Project 4 Q & A

1. What are the advantages of a multiple column grid?

Multiple column grids provides the designer with a lot of flexibility. There are more corners and more variations in distance when using a grid with multiple columns. Modular grid helps line things up. Create asymmetry. Gives a lot of room to be less rigid. Use different column widths, narrow and wide columns.

2. How many characters is optimal for a line length? words per line?

45-75 characters per line which provides a wide range. 66 is considered the median. Change type size to get optimal characters per line.

3. Why is the baseline grid used in design?

Baseline grids are used to align type. The baseline grid makes the designers job easier and when things are lined up it is easy to achieve continuity.

4. What is a typographic river?

Rivers are visually unattractive gaps appearing to run down a paragraph of text. They can occur with any spacing, though they are most noticeable with wide inter-word spaces caused by either full text justification ormonospaced fonts.

5. From the readings what does clothesline or flow line mean?

A flow line is the horizontal line that appears on a layout within the text; so your eye goes through the page.

6. How can you incorporate white space into your designs?

You can do this by by not filling the entire page with text or images and utilizing the white space. You can also adjust margins and gutters. Keep white spaces to the outside.

7. What is type color/texture mean?

The density of text. This is the non-white space in the design. The choice of typeface, type size, leading, word spacing and line measure affect the texture and tonal value of the text. They create varying degrees of heaviness and lightness in a text block, also known as color. Contrast between strokes also affects the richness of the texture.

8. What is x-height, how does it effect type color?

The height of a lowercase x of a given typeface. The larger the x-height, the darker the color the letter seems.

9. In justification or H&J terms what do the numbers: minimum, optimum, maximum mean?

The specific amount of space between words, the minimum being at the least possible, the optimum just right and the maximum being more than what is needed.

10. What are some ways to indicate a new paragraph. Are there any rules?

Create a first line indent, a hanging indent, tracking, running indent and create a rule under the first word.

11. What are some things to look out for when hyphenating text?

Hyphenation doesn’t improve text legibility, so other things being equal, you should turn it off. Generally, hyphenation is necessary for justified text but not for left-aligned text, because left-aligned text will have an irregular rag no matter what.

Hyphenation is also less necessary for wider text blocks, because awkward line breaks are less likely. (Newspapers have to take hyphenation seriously because most newspaper text is set in narrow columns and justified.) Hyphenation doesn’t improve text legibility, so other things being equal, you should turn it off. Generally, hyphenation is necessary for justified text but not for left-aligned text, because left-aligned text will have an irregular rag no matter what. Hyphenation is also less necessary for wider text blocks, because awkward line breaks are less likely.

12. What is a literature?

The entire body of writings of a specific language, period, people.

13. What does CMYK and RGB mean?

C- Cyan, M- Magenta, Y- Yellow, K- Black. R- Red, G- Green, B- Blue.

14. What does hanging punctuation mean?

It is a way of typesetting punctuation marks and bullet points, most commonly quotation marks and hyphens, so that they do not disrupt the ‘flow’ of a body of text or ‘break’ the margin of alignment. It is so called because the punctuation appears to ‘hang’ in the margin of the text, and is not incorporated into the block or column of text. It is commonly used when text is fully justified.

15. What is the difference between a foot mark and an apostrophe? What is the difference between an inch mark and a quote mark (smart quote)?

"Foot marks and inch marks are generic symbols that look like this ' (inch) " (foot). An apostrophe and quote mark have a small circle and curve that make it present the quote or word, such as “” ‘’. The default for a foot mark and inch mark is that on the computer keyboard. To make the apostrophes and smart quotes you hit option+[ (left bracket is quote, right bracket is apostrophe). To make them go the other direction add shift."

16. What is a hyphen, en dash and em dashes, what are the differences and when are they used?

"Hyphens are used strictly for hyphenating words or line breaks. En dashes are for amounts of time such as hourly, days or years. Em dashes are abrupt changes in thought or where a period is too strong and a comma too weak."

17. What are ligatures, why are they used, when are they not used, what are common ligatures?

"Ligatures prevent the collision or interference of characters, particularly the extended finial of the ‘f’. and the dot of the ‘i’" The 5 basic ligatures that are normally included in typefaces are: ff, fi, fl, ffi, and ffl. Some typefaces have been designed to minimize those problems and don't require the use of ligatures at all.

Type Project 4 Article

Experimental Typography. Whatever That Means.

Peter Bil'ak

2005

This article is interesting in the fact that it provides different definitions of experimental typography and pushes the reader to decide which form they believe is best. The article states that the best examples of experimental design combine different kinds of experimental methods. It seems that every designer has their own take on experimental design with ideas ranging from 'experimental typography does not exist, nor ever has' to 'every type job is experiment'. Although there are many different methods, the article believes that no matter how you go about it, the end result is no longer an experiment. "As soon as the experiment achieves its final form it can be named, categorized and analyzed according to any conventional system of classification and referencing."

Quotes I liked in the article

"As a verb, ‘to experiment’ is often synonymous with the design process itself, which may not exactly be helpful, considering that all design is a result of the design process. The term experiment can also have the connotation of an implicit disclaimer; it suggests not taking responsibility for the result."

"A scientific approach to experimentation, however, seems to be valid only in a situation where empirical knowledge is applicable, or in a situation where the outcome of the experiment can be reliably measured. What happens however when the outcome is ambiguous, non-objective, not based on pure reason?"

"This is directly opposed to the scientific usage of the word, where an experiment is designed to add to the accumulation of knowledge; in design, where results are measured subjectively, there is a tendency to go against the generally accepted base of knowledge."

"In science a single person can make valuable experiments, but a design experiment that is rooted in anti-conventionalism can only exist against the background of other — conventional — solutions. In this sense, it would be impossible to experiment if one were the only designer on earth, because there would be no standard for the experiment."

"As the profession develops and more people practice this subtle art, we continually redefine the purpose of experimentation and become aware of its moving boundaries."

clarendon flash video

Clarendon: As seen by a Superhero

p.s. the red g at the beginning of some of the final videos is a button.

flash

Basically flash makes websites awesome. Websites can incorporate flash to enhance their website with videos and animation. Flash can manipulate vector and raster graphics. Flash can be used to embed video in web pages, a feature available since Flash Player version 6. The technique is to create a flash file (.swf) that acts as a player for the video file. This is the basis for many popular video sites, including YouTube and Google Video. Designers can use flash to allow the user to have a more interactive experience with the website. Flash enables designers and developers to deliver rich content over the browsers, creating motion, interactivity and an impressive visual experience. Good Flash-sites do not require too much bandwidth, load fast and allow for a smooth interaction; besides, beautiful Flash-based sites are Photoshop masterpieces, transporting some kind of reality and fantasy to the Flash movie.

1.The Lamborghini site uses flash to bring the viewer in. At one prompt the user is asked whether they are ready to ride? If the user presses yes then they go on into the main website, if the user presses no then a picture of a back of a car is shown and then the website closes. I thought this was funny and now I want to buy a lamborghini except for i lack the funds.

2. The Sony site also uses flash wisely to bring the user in. It first shows the phrase "Believe that anything you can imagine, you can make real" as the site is loading. Although I find this kind of corny, it provides a positive atmosphere while the site is loading. Then flash is used really well to show the logo and then it goes to the main website.

3. Mauricio portfolio is a good example of creativity. Instead of the ordinary menu, he uses a kind of movieclip, where the user must interact with the stage to explore the site.

4. A site that has links to 50 Beautiful Flash Websites.

The point of this blog is that flash is awesome and I need to embrace it!

VisCon Reading: Data Flow

After looking at all the infographics I really enjoyed seeing how different projects tried to represent time. In the two projects shown here a full day of time is shown. My favorite part about 9/02/08 is that sleep is shown as the same color as the background and it shows that the designers day begins and ends in sleep. In the Typical Day Poster, the information conveyed is getting 8 hours of sleep in the day. I liked the fact that the clocks in the poster made a large T, but I wonder if it even needs the key at the bottom to show that black represents awake and red represents sleep. Also I thought it was great that the poster used military time to make the poster more clear.

Clarendon

Information kindly stolen from Melissa Foree's Blog

2) Robert Besley (1794–1876) & Hermann Eidenbenz (1902-1993)

3) Originally in 1845, redesigned in 1953

4) Slab serif

5) Linotype.com – Slab serifs

Many typeface catalogs, including our own, group all serif typefaces together under one umbrella-category. But in truth, there are many different kinds of serifs, e.g., Renaissance serifs, baroque serifs, unbracketed modern serifs, Latin serifs, wedge serifs, etc. One of the most popular styles of seriffed letter, especially for display type, remains the slab serif.

The slab serif is a genre of letterforms that has been in use for almost 200 years. Throughout this time, many different sub-styles and groups have come in and out of use. The following Font Feature discusses five categories of slab serifs that may be found in the Linotype library. For our sake, we will call these categories Clarendons, Contemporary Text Faces, Classic Text Faces, Standard-Bearers, and Massive Display Examples.

During the early 19th century, especially in Britain, letter drawers began creating thicker versions of letterforms common in European printing during the 18th century, e.g., the types of the Fourniers, Giambattista Bodoni, or the Didots. These new letter styles began to appear throughout British society. Artists, artisans, printers, and typefounders … they all would come to embrace these new ideas. In the realm of typefounding, these faces came to represent the age of industrialization, and also the beginnings of advertising. This also marked the birth hour for typefaces that would be marketed by their makers for “display” use. Quite common today!

As far as the typefaces go, the first examples seem to have been all-caps alphabets; faces with lowercase letters would come a bit later. In the UK, many of these early slab serifs were called “Egyptians,” even though they had very little to do with Egypt. Enthusiasm in Western Europe was quite high during this time period; Napoleon and his army had faced off against the British there, and hieroglyphics were in the process of decipherment. Perhaps the naming of typefaces as “Egyptian” had something to do with this popularity.

6) Belizio, Serifa, Figaro

7) The Raven by Poe published. Annexation of Texas. Rubberband invented. Naval Academy opens. Texas admitted into statehood. Great Irish Famine. Manifest Desitny first discussed. Florida becomes a state.

8) I couldn’t find any!

9)

“Clarendon is among the most evocative and colorful of the Victorian faces. The lighter weights are a later development that extends the functionality of the face, being more suitable for text setting than the bold form that is the basis of the genre. Although the broad width of the letters makes it a relatively uneconomical face for setting extended texts, the serifs are exceptionally durable and will retain their form under conditions for poor reproduction, surviving either low screen resolution or unsympathetic conditions of printing. Clarendon will hold its legibility fairly well when used as a screen font in web applications or when printed onto low-quality paper. It is also effective for architectural and environmental applications, because the strong serif forms can be easily cut out and reproduced in 3D media.”

-From The Complete Typographer by Will Hill

“Besley designed the original Clarendon in 1845 while working on the design staff of the Fann Street Foundry in London. Besley had joined Willian Thorowgood, owner of the firm, in 1838. After Thorowgood retired in 1849, Besley took over the firm and renamed it Besley & Co. Besley’s partner was the skilled punchcutter Benjamin Fox who had assisted him in creating Clarendon.

In 1845, Clarendon was the first typeface registered under a new English law that permitted type designs to be copyrighted for a three-year period. However, despite the legal protection, the face soon became one of the most plagiarized typefaces of the late 18^th and early 19^th centuries.

The name Clarendon came to not only refer to a specific face, but also to a subcategory of slab- or square-serif typefaces with bracketed serifs. Some of the later faces that belong to this subcategory include Consort, Egizio, Fortune, and Playbill. In England, Clarendon became synonymous with the term boldface as a description of weight, and the face is sill used in the Oxford English Dictionary to offset entries from their definitions.

The original Clarendon was modeled after the Egyptian faces, with bracketed serifs replacing the Egyptian square serifs. Unlike its progenitors, which were used only as display types, Clarendon was designed to serve as a condensed text type. Overall, Clarendons have the structure of romans, but lack the thin strokes typical of those faces. In fact, Clarendons often accompanied roman types, playing a role similar to contemporary boldface.(Type families containing both roman and boldface were not common until later in the century.) The bracketing of the serifs and an increased thick-and-thin stroke contrast allowed Clarendon to blend harmoniously with roman type. The intermixing of Clarendon with roman types represents one of the first instances when boldface was used instead of italics as a means of indicating emphasis – a practice that continues to this day.

Clarendons sit midway between the sever blockiness of the Egyptian slab serifs and later bracketed slab serifs such as Century Schoolbook. The serifs of19th-century Clarendons are not as thick as those of most Egyptians and the tapering provided by the brackets softens the harsh angularity typical of slab-serif faces.

The original Clarendon was a bold, condensed face, but Besley later released a slightly expanded version. This version became popular in the printing business as a display face and later its pleasing proportions made it the model for most Clarendon revivials.”

-From Revival of the Fittest edited by Philip B. Meggs & Roy McKelvey

“Clarendon is an English slab-serif typeface that was created in England by Robert Besley for the Fann Street Foundry in 1845. Besley went as far as trying to patent the typeface, and Clarendon is now known as the first registered typeface. However, the patents at the time lasted only three years; as soon as the typeface became popular, it was copied by other foundries. The original matrices and punches remained at Stephenson Blake and later resided at the Type Museum, London. They were marketed by Stephenson Blake as Consort, though some additional weights (a bold and italics) were cut in the 1950s.

It was named after the Clarendon Press in Oxford. The typeface was reworked by the Monotype foundry in 1935. It was revised by Hermann Eidenbenz in 1953.

The font was used extensively by the government of the German Empire for proclamations during World War I.

Clarendon was used by the United States National Park Service on traffic signs, but has been replaced by NPS Rawlinson Roadway. In 2008, the typeface was utilized extensively by the Ruby Tuesday restaurant chain in the re-launch of their corporate identity. “

-From the Clarendon Wikipedia page

Click below for...

A Long Essay about Clarendon

10)

“The most useful Founts that a Printer can have in his Office are Clarendons: make a striking Work of Line either in a Hand Bill or a Title Page, and do not overwhelm the other lines: they have been made with great care, so that while they are distinct and striking they possess a graceful outline, avoiding on the one hand, the clumsy inelegance of the Antique or Egyptian Character, and on the other, the appearance of an ordinary Roman Letter thickened by long use.”

-Robert Besley made the above statement in 1850, five years after his influential font was released and became a huge commercial success

Didot Final Posters

Survey

Survey for Jeremy's Class. As of right now my main question is what meal do you prefer between breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Series 2

Series 1

Objective: Parts of Didot

The coolest thing to me about Didot is the extreme contrasting widths. This is evident in almost ever single letter. Other cool things about it are the hairline serifs and balled ends. The lower case g is two stories with a closed loop. The Q is especially funky with its strange tail that goes below the baseline. The upper case W uses overlapped cropping of V. The question mark is really different and provides some character. The G has an interesting spur. a c f g r all have balled ends.

Didot

01) type out the entire alphabet, numbers and @!*&? {}
02) who designed it, dates of birth and death
Firmin Didot: April 14, 1764 – April 24, 1836
03) when was it designed
1784
04) which classification does it belong
Serif
05) write at least 75 – 100 words about the classification
Serifs are the finishing strokes in all letters other than O, o, and Q. Since the fifteenth century, the shape of these little feet has defined the evolution of serif typefaces as typographers reacted to the work of their predecessors and adapted to new printing technologies. Transitionals, with more defined serifs and a more vertical structure, paved the way for a distancing from calligraphic letterforms with the introduction of the Didones- the name derives from Firmin Didot and Giambattista Bodoni- or Moderns in the eighteenth century, with their simplified serifs and high contrast.
06) name 3 fonts that are from that same classification
Baskerville, Trajan, Bembo
07) what was happening in the world in the year the font was designed
On January 14, 1784, the Treaty of Paris was ratified by the Congress of the United States, while they met in the Senate Chamber of the Maryland State House. The Treaty formally ended the Revolutionary War and established the United States as a free and independent nation.
In the North, slavery was abolished in the state constitution of New Hampshire in 1784.
Benjamin Franklin invents bifocal spectacles.
08) name any other fonts by the designer (if the did a lot you can stop at 3)
09) Write at least 500 words about your designer or history of the font.
When designing Didot, Firmin Didot moved away from the handlettering and calligraphic characteristics of the era in search of a cleaner and more legible solution. This was accomplished with high contrast in the strokes and the use of hairlines and horizontal serifs with little bracketing. These changes personified the beginning of the modern style, and Didot became the French standard for over a century. As happens with older, successful typefaces, Didot has been redrawn many times, weathering the process of reinterpretation and new technologies; Adrian Frutiger’s version for Linotype may be the best regarded; but the more modern interpretation by Hoefler & Frere-Jones, designed for Harper’s Bazaar and later made available for retail, features seven optical sizes- from 6 point to 96 point- that optimize each size to maintain the contrast and finesse deserved by the elegant Didot.
The House of Didot in Paris, France, was one of the most illustrious in the annals of typography. In 1789, no less than seven members of the family were engaged in various branches of the book trade. The House of Didot were the King's printers and encouraged the cutting of new types.
The most important of the three generations of Didot as far as type design is concerned is Firmin. He is responsible for the first modern roman typeface in 1784, which became known as "type Didot". It remains France's greatest contribution to type design. was a French printer, engraver, and type founder. He invented the word "stereotype", which in printing refers to the metal printing plate created for the actual printing of pages (as opposed to printing pages directly with movable type), and used the process extensively, revolutionizing the book trade by his cheap editions. His manufactory was a place of pilgrimage for the printers of the world.
Firmin Didot was born in Paris into a family of printers founded by François Didot, the father of 11 children. Firmin was one of his grandchildren. The family's paper manufactory was located at Essonnes, a town c. 30 km southeast of Paris near Corbeil, which had notable paper factories.
France is indebted to the Didot family for the publication of the Biographie Nationale, and Belgium is also indebted for the establishment of her Royal Press. Relatives of Firmin Didot include François Ambroise Didot (1730–1804); Pierre François Didot (1732–95); Henri Didot (1765–1862); and Pierre Didot (1760–1853).
Along with Giambattista Bodoni of Italy, Firmin Didot is credited with establishing the use of the "Modern" classification of typefaces. The types that Didot used are characterized by extreme contrast in thick strokes and thin strokes, by the use of hairline serifs and by the vertical stress of the letters. Many fonts today are available based on Firmin Didot's typefaces. These include Linotype Didot and HTF Didot.
Firmin Didot cut the letters, and caszt them as type. His borther Pierre Didot used the types in printing. His edition of La Henriade by Voltaire in 1818 is considered his masterwork. The typeface takes inspiration from John Baskerville's experimentation with increasing stroke contrast and a more condensed armature. The Didot family's development of high contrast typeface with an increased stress is contemporary to similar faces developed by Giambattista Bodoni in Italy Didot is described as neoclassical, and is evocative of the Age of Enlightenment
10) one quote (by the designer, by someone talking about the font, or a quote about design that "fits").
“Typography fostered the modern idea of individuality, but it destroyed the medieval sense of community and integration.”

TYPE CLASSIFICATION

Type classification is a system that was devised in the nineteenth century, when printers sought to identify a heritage for their own craft similar to that of art history. Humanist letterforms are closely connected to calligraphy and the movement of the hand. Transitional and modern typefaces are more abstract and less organic. The three main groups correspond roughly to the Renaissance, Baroque, and Enlightenment periods in art and literature. Designers in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries have continued to create new typefaces based on historic characteristics.

Sans Serif- Font that loses the serif. First appeared broadly in the mid-nineteenth century with the introduction of typefaces carved from wood. The increased production of sans serifs in all widths and sizes remains today, as sans serifs prove to be quite malleable.
Examples: Akzidenz Grotesk, Futura, Franklin Gothic

Script- The typographic form of handwriting. Script typefaces strive to translate the inherently dynamic, fluid, and imperfect act of writing into metal, wood, photo, and digital typefaces, amounting to and inordinate amount of choices in a dizzying number of approaches.
Examples: Brush Script, Choc, Mistral

Monospace- Monospace typefaces take their cue from typewriters, where all letters conform to a specific physical width, resulting in letterforms that must expand or condense to make the best use of the allotted space- hence the wide is and tight ms. They are also referred to as nonproportional, in contrast to typical proportional typefaces, where each character is a different width.
Examples: Courier, Orator, and OCR A

Information found from Thinking with Type: Classifications and Graphic Design Referenced by Bryony Gomez-Palacio and Armin Vit.

House Industries

In 1993 Andy Cruz and Rich Road, who started a design firm, Brand Design Co, also established House Industries. They were later joined by a third member, Allen Mercer. With the production of its first mailer, House Industries released ten typefaces. Through 1997 they designed quirky typefaces that were delivered via floppy disks. They became known for their typefaces’ packaging. The packages were carefully constructed typefaces specific to a time or culture. House Industries has a large type library with popular sans serifs like Neutraface and Chalet as well as OpenType families like Studio Lettering and Ed Benguiat Fonts. The company goes to elaborate lengths to promote its typefaces including creating chairs, pillows and various other items inspired by the typefaces they sell. In one promotion they created the fictional character René Albert Chalet and promoted him as the creator of a new typeface Chalet.
Chalet- very versitle
Neutraface- designed in 2002 by Christian Schwartz
Ed Benguiat Fonts- Fonts that show tribute to Ed Benguiat, very unique
I really enjoyed looking at the Ed Benguiat Fonts. They carried a lot of character and were just really fun to look at. A very casual font family.

Emigre

Rudy VanderLans and Zuzana Licko founded Emigre in the mid 1980’s. Emigre produced a magazine called Emigre and designed and distributed original fonts. VanderLan led and edited the magazine while Licko made many of the successful Emigre fonts. In the late 1980’s Emigre started to distribute its fonts through floppy disks. Tim Strback of Emigre helped launch Now Serving in 1994, an online bulletin board that allowed users to purchase and download fonts. Licko alone has developed a large font library, with nearly 30 type families to her name- including the font Mrs. Eaves. Through the lifespan of Emigre, the typefaces from its foundry were continually on display and played as significant a role as the content.
Fonts by Zuzana Licko:
1. Mrs. Eaves- transitional serif typeface designed by Zuzana Licko in 1996, Mrs Eaves is a revival of the types of English printer and punchcutter John Baskerville, and is related to contemporary Baskerville typefaces.
2. Filosofia, based on Bodoni
3. Others include Solex and Tarzana, blackletters like Totally Gothic and Totally Glyphic, and the swirling Hypnopeadia patterns.
Fonts by others
1. Dead History, Designed by Scott Makela 1990
2. Keedy Sans, Designed by Jeffery Keedy in 1989 (pictured below)Dead History originally caught my eye because it is a pretty funky font, but Mrs. Eaves is a popular font and looks very classic.

Font Bureau

The Font Bureau, Inc. was established in 1989 by publication designer Roger Black and type designer David Berlow. Berlow started drawing letters by hand early in his career in 1978. In 1981 Berlow started using and experimenting with digital typography. Black was a director of magazines for Rolling Stone, New York, and Newsweek. In 1989 he started his own business with a focus on the design of newspapers and magazines. Which was the same year that he and Berlow established Font Bureau. Black led numerous publication design and Font Bureau created type families; the company has more than 1,500 typefaces today. Font Bureau has a vast and well-rounded collection of typefaces and type families from traditional serifs to less traditional.
David Berlow designed:1. Giza- (pictured above) designed in 1994, font based on Vincent Figgins’s 1845 specimen
2. FB Titling Gothic- designed in 2005, Ideal for newspaper titling due to its nearly 50 styles
3. Moderno FB- designed 1994-2008, Evolving for various clients strting with Esquire and Gentleman and ending with Montreal Gazette
Other fonts by Font Bureau:
4. Sloop- (pictured below) designed by Richard Lipton 1994-2002, Inspired by the calligraphic work of Raphael Boguslav
5. Miller- Designed by Matthew Carter 1997-2000
6. Quiosco- Designed by Cyrus Highsmith 2006, Allows for compactness without compromising legibility

I really enjoyed at looking at the variety that was in the FB titling Gothic font (pictured below). The variety made it fun to look at and the font was eye catching because it looks like headlines to newspapers.

Completely random things I enjoy

Mike Stimpson describes himself as a photographer of plastic. I thoroughly enjoyed looking at his photos, because as a kid I always played with legos with my brother. His photography is playful and just all around entertaining.
http://www.mikestimpson.com/gallery/107368#7

Most people aren't big fans of Chris Brown these days, but I still like watching this video when I need a little inspiration out of the ordinary.

G

Yesterday I went to the Ku football game. Rock Chalk!
Anyways during the game I couldn't help but see the Gatorade logo that was changed this year. Instead of writing Gatorade all over everything, the company now just simply puts a G. Its impressive to me that a sports drink is so well known that a simple letter from the alphabet can represent its product.

Adrian Frutiger was a skilled typeface designer in the twentieth century. He was born in Switzerland in 1928 as the son of a weaver. His father and school teachers discouraged his interests in sculpture and instead encouraged him to work in printing. He was an apprentice to the printer Otoo Schaerffli. He later went to study under Walter Kach and Alfred Willimann in the Kunstgewerbeschule school of applied arts in Zurich.
Charles Peignot from the Deberny and Peignot foundry recruited Frutiger because of his skilled wood-engraved illustrations. At Deberny and Peignot foundry, Frutiger designed the typfaces President, Phoebus, and Ondine. He also created Meridien and Egyptienne.
His most known font is Univers. Universe is the first modular type family designed. It hold a matrix of options totally 21 faces, coded by number. This includes five weights and 4 widths: ultra condensed, condensed, regular, and extended. Univers is unique in that it uses a two-digit code where the first digit indicates the weight and the second digit indicates the face-width. This system is known as the Univers grid.
Universe is a popular alternitive to Helvetica. Universe is very helpful when a wide range of variation is required. The condensed versions can be used as text faces that allow for narrower columns to be used. Although Universe is less known

John Baskerville

John Baskerville was born in England in 1706. He is remembered for being a skilled typographer. He was a member of the Royal Society of Arts. With the help of his punchcutter, John Handy, he designed many typefaces. The University of Cambridge hired him to print works in 1758. He also printed a folio Bible in 1763 despite his atheist beliefs. Since the 1920’s new fonts have been created based off his work and mostly called ‘Baskerville’.
Not only was Baskerville skilled at typography but he also was quite the inventor. He developed ways to produce a smoother whiter paper, which was excellent for showing the contrast between black type. He also established a new style of typography by adding wide margins and leading between each line.
The font New Baskerville reinvents Baskerville’s original forms while refining the font. It has a larger x-height than the Monotype, which improves legibility and makes the face more economical to use. The family also includes a small-cap font. New Baskerville is unique because of its extended range of weights, which consist of roman, semi-bold, bold, and heavy. It is extremely effective when used in larger text sizes and looks very graceful.

Visual Concepts Assignment #1

I really liked the section from Type and Image by Phillilp Meggs. Ever since I first started getting interested in graphic design, I have been at a loss for words on how to describe it. I usually just tell people that a graphic designer makes logos and stuff. But that is such a small part of what a graphic designer really is. Graphic Designers do a number of things but they can easily be described as problem solvers and communicators. Graphic Designers have to deliver a clear message to the masses without the meaning being lost or construed. What a daunting but worthwhile task.

Typography Definitions

1. Absolute measurement- Measurements of fixed values measured by units such as millimeters and picas.
2. Relative measurement- Measurements that don’t use fixed values. Examples are Ems and ens that have no absolute size.
3. Point- Unit of measurement that measure the height of the type block.
4. Pica- Unit of measurement commonly used for measuring lines of type.
5. Em (and em dash)- Unit of measurement equal to the point size of the current font.

6. En (and en dash)- En is half the width of an em.
7. Legibility- Based on how easy it is for the eye to read letters and distinguish them from one another.
8. Rag- irregular or uneven vertical margin of a block of type. Usually it’s the right margin that’s ragged
9. Type alignments: flush left- text is aligned along the left margin Advantage it is the default style of text alignment on the web. flush right- text is aligned along the right margin advantageous for languages that read right-to-left. centered- text is aligned to neither the left nor right margin disadvantage is that is harder to read a body of text that is centered. justified-text is aligned along the left margin, and letter- and word-spacing is adjusted so that the text falls flush with the right margin, often used in print media.
10. Word spacing: The ideal word spacing is that as the character increases in size, so should the word spacing.

11. Rivers- Gaps of white space in several lines, usually found in justified test blocks.
12. Indent- Spacing at the beginning of a paragraph to provide easy entry to a paragraph for the reader.
13. Leading- The vertical spacing between lines of type
14. Kerning- adjusting letter spacing in proportional font.
15. Tracking- adjusting the overall space between letters instead of the space between two characters like kerning.

16. Weight- Weight provides a choice on how thick a typeface is. Ex: bold
17. Scale- the point size of a font
18. Typographic variation- Different ways type is used by typographers.
19. Orphan- Final line or word of a paragraph that starts a new column.
20. Widow- One word at the end of a paragraph or column.

Josef Müller-Brockmann

Josef Müller-Brockmann came into the world in Rapperswil in 1914. He is known for being a Swiss graphic designer and teacher. Müller-Brockmann was an apprentice to designer and advertising consultant Walter Diggelman. He studied architecture, design, and art history in Zurich. He eventually opened his own study in Zurich. He became known for promoting the Swiss Style. This style sought a “universal graphic expression” using a grid-based design. This style also left out irrelevant illustration and subjective feeling. He was founder of the trilingual journal Neue Grafik which spread the Swiss Style. He was a graphic design professor in Zurich and in Ulm for a combination of six years. After that he became a European design consultant for IBM. He wrote The Graphic Artist and his Design Problems and History of Visual Communication. He had exhibitions in Zurich, Bern, Hamburg, Munich, Stuttgart, Berlin, Paris, New York, Chicago, Tokyo, Osaka, Caracas and Zagreb. Müller-Brockmann wrote Grid systems in graphic design. This influential work helped spread the use of the grid in Europe and then North America. By the mid 1970s the typographic grid was taught to graphic design students in Europe, North America, and parts of Latin America. The typographic grid continues to be taught today, but is not absolutely necessary for all page design.