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Home , Adrian Frutiger, Archer (typeface), Bookman (typeface), Caledonia (typeface), Caslon, Electra (typeface)

UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON | SCHOOL OF ART | Fall 2015

Intermediate Graphic Design Art 3330 Tuesday/Thursday Associate Professor Cheryl Beckett Contact [email protected] | design.uh.edu/beckett | Time 8:30–11:30 AM Monday/Wednesday Associate Professor Fiona McGettigan Contact [email protected] | design.uh.edu/mcgettigan | Time 8:00–11:00 AM

Typography : Research + Classification Study

1. Ed Benguiat (over 600 including , and ITC Ben- Due Monday August 31/Tuesday Sept 1 guiat) 1. 2. (America’s most prolific type designer, having Having been assigned one of the type designers to the left, research their completed 221 total typefaces, including: , Century typefaces and their work, their process and their design philosophy. Present Schoolbook, , Bank Gothic) the work, the context and any other relevant narratives along with representa- 3. (36 completed typefaces including , tions of their contribution to the world of . , ) 4. (90 completed typefaces including: Copperplate, Present the work of the assigned type designer (5 min. max.) , Berkeley Oldstyle) Include: 5. Chauncey H. Griffith (34 typefaces including Gothic, 1937; 1. A brief statement about the designer and their work specifically Poster , 1938) related to their typographic contribution 6. (Knockout, , Gotham, Archer, Sentinel, 2. 5 images of their work with particulars about their typeface design, partner with Tobias Frere-Jones) classifications and application. 7. (Minion, Adobe , , Garamond Premier) You may present digitally (screen) or on the wall. If you present on the wall, 8. (, Mr. Eaves and others) make sure the prints are large enough for the class to view. 9. Carol Twombly (Lithos, (co-designer), Trajan, Charlemagne, Nueva, Adobe ) 2. 10. Jonathan Barnbrook (Mason, Exocet, Nylon, Prototype, Bastarda) Research and typefaces online and from various source 11. John books. Select 1 unique and interesting typeface sample for each of the 12 clas- 12. (Snell Roundhand, Shelley Script, , , sifications on the handout. Please print the alphabet on 8 1/2 x 11 sheet (12). , Mantinia, , ) Make sure to label the typeface name, the classification and the designer. 13. (Caslon) Sources to look for these are: 14. (, , ) 15. () http://www.adobe.com/type/browser/classifications.html 16. Adrian (, Frutiger, ) http://www.designishistory.com/1450/type-classification/ 17. Max Miedinger () 18. (FF Scala, FF Scala Sans, Telefont, FF Seria, FF Seria Online Shops Sans, FF Nexus , FF Nexus Sans, FF Nexus Mix) • myfonts.com 19. Fred Smeijers (OurType, , Fresco, Sansa, DTL Nobel, • Village, vllg.com • H&FJ, www.typography.com TEFF Renard, FF Quadraat) • House Industries, www.houseind.com/fonts/ 20. Albert-Jan Pool (FF DIN, URW Imperial, URW Linear, Mauritius I, FF • FontShop UK, www.fontshop.co.uk OCR-F, Jet Set Sans, DTL HEIN GAS, Regenbogen Bold) 21. Giambattista Bodoni (Bodoni) Take a peek: 22. (, Neuland, Wilhelm Klingspor Gotisch) • Hype for Type, hypefortype.com • Veer, veer.com 23. Paul Renner (Futura, 1927) • TypeTrust, typetrust.com 24. (FF Meta, ITC Officina, FF Info, FF Unit and others) • FontHaus, fonthaus.com 25. (Sabon) • Lost Type 26. (, , Zapf Chancery, Zapf ) • T26 27. (Garamond) • • www.psyops.com University of Houston  Type Classification ART 4395 / 6395 / 3330

Blackletter is the earliest printed type, and is based on hand-copied texts. It is traditionally associated with medieval German and English (Old English). Blacklet- ter was revived as a ‘pure German’ form in Nazi , and is extensively used by (particularly) Latino gangs as implying officialness or deep seriousness. Blackletter dates from around 1450.

Humanist or Oldstyle Humanist, humanistic, or humanes include the first Roman typefaces created during the 15th century by Venetian printers, such as . Oldstyle has uppercase letter forms based on Roman inscriptions, and lowercase based on Italian humanist book copying. It is typified by a gradual thick-to-thin stroke, gracefully bracketed serifs, and slanted stress, as indicted by the line through the uppercase ‘O’, and as measured through the thinnest parts of a letter form. It remains one of the most readable classes for text, due to the moderate stroke variations and good distinction between letter forms. Oldstyle dates from around 1475. > Garamond, Jenson, Caslon, , Palatino, , Hoefler Text.

Italic Usually considered a component of the roman family of a font, italic really deserves its own class. Based on Renaissance Italian Humanist handwriting, italics are casual as opposed to the more formal roman forms of a font. Italics are generally used for , captions, and the like, and not for body text. It is important to remember to use true italics as opposed to digitally generated versions. Italics for sans-serif (and occasionally other) fonts are often called obliques. Date from around 1500.

Script As mentioned above, oftentimes anything seemingly based on handwriting is lumped under script. To be more precise, script is a formal replication of . Script may also be based on engraved forms. As type, script is unsuitable for text, but is widely used to lend a formal element to a layout. Dates from 1550.

Transitional As the name implies, transitional bridges the gap between oldstyle and modern. Largely due to technological advances in casting type and printing, transitional embodies greater thick-to-thin strokes, and smaller on serifs. Stress moves to be more vertical. Dates around 1750. > Baskerville, Times Roman, Perpetua, Caledonia, Bookman, Century, Georgia, .

Didone or Modern or Modern serif typefaces, which first emerged in the late 18th century, are characterized by extreme contrast between thick and thin lines. These typefaces have a vertical stress, long and fine serifs, with minimal brackets. Serifs tend to be very thin and vertical lines are very heavy. Most modern fonts are less readable than transition- al or old style serif typefaces. Furthering the trends started with transitional, modern pushes to extreme thick-to-thin strokes, and unbracketed (square) serifs. Many modern typefaces lose readability if set too tight, or at too small a size, particularly with strong vertical stress. Dates from 1775. > Bodoni, , and . Slab (Square) Serif Slab or square serif was developed for heavy type in advertising. Also known as Egyptian (it appeared during the Egyptology craze in Europe), generally has little variation in stroke weight: it’s generally uniformly heavy. Also with slab serif, letter forms are becoming more geometric, and less calligraphic. Dates from 1825.

Sans Serif Humanist Although appearing earlier, sans (sans = without in French)serif gained much popu- larity in the twentieth century, mainly as a move towards an international aesthetic in typography. Sans serif can be strictly geometric, as in , or more humanist, as with Gill Sans. Designed by Eric Gill in 1928 it has humanist characteristics. Note the small, lilting in the letter a, and the calligraphic variations in line weight.

Sans Serif Transitional Helvetica Helvetica was developed in 1957 by Max Miedinger with Eduard Hoffmann. It is one the world’s most widely used typefaces. Its uniform, upright character makes it similar to transitional serif letters. The aim of the new design was to create a neutral typeface that had great clarity, no intrinsic meaning in its form, and could be used on a wide variety including for signage. These fonts are also referred to as “anony- OxFa mous sans serif”. Futura Sans Serif Geometric Some sans-serif forms are built around geometric forms. In Futura, designed by Paul Renner in 1927, the Os are seemingly perfect circles, and the peaks of the A and M are sharp triangles. It is based on that became representative of visual OxFa elements of the Bauhaus design style of 1919–33.

Grunge, Postmodernism, Digital Grunge typography was a development spring from postmodernism and deconstruc- tionism. It was developed as primarily image, and less for its readability. Grunge typography was a big enough movement to rate its own category, and encompasses a wide variety of ‘decomposed’ typefaces. Postmodern is another catch-all category, encompassing a wide variety of styles. Many, fall into display faces, as they are unsuitable for text. Around 1995 to present.

Handwritten, Brush, Lettering Seemingly a contradiction in terms, these fonts actually harken back to the original idea: mimicry of handwriting, brush, or lettering. These can be considered scripts, but their generally informal nature tends to separate them out.

With the advent of digital typography, we have been inundated with typefaces. Face it (pun intended), most are of poor quality or design, and often both. But even discounting the losers, there remains an overwhelming amount of very good contem- porary typefaces to be added to traditional standards. It is even more important for a designer to be discerning, and really consider what faces are being used, and how.