Typography Design: Course Structure

Typography Design

• Study notes on typography design are below

Lezione 1

Course Structure

• The course does not involve designing a typeface
• Course is a theoretical and practical lab
• Course is split 50/50
• Involves three seminars with former students
• Five theoretical lessons
• One external visit to a historical typography in Rozzano
• Revision activity included
• Exam involves three individual micro exercises
• Two group exercises with 3/4 people, then more than 6
• Two tests with 30 multiple choice questions, averaged for the final grade

Theoretical Lessons

• Content covers history, concepts, and rules
• Master focuses on the great masters
• Performative covers fonts that perform functions
• Emotive covers fonts that elicit emotions
• Branding covers fonts that create identities
• Editorial covers thematic books
• Digital covers URLs and thematic applications

Typography

• Typography distracts from the form and focuses on the intrinsic meaning of the word
• It is difficult to see both a typeface and what is being read simultaneously
• It is impossible to perceive both the shape of the letters and what reader is reading
• Mechanism similar to ambiguous figures is used, with a figure-ground relationship
• Vision instability occurs, making it impossible to perceive both figures simultaneously

Editorial Goblet

• Beatrice Warde was a 20th-century typography writer and scholar from 1900-1969
• Good typography reads like breathing, unconsciously

Excerpt from "The Crystal Goblet"

• Imagine carafe of wine, select an vintage for this demonstration
• There are two glasses, one of solid gold, one of pure crystal
• Pour and drink, if cared little for, one want the is the sensation of drinking from an expensively made object
• Crystal is designed to reveal rather than hide the beauty of the beverage
• Everyday lives are surrounded by letters
• People are immersed everywhere visually with words and text but pay little attention to letters

Apophenia

• Term was coined by German psychiatrist Klaus Conrad in the 1950s
• Apo is distant from, and Phenia is showing or manifesting
• Perception of something that isn't real
• Describes a tendency to perceive connections and meanings between random events
• Phenomenon can be linked to psychological disorders

Magister - Johannes Gutenberg

• Johannes Gutenberg, real name Johannes Gensfleish, lived from 1400-1468 in Mainz
• Gensfleischer were a patrician family involved in metal and coin work in 1430
• Johannes Gutenberg moved to Strasbourg for political reasons
• He worked as a goldsmith apprentice, specializing in coin minting
• He invented modern printing

Typography Type

• Type is sign and a model
• Graphy is writing and incision
• Typography involves writing via impressions
• Typography referred to composing and printing with movable type
• Today, typography involves the design and aesthetics of text

Gutenberg's Inventions

• Invention involved movable metal type
• Idea of movable type was already perfected
• Individual letters are made from reusable metal
• Letters are made from lead, tin, and antimony, to ensure durability and precision
• Printing press was adapted from wine or oil press

Matrix and Punch

• Created efficient machines to transfer ink matrix to paper
• Printing press was from which the wine flows to the world
• System for creating uniform characters with matrix and punch
• Matrix is negative mold and punch is positive
• Standardized process makes character production faster

Organization of work

• Gutenberg had a large-scale production system
• There were different roles: master, compositor, beater, proofreader, pressman, and apprentice

Material

• Paper was made from cotton, linen, hemp, or wood-derived cellulose
• Parchment was made from animal skin commonly sheep

Visual Page Design

• Gutenberg’s Bible is the first book printed in Europe using movable type. Consisting of two volumes and 1282 pages, made in Mainz
• In 2001, UNESCO added the book to the Memory of the World list completed to folio
• Took 3 years to compose and 2 years to print 180 copies
• 140 copies printed on paper, 20 copies printed on parchment

Textura

• Peter Schoeffer created Textura from 1454-1455
• Letters are without curves, and the stems end with quadrangles and the ocelli are hexagonal
• Texture is given when weaving different shapes
• Style was Gothic, and had been used previously

Typography as Zeitgeist

• Every typographic style embodies values, aesthetics, and ideas of its time
• Visual testimony to culture, innovations, and sensitivities of specific historical era
• Typeface captures the spirit and permanent record of the moment it was designed
• Characters are documents of social history and reflect dominant tastes in art and architecture

Branding

• The olympics logo retrieves stylistic elements from Art Deco
• Variable font
• A variable font contains multiple styles or weights within single file
• Due to axes of change it is possible to regulate how font looks
• Web performance improves as it reduces the needed file requests

Lezione 2

Font Gender

• Either "il font" or "la font" is acceptable
• "il font" refers to computer terms
• "la font" refers to font design and typography
• "Font" derives from the French term -> Fondre

Font VS Typeface

• Typeface is an overall design of set characters
• visual aspect and style
• Font is specific implementation of typeface in style and dimension
• Fonts on screen is the file needed to represent typeface

Font / Glyphs

• Includes uppercase, lowercase, small caps
• Numbers and symbols, etc
• Collection of all graphical symbols, alphabetic and para-alphabetic
• Small caps are designs

Diacritics

• Are accents and apostrophe
• Indicates intonation

Anatomy of Font

• Study of typography structures

Font Parts

• Gamba: Part which extends and is not connected to another letter
• Braccio: Straight part that goes to the outside
• Orecchio: Small trait outside of a lowercase "g"
• Collo: part linking top to bottom
• Gancio: Also trait of the "g", opposite from Orecchio
• Spalla: Curvy trait as base for minuscule "h" "m" "n"
• Pancia: Space inside"b" "B","d" "D"
• Piede: Bottom part of letter
• Apice: Conjunction of two parts
• Sperone: Sharp point as for capitular letter "G" to upper part

More

• Asta: structural part of a letter
• Cravatta: Centre, horizontal part of "E" "F"
• Spina: Main curve of the letter "S"
• Coda: Descending part, as for capitular letter "Q" "R""K"
• Occhio: Is not really apart of part as a measure as for height
• Corpo: Total height

• Punto (point): smallest typographic unit
• TipoMetria (Typometry): measurement of elements

Scala tipografica

• Selection of measures according to maths and history
• Use of scale for visual hierarchy

Classifications

• Aldo Novarese made classification that inspires to Maximilen Vox

Lezione 3

• Key terms in typography and their definitions for measurements

Quadratone

• Measurement for spacing and lining within the text

Terziriolo

• Tradition measurement in order to define space inside words

Crenatura (Kerning)

• Is basically spacing between the letters Goal is to make perfect balance on aspects

Uniwidth font

Each letter is same width (number and symbols as well), and keep form through the aspects

• This makes it readable for different versions

Kerntype

• It's like a game online used to learn how to kern properly
• There is a random letter and you just have to fix that - space and distance

Spaziatura (Tracking)

• Space, horizontal between all lettes

Interlinea (Leading)

• Interlinea" is the vertical space that splits two horizontal rows - influences legibility and aesthetics

Allineamento (Alignment)

• Alignment is how the text is set in regards to its place, and aspects
• Main ones are: centered, justified, and a bannister