History and Features of European Typefaces and Printing Styles

Blackletter

- Handwritting style of northern european scribes later adapted to typefaces

-12th - 17th century most popular

Humanist Miniscule (Roman script)

- Late 1400s Italy

- Designed by punch cutters

- Less complex and dense than blackletter

- Made books more legible and accesible

Humanist Type

- typeface inspired by Renaissance calligraphy and classic roman proportions

-mimic the neutral angles and flow of a broad-nib pen

- feeling of warmth and personality

Aldus Manutius

- Most important figure in venetian printing

-Founded Aldine Press

- Commissions first italic type

- Published great thinkers of the Greek and Roman worlds

Francesco Griffo

- Comissioned by Aldus Manutius to create italic type around 1945

- Designs Bembo

Bembo

- Imitates the Humanist Minuscule handwriting style from 15th-century Italy.

- Associated with literature, clasisism, and the middle ages

-Francessco Griffo

- Commissioned by Maniutius

-Late 15th century

Bembo features

- Old-style serif typeface

- Tilted axis

- Small x-height

-Bracketed Serifs

Old Style Type

- Evolution of humanist type made for the printing press

- Early roman type face from the 15th and 16th century

Italics

- og made to save space by Francessco Griffo

-comissioned by aldus Manutius

- Shapes of the letters themselves are different

- Not initially made to go with Roman type

How were were books printed before paper?

expensive vellum, animal skin,

Didot

- 300 years after bembo, late 18th century

- Called Didones or Modern Serifs

- Last stage in a long evolution of traditional Roman books

- No longer show traces of human hand

- Popular in fashion

- Designed by Fimin Didot, French

Old Style Type Features

- Tilted axis

- Bracketed Serifs

- Small x-height

Bodoni

- similar to didot

- used in western fashion

Firmin Didot

- Parisian Punch cutter

- creates didot

Modern Serif Features

- Vertical axis

- non bracketed serifs (straight connection to the letter, not curved)

-strong modulation, thin and thick contrast

Bracketed Serif

- curves serifs

Romain du Roi, Kings Roman

- First true rationalist typeface

- Commissioned by Louis XIV in 1692 - official typeface of the Royal French Print office

- Designed by committee of designers, not punch cutters

- derived from a mathematically precise grid

- Engraved rather than letter pressed printing, for more detail

John Baskerville

- developed innovations to print type faces with more more delicate strokes

- Designed Baskerville in 1757

Baskerville

- Developed by John Baskerville

- Trransitional serif

- Evolution between old style to modern serif

Transitional Serifs

• Between old serif and modern type

-Vertical Axis

- More Modulation than an oldstyle

- Bracketed Serifs

Darius Wells

- American

- 1823

- Develops process for manufacturing type out of wood.

Founders

Companies that produce type

Egyptian Type/Slab Serif

- Thick, block like serifs

- Designed around 1845 by Robert Besley

- Vertical Axis, large x Height

Futura

- Geomtric Sans Serif

-1927, german designer Paul Renner

- applies ideas of constructivism

- deconstructed traditional letter forms into simple geometric shapes

- pinch curved strokes

Geometric Sans-serif

- minimal geometric forms

- apparent circular o (usually)

- unmodulated stroke

-tail-less T

Helvetica

- Neo Grotesque or rational sans serif

- Switzerland, 1957, Max Miedinger and Eduardo Hoffman

-Default typeface

Neo-grotesque

- highly legible, minimalist

- 1950s swiss design movement

Naue Grafik

- clear, objective, and neutral

without ornament or aesthetic flourishes.

-Uses visual principles of hierarchy and spacial organization

- Basel School of design

Grotesque Sans Serif

- large X Height

- Fairly unmodulated stroke

Scala Sans

- sans serif

- slightly tilted axis

- shapes and proportions are reminiscent of and old style type face

- warmth of hyumanist type, mechanical look of a rational sans serif

-1992, dutch, martin majoor

Scala

- Scala-sans serif couterpart

-matin majoor, dutch, 1990

- diferent strokes and stylistic flourishments

Super Families

- Typefaces of different styles that are meant to go together