Quiz Question: Why did the invention of moveable type have such a large impact on the arts?
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
moveable type + gutenburg
Johannes Gutenburg was born in 1400 in Mainz, Germany to an upper class merchant and a shopkeeper. He became a German goldsmith and printer, who has been credited with inventing moveable type printing. The moveable type printing press is a process using oil-based ink and the use of a wooden printing press that was similar to the olive and wine presses that were popular at the time. His method for making type included a type metal alloy.His invention of the printing press has had a remarkable impact on the world because it allowed mass production of books that up until then were handwritten. Because books were able to be produced so much faster and more efficiently it helped to foster development in the sciences, arts, and religion. It quickly spread throughout Europe has been considered a key factor in the European Renaissance. Moveable type also allowed characters to be used and over and over again which cut down on cost and time. The printing press was basis of the printing industry until the later invention of hot metal press. Gutenburg created the world's first book using movable type, the 42- line Gutenburg Bible.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Absolute Measurements-the measurements of fixed values. Absolute measurements give points and picas which are the basic typographic measurements, a fixed value. All absolute measurements are expressed in finite terms that are not able to be altered.
Relative Measurements-these measurements define things like character spacing, which is linked to type size. This means that their relationships are defined by a series of relative measuements. Ems and ens are are good examples of relative measurements because their size is relative to the size of type that is being set. Leading is also an example of relative measurement.
Points/Picas-the point is the unit of measurement used to measure the type size of a font. The measurement refers to the height of the type block. A pica is a unit of measure equal to 12 points that is used for measuring lines of type. There are six picas (72 points) in an inch, which is equal to 25.4 millimeters.
x-height-it describes the height of the lowercase 'x'. It is the relative measurement that varies from typeface to typeface. It is used as a key reference point in the layout of a design.
the em, the en-the em is a relative measurement used in typesetting to define basic spacing functions, it is linked to the size of the type. It is a relative measurement because as the type size increases, then the em size does also. The em is equal to the size of a given type. The en is a unit of relative measurement equal to half of one em. For example, in 72 point type, an en would be 36 points.
Dashes-the em and en are used in punctuation to provide measurement for dashes. The dash is different from the hyphen. An en dash is half an em rule and is used to separate page numbers, dates and to replace the word 'to' in constructions implying movement. Em dashes are used to form lines and house nested clauses. A standard, joining em dash can cause spacing issues because it has no side-bearings and fills its bounding box so that is touches the surrounding characters.
Alignments; Justification, flush left, flush right-justified text allows the appearance of rivers of white space to appear. It can cause plagues of hyphenation if words are allowed to split to prevent this. Flush left follows the principle of handwriting with text right and alligned to the left margin and ending ragged on the right. Flush right aligning is very uncommon because it is more difficult to read. It can be used for picture captions and other accompanying texts as it is clearly distinct from body copy.
Letterspacing-it adds space between letter forms to open up text. The addition of too much space can make text look disjointed as the words start to dissemble.
Kerning- the removal of space between characters. It originally referred to part of a character that extended outside its bounding block or printing block.
Tracking-it controls the amount of space between each character in a word.
Word Spacing-adjusts the amount of space between words.
Widow- a lone word at located at the end of a paragraph. Using text set range right can help to create fewer widows, but in order to remove them completely, text must be pulled back to previous lines or pushed forward to fill the line out.
Orphan- the final one or lines of a paragraph separated from the main paragraph to form a new column. It should be avoided at all costs. When removing orphans, more text is needed to alleviate the problem.
Leading- controls the amount of space between letters, it allows the characters to breathe so that they can be read more easily. Since different fonts can be more difficult to read depending of their size and style, leading allows you to adjust to each individual typeface.
Indent, first line indent, hanging indent- indentation provides the reader with an obvious place to start reading. The length of the indent is related to the point size of the type. The indent can also be determined by the grid. First line indent is when the text in indented from the left margin in the first line of the second and subsequent paragraphs. A hanging indent is when the the first line of the text is not indented, and the lines after that are indented from the left margin.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Adrian Frutiger
Adrian Frutiger was born in Switzerland in 1928, to a weaver. He rebelled against the formality of penmanship in Swiss schools, by inventing scripts and creating stylized handwriting. He was initially interesting in sculpture but both his father and teachers encouraged him to explore the world of printing. At sixteen he worked as an compositor, which is the process of "combining visual elements into single images, often to create the illusion that all those elements are parts of the same scene," to the printer Otto Schaerffli. He also studied under Walter Kach and Alfred Willimann at the School of Applied Arts in Zurich, there he concentrated mainly on calligraphy. When Frutiger began working at Denberry and Peignot type foundry he designed the typefaces named "President," "Phoebus," and "Ondine." He also worked to convert old typefaces to the new phototypesetting Lumitype equipment. In response to the newly developed typeface Futura, Univers was created by Peignot, and Frutiger was able to create a Unviers font variation. This new typeface was widely celebrated and soon became the new font for the Charles de Gaulle International Airport. He also went on to create Versailles, which is a serif text, Avenir, which was inspired by Futura, and Vectora. He continued to create many different typefaces which were all somewhat variations of what he had created before.
Adrian Frutiger is known as one of the best typeface designers mainly because his fonts are so widely used. He continues to work on revisions of his typefaces to include refined forms and italics. He has been awarded the "Type Directors Club" which is given to "those who have made contributions to the life, art, and the craft of typography."
John Baskerville
Born in 1706 in England, John Baskerville was a member of the Royal Society of Arts. This was a disciplinary institution in London which was create to "challenge the status quo and change the world around it 'to remove the barriers of social progress.'" They wanted to refine art, change science, and extend commerce. He started businesses that used processes such as japanning and papier mache, but overall he will be remembered as a printer and typographer. Some of his most famous jobs, include many printer works for Cambridge University, and a folio bible. One of Baskerville's biggest fans was Benjamin Franklin, also a member of the Royal Society of Arts. Franklin took John's designs back to the United States with him where they were used for federal government publishing. His designs were criticized by his competitors and eventually not used by the American government. Since his death in 1775, many new fonts have been created by type foundries that are revivals of his work and named "Baskerville" after him. During his lifetime, he also made improvements to press construction by making a flatter and more sturdy bed, making the ink blacker and able to dry faster, a increasing the quality of letter design. With the help of his punch cutter John Handy, he was able to create many typefaces and books. Baskerville was a perfectionist, which is why his first complete book wasn't produced until 1757.
John Baskerville is unique because even after his death, people are still creating typefaces named after him. He has had a great impact of the world of typography because he was creating something that was so modern and unexplored at that time. He focused on the contrast of light and heavy lines. His books were very large with wide margins. He was not only an innovative typographer, but he was also making huge advances in the production of paper and ink.
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