Maelyn Draper (101686715)

1960 to 1970 20TH CENTURY

Phototypesetting

In the 1960s, technology The Digiset was able to image 1000 characters took a huge leap forward when the first digital per second, which was an vast improvement phototypesetting machines were invented. on the manual phototypesetters of the time. These machines were the first to use digitally assembled . The new digital phototypesetting machines enabled typesetters to edit and save their The typefaces are created on a CRT (cathode work, and enabled the digitisation of . ray tube) and the image was projected onto film or photosensitive paper using tiny lights. One of the setbacks of the new digital These lights could illuminate any part of a phototypesetting machines was their limited grid, and this would later become known as ability to represent curved lines. Early efforts “If I don’t know what to do, I use blue.” the bitmap format. to digitise fonts resulted in blurry characters. The first of these digital phototypesetting The first which was designed purely - Wim Crouwel, 2007 machines was the Digiset, invented by the for digital use was Digi Grotesk, which was German Dr Ing Rudolf Hell in 1966. designed by the Hell Design Studio in 1968. Willem (Wim) Crouwel, born in 1928 in The Wim Crouwel has also contributed to the Netherlands, began his career as an abstract education of future designers, teaching at painter. In the early 1950s, he moved to various design academies and universities Amsterdam to study typography at the Gerrit in the Netherlands over the years. Rietveld Academie, and in 1954 he quit painting to begin his career as a freelance designer. The work of Wim Crouwel has been exhibited all over the world and he has won a number of In 1963, Wim Crouwel helped to found Total European design awards. Design, the first multidisciplinary design studio in the Netherlands. The Design Museum in London and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam featured his work in Crouwel worked extensively with the Stedelijk a major exhibition called “Wim Crouwel: A Museum in Amsterdam, creating many posters, Graphic Odyssey” in 2011. catalogues and exhibitions for the Museum. Crouwel’s career has spanned six decades from It was through his work with Stedelijk that he designer to teacher to museum director. He was able to develop and refine his application of continues to produce work intermittently on a the grid system, for which he is well known. diverse range of projects.

A Digiset digital phototypesetting machine A close up of a lowercase A showing its construction on a bitmap grid

New Alphabet Typeface

Wim Crouwel designed the typeface New traditionally wider characters M and W Alphabet in 1967, after he was first exposed to represented as the same forms used for N and the early digital phototypesetting machines. U with an underline to distinguish them from their narrower counterparts. Vormgevers, 1968 95x64cm poster embraces the limitations of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam CRT technology of the time, which struggled New Alphabet was only intended to be an to produce curved lines, and includes only experiment and to generate discussion among This black and white poster reveals a grid of lines horizontal and vertical stokes. designers, and Crouwel has given a number of around which the letters are formed. This grid was lectures on the controversial typeface. Thirty used by Crouwel to control the layout for most of his The New Alphabet typeface was designed years after its creation, New Alphabet was design work for the Stedelijk Museum. so that the letters were equal width. The digitised by The Foundry in 1996 and is now result was a radical set of letters, with the available for commercial use.

Morris Louis, 1965 Raysse, 1965 Edgar Fernhout, 1963 Poster Poster Poster Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam Van Abbemuseum Eindhoven

Images sourced from: http://indexgrafik.fr/wim-crouwel :: http://www.iconofgraphics.com/wim-crouwel :: http://www.designhistory.org/ Digital_Revolution_pages/EarlyDigType.html :: http://www.eyemagazine.com/feature/article/electrifying-the-alphabet :: https://www.ffonts. net/New-Alphabet-Regular. :: http://analogue76.com/blog/entry/dutch_typographies :: https://wedopix.deviantart.com/art/Joy-Division- A sample of the New Alphabet typeface The New Alphabet typeface in use on a Joy Substance-198229542 Division album cover