Article

Design History

By Steven Heller

2003

Published in Print Magazine Sep/Oct 2003

Despite all its accomplishments, the contemporary design world is afflicted by a deep vacuousness. Most students and many practitioners cannot even list or describe the field’s milestones or pioneers. I refuse to believe that this is true in other creative fields-painting, film, architecture, literature-but arguably the biggest void left by graphic design education programs is a critical awareness of design history. During the three to four years spent in undergraduate art and design school, students are offered many studio courses devoted to technology, technique, form, and even style-they are taught to solve problems in various media and to produce professional work for numerous genres. But ultimately a portfolio is the coveted end product that is given far more importance than an appreciation of history.

As co-chair of SVA’s MFA design program, I’ve found that some (not all) applicants with a graphic design background have little sense of design’s cultural significance. They lack the historical perspective that enhances modern-day professional practice. They view graphic design simply as a means to an end-a professional activity that leads to professional employment. That may be true, but this view limits the depth, and perhaps even the essence, of the educational experience.

I often urge these ‘cultural illiterates’ either to return to undergrad or take continuing-education classes that might bolster their understanding of design as a cultural manifestation. Some have taken the advice, but depending on the quality of the school and its programs, there are significant pedagogical holes that even the best-intentioned teachers have trouble filling.

I am no lock-jawed proponent of the ‘Educational Standards’ movement that seeks to hold students accountable to standardized levels of competence. However, it is critical for design students to be fluent in the language (and idioms) of design beyond the programs and styles du jour. Just as importantly, students must be aware that graphic design history intersects with other cultural, art, and political histories. Design is not produced in a vacuum, and its history must acknowledge influences from outside events, discoveries, and policies. Design history is, in a sense, world history.

As an example, consider the debate over design’s social role and designers’ social responsibility. Though useful for a designer’s self-awareness, this topic seen through the lens of history would lend it dimension and weight. Today’s designers are sometimes blamed for contributing to the wasteful excesses of our globalized capitalist consumer society, but branding and marketing methodologies-often cited as the culprits in present-day problems of conspicuous consumption-are hardly new. They were introduced more than 75 years ago when Ernst Elmo Calkins, a Midwest-born advertising executive who founded an ad firm in New York, developed a product strategy that involved regularly altering graphic styles for advertisements and packages. In the 1920s, this was dubbed ‘styling the goods’, the idea being to push consumers to change their buying habits and thus goose the economy. This confluence of advertising, product design, industrial design, and public relations was key to what eventually became the supreme paradigm of American consumer culture. And in those days-when the U.S. had seemingly endless resources-waste was not a hotly contested issue.

Tracing how Calkins’s ideas developed into the practice of planned obsolescence and the role of design in this process is more than simply fascinating, it provides a meaningful context for understanding today’s issues. Comprehending this history might not change the attitudes of the No Logo adherents-those who consider globalization and the brand ethos to be forces of economic and cultural devastation-but for teachers and students it provides a necessary foundation for intelligent and informed critical perspectives. While design educators’ primary job is not to develop the next generation of social critics, why shouldn’t designers be fluent in a critical language? For that matter, design programs should encourage designers to become critical historians. Even if scholarship is not part of students’ ultimate career goals, this kind of critical thinking will doubtless enhance relations with clients. Just as a thorough knowledge of world history helps diplomats to better understand current events and to more intelligently argue their perspectives, interactions with clients would greatly benefit from designers who are more enlightened and hopefully articulate about their own milieu.

A critical understanding of history is also vital in addressing questions about designers’ relationships to their governments and the social order, a fact crystallized by the war with Iraq. Individual decisions must be made about how (or when) designers contribute to war or anti-war efforts. Designers have created good and bad propaganda in the service of past wars, and the recent military effort was no exception. Understanding the history of both oppositional and official propaganda by analyzing it from the vantage points of politics and esthetics is an invaluable introduction to this practice. By exploring the history of propaganda, students can critically perceive how their own work functions to aid, abet, or critique public policy.

In my own truncated critical history lecture series for MFA students at SVA, I teach one class that focuses on how racial and ethnic stereotypes have been perpetuated in popular arts and mass media since the mid-19th century. The purpose of the class is to expose students to a slice of American and European history that is unfamiliar-to discuss the origin of stereotypes and to explore what remains today of this unfortunate historical legacy. Regrettably, the class isn’t allotted enough time to address some of the peripheral issues-for instance, caricature and cartoon as a means of creating and deflating public myths. While this topic is not related to graphic design in the catholic sense, it is nonetheless an important aspect of design history. And there are dozens of historical sidebars that allow for similar critical analyses about graphic design practice. Sadly, most schools barely touch on design history at all, much less these tangents.

When it comes to the educational fundamentals, the omissions are often egregious: Most design schools do not offer history survey courses that tackle more than a superficial canonical timeline, do not employ dedicated teachers of history and criticism, and do not train educators to teach this curriculum or take critical history into advanced realms of study. Even if there were more trained educators, most schools claim they do not have the finances or underwriting to maintain a dedicated critical history program.

Of course, developing a history curriculum has a lower priority than purchasing up-to-date technology or developing studio courses that have immediate professional applications. There are only so many credits available in any given year and a strict laundry list of graduation requirements prevails. So what currently takes the place of required history classes? There are various ad hoc nods toward history. Hank Richardson at Atlanta’s Portfolio Center, for one, routinely assigns students in his classes a project that involves researching a vintage 20th-century style and then producing design work influenced by that esthetic. The research is meant to go beyond the superficial into a deeper analysis of the time and place in which the styles were produced. During the course of this research, students immerse themselves in the particular methodology and mannerisms that may no doubt lead to further curiosity and investigation.

As valuable as this may be, it is far short of a devoted critical history program. Sure, the student may learn about form by researching and copying important canonical works, but the big picture-design’s influence throughout society and culture-remains a blur.

Some schools do have survey courses that use Philip Meggs’s pioneering A History of Graphic Design as a means of injecting a dose of history for a semester or two, and even a cursory sampling is better than none at all. However, the scattershot method usually results in a dry experience devoid of both passion and insight-names, dates, and places do not make for an exciting or inspiring historical narrative. Meggs’s book (or Richard Hollis’s Graphic Design: A Concise History) is best used as an outline upon which to build more engaging, pragmatic, and thoughtful activities. But the killer constraint is time.

The time allocated for even required design history courses is minimal. One or two semesters is the maximum at even the better schools, and that’s barely enough to get a firm grounding in the European Modern movement, much less the richness of postwar design and a viable survey of type. Besides, when so much material is covered in such a short time, the students end up with only a cursory amount of knowledge and a paucity of insight. To establish a truly engaging curriculum, design history must be critically presented and analyzed. It should be a foundation for understanding theory and practice, not an expendable filler.

Given the political and jurisdictional concerns of most colleges and universities, proposed changes are often deemed radical. But the ideal curriculum would be a required critical history course that is not squirreled away as a footnote to the art history department but instead must run for no less than three years within an undergraduate design program. Make it an academic or studio requirement-the rubric is irrelevant, but the subject demands the attention. The program should be structured to teach the subtleties of the requisite historical facts as well as develop critical thinking abilities. Students should come away from the program knowing how to research and analyze design’s history, how to apply their historical knowledge in critical analyses about contemporary design, how to collect artifacts, and how to write history. They should understand the intertwining, ongoing influences of design, art, politics, culture, and technology. Schools should encourage design students to create not only a portfolio, but a body of scholarship and critical writing.

While most design educators respect history, graphic design education gives lip service to a scholarship that integrates practice with historical comprehension. We teach students to experiment, we teach them to produce, we teach them methods that will get them good jobs. Graphic design education-indeed, graphic design practice-requires an even greater intellectual rigor. Many students are competent designers, and some are better than that, but they must be equally good as thinkers. They must be able to research, analyze, critique, and write. A critical history program would make this the norm for design students, not the exception.

Steven Heller is influential in Graphic Design because…
He is the co-founder and co-chair (with Lita Talarico) of the MFA Designer as Author program at the School of Visual Arts, New York, where he lectures on the history of graphic design. With Seymour Chwast he has directed Push Pin Editions, a packager of visual books, and with his wife Louise Fili he has produced over twenty books and design products for Chronicle Books and other publishers.

For over two decades he has been contributing editor to PRINT, EYE, BASELINE, and I.D. magazines, has had contributed hundreds of articles, critical essays, and columns (including his interview column "Dialogue" in PRINT) to a score of other design and culture journals.

As editor of the AIGA JOURNAL OF GRAPHIC DESIGN he published scores of critical and journalistic writers on design, and currently as editor of AIGA VOICE: Online Journal of Design, he continues to help build a critical vocabulary for the field.

He has produced or been curator of a number of exhibitions

Heller is also the recipient of the AIGA Medal for Lifetime Achievement in 1999, the Art Directors Club Hall of Fame Special Educators Award in 1996, The Pratt Institute Herschel Levitt Award in 2000, and the Society of Illustrators Richard Gangel Award for Art Direction in 2006.

Main points about the article:

-As valuable as this may be, it is far short of a devoted critical history program. Sure, the student may learn about form by researching and copying important canonical works, but the big picture-design’s influence throughout society and culture-remains a blur.

-They lack the historical perspective that enhances modern-day professional practice. They view graphic design simply as a means to an end-a professional activity that leads to professional employment. That may be true, but this view limits the depth, and perhaps even the essence, of the educational experience.

-A critical understanding of history is also vital in addressing questions about designers’ relationships to their governments and the social order, a fact crystallized by the war with Iraq.

-When it comes to the educational fundamentals, the omissions are often egregious: Most design schools do not offer history survey courses that tackle more than a superficial canonical timeline, do not employ dedicated teachers of history and criticism, and do not train educators to teach this curriculum or take critical history into advanced realms of study. Even if there were more trained educators, most schools claim they do not have the finances or underwriting to maintain a dedicated critical history program.

-Students should come away from the program knowing how to research and analyze design’s history, how to apply their historical knowledge in critical analyses about contemporary design, how to collect artifacts, and how to write history. They should understand the intertwining, ongoing influences of design, art, politics, culture, and technology. Schools should encourage design students to create not only a portfolio, but a body of scholarship and critical writing.

Just a little Q and A

_ What are the advantages of a multiple column grid.?
There are more variations available to the designer. The grid establishes a base for organization and a functional design. Don't have to be rigid, have flexibility. With 12 columns can change column width. Can group things.
_ How many characters is optimal for a line length? words per line?
45-75 characters per line. 66- Character line (counting both letters and spaces) is ideal. For multiple column work, a better average is 40-50 characters. Change type size to adjust characters per line. When use long column width need more leading to help readability.
_ Why is the baseline grid used in design?
in InDesign it is a 12 pt baseline grid. Text can be locked to baseline grid. Causes everything to align across the spread. Only choices are 12 pt, 24 pt 36 pt options. If want something between need to adjust it (Indesign-preferences-grid) It is to make things lock and align. It creates unity through a publication.
_ What is a typographic river?
In a paragraph, when there are spaces that line up to make a path of awkward blanks in the text. They happen only when using justified text and when there are not enough characters per line. Adjust justification table, make type larger or smaller.
_ From the readings what does clothesline or flow line mean?
A line in the layout that leads your eye through the page. Where elements align across the spread. Not everything has to share but one or two things need to.
_ How can you incorporate white space into your designs?
Primarily by using the grid but also by grouping elements together separated by white space, leaving open spaces on the edges. White space opens layouts and guides the eye but can also be a distraction if there is too much. Use less text. Keep it to the outsides, don't trap.

_ What is type color/texture mean?
The density of text. Things will look more grey if more space, darker if more solid.
_ What is x-height, how does it effect type color?
It’s the height of the lowercase x it fluctuates depending on the typeface. The taller it is the darker the type color because it takes up more space on the page.
_ In justification or H&J terms what do the numbers: minimum, optimum, maximum mean?
The amount of space between words. Minimum being the least possible, optimum is the idea and maximum being more than needed. select text, under justification change it to something smaller. this will help get rid of rivers.
_ What are some ways to indicate a new paragraph. Are there any rules?
There are multiple ways such as a break, a bullet, a tab, hanging indent, an ornament, size contrast, color, width, italic….A rule is to not indent the first paragraph.
_ What are some things to look out for when hyphenating text.
Make sure it is clear which are hyphens and which are dashes needed there. Don’t do too many in a row, Don’t hyphenate a heading,
_ What is a literature?
letters like fi or ff that are combined to make one letter.
_ What does CMYK and RGB mean?
Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black. CMYK is subtractive mixing while Red, Green Blue are additive mixing.
_ What does hanging punctuation mean?
Punctuation set so that it does not break the flow of text. Done to quotation marks, question marks, bullets, hyphens and other elements. If have a quote, go to type-story-check box and it will automatically hang text in Indesign.
_ What is the difference between a foot mark and an apostrophe?
Foot marks is a single vertical mark. Apostrophe is a single quotation mark (’)
_ What is the difference between an inch mark and a quote mark (smart quote)?
An inch mark is two vertical marks, A quote mark is two apostrophes angled in or out depending on if at the beginning or end of text.
_ What is a hyphen, en dash and em dashes, what are the differences and when are they used.
A hyphen is used to show a break in a word that continues on the next line, it is one third of an em dash. An en dash (half of em dash, width of upper case N) is used for amounts of time such as writing the date. Em dashes (width of a capital M) are used to show a shift in thought, between a period and a comma.
_ What are ligatures, why are they used, when are they not used, what are common ligatures
Ligatures incorporate two plus letters that might touch or interfere with each other. They are not used in all typefaces but help to keep a typeface uniform.

My Flash Webpage

So we can all blog about flash, here is my webpage.

another

I just came across this website that uses flash. This is a new artist who I saw live a couple of weeks ago, she opened for Ben Folds at Liberty Hall. So go to it to check out flash and her music, it is seriously really good.

Katie-Miller Heidke

Flash!

WEBSITE

this is NASA's website. It shows how flash is used on websites. I think this one works well with for the specific website because it feels futuristic or space-like and high tech.

rotating text

this is a simple flash animation but it shows how it can be used for text.

I think this one is funny because it has a sense of realism. I think it is geared toward artists because we are the ones who think messing with the workspace would be funny...we are dorks.

Flash is useful for designers because it is flexible. It can be used for websites, animations, making text move and many other things. It is an easy tool to make things interactive or do more basic animations (than what you would use after effects). I find it to be an easy program but I know it has many many more options that I have no idea about. I think things like information graphics (what we are doing in Jeremy's class) to show more information under the basic layers. For example have an image based graphic and click on images and it could transform it into text based.

Helpful Hint

I was finishing up my after effects video tonight and ran across this tutorial video. The actual tutorial is nothing revolutionary BUT if you watch it at the beginning he shows a way to hear sound without doing a RAM preview! It isn't like it sounds in the RAM preview but it helps so much! just press command as you are scrolling over the section as you have the audio selected.

click here

It's a little late to share but nevertheless it helps!

Readings

I found this diagram especially interesting because it has so much information packed into it. It is easy to understand yet is extremely complex at the same time. It uses color, size, symbols and text to easily establish clarity.

This quote explains the importance of comprehensive designs that are simple showing complex data shown above.

Light and Delicate Finish

This is my final series in order

SurveyMonkey

5 questions?

I would appreciate your help with my survey!

Thank you!

Wonderful World of Walbaum

Series one:

Second Series:

Chop Chop

3 Revisions

Walbaum Walbaum Walbaum....





Whatcha Think? Be Honest.

peace love jayhawks

This is one of the homecoming murals that was on Wescoe beach today. A couple people and I drew it up and submitted it to be one of the final 10 murals. Once chosen we got the 4ft by 4ft plywood board and we began painting Sunday. I am very proud of this because I spent many hours on this. I hope we were at least in the top three to get homecoming points.

I like the theme for homecoming but it is something that has been done a million times and a million more. It was difficult coming up with something original. Some of the other murals were copies of the Beatles, Warhol inspired or copy of woodstock posters.

I tried to upload the graphic that I submitted but uploading it always results in it being the inverse...hopefully tomorrow when we go over posting type posters I can figure it out.

Wacky Walbaum

Some unique things about Walbaum are the hairline serifs, balled ends, evidence of pen movement and strong contrasting widths. The ? is special because instead of a curvy line to the dot it is a harsh straight line. Overall it has a tall x-height. The upper case Q has a special tail that goes from the base of the letter below the baseline. The lower case g has two stories and a closed loop. Letters a r g y c f have balled ends showing the pen and where it stops or pauses creating a ink spot. On the small caps version the numbers go up and down, they do not sit on the same baseline. I think the upper case W is very pretty because it shows the hairline serifs and contrasting widths clearly.

I found out today in History of Philosophy and Design that the Polo ads use Walbaum in all caps (POLO). We were looking at examples from a lecture on consumerism and it showed up and I looked at it then looked harder at each characteristic of the letters and realized they used Walbaum Roman.

Walbaum

Justus Erich Walbaum

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuv

@!*&?{}

02) designed by Justus Erich Walbaum

Born January 25, 1768 In Steiniah Germany

Died January 31, 1839 In Weimar, Germany

03) Walbaum Designed in 1800

published by Linotype

(http://www.identifont.com/show?393)

04) Modern

05) The Modern classification includes typefaces with sharp serifs, high contrast.

Abrupt and dramatically contrasting stroke weights and little or no serif bracketing. Terminals are “ball-shaped” rather than reflecting a broad pen. Despite its name, this typeface style emerged in the 18th century. Some Modern typefaces were designed by Giambattista Bodoni in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and were considered radically abstract. So-called modern types were produced between c. 1788 and approximately 1820, when type design almost everywhere went into a major decline. Modern faces in general share characteristics resulting from the engraver’s tool rather than the pen.

06) Didot, Bodoni, and computer modern

07) In 1800...

The world was nearing 1 billion people (978 mill)

Cardinal Barnaba Chiaramonti succeeds Pius VI as Pius VII as the 251st Pope

The U.S Library of Congress is founded

Napoleon Bonaparte crosses the Alps and invades Italy

Ireland is proposed to join Great Britian to form the United Kingdom

President John Adams becomes the first President of the United States to life in the Executive Mansion, the White House

U.S congress holds its first Washington D.C session

William Talbot the English Photographer Pioneer was born

beginning of the change from the neoclassicism movement to the Romanic Movement.

The French Revolutionary Wars (1792-1802)

Napoleonic Wars (1799-1815)

08) Along with Walbaum he did Monotype Walbaum, and Walbaum Franktur

09) Walbaum came to typography via the unusual route of confectionery. He taught himself engraving while making his own pudding moulds while working in a pastry shop. At night, he started engraving music types. Eventually he set up his own foundry in a town called Goslar.

In 1802, just before his town was to be incorporated into Prussia, he left for Weimar. Here he established another very successful foundry. His classical types were very popular for a while until the fashion changed. His name disappeared until the 1920s, when it was revived as Monotype Walbaum.

Justus Erich Walbaum sits quietly in his Weimar workshop, establishing the German branch of Neo-classical typography. Beside Didot and Bodoni, Walbaum seems to stand rather on the margin of glory. His typeface, when judged according to the Neo-classical rules, is even a little bit “impure”. But this is precisely the reason why it is much more legible, softer and more humane than it would have been, if it had merely, blindly, aimed at an ideal. Justus Erich Walbaum came to typography from another, this time much more distant profession. He was born in 1768 as a parson’s son and was apprenticed to a confectioner in his young days. From engraving confectioner’s moulds it was only a short step to cutting type punches and type-founder’s tools. Renaissance graphic artists, to be sure, were fellows of a different calibre – they started their careers by engraving weapons! Walbaum’s name, however, does not appear in any imprint lines, because he probably never printed books himself. The same type faces were used by other printers of that period, for example Unger or Prillwitz. Maybe the last fine Walbaum type face was used to print Berthold’s Specimen Book of 1923, which also includes a specimen text in the size of 12 points, on which our transcription draws. In contradistinction to the strictly rational Didot or the elegant Bodoni, Walbaum at first sight does not possess any features that might lead to a brief attribute. In any case, however, it is an outstanding work, a far cry from chocolate wafer-cakes or cream horns. The expression of the type face is robust, as if it had been seasoned with the spicy smell of the dung of Saxon cows somewhere near Weimar, where the author had his type foundry in the years 1803-39. Its typical features are: a firm skeleton of the design of the individual letters, in some cases supported by a square scheme; daring triangular serifs of S, s, C, and G; K and R standing, like an old grumbler, with one foot placed forward; and rather conservative italics. An especially unsuccessful solution for its time was the design of italic figures. Nevertheless, they were blindly taken over by the Berthold Company in 1919, together with the other shortcomings. (http://www.stormtype.com/people.php?id=8)

The x-height of our Walbaum Text is Neo-classically reasonable in reaction to Baroque experimentation with proportions. Its descenders are relatively long; its ascenders are on a level with upper case letters. In the italic designs, lower case letters are inclined slightly more than upper case ones: this is a typical phenomenon seen in most historical type faces and we have already got accustomed to it over all those centuries. The minor irregularities and the soft details of the original type face have been retained for pleasant reading. The already mentioned figures in the italic designs have been completely redrawn to preserve the time-conditioned, uniform character of the type face family. All designs have been balanced for small sizes under 12 points. My work on Walbaum did not take long thanks to its very economizing form; the rough digitalization of its eight designs lasted exactly from 2 to 23 April 2002. This “solid body face” can be used for any sort of fiction, in particular, however, for German Romantic novels from rural settings. (http://new.myfonts.com/fonts/storm/walbaum-text/)

Based on the types of Justus Erich Walbaum, a letter cutter and type founder who set up his own foundry in Germany in 1798. Walbaum was influenced by the modern style typefaces being cut in France by letter cutters such as Firmin Didot. Walbaum is one of the most attractive modern faces. It has a lightness and delicacy which imparts an air of grace to text setting. The slight squareness of the characters gives the face an openness which is lacking in many moderns. Use the Monotype Walbaum font family for quality books, magazines, brochures and catalogues. (http://www.fonts.com/findfonts/detail.asp?pid=243198)

10) “The whole duty of typography, as of calligraphy, is to communicate to the imagination, without loss by the technology.”-anonymous

rawr

I finished my poster this weekend but realized one of my favorite lions did not make it on there so I am posting it to share. I tried posting another one but it keeps showing up blank?

Type Prejudices

Font classification:

A basic system for classifying typefaces was devised in the nineteenth century, when printers sought to identify a heritage for their own craft analogous to that of art history. Different systematic approaches exist for classification of typefaces. A historic approach seems most reasonable, even though modern designs may be difficult to assort. But there are disputable cases in every systematics.

Old style

The roman typefaces of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries emulated classical calligraphy. Sabon was designed by Jan Tschichold in 1966, based on the sixteenth-century typefaces of Claude Garamond. EX. Sabon

Transitional-

More abstract and less organic. These typefaces have sharper serifs and a more vertical axis than humanist letters. EX. Baskerville, Times New Roman, perpetua

Modern

The typefaces designed by Giambattista Bodoni in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries are radically abstract. Note the thin, straight serifs; vertical axis; and sharp contrast from thick to thin strokes.EX. Bodoni, Didot, Bernhard Modern Roman

Slab Serif Numerous bold and decorative typefaces were introduced in the nineteenth century for use in advertising. Egyptian fonts have heavy, slab-like serifs. EX. Clarendon. Ziggurat

Sans Serif

Sans-serif typefaces became common in the twentieth century.Has humanist characteristics. Note the small, lilting counter in the letter a , and the calligraphic variations in line weight. EX. Gill Sans, Franklin Gothic, Futura

Script-

Script typefaces run a wide gamut of characteristics. They can be divided by their subjective. EX. Bello, Sinclair, French Script.

Blackletter

This style has been used for more than 600 years. It originated from the handcrafted work of scribes dating as far back as the 19th C France, Italy and Germany. It remains one of the most used and versatile typographic choices and it has enjoyed modern-day revivals by some of the industry’s most celebrated type designers. EX. Textura and Franktur

Grunge

Scratchy typefaces, jarring aesthetic and philosophy that contrasts with the conventions of classic typography. They have the visual vernacular to create new designs. EX. Turbo ripped, Fallen Thyme, dead history

Monospaced

Typewriter-like, 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. They are also referred to as nonproportional in contrast to typical proportional typefaces. They are spaced perfectly evenly, creating nicely aligned colomns of text. EX. Courier, Orator, OCR A

Undeclared

Typefaces that cannot be clearly defined serif vs san serif. EX. Optima, Copperplate Gothic

Type Representatives

The Font Bureau, Inc. established 1989 by Roger Black and Davide Berlow. They combined their talents of publication design and type design to focus on the design of newspapers and magazines. The foundry’s output has ballooned to more than 1,500 typefaces today.
On the retail side, Font Bureau boasts an extensive and well-rounded collection of typefaces and type families from traditional serifs to dingbats; proprietary work is added to the growing list upon expiraiton of its exclusivity.
Font Bureau has fonts such as:
Garamond was commissioned for a Traveler magazine by Conde Nast. Douglas Crawford McMurtrie, type historian, and type designer Robert Hunter Middleton collaborated at Ludlow in 1929 to design a light oldstyle roman and italic, then released them light-heartedly under the name of “Garamond”. Jill Pichotta digitized them both, adding additional weihts with italics to the series. Graffiti designed by Leslie Cabarga in the late seventies. He collected samples of writing from walls across New York City in search for common trends in style to unite the otherwise conflicting energy of the graffiti. The designs were unused for ten years until Macintosh provided a tool to create a coherent typeface.
Pouty: Commercial lettering artist Michael Clark found that italics and light classical scripts, in their many forms, were more popular for his purposes than more formal styles. A light chancery, the fifteenth-century writing hand of the Vatican, Pouty is accompanied by a set of ligatures and alternate characters that complement a sweetly elegant cursive. Named for his daughter Jennifer, this script offers such an opportunity; FB 2000
(Pouty) (example of work)

FontShop International
Founded in 1989 by Jan Spiekermann and Erik Spiekermann FontShop International (FSI) was the first mail-order distributor of digital fonts. Since its launch, a handful of independent FontShops around the world license the premise from FSI. Although one of their main objectives was to nurture and grow the FontFont foundry-established in 1990 by the Spiekermanns along with Neville Brody-FontShop retails fonts from more than 50 other foundries around the world. In addition, FSI provides a range of publications for designers: in 1991, FontShop published the first editoin of FontBook, a massice sampler and reference guide of digital typefaces; in 2001 it began publishing Font, a print publication on typography and design from 1990 to 2000, it published the experiemental FUSE magazine and accompanying fonts, sponsoring the namesake conferences in 1995 and 1998.
The company created fonts such as; Breuer, Novel, Maurea, Photina, Beton, and Solaris. Those are some of the most popular fonts used. They carry thousands of founts from both major vendors and indie foundries. It is carefully selected for technical and design quality.
(Novel)
(Maurea)
(Breuer)
Christian Schwartz
FontHaus released Christian Schwartz’s first typeface, Flywheel, in 1992 when he was only 14 years old. A design graduate from Carnegie Mellon University, Schwartz briefly worked at MetaDesign in Berlin and Font Bureau in Boston, Massachusetts, before venturing forth as a freelance type designer in 2001. Thriving on collaborative work, Schwartz then partnered with Roger Black to create type families for the Houston Chronicle (2003) and with Paul Barnes for The Guardian (2005), as well as his previous boss, Erik Spiekermann, on corporate faces for Bosch (2004) and Deutsche Bahn (2005). While working onthese proprioetary type families, Schwartz aslo worked independently on typefaces he released through FontFont, Village, Emigre, and House Industries. In 2006 he established Schwartzco, Inc., a studio and foundry, where his reputation for speed and attention to detail continue to thrive in his personal work and evolving partnership. His website has a list of each typeface he created at each company. One of his fonts that I personally like is Giorgio Sans. It was commissioned by Chris Martinez at T, the New York Times sunday style magazine. Schwartz was awarded the prestigious Prix Charles Peignot in 2007, given every four or five years to a designer under 35 who has made "an outstanding contribution to the field of type design" by the Association Typographique Internationale.
The first set is "Stag" 2005-2008. Commissioned by David Curcurito and Darhil Crooks at Esquire. Thin Dot and Bold Dot commissioned by Benjamen Purvis at Las Vegas Weekly.
The second image shows "Giorgio sans" 2009. Commissioned by Chris Martinez at T, the New York Times Sunday style magazine. Available directly from Commercial Type and soon through Village.

When I was sitting in Type today working on the computer I realized how annoying my bracelet was clanging on the table. Despite my fear of forgetting it, I took it off and set it on my notebook. Setting it down I examined it thinking "I really love this bracelet" and pondered why. I discovered this bracelet is very appealing to me because it makes me feel good just by reading it. It reads "Live with Passion" in a beautiful sky blue leather on silver.The designer Dillon Rogers does a lot of leather bracelets all with inspirational quotes or symbols like "carpe diem" or a peace sign. Part of why I love jewelry is that it's an expression of the person. This bracelet sums up a personal philosophy that each day is a blessing and should be lived to the fullest because each second that passes will never be given back. These three pictures are of the bracelet styles I have from his work. They always go with every outfit and I get complements on them daily. I feel that everyone could use a little inspiration in their day.

Univers

Adrian Frutiger is one of the greatest typographers from the 20th century. Born a Swiss, he spent almost his whole life in Paris. He went there to work for Deberny and Peignot type foundry. He established his own design studio in Paris where he became a freelance typographer. He also did logos, fonts and the corporate image for many large companies. He also studied sculpture, graphic design and illustration. Later in Paris, he taught typography and illustration for 10 years while working. He published a book on the standard work on typography. He heavily influenced the Swiss school with his work and received many awards for his work. During his work he created more than 170 typefaces. His first creations were Phoebus, Ondine and Meridien in the early 50s. One of the most universally used is Univers. It was designed to be as neutral as possible without serifs to have clarity. The main principle in his work was the legibility of typeface, efficiency and beauty. In 2008 he collaborated on a revision of Meridien which was released as Frutiger Serif by Linotype in honor of his 80th birthday.Universe is unique because different weights and variations are differentiated by numbers rather than names with letter suffixes. The type family consists of 44 faces. The @ is not rescaled by width. The univers grid is Frutiger’s system of organizing the type family by width and thickness.

“If you remember the shape of your spoon at lunch, it has to be the wrong shape. The spoon and the letter are tools; one to take food from the bowl, the other to take information off the page... When it is a good design, the reader has to feel comfortable because the letter is both banal and beautiful.”- Adrian Frutiger

Baskerville

John Baskerville was a British typographer who revolutionized a clear typeface. He set up a printing house and published his first work, an edition of Virgil. Although he was an atheist he printed a folio bible in 1763. He was known for his clear and careful presswork rather than ornamentation. His type had level serifs with emphasis on contrasting light and heavy lines which influenced Didot. His business included paper-mache, japanning and of course printing. Typically his printed works were large with wide margins. The developed a technique to make a much smoother whiter paper which emphasized his black type. He printed works for Cambridge University and was a member of the Royal Society of Arts. Another well-known member, Benjamin Franklin, admired John’s designs so much that he brought them back to the United States. Baskerville became the adopted font for much of the federal government publishing. After his death in 1775 his wife operated the press until 1777. His work was bought by Beaumarchais and were used in a 7-volume edition of Voltaire. He is recognized as one of the leading transformers of English printing and type founding along with William Caslon. Baskerville is classified as a traditional serif shifted the axis of rounded letters to a more vertical position resulting in a more clearly consistent look.

train of thought

I finally got internet back at my house. I never realized how much it is used daily, even by the minute. For all our homework I had to go somewhere and find internet so I could blog or look up homework from blackboard. Even the small questions in my head like "what is the weather?" "What is this business' number?". My instinct every time was to go to the internet and type it in and like magic, my answer! This constant need to know everything the second we want to know it is what lead the world to the Iphone. People couldn't even walk or drive without the internet. What happened! I am completely guilty of the iphone and it has helped me countless times with immediate information. I fear the next invention to convenience us. It is like "metropolis", we watched it today in Design History, man vs machine. Now it's man vs technology. As designers I feel we are into the "new" look, the "new" thing we are the people who will be presenting new revolutionary technology and innovations to the world.

Type Definitions

1. absolute measurement- measurements of fixed values. i.e points, picas, millimeters
2. relative measurement- measurements linked to type size i.e type size, em, en, leading
3. point- the type size of a font
4. pica- unit of measurement in a layout. typically between each element it is, 24.
5. em (and em dash)- it is a relative unit of measurement used in typesetting to define basic spacing functions, and therefore it is linked to the size of type. The dash is the same size as the type ie. 72pt type has a 72 pt em.
6. en (and en dash)- it is a relative measurement equal to half of one em. in 72pt type it would be 36 points. The dash is used to denote nested clauses but also means 'to' in phrases such as two dates 1990-2009.
7. legibility- how well the eye identifies each letter of the typeface caries upon negative space, leading and line measurement.
8. rag- when left justified copy causes ragged ends on the right. it can create gaps, overhanging text, slopes or inclines
9. type alignments: (Flush) all to one side, seen as informal and asymmetrical. Can be positive in design of a page because consistent word space, clarity and harmonious. (Centered)-effective in design of a single page in a formal context. negative because it reduces readability. (Justified) positive because it creates even margins but negative because it causes space between words, hyphenation, and it has wide columns.
10. word spacing- ideal is not pared back and not extended. The space between words has been traditionally been based upon a space equivalent to the body width of a lowercase i. This space can be adjusted manually for display and title setting.
11. rivers-are separations of words that leaves gaps between several lines
12. indent- the space used to introduce a new paragraph.
13. leading-the space between one baseline to the next.
14. kerning- is the spacing between each letter. sometimes kerning pairs are made to create consistent rhythm of intercharacter space, which enhances legibility and readability
15. tracking- adjusting the overall space between letters, rather than the space between two characters. aka letterspacing.
16. weight- choice of bold, book, medium or demi. With different typefaces different options are given.
17. scale- increase in point size. larger provides more emphasis. To make the increase obvious needs to be at lease a 2pt increase.
18. typographic variation- the use if different typefaces, weights, and sizes. Bold, italic, or small-cap fonts, should serve to clarify visually for the reader specific kinds of emphasis and hierarchy.
19. orphan- final 1-2 lines of a paragraph separated from the main paragraph to form a new column.
20. window- lone word at the end of a paragraph left hanging.

My theme song

Reading One

"The general public does not understand graphic design and art direction...the conceptual nature of the graphic design process generates public confusion about the designer's task".
I feel that this is partial true because in my own experience people don't quite understand what it means to be a graphic design major. I had to show examples and go into depth during my conversation with my dad for him to understand what I wanted to do with my life. He is a very business oriented man but I made him see that as a designer its about business as well as personal creativity.

Josef Muller Brockmann is...

Swiss Graphic Designer, Josef Muller Brockmann inspired a generation with his modern outlook of design. He began as a freelance designer and illustrator in Zurich. In 1936 he established his own studio of exhibition design, graphic design and photography. But in 1950 he gradually moved away from illustration toward constructive design when he did his first typographical posters for the Tonhalle. Like many great designers he spent some time educating the younger generation in Zurich. One of his major contributions was the creation of the publication "New Graphic Design" which spread Swiss ideas internationally. He is the author of many books explaining principals and his works. He has had many one-man shows all over the world and was recognized for his cultural contributions. Another major contribution to the design world was his part in creating the modular grid. In "Grid Systems in Graphic Design"(1981) he shows many grids and designs to teach the principals. In the history of graphic design he stands for bringing geometric and radically minimalist designs to the page.

"For 60 years I have produced disorder in files, correspondence and books. In my work, however, I have always aspired to a distinct arrangement of typographic and pictorial elements, the clear identification of priorities." -Josef Muller Brockmann