OUGD401. Context of Practice. Lecture 7. History of Type.

Visual communication|writing|verbal communication.

Typography – meta communication, paralinguistics, kinesics.

Type classification – humanist, old style, transitional, modern slab serif, sans serif.

1450 – age of print – Gutenberg press invented. Gutenberg gothic script illegible.

Humanist typefaces – early typefaces – elegance designed to be readable.  How to identify – cross stroke of an e is slightly angled.

Geofry tory believed that the alphabet should reflect the ideal human form – origins of generation.

Old style – refined visions of humanity style fonts.

The ideal letterform is created along quasi-scientific lines.

Humanist – jenson, old style – bembo, transitional – Baskerville.

Modern typefaces developed in the 1780s – Didot – didone typeface.

Slab serif – 1800 – designed for industrialisation – display fonts.

Post modernist typefaces – rip up the rule book – move back to hand rendered. Grunge type – illegible.