Type and Tools

The relationship of letters and technology

Part 1: Seeing letterforms

Robert Irwin, “Who's Afraid of Red, Yellow & Blue” / 2015 Robert Irwin/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

… seeing really is forgetting the name of the thing you see. In this instance, you walk in and your brain tells you, oh, that’s a red, a yellow, and a blue plane—so that that’s what you see. You see “red,” and “yellow” and “blue,” and it takes a while for your perceptual apparatus to burn through all that initial cognitive/linguistic labeling.

Robert Irwin, from Seeing Is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees, by Lawrence Weschler

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HOD

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Albrecht Dürer’s alphabet for Louis XIV source

Part 2: Shaping letters

An ancient Roman bronze tablet from after AD 48Source

Brush and Cchisel — Broad flat brushes defined the letters before they were carved, giving rise to “serifs” Source

@gen.ramirez Roman capital R#brushcalligraphy #calligraphy #romancapitals

Brush and Cchisel — Gen Ramirez’s diagram of brush strokes for Roman Capitals Source

Relationships of various scripts — Evolution of various Roman / Greek uncials Source

Bodoni — 1818: Bodoni Source

Hamilton Wood Type Specimen

1899 specimen from Hamlton Wood Type Source

Wooden type allowed much larger sizes to be printed Source

Wood Type Poster — With the impact of Wood type, posters proliferated for entertainment, advertising, political campaignsSource

Comparison of ancient writing systems — Comparison of ancient writing systems Source

Persian Cuneiform — Cuneiform c.3000 BCE—300CESource

Reed Stylus — Blunt end of a reed stylus into wet clay tablets Source

Tigris River — Tigris River Source

Nile River — Nile River Source

Hieratic script on Papyrus — c.1600 BCE: Hieratic script on Papyrus Source

Ancient Chinese Script on Oracle Bones — c.1200 BCE: Oracle Bones Source

Seal script example — c. 221 BCE: Seal script style Source

Clerical Script — c. 185 Han Dynasty Clerical Script Source

Types of calligraphic scripts — Types of Chinese calligraphic scripts Source

Brahmi Letter Shapes — Brahmi letter shapes Source

Birch Bark — Birch Bark Source

Palm trees — South Indian Palm Trees Source

Chinese Movable Type — 1041: Bi Sheng in China invents “movable type” from a clay-like material similar to porcelain Source

Jikji — 1377: Korean Buddhist document Jikji, oldest metal type specimenSource

Punch-Matrix System — Type Shop in Plantin Moretus Museum, Antwerp.

Punch-Matrix System — A type drawer, with compartments for each letter by size

Punch-Matrix System — c. 1876: Punch (left) and matrix (right) used in type-founding. Source

ATF Caslon Specimen 1923 — American Type Foundry Caslon Specimen, 1923 Source

72pt and 6pt capital C — 72pt and 6pt capital CSource

Aldus Manutius — Aldus Manutius (c. 1452-1515) and first use of italic forms intended to imitate the humanist handwriting. Source

Bodoni — 1818: BodoniSource

Clarendon — 1874: Different weights are developed to provide emphasis Source

Cheltenham — 1918: Morris Fuller Benton develops a variety of weights and styles for Cheltenham. It was among the first typefaces to be released as a type ‘family.’Source

Hamilton Wood Type Specimen — 1899 specimen from Hamlton Wood Type Source

Wooden type — Wooden type allowed much larger sizes to be printed Source

Wood Type Poster — With the impact of Wood type, posters proliferated for entertainment, advertising, political campaignsSource

Typewriter Mechanisms — Typewriter Mechanisms Source

IBM Selectric Type Samples — IBM Selectric Type Samples Source

Digiset — Morisawa Phototypesetting Machine from 1960s Source

Digiset — Photo-typesetting mechanismSource

Adrian Frutiger’s Univers Type Family, 1957

Apple Macintosh — 1976: Gerard Unger’s Demos, decomposed of several hundred bitmaps, to be used for typesetting on the Hell Digiset Source

Apple Macintosh — 1984: Apple Macintosh Source

Postscript — Adobe Postscript, 1985 Source

Splines — Apple TrueType splines, late 1980s Source

Cubic Bezeir — Cubic Bezier CurvesSource

Cubic Bezeir — All types of Bezier CurvesSource

Susan Kare Icons — 1984: Susan Kare Icons Source

Chicago — 2003: Kare’s Chicago font on third-generation iPod Source

Open Type — 1997: Microsoft / Adobe Open Font Format extends font’s typographic and language support capabilities.Source

Netscape Navigator — Netscape Navigator Browser, 1995 for Windows XPSource

Websafe fonts — A sample of core “Websafe” fonts

Tools

Pen
Punch-cut type
Woodblock letters
Phototypesetting
Digital screen
Digital programs

Materials

Ink
Metal
Wood
Photo
Pixels
Vectors
... to be continued