January 31, 2012

1. Notes

January 31, 2012

Keywords & Topics

·      Industrial Revolution

·      Fat Face

·      Wood-type Poster

·      Egyptian Style

·      Bracket

·      Tuscan Style Type

·      Sans Serif type

·      Revoltions in printing

·      Mechanization of typography

·      Ottmar Mergenthaler

·      Innovations and application of photography

·      Camera obscura

·      Hellogravure

·      Joseph Niepce

·      Daguerreotype

·      Louis Daguerre

·      Photogram

·      Kodak Camera

·      Halftone Screen

·      Popular graphics of the Victorian era

·      Lithography/Chromolithography

·      Signboards

·      For children

·      Editorial & Advertising Design

·      Victorian typography

Measure from highest to lowest.

Leading is baseline to baseline

Historic Fonts

·      Old Style

·      Traditional

·      Modern

·      Egyptian

·      Sans Serif

William Caslon 2 Line Egyptian font sans serif

1800

·      First iron printing-press made by Earl Stanhope

·      Sped up printing b/c it could press harder and took less human force.

·      Used about a tenth of the physical effort of a human press.

·      Fredrerich Koenig, first double cylinder seam powered press from 1814.

·      Iron print can do 250 an hour; a steam can do 1100 impressions an hour.

·      Papers dropped from 3 pennies increased size of demographics

·      Started selling advertising spaces.

·      Had simple, 2 word names like “The Sun”

·      John Hooper- First Ad Man

·      Early ad men- Person in charge of media buyer, brokers of space.

·      Ottmar Mergenthaler- very cool guy, like us…?

o   Invented then perfected his linotype in 1886.

o   Setting type and putting it back by hand.

o   Presses are printing 25000 an hour.

o   1886 there are 300 machines hat have been patented.

o   Born in Germany

o   Had an idea of casting type, words or lines at a time.

o   1886, demonstrates to the NY editor his machine. has a keyboard, and succeeds his job.

o   One line of type can do the work of 7-8 compositors.

·      1826- first photo of nature- Joseph Nieps

·      Henry Fox Talbot- a piece od light sensitive paper you place something on it

o   1835- first photograph printed from a negative

·      1889- Kodak releases a camera that the average person can use. Makes 100 instantaneous pictures.

·      take pictures and sent to wood gravers to turn into prints.

1880

·      first halftone plate

·      halftone in order to print a continuous tone image.

·      Etched into glass a grid pattern and photograph through that

·      Allowed us to print photographs.

·      1862-1865- American Civil War, first war to be photographed.

·      1883- Edward Muybridge.

o   Photographed a horse for a bet.

o   Set up cameras and trick wires.

o   Started motion pictures.

Victorian Era-1800s

·      Graphics- noted for aesthetic confusion.

·      Marked as a period of having strong moral and religious beliefs.

·      Victorians loved fussiness and complexity.

·      William Talbot “The Pencil of Nature”- Victorian graphics

Lithography/Chromolithography

·      Litho- print from stone

·      Advantage is you can draw directly on the stone with an oil based crayon

·      1800’s- Chromolithography.

·      1840s- printers are getting a realistic image.

·      1867- Swedish Song Quartet, Bufford’s Sons

Ephemera

·      scrap cards.

·      Louis prang and Company

·      Nationalism

 2. Personal Thoughts

I thought it was an interesting class. It's starting to get closer to modern day prints and types and way of photography. I liked learning that the people that make our computers live in small bedrooms with at least 4 people per room. It was ridiculous learning that because it's modern day and you'd think that that wouldn't happen to people now.

January 24, 2012

1. Notes

January 24, 2012

Words of the Day

·      Democratization

·      Bodoni

·      Transitional

·      Modern

·      Neo-classical

·      Interchangeable parts

·      Fat face

·      Compositor

·      Industrialization

·      Display type

·      Egyptian

·      Sans serif

·      Tuscan type

·      Wood type

·      Ephemera

·      Romain du Roi- spur in the lowercase L’s

·      England during the civil war was turmoil, and govn. Control of printing.

·      1660- Charles II demanded that the number of printers be reduced to 20 by or otherwise.

·      Giambattista Bodoni- (Bodoni type face) very Rococo influenced

·      The French revolution leads to a rejections for the lush decorations for Louis the 14^th

·      After the revolution, they looked at classicism, antiquity, neo-classisism.

Bodoni

·      Bodoni is inspired by Freneer step from old style to modern

·      Around 1790, bodoni redesigns old letter forms with geometrical and mechanical forms.

·      Mechanical- in designing elements, you look for interchangeable parts or elements that can be reused.

·      Old- organic, modern- precise.

·      Bodoni reinvents the serif. Took brackets off the serifs. Modern, historical

·      His idea is that letterforms should be built from a limited number of interchangeable units.

·      “I only want magnificence, and I don’t work for the common reader.”

1800

·      Bodoni becomes to be called “fat face” display version of bodoni. Extreme exaggeration of fat and thin lines.

·      Display faces are not intended for text. Extremely thick bodoni was really good for posters, signs, to get peoples attentions.

·      The entire world is effected by this, fundamentally change as an animal.

·      Within the industrial revolution society shifts agrarian to industrial base.

·      Industrialization leads to consumerism

·      As people are moving into cities, we have to put them somewhere, crammed into tenements.

·      Growing literacy, public education.

·      Things get cheaper as there are more printers.

·      Demand and supply, printers as drug dealers.

·      Theres a need to sell so there are a need for large type faces.

·      Carve letter forms into wood, then press it into sand, and pour metal in it.

·      Not limited to casting and metal so there are an abundances of letter forms.

·      Egyptian faces- b/c of the time it was cool. -_____-

·      Two line Egyptian- (san serif) sans serif of sans Egyptian faces.

·      Eygptian type can always be pinpointed by the big slab serifs.

·      Tuscan face- cowboys. Starting to get crazy decoration. People thought they could make awesome things with a router.

·      Shadowed letterforms, knocked out letter firms, letters with pictures inside.

·      Mass proliferation of ephemera. Passing, at the moment, nothing to save or collected.

·      Traditionally printing was a sideline job. Massive explosion of print shops.

·      Cutthroat.

·      Historical type faces- Old Style, Transitional, Modern, Egyptian, Sans Serif.

·      Display, black letter, handwritten, scripts, dingbats

·      A typeface is measured from its lowest points to highest.

·      X-height- height of lowercase

·      Leading- space between lines of type. Text it generally 20%.***** ex. 10pt type 12pt. leading.

·      Do not use auto-leading.

·      12points = 1 pica. 6pica= 1 inch. 72 points = 1in.

 


2. Personal Thoughts

I really liked this class lesson today. It was really interesting to learn about the history of serif and sans serif type faces. I am doing projects on putting together different types into a composition and this really gave me a lot to look at when I'm doing my designs. It also helps me figure out what type is what because I need to start memorize what font is what. I did not think that I would be that interested in learning about these types. I am looking forward to next weeks class.

January 17, 2012

1. Notes

The History of Graphics

January 17, 2012

·      Once you start writing things down, you take powers

·      Celtic- ornamented look

·      Capitol quadrels square top

·      Caroline miniscule

Terms and Topics

·      Lascaux

·      Sumerian

·      Cuneiform

·      Scribe

·      Illuminated manuscript

·      Book of Kells

The fall of Rome(476 A.D)

·      Spread thin

·      Celts develop their own writing styles

As society progresses, communication progresses.

Democratization- knowledge is power. Power is going to be decentralized and spread out.

Alcuin of York was Charlemagne appointed scribe

1400

·      Block printing- xylography

·      Playing cards were invented, peasants and royalty can own

·      Peasant cheap cards, king have gold cards

·      Fundamentally change the way our brains operate.

·      Memorize, entertaining, strategizing

·      With wood printing, peasants can now own an artifact.

·      Peasants can get prints of the bible and keep forever instead of trying to remember and going to church

·      Death- plague. Death is an important thing in your mind.

·      Arsmoriendi- The Art of Dying, early church propaganda

·      Quality of the text is very nice, hand carved, even color

·      Europe’s population was being wiped out by plague and sickness

Johannes Guttenberg

·      We credit him with the advent of printing with movable type

·      The time I write for printing, many experimenting.

·      The east have printing already but Guttenberg brought it all together.

·      Factors that were in place for Guttenberg to invent printing.

o   There was a growing middle class. Students in expanding universities, increased literacy, monopoly on literacy is being taken away from the church, long and the short there’s a demand.

o   A book is worth the price of a vineyard

o   Alloy- combination of led and tin, develops for value of casting letter form, has to come up with ink- hold to the metal but release when pressed to the paper, type styles, ligatures- single character cast in 2 relationships, (f and the i become one letter)

·      In 1438, forms a contract to teach a secret prices(making mirrors) heating mercury on to the underside of glass.

·      Typography, printing with type went for 400yrs

·      Letter of Indulgence- a letter given by your church in exchange for forgiveness.

·      Guttenberg bible- what he’s known for.

o   Printed between 1415-1455

o   1450- borrowing 800 guilders from Johan Faust. Idea of printing. Borrowed another 800 guilders for profit.

o   Began with 2 presses

o   210 copies, 180 on paper, 30 on vellum- required 5000 prepared skins

o   1455, Faust sues Guttenberg. He wants his money and Guttenberg protests. Faust takes him to court and takes over production and ownership of the presses and the bibles. Faust goes into business with Guttenberg’s shop foreman.

o   Incunabula- baby carriage, in this discussion refers to the first 50yrs old printing. Infancing of printing.

o   The first successful book printed of the Incunabula was Guttenberg’s bible.

o   Faust sells them as manuscripts, sells to France and they compared fonts and called him in on witchcraft.

o   Guttenberg opens his own press, but not the same quality.

o   1465, people recognized that Guttenberg was screwed over, so he got clothing, futter of wine and corn.

o   Center of printing, Mainz

o   By 1500, there are 35 editions of 9million books.

o   TYPOGRAPHY is the major communications advance between the invention of writing and the 20^th century mass communication.

o   Guttenberg’s letterform is based on the written hand of the dead.

1473, a book about famous women, includes image, borders, justification, etc.

1493, Nuremberg Chronicles- printed in Latin and German, history if the world up to that point.

Swevyheym and Pannartz- evolution of Roman letters

·      Letterforms are based on the humanistic writing of the Italian scribes.

·      Rediscovering classical texts. Roman scholars found Carolinian texts and assumed original texts.

·      In 1475, William Caxton, translates the history of Troy form French into English, becomes the first English book.

·      Calendarium- 1467, basically a calendar that shows how to read cycles of the sun and moon. Had rotating wheels on a string. In the renaissance, they liked floral decoration.

·      1639 Steven Daye, was a lock smith, brought printing to the colonies. The first thing he prints in 1640 is “The Whole Book of Psalms”. Made is in a sloppy way. Letters are blotchy, lines uneven etc.

Rococo was in the heights in the 1700s. marked fanciful ornate visual language. Late Baroque.

1692- Louis XIV orders the establishment to create a Royal Typeface.

·      Letters were drawn by scientific grid.

·      Phillipe Grandjean, specimen of Romain du Roi, 1702.

·      Roman du Roi, royal type face.

·      Pierre Simon Fournier le Jeune, Manuel Typographies, 1764 and 1768

o   Invented printers flowers(flurions), decorative elements.

o   Type used for popular literature.

Copperplate engraving became popular during Rococo (easier to make ornate details)

·      Possibility of hairlines, extreme contrast between thick and thin lines.

·      Engravers began to publish books- pushes letterform designs.

 2. Personal Thoughts

The class was very interesting. I didn't know that all the work that was involved in making books. I know for a fact I wouldn't have been able to do that, or at least spend that much time on it. All the time and effort really makes me think twice about the start of books and typography. If there wasn't type back then, I don't know if I'd even be interested in Graphic Design. 3. Questions or Comments
I don't have any questions or comments really. Just enjoyed the class a lot.