern face, which explains in part the reaction
against them. It was only in the twentieth century that Bodoni
experienced a revival.

11

CHROMOLITHOGRAPHY

he chromolithographs is a printing process where

different color separations are printed from a group of
lithographic stones to create a full color image. In the
beginning, a red outline is drawn in red chalk and than the colors
are separated and transferred to the stone. Many chromolithographs were sold for under 10$ in the late 19th century and were
very popular to the middle class family. Louis Prang, a famous
lithographer and publisher, strongly supported the production of
chromolithographs. Heavy oil-based inks ranging in blues and
reds all helped create the effect prevented the colors from fading
over periods of time. These chromolithographs often fool the
human eye; a lot of times people think they are just looking at an
ordinary original oil painting. The quality of these lithographs is
incredible and were often sold door to door Chromolithographs
were most often published by Louis Prang who became the most
successful American publisher of chromolithograph prints after
the Civil War.

8x magnification

Image used with permission of Bamber Gascoigne from his book, How to Identify Prints.

12
Magazine illustration c.1880

Salesmans Christmas card sample c.1885

ORNAMENTAL
TYPEFACE

ecorative is another name used for Ornamental Typeface thats full of colorful and decorative faces that
awaked in the Industrial Revolution. While the type
face is recongnizable it has a touch of embellishing aspects.
There are many aesthetic influences that revolve around the architecture and and exaggerated flowering forms of the Victorian
time people. This style of typeface continued all the way through
19th century and even made its way through the 20th centuray
as well. Ornamental letterforms have many influences and often
reflect from developing in architecture and the graphic arts. Often
times, ornamental has many Victorian characteristics catergorizing it into the groups of Medieval, Egyptian, classical, and even
gothic. The faces are in capital only and are composed of decro

tive forms of foliage, rustic work, human form, and even abstract
forms. Different popular sub catergories in the ornamental type
include Gill Floriated, Castellar, Pepperwood, and Bodoni Classic. Eric Gill drew single characteristics for his Perpetua type
and Gill Floriated fed off the type face in the early 20th century.
Its often times used with Perpetua and is often used with capital
letters. Castellar was created in 1957 by John Peters. It is also all
capitals and is often used with Humanist typefaces.
Kim Buker Chansler, Carol Twombly, Carl Crossgrove created
Pepperwood in the year of 1994 for Adobe. This font is more
extravagant and has many decorative points. Bodoni Classic was
created by Gert Weisher and has decorative floaral faces as well.
It is very similar to Bodonis Fournier.

13

SLAB SERIF
T

he slab serif is a form characteristic that contributes to

the new industrial age emerging with the promotion
and packaging aspect. It was originated in the 18th
century with architecture and sign writing. The slab-serif letterform is reletively new in typogrpahic history. It was invented in a
quite unique way. It was actually created by an English invention
and was first triggered by the need for communication. People
thought it would be easier to read posters, bills, and signs with a
more bold lettering. With the Industrial Revolution and economy
booming with the industries slab serif was very beneficial.
Slab-serif typefaces developed from a large-scale display of
letters that were often used in woodblock letter press printing
and even lettering that was used in architecture. Many different
relief forms including Clarendon and Egyptian were casted in
metal and often appeared in Victorian architecture, projects,
posters, and many other materials that were promotional.
But the big question is what exactly makes up a slab-serif
typeface? Slab-serif is a general term meaning that typefaces
have a square-cut, slab-like serifs. Some different sub catergories
include egyptian, antique, clarendon, and ionic. During the
early nineteenth century, type faces began to really speak and
have their own voice and many slab-serifs including egyptians
and antiques did just that. There are many chacteristic features
to the slab seriftype face that makes it so unique including short

14

descenders, bracketed serifs with square ends, vertical stresses,

and different variations in stroke transitions. In the 1970s and
1980s the letterforms of slab serif developed for uses in typewriters. Slab serif differentiated from many other typefaces, in
which the type face was a solid form and gave much stability
in the width of the letter while using a typewriter. Clarendon
unlike other slab serifs actually have brackits and differentiate
in size in the actual serif creating contrast. Clarendon is very
similar to other designs including Egyptienne with the same
bold and stroke weight. Neo-gortesque has no bracketing and
is weighted evenly with stems and serifs including Rockwell,
Memphis, and Lubalin. The Italienne model have heavier stems
and a more dramatic affect while the the slab serif typefaces are
different in which they have a format with a fixed-width and
every character takes up the same amount of horizontal space.
Because of slab-serifs bold characterists, they are more used
in headlines and are great for advertisments. Very seldom are
slab-serifs are used in body text. One exception to this rule is
to UKs newspaper called, The Guardian, which has the
slab-serif Guardian Egyptian used throughout the the papers
headlines and body.

October 1853 Oxford Auction 02

15

WOODS &
SHARWOODS
W

ood has been used for many letter forms starting

pack in 868 CE and was known as Chinese wood
block prints. In todays world, many wood types are
jsut rubber-stamps, but when they were first created they carved
them out of wood. Many types that were carved out of metal
often time created uneven surfaces and would actually break
during the cooling process. Carving the letters out of wood
allowed the letter to be bigger as well giving it more availability to create promotional items, advertisements, etc. Wood
was light, efficiant, less expensive than metal, and had great
printing qualities. The first published woodtype was made
in the year of 1827 by Darius Wells of New York. The usual
steps to creating the wood type was to first draw the letter on
the wood and then cut around the letter. To make this process easier, Wells came up with the invention that helped the
designer gain more control while cutting while decreasing the
time it took. This invention was called the lateral router and
often referred to as the Wells router. There were many other
different designers that designed and helped manufacture
wood type as well. Edwin Allen helped the woodtype production by inveint a pantograph-router that allowed independent
cut-typing. He had his own shop in South Windham, North

16

Carolina. John Cooley later took over Edwins shop and was
eventually renamed Tubbs Manufacturing Company that
was moved to Ludington, Michigan. The business was sold
to Hamilton Mfg Co in 1899. The manufacturing of wood
type took a major leap in 1880 when the holly wood type
was introduced. Hamilton had major economic advantages
due to this introduction and led him to gain different machinery to create type and using different methods. Wood-cut
has came a long ways sing the 1800s and has been evident in
the type history. It was invention that created so many advantages for the design world and has made a big impact on art.

Photograph by Olivia Konert

17

Portrait of Rob Roy Kelly (from the back flap of American Wood Type: 18281900, 1969 Van Nostrand Reinhold hardcover edition)

ROB ROY KELLY

he Rob Roy Kelly Wood Type Collection was manufactured

and used for printing during the 19th century. Rob Roy Kelly
was a design educator, collector and historian collected wood
type from many of his students at the Minneapolis College of Art
& Design. He first pubished his research that he had gathered on
the different woodtypes in the year of 1963. It was published in
the issue of Design Quarterly and then proceeded to be published
in American Wood Types, Volume One. His work was all accumulated
and published in the final book titled, American Wood Type: Notes
on the Evolution of Decorated and Large Types and Comments on Related
Trades of the Period. Later in his life Rob Roy Kelly sold the collection to Dr. Bernard Karpel, the head librarian of The Museum
of Modern Art due to Rob Roy Kelly being unable to maintain
the large collection. Kelly has published over 100 faces with many

18

decorative type as well. His collection remains available to many

students and scholars and even is available on current website that
was launched to dedicate the collection. The collection is made
up of over 160 faces including the most popular of the 1800s,
they range in size and styles.

Page 5 from the American Wood Type Mfg. Co. Catalog No 36

19

Fold-out of fat face from the 1825 Fann Street Foundry type specimen book at the Butler Library. (Source: Daily Type Specimen)

Backslanted italic fat face from the 1815 Figgins type specimen at Butler Library. (Source: Daily Type Specimen)
English Battledore published by William Davison in 1830.

Fold-out of fat face from the 1825 Fann Street Foundry type specimen book at the Butler Library. (Source: Daily Type Specimen)

20

FAT FACE

he Fat Face types were inspired by modern fonts and typically were used to grab the
viewers att ention with its large size. It was also very

common to use fat facesfor advertising. It first appeared in

1810 and have characterists of slab verticals and a wedge shape.
There are many different typfaces that are categorized under
Fat Face including Bodoni Ultra, Normande, and Elephant.
It is believed that Robert Thorne created the first type face for
the purpose of posters and broadsheets. This brought a change
in the way books and advertisments were sold. In the 1800s
posters were often times used to promote lotteries and using
the big, bold, heavy, loud characteristics that Fat Faces had
helped encourage the production. Not only were they used for
advertisements and posters, they were also used as title pages
for brochures, news pamphlets, and ballads. During the time
that Thorne created the first Fat Face, a lot of disoveries
and inventions was being discovered in Europe a long with an
enormous amount of trade. Given what was all going on during
this time period, Thornes improved type face was incredibly
successful.

Five-Line pica n 5, Thorowgood, 1821. St Bride Printing Library.

21

CONDENSED &
EXTRA CONDENSED
W

hat exactly is Condensed font? The difference

between condensed and regualr is that condensed
font has two set-widths that are more narrow and
are the majority of the time taller than wide. There are millions of fonts that have condensed and extra condensed varitions but some popular fonts include Bernard Condensed,
Franklin Gothic Condensed, Gill Sans Condensed, and Liberation Sans Narrow. The main goal of why Condensed and
Extra Condensed were invented was to do one simple thing,
save space. In a lot of different publicantions, headlines, title
pages, posters, etc. Condensed and Extra Condensed are
used in order to save the designer more space. There are
many advantages to condensing the font and many disadvantages as well. Yes, it saves room on the page but it can also
create misleading information. Sometimes when designers
up the font size while using a condensed font it often creates
the legibility of the writing to decrease. They create a really
unique style and are great in small quanity but when used
to much they might create distortions in the text and are not
as effective. Condensend fonts are hard to pair with other
type faces when not thought out thoroughly. They can also
cause problems when a designeris working with color. With

22

the thin strokes its often hard to read when the color on the
backgroud is not contrasted well enough. They were created
for a reason though and they do have some great advantages
as well. They can add a huge amount of effectiveness when
used in headers that have very few letters and they can add
to make a great element to a design piece especially when the
piece is looked at more for the element rather than to comprehend and read information. Its a great variation of font
when it is used standing alone rather in a body of text. Like
all things, condensed and extra condensed letters have their
pros and cons but over all the variation has made a positive
impact in the design world.

23

OTTMAR MERGENTHALER
and the Linotype Machine

ttmar Mergenthaler (1854-1899) invented the Linotype

machine, the first widely used typesetting machine.
This machine removed the necessity of handsetting type and greatly increased the efficiency of publication.
Originally from Hachtel, Germany, Mergenthaler emigrated to
the United States when he was 18. He found employment at
his cousins machine shop and it was there, in 1876, a customer
asked him to make improvements to a prototype typesetting
machine. Mergenthaler moved far beyond the original scope
of the project and premiered the Linotype machine at the New
York Tribune in 1886. The machine itself was reportedly named
by Tribune editor Whitelaw Reids exclamation Ottmar, youve
done it! A line o type.
The linotype machine was based on the use of small brass
matrixes with concave impressions of letterforms. These matrices
were precisely deployed from vertical tubes based on operation
from a 90 key typewriter. Once a line of type was completed,
lead was poured into the arranged letters to create a single slug
of raised type. After completion, the matrices were automatically
returned to their appropriate magazines for reuse. The typesetter
could arrange the next line of type while the first was being cast.
Text was automatically justified and the linotype could cast lines
up to thirty picas in length
The Linotype could do the work of seven to ten hand
typesetters and its introduction initially lead to strikes and labor
disputes as highly skilled hand-typesetters became obsolete.
Despite this, the linotype ultimately caused a boom in the
publishing industry with employment rising to meet demand.
The price of newspapers declined and their page count increased
dramatically. Book publication greatly expanded allowing
publishers to explore niche genres. Linotypes stayed in wide use
until the 1960s and 1970s when they were replaced by phototypesetting and computers.

24

Above: Ottmar Mergenthaller

Below: The linotype machine

TOLBERT LANSTON
and the Monotype Machine

olbert Lanston (1844-1913) invented the Monotype

typesetting system which cast single characters from hot
metal. The monotype debuted in 1887. The monotype
was composed of a keyboard and a typecaster. The operator
used the keyboard to generate a perforated paper strip. The strip
was loaded into the typecaster were compressed air was driven
through the punched holes to determine the type to be cast. Hot
metal was forced into matrices and then assembled in galleys after
cooling. The monotype could generate a maximum line length of
60 picas and cast 150 characters per minute.
Monotype machines had certain advantages over the linotype.
It allowed corrections by changing individual letters instead of
entire lines of text. Monotypes had a larger variety of characters
available for use. As the components of the machine were
separate, text could be generated away from the noise of the
casting machine.

Above: Tolbert Lanston

Below: Monotype keyboard and matrix case arrangement plate

25

THE KELMSCOTT PRESS

of William Morris

The imprint for William Morris Kelmscott Press

The Kelmscott Press edition of Works of Geoffrey Chaucer. Published in 1896, it

included 87 illustrations by Edward Burne-Jones

26

he Kelmscott Press was a private publishing house and

type foundry founded by designer William Morris (18431896) in 1890. Morris had a long and productive career
as an artist, designer, and writer before founding Kelmscott.
Kelmscott was a result of decades of Morris exploration and
analysis of typeface design and printing. Morris had studied
Medieval illuminated manuscripts in 1850s during Oxford
undergrad and in 1860s produced studies for deluxe books in
Medieval style with Pre-Raphaelite artist Edward Burne-Jones.
Morris established a private printing house out of a cottage near
the Kelmscott Manor in Hammersmith, England, and named the
new business Kelmscott Press. Kelmscott produced the highest
quality books with handmade paper similar to 15th century
styles, handcut woodblocks, meticulous initials and borders, and
sourcing excellent vellum and leather for binding. Kelmscott
Press alone created a renaissance of blackletter typeface, with
incunabula Gothic types being adapted into the remarkably
legible Troy typeface. Before being disbanded in 1898, Kelmscott
produced 18,000 volumes of 53 different titles. Morris Kelmscott
Press stimulated a revival of fine book design and printing.
Ironically, this was taken up by the industrial commercial
publishing industry which he had sought to defy. Morris artdecorating firm produced high-quality and stylish furniture which
showed artistic innovation in textiles, glass, paper, and ceramics.
The economic and social disruption of industrialization,
concerned Morris and he sought to show the beauty of applied
design and quality craftsmanship. He was a leader of the
English Arts and Crafts movement and he was heavily involved
in the protection of architectural treasures, condemning false
advertising, and opposing the economic exploitation of the poor.

Auguste and Louis

LUMIRE
L

ouis (1864-1948) and Auguste (1862-1954) Lumire

became pioneers in art and cinema by developing the
Cinmatographe which allowed for motion pictures to
be shown to a large audience.The Lumire brothers were the
sons of Antoine Lumire, a portrait painter who later became
a supplier of photographic materials. After attending technical
school, the brothers worked for their father manufacturing
photographic plates. Inspired by Edisons Kinetoscope, which
could only be viewed by one person, the Lumire brothers
set about developing cameras and projectors specifically for
motion pictures. They patented the Cinmatographe in 1895;
the single machine was a combination camera, projector, and
printer. Using a mechanism similar to a sewing machine,
perforated film was moved along by a claw pulldown. The
machine was hand-cranked and showed film at 16 frames per
second. The first screening was on March 22, 1895 showing 25
seconds of employees leaving the family factory.

Top: Auguste and Louis Lumire

Bottom: A frame of the first motion picture exhibited by the Lumire brothers in 1895

27

ART
NOUVEAU

Henri de Toulouse Lautrecs poster Moulin Rouge: La Goulue (1891)

rt Nouveau was an international artistic movement that

held sway at the turn of the 20th century. Art Nouveau
was a holistic movement encompassing a wide variety of
media: architecture, fashion, product design, ceramics, graphics,
and others. The Art Nouveau style began to emerge in artistic
expositions of the 1880s with inspirations drawn from the Arts
and Crafts movement, Japanese wood block prints, Rococo
architectural revivalism, Symbolism, and Pre-Raphaelite art
styles. The term Art Nouveau itself originated in 1895 in Paris
at Salon de lArt Nouveau, a cutting edge gallery that served
as an international meeting place for young artists. The style
was visually typified by graceful, organic lines, abstract forms,
and arabesques. Unlike the Arts and Crafts movement, Art
Nouveau was more abstract and was willing to embrace mass

28

production instead of react against it. A large number of artists

across many disciplines were part of the art nouveau movement.A
large number of artists across many disciplines were part of
the art nouveau movement. Jules Chret (1836-1932) was a
French painter and lithographer whose Belle poque posters
were an early example of Art Nouveau. Emile Gall (1846-1904)
was a French glass artist whose mass-produced designs were at
the forefront of Art Nouveau. Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939)
was a Czech painter whose depictions of the female form in
posters exemplified the movement and became a standard for
advertisements. Henry Van de Velde (1863-1957) was a Belgian
art theorist and interior designer whose curvilinear style was
archetypal to Art Nouveau. Ren Lalique (1860-1945) was
a French artist who created naturalistic glass art and jewelry.
Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848-1933) was an American artist most
known for his glass work including jewelry and lamps. William
H Bradley (1868-1962) was an American illustrator and artist
who created the typefaces Bradley Type, Wayside Roman, Missal
Initials, Bewick Roman, and Vanity Initials. Henri de ToulouseLautrec (1864-1901) was a French painter and printer who was
influenced by Post-Impressionist art. Theophile Steinlen (18591923) was a Swiss painter and printmaker renowned for his poster
art. In Germany the Art Nouveau style was key to the Jugendstil
movement, the Secession movement in Austria, and Modernsime
in Spain. Art Nouveau had a major influence on art, graphic
design, architecture, and advertising. Elements were further
explored in Art Deco, De Stijl, and Bauhaus.

Packaging designs by Henry van de Velde for Tropon (1898)

Thophile Steinlens poster Tournee du Chat Noir de

Rodolphe Salis (1896)

Right: Alphonse Muchas poster Gismonda(1894)

29

FREDERIC
GOUDY

rederic Goudy (1865-1947) was one of the most prolific

American type designers. His typefaces included Camelot
(his first, developed in 1896), Copperplate Gothic,
Kennerley, and Goudy Old Style. Inspired by the Kelmscott
Press, Goudy pursued a career in typography aspiring to work for
purposes beyond merely commercialism and publicity. Goudys
designs harkened back to the early years of printing and had the
refined edge typical of fine press.
A total of 122 typefaces are attributed to him and this number
does not include typefaces lost when several of his foundries
burned down over the course of his career.

30

Top Left: Frederic Goudy

Bottom: Goudy Oldstyle
Top Right: Imprint of the Inland Printers, one of Goudys publishing houses.

BRUCE
ROGERS

lbert Bruce Rogers (1870-1956) was an influential American

book designer. Disaffected by a career in journalism,
Rogers shifted careers to typographic desgin after seeing
the output of the Kelmscott press. Rogers took this Arts and Crafts
influence with him as a book designer at Riverside Press, a division
of the Houghton Mifflin Company. While at Riverside, e was
responsible for designing 60 high-quality limited editions and the
artistry of his output was compared to Kelmscott itself. In 1912,
Rogers began freelance book design which resulted in some of his
most creative output. It was during this period he designed The
Centaur by Maurice de Guerin which employed Rogers typeface
design Centaur.

The Centaur, Rogers most renowned work

31

BIBLIOGRAPHY
A PublisherS History Of American Magazine Publishing Magazine Growth In The Nineteenth Cen. A Publishers History of American Magazine Publishing Magazine Growth in the Nineteenth Century Part 4: Advertising Trends in the 19th Century (n.d.): n. pag. Web. 13 Apr. 2015
Art Nouveaum. Huntfor.com. 2007. Web. 31 Mar. 2015
Bodoni. Manual of Typography Manuale Tipografico (1818). TASCHEN Books. Bodoni. Manual of Typography Manuale Tipografico (1818). TASCHEN Books. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Apr.
2015.
Carter, Rob, Ben Day, and Philip Meggs. Typographic Design: Form and Communication. 5th Edition. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2012. Print.
Davies, Penelope, et al. Jansons History of Art: The Modern World. 8th Edition. London: Prentice Hall. 2012. Print.
Dennies, Nathan. Ottmar Mergenthaler at 159 West Lanvale Street. Explore Baltimore Heritage. Web. 31 Mar. 2015. http://explore.baltimoreheritage.org/items/show/183
Meggs, Philip, and Alston Purvis. Meggs History of Graphic Design. 5th Edition. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2012. Print.
Drucker, Johanna, and Emily McVarnish. Graphic Design History. 2nd Edition. Boston: Pearson Education, Inc. 2013. Print.
Drucker, Johanna, and Emily McVarnish. Graphic Design History. 2nd Edition. Boston: Pearson Education, Inc. 2013. Print.
In Search of a European Style. Art Nouveau European Route. Web. 31 Mar. 2015. <http://www.artnouveau.eu/pdf/en/intro.pdf>
Meggs, Philip, and Alston Purvis. Meggs History of Graphic Design. 5th Edition. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Print.
Drucker, Johanna, and Emily McVarnish. Graphic Design History. 2nd Edition. Boston: Pearson Education, Inc. 2013. Print.
Frederic W. Goudy. The Typograpthic Archives. 2006. Web. 31 Mar. 2015. <http://www.typographia.org/1999/graphion/goudy.html>
Meggs, Philip, and Alston Purvis. Meggs History of Graphic Design. 5th Edition. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Print.
Drucker, Johanna, and Emily McVarnish. Graphic Design History. 2nd Edition. Boston: Pearson Education, Inc. 2013. Print.
Meggs, Philip, and Alston Purvis. Meggs History of Graphic Design. 5th Edition. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2012. Print.
Elements of Photogravure, Photo Printing from Copper Plates: Screen Photogravure Simply Explained, with Full Working Instructions and an Explanatory Chapter on Modern Rotary Gravure
Printing. Nature 118.2971 (1926): 513. Web. 11 Apr. 2015.
Graphics Atlas: Welcome. Graphics Atlas: Welcome. Web. 19 Apr. 2015.
Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum. Hamilton Wood Type Printing Museum RSS. Web. 19 Apr. 2015.
Herbert, Stephen. Auguste Marie Nicolas Lumire. Whos Who of Victorian Cinema. Web. 31 Mar. 2015. <http://www.victorian-cinema.net/augustelumiere.php>
Hill, Will, and Christopher Perfect. The Complete Typographer: A Manual for Designing with Type. 2nd ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Person Prentice Hall, 2005. Print.
Louis Prang, Father of the American Christmas Card - New-York Historical Society. NewYork Historical Society RSS. 18 Dec. 2012. Web. 20 Apr. 2015.
Lumire brothers. Earlycinema.com. Web. 31 Mar. 2015.
Meggs, Philip, and Alston Purvis. Meggs History of Graphic Design. 5th Edition. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2012. Print.
Ottmar Mergenthaler. Zion Baltimore. Web. 31 Mar. 2015. <http://www.zionbaltimore.org/history_people_mergenthaler.htm>
The University of Texas at Austin. The University of Texas at Austin. Web. 19 Apr. 2015.
Tympanus. Tympanus. Web. 19 Apr. 2015.
The Rise of Advertisement and American Consumer Culture. The Rise of Advertisement and American Consumer Culture. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Apr. 2015.
The Story of Our Friend, the Fat Face. - Fonts In Use. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Apr. 2015.
Type Specimens from the Vincent Figgins Type Foundry 1815. Type for You. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Apr. 2015.
William Caslon IV | Typophile. William Caslon IV | Typophile. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Apr. 2015.

Table of Contents
Typographic Time-line: 1853-1959
Arts & Crafts Movement
Contributions of William Morris
History of the Grid
Modern Typography by Jan Tschichold
Lettering by Edward Johnston
Herbert Bayer: Alphabet

BY JORDAN GEISERT, HUY TRAN, MORGAN BRUGGEMAN

A Brief History
Typography in the 1800s-1960s

There is a broad range of events that shaped the

typographic history from the 1850s to the 1960s.
In the 1850s we see the volume and variety of
printed media changing dramatically as print
technology progressed, which broadened the
range of type, images, and production methods
available to graphic design and typography.
During the 1880s, the impulse to return to craft
traditions evolved, which is referred to as the
Arts & Crafts movement.

Later in the early 1900s, modernism begins to
become popular in design and typography, lead by
the new approaches to form. Modern designers
embraces functionalism, geometric formalism,
and machine aesthetics. Jan Tschichold wrote
a book on New Typography, advocating for a
sole purpose of communication when it comes to
typography.

Typography

18501960s
T i m e l i n e

1853 1854
Handbill combining
Egyptian, outline, and
decorative types

Broadside using
elongated Fat Face
fonts

1887 1890 1892

Tolbert Lanston
invents the monotype

Golden Typeface, by
William Morris

William Morris
Kelmscott Press
Launches a revival
of printing and
typography

1867 1880 1886

Christopher Stoles
constructs the first
practical typewriter

Lettering printed by
choromolithography
chromolithography

Ottmar Mergenthaler
invents the Linotype,
the first keyboard
typesetting machine

1892 1893
Troy Typeface, by
William Morris

Chauncer Typeface, by
William Morris

1890 1897 1909

Inspired by Kelmscott,
Americans; Frederick
Goudy and Bruce
Rodgers bring renewed
excellence to book and
typeface design

Will Bradley, title page

in his Chap Book
style, reviving Caslon
type and colonial
woodcut techniques

Filippo Marinetti
founds Futurism,
experimentation with
typographic form and
syntax

1930
Chrysler Building, an
example of Art Deco
decorative geometric
style

1910 1925
Invention of German
sans-serif Block
Style

Herbert Bayer,
universal alphabet

1930 1959 1959

Paul Renner,
prospectus for Futura

Otto Storch, figurative

typography

Gerald Holton creates

the Peace Symbol

Arts & Crafts Movement

Standing for traditional craftsmanship using decorative forms.

etween the 1880s and 1910,

a new art movement was
born out of the industrial
revolution and craze of mass
production. Industrialism had
brought the gap between form and
surface and production methods into
focus. It has been suggested that the
Arts and Crafts movment, in Britain,
in particular was inspired by the desire
to produce beautiful things and thrive
on a hatred of modern civilization.
This movement derived from two
important sources, that of A.W.N.
Pugin and John Ruskin. Each were
important to the philosophical
elements, Pugin promoted the
Gothic Revival in his early writings
and Ruskin with his advocation for
medieval architecture with great
craftsmanship and quality materials.
Note that William Morris, who
believed that industrialization created
a large gap between the designer and
manufacturer, found his inspiration
through the work of Ruskin.
The Arts and Crafts movement
did not promote a particular style,
but it did advocate reform as part
of its philosophy and instigated a
critique of industrial labor; as modern

William Morris design for Trellis wallpaper, 1862

www.digitaljournal.com

machines replaced workers, Arts and

Crafts proponents called for an end
to the division of labor and advanced
the designer as craftsman.
According to Alan Crawfords
Ideas and Objects: The Arts and Crafts
Movement in Britain, there are two
arguments with admirable clarity to
describe the design of the movement,
Design serves to express ideas, and
that it shifts our perceptions of the
world. The other is that design is the
late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries was preoccupied with the
experince and modernity.
In time the English Arts and
Crafts movement came to stress
craftsmanship at the expense of
mass market pricing. The result was
exquisitely made and decorated pieces
that could only be afforded by the
very wealthy. So the idea of art for
the people was lost, and only relatively
few craftsman could be employed
making these fine pieces. This evolved
English Arts and Crafts style came
to be known as Aesthetic Style.
It shared some characteristics with
the French/Belgian Art Nouveau
movement.

Owen Jones, The Grammar

of Ornament, 1865
www.panteek.com

The Nature of Gothic by John

Ruskin, printed by William Morris at
the Kelmscott Press, 1892
en.wikipedia.org

10

Morris

illiam Morris, the speaker on behalf of the

Arts & Crafts Movement in Britain. Apart
from the desire to produce beautiful things,
the leading passion of my life has been and is hatred of
modern civilization, remarked May Morris.
Morris delivered lectures in many British towns and
cities in the 1870s, 1880s, and 1890s., which were
later published for the first time in 1882 in a collection
entitled, Hopes and Fears for Art.
Below is an excerpt from his book,
sever them from those lesser so-called Decorative
Arts, which I have to speak about: it is only in latter
times, and under the most intricate conditions of life,
that they have fallen apart from one another; and I
hold that, when they are so parted, it is ill for the Arts
altogether: the lesser ones become trivial, mechanical,
unintelligent, incapable of resisting the changes pressed
upon them by fashion or dishonesty; while the greater,
however they may be practised for a while by men of
great minds and wonder-working hands, unhelped by
the lesser, unhelped by each other, are sure to lose their
dignity of popular arts, and become nothing but dull
adjuncts to unmeaning pomp, or ingenious toys for a
few rich and idle men.

11

William Morris
en.wikipedia.org

12

History of The Grid

History from 1850s:

hen Industrial
beginning to take over
the economy, graphic
design was born. With this come
the rise of poster, flyer, all kind of
advertising, newspaper, magazine
Later photographs were included in
the design, along with typefaces. This
had cause problems for printers and
compositions, which were struggling
to layout these contents.
In the late nineteenth century, artist
realized this is a problem. William
Morris and the Arts and Crafts
movement is the predecessor of this
aspect. Morris believed that form
and function really go together. The
problem sound like the one that
Picasso and Braque had, which is
presenting 3d object on 2d canvas.
Designer and artists then created
competition based on this work.
Early twentieth art movements all
had an influence on the development
of the grid. Artist and designer
aware of the industrialized age, with
quicker transportation and faster
communication. They started to
broke conventional rule of word,
by introduce the extreme variation

13

of word, ignore the x and y axis

of type. Space was used as one of
the component to help with the
typography. This idea opened the
door to de Stijl , the Bauhaus and Jan
Tschichold.

De Stijl, and the Bauhaus.

An architect, painter and designer
Theo van Doesburg found De Stijl
in 1917. The importance of this
movement is that it experience with
form with function, and used it in
political context. The movement
consist rectangular form and limited
color scheme. Designers in the de Stijl
movement want to use these design
principle in real world.
In 1919, the Bauhaus was open in
Weimar, Germany. Architect Walter
Gropius was a director of the school.
Gropius believed that all the arts and
design principal were related to each
other. Long after the Nazis closed
the school in 1930s, Gropiuss believe
still have impact on graphic and
typography design. In an amazingly
short time, graphic designers were
able to combine analytical skills with
abstract forms to mass produced in
order to convey ideal political ideal.

This spread and throw-out is from Jan Tschicholds seminal work Asymmetric Typography, originally published in 1935. In it Tschichold argued that
typographic consistency is a necessary precursor to understanding, and described designers as akin to engineers. His work was nevertheless aesthetically
refined and dynamic. Here he explains the parallels between abstract art and typographic layout. www.graphics.com
www.graphics.com
The ingenuity
of the A paper
sizing system
appeals to
designers who
are interested
in modular
approaches to
design. For the
true modernist,
working with
standard paper
sizing is more
economic and
celebrates mass
production. But,
for designers who
want to usurp the
system, there are
countless ways
to subdivide the
sheet sizes to
arrive at more
unusual formats.
- www.graphics.
com

This is the one

from the page of
Futurist magazine
Lacerba, published in 1914.
The work was
breaking from the
last layout design,
by follow the
new development
from the grid.
The page seems
chaotic, but it is
intentional. This
crated opportunity for a better
system to develop.
www.graphics.
com

14

Having started the journal Octavo, designers 8vo edited and designed it from the mid 1980s to the early 1990s. The design often explored systematic
and modular approaches, but in issue 7 the designers chose to reveal their methods by giving the grid coordinates, like a map, and printing it as a
background to each page. - www.graphics.com

15

Dutch designer Wim

Crouwel is known for
his exploration and
experimentation with
grids. In this poster for the
Vormgevers exhibition in
1968, he made the grid visible.
This device then formed the
basis not only for the layout,
but also for the lettering.
- www.graphics.com

The Swiss designer Karl Gerstners 1962

grid for the periodical Capital is near perfect.
His unit, both horizontally and vertically, was
10ptthe baseline to baseline measurement of
the text type. The type area was a square of 58
units. Allowing for intercolumn spaces, this gave
Gerstner grids of two, three, four, five, and six
columns and fields. - www.graphics.com

Several post-War Swiss designers are the best-known exponents of the grid. This spread is from Josef Mller-Brockmanns Grid Systems in
Graphic Design, in which he explains, in meticulous detail, how multicolumn and field-based grids can be used flexibly to achieve any number of
different layouts, in both 2-D and 3-D work. - -

16

Jan Tschichold

he 20th century was greatly influenced by the designer Jan Tschichold.

Not only did he introduce new approaches to typography, he set
standards for modern design with his books and ideas. Tschicholds
background in calligraphy was very helpful in his upbringing, as well as
influences gathered from the Bauhaus movement, and modernism. Although
many found Tschicholds work inspiring, he came across a rough patch in
Germany with the Nazi regime however found a way to continue creating
typographic and design work.
Jan Tschichold was born in Leipzig, Germany to Franz and Maria Tschichold
on April 2, 1902. Franz Tschicholds occupation as a sign painter and
calligrapher becomes very beneficial to his sons future as a designer.
Tschichold became familiarized with painted lettering and calligraphy at a
young age with the help of his father. Not only was he acquainted with letter
painting; he was also familiar with the art of the book. Tschichold spent
countless hours studying civilizations of the past and the story of books and
lettering at an exhibition of the history of civilization at the Hall of Culture.
Although he was skilled in letter painting, and was full of knowledge on the art
of the book, his aspirations were to become an artist. His parents were very
skeptical about Tschicholds dream job due to the work field being unstable
and uncertain. Compromising with his parents, he would attend the Teacher
Training College at Grimma to become a teacher of drawing.
Tschichold however did not forget about the study of lettering, he continued
it in his free time. Within his studies he realized that there was a need for new
typefaces and better letter forms. He then found himself becoming more
attracted to the idea of becoming a type designer. Tschichold then received
consent from his parents to become a type designer. It was decided that
after attending the school in Grimma for 3 years, he would then continue his
education at the Academy for the Graphic Arts and the Book Production
Trade at Leipzig.

17

Jan Tschichold in 1920

www.linotype.com

18

www.linotype.com

When attending the Weimar Bauhaus

Exhibition, Tschichold came to
believe that abandoning the rule
that setting must be symmetrical
was the only way to recreate interest
in typography. Tschichold also
thought that san serif typefaces
were universal for any type of
job. In Jan Tschicholds manifesto,
Typographische Mitteilungen, he
stated the following principles of
typography in his book.

Single-Alphabet Type Designed by Jan Tschichold in 1929

Jan Tschichold in 1962

pmcinto5.wordpress.com

19

Principles of Typography
1. The new typography is purposeful.
2. The purpose of all typography is communication.
Communication must be made in the shortest, simplest, most
definite way.
3. For typography to perform its social function, there must be
organization of its component parts, both internal (i.e. content) and
external (consistent use of printing methods and materials).
4. Internal organization is restriction to the basic elements of
typography: letters figures, signs, lines of type set by hand and by
machine.
20

Die Neue Typography

an Tschichold wrote his first book Die neue Typographie in 1928. This
book was written in dogmatic tones that he later regretted. However
Tschicholds book conveyed a strong message, he was insisting on
simplicity and purity in design. Tschichold eventually abandoned his rigid
beliefs around 1932 and said Die neue Typographie is too extreme, then
steered back to classicism. He also claimed that modernist design in general
was authoritarian and fascistic.
In 1933, Tschichold had much of his work seized by the Gestapo during the
Nazi regime. The Nazis accused Tschichold of creating un-german artwork,
and were suspicious of him being in collaboration with the communists. Him
and his wife were then arrested. After 6 weeks, a police officer got him and
his family tickets to Switzerland, and him and his family escaped from Nazi
Germany in August, 1933.

21

22

www.pinterest.com

http://36.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mbi0z5CZNp1qiryaxo1_1280.jpg

23

Drawings for Sabon

spenceralley.blogspot.com

an Tschichold is well known for

the design of Penguin Books.
While working with the company
he standardized practice for creating
the covers that were to go on all of
the Penguin Books, and color-coded
genres. Tschichold oversaw more
than 500 books during his career
at Penguin Books. Another thing
Tschichold is greatly known for is
creating the type face Sabon in 1967.
He created Sabon to meet specific

technical requirements. The typeface

was commissioned by a group
of German master printers. The
requirements were that it should be
suitable for production, it had to be
easy and pleasant to read, and wanted
the style to be similar to Garamond
however 5% narrower. This typeface
then became a distinguished addition
to the range of modern book faces.

24

pixgood.com

Edward Johnston

dward Johnston was born

in San Jos, Uraguay on
February 11, 1872. Edward
Johnston was a type designer,
calligrapher, author, and teacher. He
studied medicine at the University of
Edinburgh. In 1898 he obtains his Ph.
D. after which he moves to London
and tudies ancient writing techniques
in the British Museum.
In 1906 Johnston determined
Essential characters on ancient
roman inscriptions while deriding
commercial lettering. Johnston
accepted the decoration of
medieval-inspired forms. Edward
Johnston deeply warned against the
dangers of exaggeration of type.
Edward Johnston was inspired by

25

the 19th Century arts and crafts

movement. Johnston referred to
the renaissance and middle ages for
pure, uncorrupted letter forms. He
considered this love for pure letter
forms as him being romantically
attached to history.
From 18991913 Edward Johnston
taught at the Central School of
Arts and Crafts in London in the
new lettering department. In 1906
his book Writing and Illuminating
and Lettering is published, causing
something of a renaissance for
calligraphy. It is considered the most
influential book on calligraphy ever
written.

Edward Johnstons Wrting & Illuminating

Lettering.
www.amazon.es

26

kwerlejek.soup.io

Herbert Bayer

luc.devroye.org

erbert Bayer was an

Austrian and American
graphic designer and artist.
He is most recognized as a member
of the Bauhaus. In between Herbert
Bayers time at the Bauhaus and his
career in America he spent time as
the Art Director of Vogue magazines
Berlin office. His contributions to the
fields of graphic design, typography
and advertising were numerous
and extremely impacting. A major
accomplishment that should be noted
was his design for a typeface that
consisted of entirely lowercase letters.
The German black letter types were
overly ornate for his taste and their
use of capital letter for every proper
noun was annoying. Logically, Bayer
developed a sans-serif alphabet of
lowercase letters titled Universal.

elojoenelcielo.wordpress.com

Herbert Bayers Univeral typeface

www.galleryhip.com

27

28

Bibliography
Crawford, Alan. Ideas and Objects: The Arts and Crafts Movement in Britain. MIT
Press, 1997. Print.
Morris, William. Hopes and Fears for Art. London: Ellis & White, 1882. Print.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Web. 2015.
Art, Design, and Visual Thinking. The Arts and Crafts Movement. 1995. Print.
Drucker, Johanna.. McVarish, Emily. Graphic Design History: A Critical Guide.
2012. Print.
Pioneers of Modern Typography. New York: Hastings House, 1970. Print.
Tschichold, Jan. Jan Tschichold: Typographer. Bedford Square: Lund
Humphries Limited, 1975. Print.
Roberts, Lucienne. A Brief History of Grids. Graphics.com. Mediabistro
Inc., 2008. Web. 09 Apr. 2015.
Design Is History. Web. 9 Apr. 2015. <http://www.designishistory.
com/1920/herbert-bayer/>.
Web. 9 April. 2015. <http://www.linotype.com/733/edwardjohnston.
html>
29

THE LATE 20TH CENTURY

1960-1990

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Helvetica

00

Max Miedinger

00

Akzidens Grotesk

00

Armin Hofmann

00

Basel School of Design

00

Saul Bass

00

Paul Rand

00

Herb Lubalin

00

Wolfgang Weingart

00

Karl Gerstner

00

Gerald Holtom

00

Emil Rider

00

Wim Crouwel

00

Zuzana Licko

00

Rudy Vanderlans

00

Emigre Magazine

00

The Rise of Digital Communication

00

Evolution of Mac

00

Neville Brody

00

Phillipe Apeloig

00

HELVETICA

A Timeless Typeface

ABOVE: The differences between

Helvetica and Arial, a somewhat
simliar sans-serif typeface.
(webdesignerdepot.com)
ABOVE RIGHT: Max Miedinger
works in his studio.
(designculture.it)
FAR RIGHT: Pro Arte, a condensed
slab-serif typeface created by Max
Miedinger in 1954, 3 years before
Helvetica was created.
(luc.devroye.org)

Helvetica one of the worlds most

frequently-used typefaces is a
sleek, neutral and modern sans-serif
that will never age. Created with
readability in mind, Helvetica has
a very uniform line width as well as
straight edges that lie only along the
x and y axis. Today, Helvetica can be
found on almost every computer in
the world.
Helvetica was created in the Swiss
town of Mnchenstein in 1957 when
Eduard Hoffmann commissioned Max
Miedinger to create a new typeface
for the Stempel type foundry.
Miedinger first gave this typeface
the name Neue Haas Grotesk, which
means New Haas Sans Serif.
The Haas type foundry was a branch

of the Stempel type foundry, but since

Stempel would be the one releasing
the typeface, they thought the name
would be too confusing.
The two foundries worked together
to form a new name for the newly
created typeface. They decided on
the name Helvetica, which came
from the Latin word for Switzerland:
Helvetia.
Helvetica soon became a staple
typeface for many modern companies
including BMW, American Airlines,
American Apparel, Jeep, JCPenney,
Lufthansa, Orange, Target, Microsoft,
Mitsubishi Electric, Toyota, Motorola,
Panasonic, Apple, Intel, Nestl,
Kawasaki and Verizon Wireless.

MAX MIEDINGER
Max Miedinger was born on
December 24, 1910, in Zurich,
Switzerland, where he also died on
March 8, 1980. At 16, Miedenger
worked as an apprentice for
Jacques Bollmann at a book printing
company, after which he attended
the School of Arts and Crafts.
Miedenger was a graphic designer
as well as a typographer. Miedinger
worked at advertising company,
Globe, for 10 years until he started
working for the Haas type foundry.
Miedinger created his first typeface,
a condensed slab serif called Pro
Arte, in 1954. Soon after, Miedinger
created Helvetica, followed by his
final typeface, Horizontal.

Akzidenz Grotesk is a typeface very

similar to Helvetica. It is rumored
that the modern typeface, Didot,
was based on this 19th-century
typeface, because if the serifs were
removed from Didots letterforms, its
proportions would be very similar to
Akzidenz Grotesk.
Thought to be created around 1880,
Akzidenz Grotesk was unchanged
until Berthold Gnter Gerhard Lange
added 33 new styles. The typeface
was still the same, but this update
provided more versatility within its
variations. In 2006, Berthold once
again added more styles and released
Akzidenz Grotesk Pro.
Many confuse Akzidenz Grotesk with
Helvetica and Univers, because all
three typefaces are sans serif-style
with very similar proportions.

ARMIN
HOFMANN

One of the greatest graphic design

teachers of his time, Armin Hofmann was
born June 29, 1920. His first teaching
job was at The Basel School of Arts and
Crafts, where he began teaching at 26
years old. Soon after, he followed the
head of the graphic design department
to the Basel School of Design.
Hofmann is known for creating the Swiss
Style design method and for being one
of the most unorthodox teachers in all
of graphic design.
Hofmann designed everything from
books to stage sets, exhibitions to
posters and, of couse, typography,
Hofmanns posters were so beautiful
that they were often exhibited in the
New York Museum of Modern Art.
In 1965, Hofmann wrote a textbook
called The Graphic Design Manual.
This textbook is widely used still today,
showing how modern Hofmanns line of
thinking was.

LEFT: (madalinatantareanu.wordpress.com)
BOTTOM LEFT: (luc.devroye.org)
BELOW: (asiancorrespondent.com)
ABOVE: (swissdesignawards.ch)

BASEL SCHOOL OF DESIGN

The Basel School of design
was opened in 1968 by Armin
Hofmann, Emil Ruder, Kurt Hauert
and Wolfgang Weingart. Known
for its modern graphic design
teaching techniques, the schools
mission was to lay a strong and
broad foundation for the major
design disciplines.
The school educated famous
designers such as Kenneth
Hiebert, April Greiman, Robert
Probst, Steff Geissbuhler, HansUlrich Allemann, Inge Druckrey
and the late Dan Friedman. Many
are now also educators.

SAUL BASS

A well-known designer from Bronx,

New York, Saul Bass was born May
8, 1920 and died April 25, 1996.
He was well known for his title
sequences in movies, movie posters
and logo design.
Bass was the first to ever design a
title sequence and even today his
work is still considered the best.
Basss first title sequence was
Otto Premingers The Man with the
Golden Arm (1955).
Bass was known for not being afraid
to push the boundaries.

Design is thinking
made visual.
Saul Bass

Bass created hundreds of movie

posters throughout his life. His style
was most notable because movie
posters of that age were usually an
iconic scene from the movie. Bass,
however, created simple symbols to
represent the movie and used a very
cutout-like design approach. Some
of his most notable posters were for
the movies Vertigo, West Side Story,
Schindlers List, The Shining and The
Man with The Golden Arm.
Bass designed many logos for
companies such as Quaker Oats,
AT&T Corporation, Dixie, Continental
Airlines, Girls Scouts, United Airlines,
and Warner Communications.

A selection of posters designed by

Saul Bass.
(tdylf.com, saulbassposterarchive.
com, thefoxisblack.com,
thecreatorsproject.com, wikipedia.
org)
FAR LEFT: Saul Bass in his studio.
Bass was knownfor not being afriad
to push boundaries.
(saulbassposterarchive.com)

Art in any form is a projected

emotion using visual tools.
Paul Rand

Paul Rand (also known as Peret

Rosenbaum) was born on August
15, 1914. He went to college at the
Pratt Institute from 1929 until 1932,
the Parsons School of Design from
1932 until 1933, and the Art Students
League from 1933 until 1934.
Rands first job was to create stock
images for a syndicate that supplied
graphics for newspapers and
magazines. He was influenced by the
German advertising style Sachplakat

PAUL RAND

(ornamental poster) as well as the

graphic designer Gustav Jensen.
Rand was granted full artistic
freedom for the covers of Direction
magazine, but was not paid for his
work. His page designs were the
initial source for his reputation.
Rand is known for his corperate
logos, starting with his design for
the IBM logo in 1956. He helped
establish the Swiss Style of graphic
design and was inducted into the

New York Art Directors Club Hall of

Fame in 1972. Rand died of cancer
in 1996.
ABOVE: Various corporate identities
created by Paul Rand, including
ABC, IBM, Westinghouse and UPS.
(www-03.ibm.com, logos.wikia.com,
imgkid.com, www.paul-rand.com,
www.logoeps.net)

HERB LUBALIN

Herb Lubalin was born 1918 in

New York City and graduated from
the Cooper Union School of Art
and Architecture in 1939.
In 1945, he became the creative
director and vice-president of
Sudler & Henessey and directed
their design organization, Sudler
Hennessey & Lubalin. Several
years later, in 1963, Lubalin was
awarded the Clio for the best
television commercial.

In 1964, he created his own design

firm, Herb Lubalin, Inc. He gained
two partners in 1968 and changed
his design firm to Lubalin, Smith,
Carnase, Inc. A year later, he joined
with Etienne Delessert to establish
a book production and publishing
venture, Good Books, Inc.
With Aaron Burns, he established a
typographic agency called Lubalin,
Burns & Co., Inc. In the same year,
he created a London studio with

Douglas Maxwell, Lubalin Maxwell.

Lubalin died in 1981.
ABOVE: Herb Lubalin is known for
designing the typeface Avant Garde.
(www.telegraphics.com)

WOLFGANG
WEINGART

Wolfgang Weingart was born in the

Salem Valley, Germany in 1941. He
attended a two-year program at the
Merz Academy in Stuttgart in 1958.
After graduating, he applied for an
apprenticeship as a typesetter at
Ruwe Printing, where he met KarlAugust Hanke, who would become a
mentor for Weingart.
After this three-year apprenticeship,
Hanke encouraged Weingart to attend
the Basel School of Design, and in
1964, he enrolled as an independent
student.
At 27 years old, Weingart was invited
to conduct a typography class at
Basel.
LEFT Several of Wolfgang Weingarts
books. (www.vangeva.com,
clementinecarriere.wordpress.com,
galleryhip.com,
flyergoodness.blogspot.com)
RIGHT: Portrait of Karl Gerstner.
(www.swissdesignawards.ch)

Typography
fostered the
modern idea of
individuality, but
it destroyed the
medieval sense of
community and
integration.
Wolfgang Weingart

KARL GERSTNER

Karl Gerstner was born in Basel in

1930. He went to Basel School of
Arts and Crafts and apprenticed at
the studio of the advertising designer
Fritz Bhler.
Gerstner was very fortunate and got
to visit Cassandre in Paris and got to
know Tschichold in Basel. He took a
photography course in Zurich with
Hans Finsler. He met Max Bill and
Alfred Roth, who edited the monthly
Werk. Roth gave Gerstner a whole
issue of the magazine to edit and
design at 25 years old.

Gerstners design was presented as

a logical development of Modernism.
He used a complex grid for the varying
proportions. Gerstner published his
first book in 1957. In 1959, Markus
Kutter and Gerstner established their
own design office and published
another book. Their design office grew
into a large advertising agency and
moved the main office in Dsseldorf.
By the Beginning of the 1970s,
Gerstner when into semi retirement.
In the 1990s, the agency was bought
by a public relations agency, Trimedia.

GERALD
HOLTOM

Gerald Holtom was a designer from

West London who objected World
War II. He advised the Direct Action
Committee Against Nuclear War that
their impact would be greater if they
had a visual symbol. Haltom created
the Ban the Bomb symbol which
used letters from the semaphore
alphabet and a circle to symbolize the
world. The design was taken by the
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.
The U.S. adopted the symbol during
the anti-Vietnam movement to use it
as a peace symbol. (LEFT)

EMIL
RUDER

Emil Ruder was born din Zurich

and when he was fifteen he too
a compositors apprenticeship.
In his twenties he attended the
Zurich School of Arts and crafts.
He eventually became a teacher in
1947 for typography at the Basel
School of Design. He and Armin
Hoffman developed a system for
objectivity in design instead of the
subjective, style-driven typography
of the past. He pushed for precision,
proportions, and the role of legibility
and communication with type.
Ruder was know to take only two to
three students per year.He published
his book Typographie in 1967 with
his concepts, experiments, and
philosophies.
LEFT: Typographie, by Emil Ruder.
(designers-books.com)

WIM CROUWEL

Wim Crouwel was born 1928 in

Groningen. He studied fine art at
Minerva Academy and after two
years of military service, he moved to
Amsterdam in 1951. Crouwel worked
for an exhibition company learning
from Dick Ellfers, then established
his own studio with Kho Lian le. He
took night classes at the Academy
for Applied Arts and in 1954, he

met Edy de Wilde the director of

the Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum.
De Wilde made Crowel the sole
designer for the museum. Crowel
created a grid-based methodology
for the museum, which he used from
1963-1985. In 1985, he became a
director a a museum in Rotterdam
until he retired in 1993.

LEFT: a poster designed by Wim Crouwel for the Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum.
(mrmac7.wordpress.com)
ABOVE: A portrait of Wim Crouwel.
(blog.soton.ac.uk)

EMIGRE

MAGAZINE
ZUZANA LICKO

RUDY VANDERLANS

EMIGRE

Born in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia in

1961, Zuzana Licko emigrated to the
U.S. at 7 years old. Although she doesnt
remember much of her childhood before
moving to the U.S. in 1968, Licko said
her background has given her a different
perspective and a tendency to question
things.
Licko entered the University of California
at Berkeley as an architecture student,
where she met her future husband,
Rudy VanderLans, who was studying
photography. After discovering an interest
in typography, Licko changed her major
to graphic design. Fascinated by the use
of type as illustration but limited due to UC
Berkeleys lack of a type design program,
Licko was not able to create typefaces,
only use them.
The Macintosh computer was released
just before her graduation, and Licko still
works primarily on screen.

VanderLans moved to California to study

photography after working for a number of
design studios in Holland for several years
following his graphic design studies at the
Royal Academy of Art in The Hague.

In 1984, VanderLans with two other

Dutch artists started Emigre, which
began as a magazine that featured the
work of artists who were influenced by
travel or working abroad.
After graduating with a degree in Graphic
Communication, Licko joined VanderLans
as co-founder of the magazine.
Licko was not involved from an editorial
standpoint, but started contributing as
the magazines resident type designer.
She used the first generation Macintosh
computer to create her designs, despite
the fact that most graphic designers of
the time were rejecting the Mac.
When Emigre turned its focus to graphic
design, Licko began contributing more
content, but was mostly involved with
running the Emigre type foundry, the first
digital type foundry, which introduced early
dot-matrix fonts and, later, high-resolution
typefaces.

Sometimes I have
to put a design away
for months, even
years before being
able to see it with
fresh eyes, which is
sometimes required
to solve a problem.
Zuzana Licko

ABOVE: Emigre, an alternative-culture graphic design

magazine,
The foundry met many negative reactions
was launched
from modernists like Paul Rand, who
by Rudy
thought the new movement forgot beauty
VanderLans
and harmony. Massimo Vignelli said Lickos
and Zuzana
designs were garbage, lacking depth,
Licko in 1984.
refinement, elegance, or a sense of history.
(MoMA)
Nevertheless, the foundry, magazine, Licko
RIGHT: The
and VanderLans met international fame and
exposure of
success.
Zuzana Lickos
Emigre ran for 23 years, printing 69 issues
typefaces
sporadically until 2005, and provided a
in Emigre
forum for a growing community of digital
designers.
magazine
The Museum of Modern Art said, together,
led to the
Licko and VanderLans set the standard
manufacture
for digital typography and design and
of Emigre
established graphic design at the forefront
fonts, which
of contemporary art practice with Emigre
are now
as the testing ground for their digital
distributed
experimentation and the medium through
worldwide.
which they spread their enthusiasm for the
(emigre.com)
new technology.

THE RISE OF DIGITAL COMMUNICATION

Adobe
PostScript

For graphic arts

professionals,
it makes all the
difference in
the world
(adobe.com)

Adobe invented
PostScript and
made it the
worlds leading
page description
language. It was
the first company
to offer deviceindependent color
technology, film
recorders, color
laser printers, and
professional digital
proofing devices.
And today, Adobes
latest innovations
not only assure
you of the finest
output, but also
provide you with
an integrated
workflow that will
help you work more
efficiently than
ever.
Adobe Postscript brochure, 1997

THE EVOLUTION OF MAC

Founded in 1976 by college dropouts Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, Apple Computers, Inc. changed the way
people viewed and used computers. The Apple II revolutionized the computer industry with the introduction
of the first-ever color graphics. (macdaily.co)

NEVILLE
BRODY

One of the best-known graphic designers of his

generation, Neville Brody was born in London
in 1957 and studied graphic design at the
London College of Printing from 1976 to 1979.
His record cover designs and involvement with
the British independent music scene brought
him into the public eye in the early 1980s.
Brody has designed a number of very wellknown typefaces.
In 1989, as art director of the English magazine
The Face, Brody designed Industria, a
condensed sans serif font with abbreviated,
essential forms.
Influenced by the New Typography of the
Bauhaus, Brody also designed Insignia as a
headline face for the Arena magazine. Insignias
monoline, round-and-sharp forms reflect the
Zeitgeist of that era, suggesting technology and
progress.
In 2011, when the Museum of Modern Art
added the first digital typefaces to its permanent
collection, Brodys FF Blur was one of just 23
designs to be included. Brody developed the
typeface in 1991 by blurring grayscale images
of an existing grotesque and making vectors
from the results. MoMA says FF Blur resembles
type that has been reproduced cheaply on a
Xerox machine degenerated through copying
and recopying.
Today, Brody continues to create his unique
and striking digital typefaces, and his work
focuses largely on electronic communications
design.
TOP RIGHT: Neville Brodys designs
have received international recognition
for their innovative style, reaching
almost cult status. (linotype.com)
RIGHT: Neville Brody is the founder
of Brody Associates a globally
renowned, innovative, creative agency
specializing in digital, typography
and identity. Brody is internationally
recognized as a pioneer in the fields of
graphic design, art direction and brand
strategy. (designboom.com)

LEFT: The letter forms of FF Blur

fuzzy around the edges like an out-offocus photograph seem to celebrate
their own imperfection, speaking to
Neville Brodys unique background.
(MoMA)

PHILIPPE
APELOIG
A French graphic designer, Philippe Apeloig
worked as an intern at Total Design in
Amsterdam after studying art at the cole
Nationale Suprieure des Arts Appliqus
and the cole Nationale Suprieure des
Arts Dcoratifs in Paris.
After realizing the extent of his interest in
typography and graphic design, Apeloig
worked as a designer for Muse Dsorsay
in Paris from 1985 to 1987. He left after
receiving a grand from the French Foreign
Ministry to work and study in Los Angeles.
Later, he was honored with a research and
residency grant by the French Academy of
Art at the Villa Medici in Rome.
Apeloig established his own studio after
returning to Paris and from 1992 to 1999
taught at his alma mater, after which he
taught as a professor of graphic design
at the Cooper Union School of Art in New
York City until 2002.
Apeloig has produced many acclaimed
poster designs for cultural events and
institutions.
(designboom.com)

WORKS CITED
A Brief History of Emil Ruder Thinking for a Living. Thinking for a Living RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Apr. 2015.
Eye Magazine. Eye Magazine. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Apr. 2015.
Hillebrand, Henri. Herb Lubalin. Graphic Designers in the USA. Vol. 1. New York: Universe, 1971. 37-42. Print.
Paul-Rand.com. Biography. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Apr. 2015.
Weingart, Wolfgang. Typography: My Way to Typography. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.
Westcott, Kathryn. Worlds Best-known Protest Symbol Turns 50. BBC News. BBC, 20 Mar. 2008. Web. 12 Apr. 2015.
Wim Crouwel. Design Museum. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Apr. 2015.
Poynor, Rick. Armin Hofmann. AIGA. AIGA, n.d. Web. 10 Apr. 2015.
Poynor, Rick. Saul Bass. AIGA. AIGA, n.d. Web. 10 Apr. 2015.
Anderson, Warren H. Vanishing Roadside America. Tucson: U of Arizona, 1981. Print.
Jamieson, Harry. Visual Communications: More than Meets the Eye. Intellect Books, 2007. Print.
Emigre Fonts: Zuzana Licko. Emigre Fonts: Zuzana Licko. Web. 14 Apr. 2015. <http://www.emigre.com/Bios.php?d=10>.
Emigre Fonts: Interview with Zuzana Licko. Emigre Fonts: Interview with Zuzana Licko. Web. 14 Apr. 2015. <http://www.
emigre.com/Licko6.php>.
Emigre Fonts: Rudy VanderLans. Emigre Fonts: Rudy VanderLans. Web. 14 Apr. 2015. <http://www.emigre.com/Bios.
php?d=2>.
THE COLLECTION. MoMA.org. Web. 14 Apr. 2015. <http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.
php?criteria=O:AD:E:30189&page_number=1&template_id=1&sort_order=1>.
Font Designer Neville Brody. Neville Brody. Web. 14 Apr. 2015. <http://www.linotype.com/669/nevillebrody.html>.
Neville Brody. Designers:. Web. 14 Apr. 2015. <https://www.fontfont.com/designers/neville-brody>.
THE COLLECTION. MoMA.org. Web. 14 Apr. 2015. <http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.
php?criteria=O:AD:E:38491&page_number=1&template_id=1&sort_order=1>.
FF Blur. Fonts from the FontFont Library. Web. 14 Apr. 2015. <https://www.fontfont.com/fonts/blur>.
Interview with Graphic Designer Neville Brody. Designboom Architecture Design Magazine Interview with Graphic
Designer Neville Brody. 10 Oct. 2014. Web. 14 Apr. 2015. <http://www.designboom.com/design/interview-with-graphicdesigner-neville-brody-10-10-2014/>.
Philippe Apeloig Interview. Designboom. 7 June 2012. Web. 14 Apr. 2015. <http://www.designboom.com/design/
philippe-apeloig-interview/>.
Apple Computer, Inc. Apple Computers: This Month in Business History (Business Reference Services, Library of
Congress). Web. 14 Apr. 2015. <http://www.loc.gov/rr/business/businesshistory/April/apple.html>.
Jong, Cees De., and Alston W. Purvis. Creative Type: A Sourcebook of Classic and Contemporary Letterforms. London:
Thames & Hudson, 2005. Print.A Brief History of Digital Type. Fonts.com. Web. 14 Apr. 2015. <http://www.fonts.com/
content/learning/fyti/using-type-tools/digital-format>.

PREFACE

It took radio 38 years to reach 50 million listeners. Terrestrial television took

13 years to reach 50 million users. The Internet took 4 years to reach 50 million people (1). In todays world, information moves fast, really fast. In fact it
is so fast that the record speed for the internet is 186 GBPS in other words,
speeds this fast would allow a person to download 100,000 Blu-Ray discs in
a mere 24 hours (2).
The way information is presented to a global audience is critical in forming a
persons perception of society. Information is communicated in a number of
ways including through text and image. With an abundance of new and more
efficient forms of communication, the digital age provides people around the
world with nearly unlimited information with the click of a mouse.

TYPE HISTORY
01

DESIGNERS, TYPOGRAPHERS,
AND MOVEMENTS
02

TECHNOLOGY
03

BIBLIOGRAPHY
04

01

In an effort to end the font

warsadobe and microsoft
collaborated on a new font format
called OpenType. This program
was an extraction of TrueType with
PostScript font data.This format
had several goals of having broad
multi-platform support, better
protection of font data, smaller file
sizes, and more

TYPEFACE TIMELINE

Crackhouse
Jeremy Dean

Created by rubbing a Letraset

sans serif typeface and then
lifting up the sheet multiple
times to create a distressed
feel, feeding into the grunge
typographic style of the times

1990 1995 2000

Georgia

Matthew Carter

Remedy

Frank Heine

Designed as a screen font

and was offered for free
download through Microsoft. This
type face is intentionally neutral to
provide widespread acceptance

This typeface is the perfect

representation of the revolt
against Helvetica, the modernists
pride and joy. It sports a spiratic
baseline, random ornamentation,
and handwritten qualities.

FF Scala

Martin Majoor

Created the same year as

FontShop, FF Scala was the first
FF (FontFont) face released by
FSI. It was the first of the new
collection of Dutch Types to
re-establish type design.

Bits

Paul Elliman

Poetica

Robert Slimbach

Considered to be the first italic

type family where you can set
hierarchical texts in italics.

Inspired by objects found

on the street

Body Type
Peter Bilak

A display font made from

twenty-six high resolution
images of models shaped
into letterforms

Lost Type C0-OP

Magma

Riley Cran and Tyler Galphin

This foundry is the first of its kind. It

features unique typefaces created by
contributors from all over the world. They
believe that quality fonts should be made
available to anyone who wants to create
beautiful design

Stone Type Foundry

A Humanist sans serif similar

to Gill Sans. Can be used very
small to ensure readability

2005 2010 2015

Silencio Sans
Jessica Hische

Inspired by Old Hollywood

movie title credits.

Twin

Erik van Blokland and

Just van Rossum

A typeface that was capable of responding, in real time, to urban conditions like
wind and temperature. Text set in 300+
character twin could change from formal
to round to eccentric as the
temperature and wind change.

Base 900
Zuzana Licko

A modular, geometric sans-serif

typeface of the computer technology
era with a refined touch

Obsidian

Hoefler&Co.

A type family that breaks from the

constraints of historical style,
while honoring the traditions of
typography from the industrial age.

HISTORYS EFFECT ON TYPEOGRAPHY

The 1990s-2010s was full of social and political movements. Thanks to globalization, getting messages around the world has become faster than ever
before, especially with the advent of texting and social networking websites
such as Facebook. In a matter of moments, a person in Algeria can post a
picture and a person in the United States can view that photo seconds later.
The speed information can spread today is mindboggling and it is bound
to become still faster.
Not only is the way information is being sent changing but so is how it is
being sent. Only a century ago, newspapers, letters, and telegraphs were
the fastest way to get information long distances but over the years this
has become a much faster, more personalized process with cellphones, the
internet, video chat, etc.
History plays a big roll in how technology, and more specifically, typography exist today. For instance, the space race before the collapse of the
Soviet Union in 1991, advanced technologys capabilities dramatically for
decades. Globalization has bolstered new types of design with worldwide
influences to guide it. Typefaces have grown past the Roman alphabet and
advances are being made to produce more Kanji, Cyrillic, and Arabic typefaces as well (just to name a few), these typefaces accommodating to the
needs of the non-western sphere are only at the eve of their creation, they
are bound to grow in variety over the next several years. Global connectedness has been the major theme of history for the past few decades; a
smaller world with big ideas has come to define society. A sense of unity or
individuality is created through art, culture, and history, all of which play on
each other to create the world as it is known today, history effecting culture,
culture effecting art, art effecting history - a continuous cycle producing
ideas that can now be spread to billions of people in an instant.

The first ethnically

targeted bombing in
Argentinian history
occurs on July 18, 1994
in a Jewish community in
Argentina.

World Trade Center

Bombing

HISTORICAL TIMELINE
The Gulf War
August 2 1990 - 28 February 1991
Iraq invades Kuwait resulting
in intervention from UN forces,
launching The Gulf War.

February 11, 1990

Nelson Mandela is
released after 30 years of
imprisonment.

1990

Bill Clinton takes

the presidency
January 20, 1993

Somali Civil War

February 26, 1993

A truck bomb attacks north tower,
killing six and injuring thousands.

1993 Russian
Constitutional Crisis

January 1991-Ongoing
Conflict between local clan
tribes and government organization has led to an ongoing
power-vacuum conflict.

A political stand-off between Russian

President Boris Yeltsin and the
Supreme Soviet Congress ultimately
leads to an outbreak of violence,
killing upwards of 2,000 people.

Los Angeles Riots of 1992

The riots resulted in 53 deaths and 5,500
property fires in a 100-square-mile (260
km2) zone.

1993

Tajikistan Civil War

5 May 1992 27 June 1997
Underrepresentation of ethnic
groups sparks a civil war killing
50,000-100,000.

The European Union is

formed in 1992 under
the Maastricht Treaty.

January 1, 1993
The peaceful seperation
of Czechslovakia.

Yugoslav Wars
1991-2001
A series of violent ethnic conflicts after the dissolution
of Yugoslavia in 1991. Major Events included:
War in Slovenia (1991)
Croatian War of Independence (19911995)
Bosnian War (19921995)
Kosovo War (19981999), including the NATO
bombing of Yugoslavia
Insurgency in the Preevo Valley (1999-2001)
Insurgency in the Republic of Macedonia (2001)

German Reunification
October 3, 1990

The Rwandan Genocide

100-day period from April 7, 1994-July
The Hutu peoples lead mass killings
against the Tutsi population, killing
500,000 plus.

Chechen Wars
1994-Ongoing
Ethnic conflict between the
Chechen Republic of Ichkeria
and the Russian Federation.

Oslo Accords
September 13, 1993
Palestine Liberation Organization recognizes
Israels right to exist, while Israel permitted the
creation of an autonomous Palestinian National
Authority. This marked the end of the First Intifada.

First and
Second Congo Wars
October 24, 1996 - July 2003
Rwanda invades Zaire replacing the
decades ruling dictator with rebel
leadership. After continuing conflict,
the war resulted in the killings of
over 5.4 million people.

NAFTA (North American

Free Trade Agreement) is
enacted January 1, 1994.

Oklahoma City Bombing

April 19, 1995
Two American terrorists bomb the Alfred
P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown
Oklahoma City resulting in the deaths
of 168 people and at least $652 million

Colombine High School

Shooting
April 20, 1999
Two senior students murder 13 individuals at a high school in Colorado
and injure 21 others.

August 31, 1997

Princess Diana
dies in car crash.

Portugal hands the soverignty

of Macau to China December
20, 1999.

Monica Lewinsky
Scandal
Accusations come to fruition about
Bill Clinton having an affair with 22
year old Monica Lewinsky.

1996

Tokyo Subway
Attack
March 20, 1995
Religious Cult Aum Shinriko
uses Sarin Gas to attack a
subway station.

1999

Kyoto
Protocol
December 11, 1997
83 Countries sign in order
to take action against global
climate change.

Hugo Chvez becomes

president of Venezuela
on February 2, 1999.

Taliban Forces Sieze Control

of Afghanistan 1996

The Million Man March

October 16, 1995
Over 800,000 African American men rally in
D.C. to better the status of African American men in society and politics.

July 1994,
Kim-Il Sung dies, his son,
Kim Jong-Il, assumes
control of North Korea.

July 1, 1997
United Kingdom hands
the sovereignty of
Hong Kong to China.

May 2, 1997
Tony Blair becomes
British Prime Minister.

Pervez Musharraf takes

over the democratically
elected Pakastani
Government.
October 12, 1999

11

USA PATRIOT Act

Enacted October 26, 2001
After the events of September 11th, the
PATRIOT act goes into effect allowing
government surveilance on persons suspected of terroristic activities.

November, 7, 2000
George W. Bush is
elected into office.

War on Terror in
Afghanistan
October 7, 2001-December 2014
American troops are sent into Afghanistan beginning the Opperation
Enduring Freedom campaign.

Goodridge v.
Dept. of Public Health
November 18, 2003
The landmark court case legalized gay
marriage in Massachussets.

January 3, 2003 January 3, 2007

Democrat Nancy Pelosi becomes the
first female Speaker of the House.

Septemeber 11, 2001

Terrorist Attacks

November 22, 2005

Angela Merkel becomes the
first female Prime Minister
of Germany.

19 hijackers take over four airplanes and crash them

into both World Trade Center towers, the Pentagon,
and a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania killing nearly
3,000 people and injuring over 6,000. All civilian air
traffic is suspended for 3 days.

2000

2003

December 13, 2003

Saddam Hussein is
captured by US forces.

May 7, 2000
Vladimir Putin
becomes the
President of Russia.

October 3, 2006
North Korea conducts
its first nuclear tests.

November 25, 2002

The Department of
Homeland Security
is founded in the
United States.

The Great Recession

begins 2007-2009

2006

Arctic Sea Ice hits

a record low in
summer 2007.

December 30, 2006

Saddam Hussein is executed.

War with Iraq

2002, the Euro goes

into circulation.

20 March 2003
18 December 2011
The United States goes
to war with Iraq and
disassembles the regime
under Saddam Hussein.
January 8, 2002
The No Child Left Behind
act goes into effect as part of
education reforms.

War and Genocide

in Darfur
26 February 2003 present.

Virginia Tech
Massacre
April 17, 2007
student shoots 32 students
and teachers and
then commits suicide.

The London Bombings

July 7, 2005
Londons public transport systems are
attacked by suicide bombers, killing 56
and injuring 700.

Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr.

Hate Crimes Prevention Act
Passed by Congress October 22, 2009
The act expanded upon the 1969 Federal hate-crime law, to
include crimes conducted on a count of a victims actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability.

Barak Obama assumes

the presidency January
20, 2009.
In 2008, oil prices
reach a record
$147 a barrel.

Occupy Wallstreet
Movement
September 17, 2011
Protests abound due to
continued economic stagnation.

December 17, 2010 Mohamed

Bouazizis self-immolation in
Tunisia begins the Arab Spring
movement.

Deepwater Horizon
Oil Spill
20 April 15 July 2010
An oil rig owned by BP in the Gulf of Mexico
explodes. It is considered the largest
accidental marine oil spill in history.

2009

2011

Global Financial Crisis

September 7, 2008
Severely contracted liquidity in the
global credit markets and insolvency
threats to investment banks and other
institutions plunges the global financial
situation into turmoil.

Osama bin Laden is killed by

US forces May 2, 2011.

Patient Protection and

Affordable Care Act
Russo-Georgian War
August 7-12, 2008.

Tea Party Protests

February 27, 2009-March 21, 2010
Protests focused on smaller government, fiscal responsibility, individual freedoms and a conservative
interpretation of the Constitution.

March 23, 2010

Obamacare is enacted, it was the
largest regulatory overhaul of the
U.S. healthcare system since Medicare and Medicaid in 1965.

Syrian Civil War

begins on March 15,

Boston Marathon Bombing

April 15, 2013
Two terrorists detonate a bomb after a race in
Boston kiling 3 and injuring 264.
ISIS destroys numerous
historic monuments in
Iraq during 2015.

August 9, 2014
Officer Darren Wilson is not
charged in the shooting
death of Michael Brown inciting protests and riots against
racism and police brutality in
the St. Louis area.

2014

PRESENT

Gaza Israeli
conflict of 2014
8 July 26 August 2014
(ceasefire).

Isis Invades Mosul Iraq

June 2014.

ISIS conflict begins in Syria

on January 2, 2014.

June 26, 2013

The Supreme Court strikes down
the Defense of Marriage Act DOMA
(1996), which banned the federal
recognition of same-sex marriages
and refused to recognize the legal
standing of proponents of Proposition 8. Resulted in re-legalization of
gay marriage in California.

13

02

15

DAVID CARSON
Originally getting his degree in sociology, Carson
entered the field of design at the age of 26 after
receiving a flyer for a Summer graphic design program at the University of Arizona that was originally
intended for his students. After attending this program, Carson enrolled in a Summer workshop in
Rapperswil, Switzerland. Where he was challenged
by typesetter Hans-Rudolf Lutz to find reason for
shaping form in specific ways.
Later on, Carsons first job as an art director was for Transworld Skateboarding from
1984-1987. In 1992, when Marvin Scott Jarrett launched RAY GUN, Carson was asked to
be the founding art director. During his time
there, his visual voice became more famous
than the music content that the magazine was
founded on. Carson later remarked, Ray gun
had no grid, formula or format, letting the music and individual articles dictate the direction
of the design and layout. Every page was an
entirely new design assignment, making it a
lot more work than most magazines, but also a
lot more fun, and I believe with more effective
results. (1)

From 1995-2003 Carson ran his own studio,

working with clients such as Nike, Toyota,
Quicksilver and MTV. He has also served as the
creative director for Bose.
Carsons approach to design is non-conventional, particularly because he had no formal
training, which he says helped him a lot because never learned the things not to do.
His interest in sociology helped him enter
the world of editorial design, because it had
real stories, about real people and events. He
would start out by reading the brief, article,
or other material he is given, which would
then give his designs a direction. He tried to
reinforce visually what is written, spoken, or
sung. This creates a connection with the viewer on an emotional level, which he believes
is effective and lasting. AIGA says that, His
legendary disregard for readerly conventions
has made him a hero to some and an agent of
ugliness to others.

17

19

PAULA SCHER
Scher received her BFA from the Tyler School of Art
and a Doctor of Fine Arts from Corcoran College
of Art and Design. Her teaching career includes
School of Visual Arts, Cooper Union, Yale University
and the Tyler School of Art.
Paula went into college originally for painting. She
felt like she wasnt good at anything until she found
graphic design in her 3rd year at the Tyler school.
From school she then moved to New York City. Her
first design job was designing the inside of childrens books. After that, she went to CBS records
but shortly left them for Atlantic Records in order to
design covers. After only a year at Atlantic, CBS records hired her back as the East Coast Art Director
at the age of 25. It was through her 10 years of designing album covers that Scher found out how to
present her work and make her clients appreciate it.
Scher has been a forerunner of the international design firm Pentagram since 1991. Her career hit an
all time high when her typography became popular
within the design community. Through pentagram,
Scher has designed branding Identity for clients
such as The New York Times, Target, and The Daily
Show with John Stewart (2).
It was with Pentagram in the 90s that Scher created
the identity for the Public Theatre in New York City.
Scher created a language that directly mirrored that
of street typography.

The logo is made out of different weights of the

same typeface taken from Rob Roy Kellys book
American Woodtype that was later made into the
typeface Akzidenz Grotesk. It was made to have a
sense of evolution from the P to the C to further
emphasize the word and meaning of public. After the 1995 poster for a production of Savion Glovers Bring in Da Noise, Bring in Da Funk, shown
on the left hand page, that the Publics typographic
style emerged throughout all of the Public Theaters branding. The branding continues to change
and stay current in the highly competitive theatre
scene in NYC (3).
Her current identity and environmental graphics take the same form, taking from what she has
learned from her 10 years designing covers. Scher
believes that doing design isnt just for the public
good. She explains that people think that if you
design something to help for a tramatic event you
are a hero, but if you design something for an instituation such as a bank, that is a bad design moral. She believes that all design matters and that
the most responsible design is that of which takes
something bad and makes it great by changing
its expectations (4).

21

23

LOUISE FILI
Fili grew up in an Italian-American household in
New Jersey. In high school, she taught herself calligraphy with common everyday writing utensils.
She originally went to Skidmore College to study
studio art but discovered that graphic design was
the best avenue to travel. Inspired by her love for
Italian cooking, her senior project was a hand-lettered cookbook (5). It was on her first freelance
assignment for a book publishing house, Knopf,
where Fili found her desire to work with book design.
At the young age of 25, Fili became the senior designer for American designer Herb Lubalin. Her
new work atmosphere, where type was the forefront of design, had a profound effect on Filis stylistic development. In 1978 Fili left her job with Herb
Lubablin for a position as an art director for Random House Publishing. During her time there, she
designed over 2,000 book covers, in an effortless
manner that subtly gave any one of her books a
wonderful feel.

In 1980, Fili wanted to open her own studio which

would focus on hand-lettered packaging, logos,
and restaurant identities. During the run of her studio, she has designed for the School of Visual Arts,
Sarabeths, Good Housekeeping, and hundreds of
restaurants in New York City (6).
Fili has published many books such as Shadow
Type, Grafica Strada, and most recently Elegantissma. Her books showcase her hand-lettering styles
and techniques and are a great resource for designers. September 8th-9th of 2014, Fili held an exhibition New York City to showcase Elegantissma. This
showcase featured her favorite works from throughout her career as a designer. Louise Filis sense
of design brings out the old in the new. Her
hand-crafted typefaces are transcendent and give
an elegant touch to her designs.

25

27

STEFAN SAGMEISTER
Born in Bregenz, Austria, Sagmeister began his career at the young age of 15 for the magazine Alphorn. It was during this endeavour that he found
that designing layouts was a lot more fun than
actually writing the article he was hired to write.
In 1985, he earned his M.F.A at the University of
Applied Arts in Vienna. While he was in school at
the Pratt Institute on a full-bright scholarship years
later, Sagmeister would start calling his favorite designer, Tibor Kalman, over and over for a year and
a half until he agreed to meet with him and look at
this portfolio. It was five years later that Sagmeister was finally hired at Kalmans design firm M&Co.
Kalmans wisdom and driven advice had a deep influence on Sagmeister at the start of his own career.
Kalmans strong desire to jump from one field to
another influenced Sagmeister in a profound way.
In the 90s, Sagmeister turned to designing album
covers for musicians like Mick Jagger, David Byrne,
and Jay-Z. He used printing and packaging techniques such as die-cuts, model building, and more
to give the covers a deeper sense of the artists persona. I.D magazine critiqued that his CD packaging
was what poetry is to prose: distilled, intense, cunning, and utterly complete.

Two of his covers received Grammy Awards for Album Cover design (7). Later, in 2008, Sagmeister
took a year off of work and travel to Bali. It was
during his time there that he was able to devote
a lot of time to learning new concepts. He would
sometimes end up not working with the medium he
started exploring with. He ultimately decided that
he would stick to design and see if he had anything
to say with that (8).
Stagmeister soon had something to say, something
extraordinary. In 2012, Sagmeister tackled the scientific evidence of Happiness. Sagmeister pulled
research from two pioneers of positive psychology,
Martin Seligman and Jonathan Haidt. He used this
scientific evidence to to create a exhibition that included kinetic type, video, interior space design,
among many other mediums. Currently, Sagmeister has been production with his first film, a film
on happiness (9). Stefan Sagmeister rethinks convention, finds infinite possibilities, and alters popular perceptions with typography. He uses many
platforms to express his typographic style such as
books environmental art, conceptual exhibitions,
and as of this year, video.

29

31

ED FELLA
Considered the pioneer of post modern design, Fella has changed design with his unique combinations
of low-culture and high-culture. Much Like David Carson, Ed Fella makes the idea of deconstruction, that
was so popular with the post modernists, evident in his design work. By separating himself from good
design Fella introduced ambivalence and ambiguity, and the notion that graphic designers are really
artists. Fellas most reconized works come from his freelance projects. One of his popular processes was
to mix mechanically reproduced materials with drawings and hand letterings. The posters, catalogs, and
other specimens he made for non-profit orginizations like the Detriot Focus Gallery had solidified Fellas
reputation. Regardless of his success, he still and has always refused to be compensated for his work (10).

MATTHEW CARTER
With Carters father being a typographer himself, Carter had an early start to the world of design. At the
age of 20, he learned how to cut type by hand through a year-long internship at the Enshede printing
house in Harlem. He has designed typefaces and fonts such as Snell Roundhand, Helvetica Compressed,
Big Caslon and many more. Carter is more seen as a problem solver in the eye of designers than a type designer. Though Carter does not have a specific style, all of his typfaces have the precision and distintion of
a well orchestrated agrument. A font is always a struggle between the alphabetic nature of the letterform,
the A-ness of the A, and your desire to put some of yourself into the letterform. Its a struggle between
representing something and trying to find some iota of yourself in it. (11).

33

MARTIN VENEZKY
As the founder of the internationally reconized design firm, Appetite Engineers, his firm has done exhibition designs for Reebok as well as print work for the Sundance Film Festival. Recently, the firm has been
working with book design. Venezkys team encourages exploartion with many different mediums such as
drawing, collage, photography, and even sculpture. These processes can be seen in prestigious print medias such as Wired and the New York Times (12).

P. SCOTT MAKELA
Most known for his typeface Dead History, Makela designed typefaces that were specific to the time in
which he created them. Dead history was designed in the 1990s, when digital tools were becoming more
and more accepted for designers. It was made by mixing together Centennial and Adobes V.A.G Rounded that created something completely original (13). This typeface has varying stroke widths and multiple
varying serifs. He believed that this typeface personified a new attidude in type creation, where the result
of the computers capabilities to function as the perfect assembling tool (14).

35

THE GRUNGE
Every grunge artist has a style of his or her own,
there is no single way to view grunge art but even
so, it has a very unique look classic to the 1990s
- Sometimes an image is composed by layering
images and snippets in a way that creates a more
complex piece although, this does not necessarily make it grungier but grunginess does not
end there. There is something immensely freeing
in grunge photography, which brings the viewer
out of his or her (often boring) headspace into a
new and creative world. Grunge shows that not
everything needs to be perfect and pretty. By
venturing into the unorthodox, the ugly, and the
dangerous, Grunge style shows no boundaries
and no limitations. It does not strive for conformity like much of the pop-culture world, it strives
to challenge and be challenged, breaking away
from the ticky-tacky box style life of the postwar World War Two generation.

STREET ART

Street artists do not aspire to change the definition

of an artwork, but rather to question the existing environment with its own language. The motivations
and objectives that drive street artists are as varied
as the artists themselves. Street artists aspire to have
their work communicate with everyday people about
socially relevant themes. There is a strong current of
activism and subversion in urban art making Street Art
a powerful platform for reaching the public and a potent form of political expression for the oppressed, or
people with little resources to create change. Common variants include ad busting, subvertising and
other culture jamming means, the abolishment of private property, and, in general, reclaiming the streets
for the people.

37

POST-MODERN
Post-Modernists ceased to rid itself of any modernist viewpoint that it could. Notable features
of this era was how it erased its lines between
high culture and pop culture. Post-modernists
wanted to challenge the Modernists theory of
good design by deconstructing every ounce
of what good design meant to them. This is
where the new astetic of the impure, chaotic,
irregular came into vogue, or know as the anti-astetic (15).

SOCIAL CHANGE

Design for social change has arisen in the mid 2010s as

a way of providing design to people in need, activism,
etc. Its essentially design with a strong agenda to help
and to change the world. With the feminist movement
taking full stride in 2015, advertisments promoting the
ideals of this group have arisen. Many champains such
as the Fuck H8 and more have taken to punchy advertising strageties to help stop the oppresive nature of
this country on women. Environmental rights have also
been a huge effort in changing the world with design.
It is during this time that design morals are more and
more enforced. (16).

39

03

41

BATTLE OF THE TYPEFACE

Selecting user-friendly typefaces was no easy task for the first computer
programmers. In fact, it took many years for companies to develop realistic
rights to typefaces and how they should be designed to be the most readable on a monitor. Trying to take the upper hand on the typeface monopoly
took a conjoined effort of two, now rivaling, companies, Apple and Microsoft. Instead of paying stiff royalties to Adobe, the two budding companies
joined forces in the 1990s to combat the situation. Apple provided font
technology and Microsoft provided for imaging technology (similar to PostScript) (17). Of course, there were many bugs with this new software the two
had developed. The recoil, Adobe created a series of typefaces through
software called Adobe Type Manager (ATM), which had improved upon the
output of the fonts.
From there typeface software developed customization features. With more
progress they even created sharing networks and programs that made getting new ideas (and unfortunately stealing typefaces) much easier. Now
there are many new types of font programs, still ever competing but that
seem more natural for computers and more reader friendly with plenty of
interesting varieties.

43

19 9 0

Tim Berners-Lee develops HyperText

Markup Language (HTML) giving
rise to the World Wide Web.
Archie, the first attempt at indexing
the Internet, is created by Peter Deutsch
Adobe Photoshop 1.0

19 9 3
The number of hosts breaks 1,000,000

19 9 4
The White House launches its website
SPAM is created by commercial sites and mass
marketing campaigns

19 9 5

CompuServe, America Online, and

Prodigy start providing dial-up Internet
Sun Microsystems releases the Internet
programming language called Java
The Vatican launches its website

19 9 6

Approximately 45 million people are using the

Internet and 43.2 million households own a PC

19 9 7

Microsoft invests $150 million in Apple,

which was struggling at the time
The term weblog is coined
(and later shortened to blog)

19 9 8
Google opens its first office in Californina

19 9 9

Wi-Fi becomes a part

of computing language
College student Shawn Fanning
invents Napster, which allowed
users to swap music over
the Internet.
The number of Internet
users reaches 150 million
MySpace is launched

2000

Viruses begin to enter the computer realm

Twitter is created
American Online buys Time Warner for
$16 billion the biggest merger of all time.

2 0 01

Apple unveils Mac OS X operating system

while Microsoft rolls out Windows XP
9.8 billion electronic messages are sent daily
Wikipedia is launched

2002
There are now 544.2 million Internet users worldwide.

2003

President Bush signs the Controlling the Assault of

Non-Solicited Pornography and
Marketing Act (CAN-SPAM)
Apple introduces the iTunes music store.

2004
Mike Zuckerberg launches Facebook.com

2005

YouTube is launched

2006

There are more than 92 million websites online

Microsoft Windows Vista

2008

Microsoft offers to buy Yahoo for $44.6 billion.

Federal courts order disabling of Wikileaks.org
a website that discloses confidential information

2 010

Apple unveils the iPad

2 014

Edward Snowden turns over thousands of classified

documents to the general media

45

47

19 9 0 s M U S I C
There were many genres of music that gained
even more popularity during the 1990s such as
pop and rap - especially with the younger generations. Some of the major music groups that
typified 90s music were: The Spice Girls, Backstreet Boys, NYSNC, Nirvana, Brittany Spears,
Ice Cube, Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre, and DMX.

2000s MUSIC

The melismatic style of signing made popular by

Christina Aguilera and artists alike began to take a
back seat to artists like Kesha and Katy Perry, who sold
much more than their voices. In 2011 girl groups and
boy bands have returned to the mainstream for the
first time since the 90s. By this time several different
types of pop including: dance and synthpop have become the driving force in mainstream music. Alternative movements, like those of the hipster subculture
include: Indie rock, indie pop, and indie folk, which
have come into the mainstream focus since the early
2010s.

49

CINEMA
The 2000s saw an exciting amount of diversity within
the film industry. By this time CGI (computer generated graphics) had become popular with Pixar movies
such as Shrek, The Incredibles, and many more. Other
genres such as comic book adaptations, musicals, foreign, and independent films began to find popularity.
It was in 2012 that Wes Anderson, an American filmmaker since the 1980s, began to pick up more mainstream interest with his highly colorful and thoughtful
compositions. 2013 - present films often use fantastical
colors to convey emotions though more than the setting and acting alone, making film a more artful experience, some films being created to celebrate film art
in and of itself.

THEATRE

By the late 1990s, almost every show that made

it to Broadway was a corporate production.
With the average musical budget running over
$8,000,000, it took a lot of people to finance
a show, and nearly every one of those donors
wanted some say in the production. This left no
room for amateurs, rebels, or basic artists. By the
2000s critics began to consider the constant adaptations of films into plays and further, into a
redefinition of Broadway as a tourist attraction,
as opposed to a creative outlet.

51

IMAGE ACCREDITATION
The Creators of this booklet do not own any of the images or labels
presented in this project. We would like to thank the owners of these
images for publishing their works for students like ourselves to use to
promote information and creativity. If there are any issues with the images used we greatly apologize and invite you to contact us over issuu
and we will address the problem. Thank you for reading!

BIBLIOGRAPHY
(1)
Jake Hird. 20+ More Mind Blowing Media Statistics.
Last modfied August 17, 2009. https://econsultancy.com/
blog/4402-20+-more-mind-blowing-social-media-statistics.
Econsultancy.com/blog.
(2)
Shared by datajack. Broadband Internet Speeds - Facts and
Figures. Posted on January 26, 2012. http://visual.ly/broadband-internet-speeds-fun-facts-figures. Technology. Visually.
(3)
Designboom. Interview with Graphic Designer David Carson. Last
modified September, 24, 2014. http://www.
designboom.com/design/interview-with-graphic-designer-david-carson-09-22-2013/. Designboom.com.
(4)
AIGA. Inspiration. Last modified 2015. http://www.aiga.org/
medalist-paulascher/. AIGA bibliography. Paula Scher.
(5)
Ryan and Tina Essmaker. Paula Scher: Artist/Designer. Last
modified November 19, 2013. https://thegreatdiscontent.com/
interview/paula-scher. The Great Discontent.
(6)
Identities. New Work: The Public Theater. Last modified
June 12, 2006. http://new.pentagram.com/2008/06/new-workthe-public-theater-1/. Pentagram.com.

(7)
AIGA. Inspiration. Last modified 2015. http://www.
aiga.org/medalist-louise-fili/. AIGA bibliography.
Louise Fili.
(9)
Randy Kennedy. How That Sausage of Happiness
is Made. Last modified April 3, 2012. http://www.
nytimes.com/2012/04/04/arts/design/stefan-sagmeisters-happy-show-at-institute-of-contemporary-art.
html?_r=1. The New York Times. Art & Design.
(10) AIGA. Inspiration. Last modified 2015. http://
www.aiga.org/medalist-edfella/. AIGA bibliography.
Ed Fella.
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Dead History. P. Scott Makela. Last modified 2015.
http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_
id=139317. The Museum of Modern Art.
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Emigre Fonts. P. Scott Makela. http://www.emigre.
com/Bios.php?d=9. Emigre.com
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Mr. Keedy. Graphic Design in the Post Modern Era.
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Drenttel, William. Designing for Social Change.
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PrepPressure.com. The History of Fonts. Last modified August 8, 2013. (http://www.prepressure.com/
fonts/basics/history).

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Stacy Asher
email stacyasher@unl.edu
209A Woods Art Building
Department of Art + Art History
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
stacyasher.com