- Caves of Lascaux - images are utilitarian, beginnings of visual communication
- Storytelling is a necessary attribute to further develop communication
- Cuneiform is similar to a pictogram turned sideways and then stylized
- "Rome captured Greece but Greece captured Rome" - Romans adopt many Greek attributes
- Romans continue to spread language and laws over vast empire
- The Roman alphabet included 23 letters excluding J, B, W
- Book of Kells - 880AD - Celtics
- Celts develop own style of writing due to their isolation and the fact that curved letterforms are more efficient
- Charlemagne crowns himself Holy Roman Emperor
- Alcuin of York is his sex scribe
- Woodblock printing leads to playing cards - makes everyone equal as anyone could have them
- Changes architecture of human brain - we now start to use patterns and sequences, strategy and symbols
- Printed book processes include either stretching and scarping animal skins or paper was made through woven strips in a grid
- Layers of ink, paper and mask folded together and put in press, crank, unfold layers
- "Mind your P's and Q's" - these letters looked similar since the forms were so tiny
- Gutenberg is credited for inventing the printing press because he brought all the systems together
- Education fundamentally altered - spreads, more efficient, books readily available
- Dialogue on global scale - sharing of books and ideas
- Aesops's Fables illustrations use negative space without a border or frame
New Material:
- Timeline - Fall of Rome, Book of Kells, Charlemagne, Crusades, block printing, Gutenberg Bible, Michel Angelo, Shakespeare
- Next evolution in letter styling happens in 1465
- Swevyheym and Pannartz - evolution to Roman letters
- 1465 letters based on handwriting of Venetian scribes
- In 1467 start to adopt rounded letterforms
- Building off of carolin miniscules
- Histories of Troy translated from French to English
- Calendarium 1476 by Ernhard Ratdolt - interest in math and science - first example of tidbit
- Steven Daye a locksmith brought printing to Colonies in 1639
- Daye's first book printed is The Whole Booke of Psalmes - showed he was not a designer
- Like Gutenberg it was more of a business descision
- Next movement is Rococo - height in 1730s France
- 1775 - James Watt and Steam Power
- 1776 - Declaration of Independence
- 1789 - French Revolution
- 18th and 19th centuries - Industrial Revolution
- 1861 - American Civil War
- 1695 - engraving of letterforms - Louis Simonneau
- Divided letterform into grid of 2304 unite - useless because so tiny
- Royal Printing Office - gets Simonneau to develop engravings
- Start to see contrast in weight, less penmanship characteristics
- Roman du Roi 1702 - no one besides royals could use
- Pierre Simon Fournier le Jeune - Manuel Typographique 1764 and 1768 - uses Rococo embellishments, floral, intricate
- Fournier gives us standardization of measurements, font family, his book on typography uses Rococo page design
- "When you tear down something, you get rid of everything" - Dorian on ridding of Rococo design - Fight Club?
- Copperplate engraving good for Rococo design - not limited to horizontals and verticals, can etch intricacies, thicks and thins, extreme contrast due to size stylus
- Copperplate engravers then started making books by hand - influences need for letterform designers and design of metal type
- England at this time not conducive to printing - war and persecution, limited to only 20 printers
- Giambattista Bodoni - 1771 title page from Saggio Tipografico inspired by Rococo
- Work of Bodoni paves way for contemporary letterforms - wanted interchangeable parts
- All this happening around Cotton Gin era
- Bodoni reinvents the serif - rids of bracket - mechanical looking
- "I only want magnificence..." Bodoni quote - he actually made lots of mistakes in his work
- Next evolution is Fat Face - extends Bodoni - display face not for body copy
- Industrial Revolution - people want to grab your attention, sell, use display type
- Brands develop, product personified
- Large, interesting faces become popular but limited space - time consuming setting large type, harder to get even form from metal
- Manufacturing replaces agriculture - shift to industrial because of steam power
- Factory systems, division of labor - terrible working and living conditions
- Influences consumerism, possessive greed
- Rise of middle class, people coming into money and don't know what to do with it - all this breeds contempt
- Long days, horrible wages, mass unemployment
- Growing literacy and education
- 1815 Vincent Figgings shows Two Lines Pics, Antique - what is now called Egyptian
- Egypt was simply cool thing at the time (still is)
- Egyptian faces have very even line weight, little contrast, slab serifs
- Next comes Two Lines Egyptian - sans serif - 3rd major type innovation
- Tuscan letters are display faces made with router
- Start seeing shadow type and highly embellished type due to power of router
- Poster houses start popping up, business opportunity
- Wood and metal type used in same design - depended on size needed
- People not going for clean and elegant - wanted to get attention
- 1870s - poster houses decline due to lithography - uses marble slab etching with acids, ink and crayon on stone - freeing, loose - could mix colors and draw directly on stone
- Growth of newspapers, magazines - advertisements move to these
- 5 families - Old Style, Transitional, Modern, Egyptian, Sans Serif
- Old Style based on hand, Romans, Garamond is an example
- Transitional is evolution to Modern, more contrast, vertical stress, understated brackets, Baskerville is an example
- Modern (for time) has extreme weight contrast, no serif brackets
- Egyptian has even weight, slab serif, Clarendon is example
- Sans Serif don't have serifs
