- Before type, there were simplified pictures. (Lascaux and Wall paintings)
- Out of Pictures came symbols.
- Sumarians were the first to have a sort of written language that wasn't illustration (Cuneiform).
- Egyptians copied Sumarians, developed hieroglyphs.
- Phoenician alphabet caused rise of Greek, Aramaic, Hebrew, and Latin alphabets.
- Rules of spacing came from Greece. Greek created Unicials.
- Romans took Greek alphabet, also made square capitals and rustic capitals, and first attempt at something like a miniscule.
- Christians and the Codex
- Ireland continued to develop because it's an island. Celtics merged Christian texts with pagan decorations.
- Principle of Diminuendo
- First international style: Blackletter.
- Chinese made the first moveable type because they had too many characters.
- Chinese made 'chops', a type of stamp to reveal the owner.
- Gutenberg used Textura to disguise the Bible as done by scribes.
- Educational books developed. Gutenberg made lots of money.
- German style: Textura + illustration
- French liked lighter letters
- English moved the responsibility of typography to engineers, not calligraphers.
- Type grid had 2,305 units in cells for capital letters.
- They made a type manual.
- Roman Du Roi, 1701.
- Industrial Revolution led to modern styles, which broke with the classical.
- Novelty was the most important for serif fonts after grotesque developed. 19th century.
- Grotesque and Sans-serif is the same thing.
This session was interesting for me because for one, it helped refresh my memory on some details I learned in Art History last year. I learned a lot about the development of the type, and find it quite interesting how pictures became letterforms. For two, knowing when and where the typefaces or glyphs were made helps me better reconstruct the typographic ‘feel’ associated with a certain time periods and places. This is a very important thing to know if one wants to be successful as a graphic designer. I am definitely going to look up the Roman Du Roi, and some of the other documents discussed today, as this session has peeked my curiosity and I want to look at them now. Perhaps I can learn even more?
No comments:
Post a Comment