Best of Type--Worst of Type

From a production standpoint, desktop typography is a vast improvement over phototypesetting. No more stinking chemistry or expensive dedicated systems! Also, the ability to fine tune, noodle, and tweak layouts is an immensely satisfying luxury, compared to the typographic systems of the '70s and '80s.

King, Liana. NALC (1997). Design>Typography>History

Could Stravinsky Have Made Fonts? or: Fear and Loathing in A Minor

Is something being lost in the translation to a digital world?

Rakowski, David. Typofile (1996). Design>Typography>History

For the Masses  

Throughout the 20th Century—the age of mass media—traditional serifed typefaces dominated the advertisements and editorial pages of mass circulation magazines.

Shinn, Nick. ShinnType (2001). Design>Typography>History

How Good is Good?

The 80s in graphic design were dominated by questions about the layout, by life style magazines, with Neville Brody’s Face seen as the big event. The 90s were dominated by questions about typography, readability, layering, with David Carson emerging as the dominant figure. With prominent figures like Peter Saville recently talking about the crisis of the unnecessary and lamenting about the fact that our contemporary culture is monthly, there might now finally be room for content, for questions about what we do and for whom we are doing it.

Sagmeister, Stefan. Typoteque.com (2002). Design>Typography>History

HTML Museum: Font and Page Size

I want to spend some time on a series of articles on web design usability practices. I call this series, the HTML Museum. I hope to update it with articles that address past web design practices and why they are no longer in use.The first exhibit deals with font, text and page size.

Lanier, Clinton R. sense and usability (2008). Articles>Web Design>Typography>History

Typography and Page Layout: The Printers' Point System

In the year 1898 the English typefounders, as a body, adopted a system (which had been in use in America since 1878) of casting their types to a certain fixed standard. That standard was the American pica, 83 of which equalled 35 centimetres. The pica, which measured 4.21mm, was divided into 12 equal parts called 'points', which makes the size of a point approximately 0.35 mm.

Magnik, John. Typography First. Design>Document Design>Typography>History

An Unbearable Lightness?    

This article considers various notions of 'beauty' and how these have informed the creative and critical processes of graphic design, specifically typography. The author considers how the Renaissance revival of Greek mathematics to support a 'universal beauty' was gradually unpicked by Enlightenment thinkers such as Descartes, Kant and Hume, and how this process has subsequently shaped modernist and postmodernist attitudes towards 'beauty'. From our current vantage point it could be argued that 'beauty' should now be considered a redundant concept; however, design schools and studios continue to make value judgments dividing the 'beautiful' from the 'ugly'. On what basis are these judgements made and are they still valid in a pluralistic society? Is it possible that we now have a new sensibility, a different notion of beauty? Reflecting upon important questions raised by the American designer and writer Steven Heller in his controversial essay 'The Cult of the Ugly' in _Eye_ magazine in 1993, the author proposes that 14 years on from the article, we can indeed witness a new aesthetic sensibility, shared but not universal, rooted in loss yet also 'found'.

Rigley, Steve. Visual Communication (2007). Articles>Graphic Design>Typography>History

We've Come a Long Way  

A (detailed) peek into the brave new - and nostalgic old - days of typesetting, through the eyes of an InDesign insider.

Kvern, Olav Martin. Adobe Magazine (1999). Design>Typography>History

Type History

Every subject, from dentistry to dog handling has its own vocabulary — terms that are peculiar (unique) to it. Typography is no exception. Learning the lingua franca (lingo) of type will make typography that much more accessible; and that will, in turn, lead to greater understanding, and hopefully a greater appreciation for all things 'type.'

I Love Typography (2008). Design>Typography>History