What is Typography?
Typography is…
From the Greek words τύπος(typos) = form and γραφή(graphy) = writing)
Is the art of use types and letterforms making language visible. This involves the selection of typefaces, point size, line length, leading and many other things. Today typography has been put into motion to add emotion to communication in films, television and internet.
Typography has been traditionally associated with design and , in particular, with the printing industry. The word “typography” is increasingly used o refer to the arrangement of any written material and is no longer restricted to the work of a typographer.
There are many ways of presenting written language using technologies such as the printing press, text message, e-mail, ink-jet printer and even the standard typewriter. Typography an writing have always been related: typography as the professional practice and discipline that mediates between the content of the message and the readers understanding. Therefore ,to understand the grammar of typography we must have the knowledge and understanding of language and how it is adapted to different functions and contexts.
History...
To the pictograms on the walls of caves to the stone tables and the papyrus to paper.
Was in the Middle East, about 4000 B.C. that the first civilizations started to write on clay. Then the Egyptians fond the papyrus plant that they used to make sandals and cloths. They discovered, in about 3500 B.C., that they could use the pith of these plants to make a kind of paper.
They cut the pith in little pieces and these were split with a sharp knife into very thin strips as a broad as possible. These were laid close together vertically on a board and were covered with a other layer placed horizontally. The strips were moistened with glue, pressed under weights or in a press, and dried in the sun. then they smoothed the surface with a pumice stone and coated with a thin of flour water and vinegar and pressed again. Then, in mid-15th century Europe, the German goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg invented the press printing and movable type.
The typographical principle, that is the creation of a complete text by reusing identical characters, was first realized in the Phaistos Disc, an enigmatic Minoan print item from Crete, Greece, which dates between 1850 and 1600 BC.
Movable Type...
Movable type is the system of printing and typography that uses movable components to reproduce the elements of a document normally individual letters or punctuation. The world's first known movable-type system for printing was created in China around 1040 A.D. by Bi Sheng, but was in middle of 15th century, more exactly in 1450, Johannes Gutenberg created a movable type sistem in Europe. The pieces are designed and then cut them out in metal pieces to being used when print pressed. This way the printed text could have designed letters (typefaces).
Printing Press...
In 1440, German inventor Johannes Gutenberg invented a printing press process that, with refinements and increased mechanization, remained the principal means of printing until the late 20th century. The inventor's method of printing from movable type, including the use of metal molds and alloys, a special press, and oil-based inks, allowed for the first time the mass production of printed books. Printing press is a machine that transfers lettering or images by contact with various forms of inked surface onto paper or similar material fed into it in various ways The device is used for printing many copies of a text on paper.
Capital Letters...
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ON THE RIGHT: A close up of the illuminated letter P in the 1407AD Latin Bible on display in Malmesbury Abbey, Wiltshire, England. It was hand written in Belgium, by Gerard Brils, for reading aloud in a monastery.
Bible of Gutenberg...
The Gutenberg Bible (printed by Johannes Gutenberg at Mainz, Germany in 14-5) was the first book ever printed from movable type and the first book produced on a printing press. It marked the start of the "Gutenberg Revolution" and the age of the printed book in the west. Forty-eight copies survive and they are considered by many sources to be the most valuable books in the world, even though a complete copy has not been sold since 1978.
ON THE LEFT: Kings Salomon appears in the illuminated initial, witch was painted by hand.
What are typefaces?
Typefaces are...
The style and design of the letters.
The most famous are the Times New Roman, Arial and Verdana.
Typefaces Anatomy and Terminologies
X-heigh...
X-height is the distance between the baseline of a line of type and the top of the main body of the lower-case letters. Typefaces with large x-heights tend to have small ascenders & descenders and Typefaces with small x-heights have large ones. However each type has the same horizontal body size width.
Ascender...
An Ascender is the part of a lower-case letter that rises above the main body or x-height of the letter.
Descender...
A Descender is the part of a lower-case letter that drops below the main body or x-height of the letter
Weight...
•The weight of a typeface or font is the width of the font stroke (or character lines).
•Common names for weight include light, medium and bold.
•Thin and heavy weights in extended text are generally less readable
•weights (bold) are best used for emphasis.
•A whole page of bold typeface can be difficult to read.
•Also, don't forget to consider your target audience. Young children respond well to bold weight , as long as it is well spaced.
Serifs…
•Is used in print products like Newspapers, books and magazines .
•They are usually (but not always) used for the long blocks of Text.
•Many experts consider that Serif fonts assist legibility of small sized print on paper (but not on screen).
•Serifs help the eye move from letter to letter.
•An example of Serif typface is Times New Roman.
Sans-serifs…
•Sans serif typefaces are also used in print products but more likely for headlines, mastheads, captions and short pieces of small text. Very rarely are long blocks of text sans serif.
•Sans serif typefaces are very common in advertising, on the internet, on phones.
•On screen, small point text is nowadays nearly always sans serif.
•On screen sans-serif text is more readable than serif text.
•An example of a typeface invented for screen use is Verdana.
Slab-Serif…
A happy medium
•The slab serifs are the right choice if you want to mix the classic touch of a serif with the freshness of sans-serif and it will help your design stand out from the crowd.
Leading lights
•Slab serifs that include light weights can be used for body copy as an interesting alternative to serifs. The leading will need to be expanded to balance the extra detail at smaller point sizes.
Use your space wisely
•Proper spacing and kerning are required. Slabs usually have pronounced serif structures that demand a certain level of attention due to the negative shapes they create. Being aware of the sort of slab being used in context will help you space it accordingly.
An example is Blackoak Std.
Display…
Display type is what you notice first on the printed page. It has character, it sets tone and it’s big – sometimes really big.
•Clarity is vital
“How well does the typeface read at the intended size(s) and distance(s)? Ask someone else to look at it. Can they actually read it? Just because a typeface ‘looks’ cool doesn’t mean it will ‘read’ cool.” – Neil Summerour
•Character-forming
“A good display font gives a more playful, daring, and emotional feel to your design. If you are frightened by these words then don’t use one. Use a display font in the same way you would add spice to your food.” – Oded Ezer
•Mixing it up
“Try selecting a font that is familiar to a specific use or type of design, and use it for something completely different. For instance, select a font that is more familiar in pub windows and try it for an exhibition.” – Jeff Knowles
•An example is Broadway
Script…
No body text
•Never try to use a script for any running text, as readability will suffer. If you want a feel that emulates a script font for running text, a good quality italic font will always be a better option.
Don’t shout
•Generally don’t set words entirely in capital letters when using a script. Most script fonts are meant to be used in either title/proper mode or in lower case only. All-caps script will really harm the readability.
Use sparingly
•Only use scripts as headlines or as ‘accents’. The main exception to the rule might be where a script is intended to look like handwriting or invitations – but even then it should be used sparingly.
An example is Kunstler Script
Kerning...
Kerning is the spacing between letters
Tight Kerning
Normal Kerning
LooseKerning
Emphasis...
Leading...
The space between the lines.
History of the Alphabet
The Sumerians...
Experiment with writing was brought to us by the Sumerians more than 4000 years B.C we call it Cuneiform. Not as scribbles representative of letters which then builds an image in our head, like in our day of age but as pictograms - pictures representing words. The early cuneiform comprised some 1,500 pictograms.
The word for bird, for example, existed at first as a simple pictorial representation of a bird.
The oldest pictograph are known on a limestone table which was found at Kish on the river Euphrates and has been dated at about 3500 B.C.
Sumerian Cuneiform Script Clay tablet
The Egyptians...
The Egyptians developed a similar system of pictograms, one that many of us are familiar with. Hieroglyphic inscriptions (literally sacred carving), like Cuneiform started out as pictograms, but later .those same pictures were also used to represent speech sounds.
Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs and silhouettes on papyrus
Wadi el-Hol...
In 1999 was discovered two inscriptions in Wadi el-Hol What means that rather then the early Semitic alphabet being developed in their homeland of Syria-Palestine, it was instead developed by the Semitic-speaking people then living in Egypt.
By about 1600 BC in the region between the two dominant writing systems of the time, Cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphs, we see the appearance of other alphabets like Ugaritic script (14th century BC) that developed in what is today Syria. The Ugaritic script employs 30 simplified cuneiform signs. And thus begins the story of the alphabet.
Phoenicians – Syria 1050 BC
The Japanese and the Persians...
In time, it became apparent that a written language with signs that represent sounds require fewer characters than a language in which a sign stands for a thing or an idea.
The Japanese first stumble upon syllabic writing, where signs represent different writing, this is still used to date used today. This was then developed by the Persians and other. At last, after centuries of experiment, came alphabetic writing, which only needed round thirty letters to write down any word or sound in the spoken language.
This is why, in our current alphabet we use 26 letters (whereas the Greek only 23 and were able to create some of the most outstanding literature the world has ever known). However, the Chinese, for example, have to learn thousands of characters in order to express themselves.
This technique is used in various languages, such as, Greek, Russian, Arabic, Urdu, Hindi and Indonesian but ultimately all true alphabets follow the same method; a small number of signs more or less phonetic, which can be put together in groups to represent all the sounds and words in language. ON THE TOP: A page from bronze movable-type
book by Hua Sui, printed in 1490
Ancient Examples
Rome 120 AD
Ancient Greece – 2200 years ago
Irish Hand written Bible 750 AD
LEXICAL SERIES "EA A NÂQU", TABLET 7, GIVING FIRST THE SUMERIAN PRONUNCIATION OF A SIGN, THEN THE SUMERIAN SIGN ITSELF, AND THEN THE BABYLONIAN TRANSLATION OF IT
ISIDORUS HISPALENSIS: ETYMOLOGIARUM SIVE ORIGINUM, BOOK 20, WITH LIST OF CHAPTERS
JIYUN BUKAN; THE MOST COMPREHENSIVE EARLY CHINESE RHYMING DICTIONARY, CONTAINING NO LESS THAN 53,525 CHARACTERS, ARRANGED BY THE SYSTEM OF FINAL SOUNDS. COMPILED BY DING DU AND OTHERS
Egyptian hieroglyphs
KOJIKI, RECORDS OF ANCIENT MATTERS; FURUKOTOFUMI,
SACRED BOOK OF SHINTO
SACRED BOOK OF SHINTO
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