New technologies that changed type

Source = DT&G Design
http://www.graphic-design.com/DTG/bergsland/new_typography.html

New technologies from the later 20th Century that saw the change from metal to digital type opened the doors for so many more fonts. It went from hundreds of fonts to hundreds of thousands.
This was made possible by: phototype, press type, early desktop publishing.
These 3 technologies marked a huge change to type.
With digital software you are able to adapt Point size, leading, colour, weight etc at a simple click of a button.
However although this modern version was a lot quicker to manipulate and use there was still a lot lost in the translation from metal to digital type. A certain character and feel that does not exist in a digital version.
Although this had a huge impact on typography there are also lots of other factors over the years that have also influenced typographic styles and techniques.

Helvetica- todays widely used font.

Some key points on Helvetica:

Helvetica is a swiss sans serif typeface that was developed by designer Max Miedinger with help from Eduard Hoffmann as the Haas type foundry.
The aim was to develop a neutral typeface that was had great clarity and could be easily read on the likes of signage.
It was originally called Neue Hass Grotesk and was based on Schelter Grotesk and Hass normal Grotesk.
It was created after the success of univers.
Arther Ritzel reworked it into a full family of weights etc.
In 1960 the name was changed by Haas' German parent company Stemple to Helvetica which is the Latin word for Switzerland due to its origins in order to make it more marketable internationally. Eduard Hoffmann originally rejected this name change as he felt it would not be appropriate to name a font after a country but came around due to the fact it means "swiss" as opposed to switzerland.
Similar typefaces have been created since including Monotype imaging, ParaType, Bitstream, Nimbus Sans.
Helveticas strokes are either cut horizontally or vertically.
Versions exist for the following alphabets/scripts - Latin, Cyrillic, Hebrew, Greek, Japanese, Korean, Hindi, Khmer and Vietnamese, showing how widely adopted this typeface is. Chinese faces have also been developed to complement Helvetica.
Uses of Helvetica - Commercially used for businesses such as: Orange, BMW, Microsoft, Toyota,                           Panasonic, Motorola and many more.
                             -widely used by the government such as tax forms.
                             - Nasa uses it for the space shuttle orbiter
                             - Signage
it is seen as a trusting font so gives the right message of "you will get to your destination" "your money is safe with us"
Whilst many are pleased with its simplistic state others believe that its neutrality is a platform for creative design.

"It has a modern attitude which lines up with the aesthetic premises of the 1950s and 60s. Helvetica is a corporate typeface, but on the other hand it's the favourite of hairdressers and kebab shops. It is the butter on the bread."

Lars Mueller- Helvetica devotee.

"It's durable. It comes from natural design forms. It doesn't have an expression of fashion. It has very clear lines and characters, it looks like a very serious typeface," says Frank Wildenberg, managing director of Linotype, the German firm that owns the font.

Examples of different weights of Helvetica

Compared with other major fonts.

The origins of the alphabet

What I have learnt about the origins of the alphabet from -  'The Thames and Hudson Manual of Typography'- Ruari McLean.

The ability to write brought about the invention of the alphabet. In order to have become a typographer they needed to fully understand the alphabet and how it was different from other writing systems such as chinese or Japanese.
Although it is not certain where our alphabet originated from there is a wide belief that it was most likely to have been invented less than two years before Christ in an eastern corner of the Mediterranean.
David Diringer believes that all existing writing systems have stems and developed from this first invented type. He said "The inventor of inventors are to be ranged among the greatest benefactors of mankind...only the Syro-Palestinian Semites produced a genius who created the alphabetic writing from which have descended all past and present alphabets"
As soon as writing was invented people were trying to make it look better and better to make it aesthetically pleasing.
There was a tradition of decorated, illuminated and illustrated manuscripts that are very significant to typographers, countless books exist today on the topic. The British museum has a permanent collection of illuminated manuscripts.
Paper was invented in China and this knowledge of how to make paper spread slowly from the East towards the West. The first paper mill in Europe was established in Spain in AD 1150.
Printing from wooden blocks also flourished in China. It had become an art by the tenth century AD.
The 'Diamond Sutra' which is also in the British museum dated back to 868 and has been named as the worlds oldest extant printed book.
Then came the invention of printing from moveable type made out of clay and held in an iron forme. In Pi Sheng China between 1041 and 1048 and also in korea they used moveable metal type  but since the Chinese, Japanese and Koreans did not have an alphabet the invention of moveable type was not a big deal then.
T.F. Carter said "The writing of the languages of the far east is based on some forty thousand separate symbols: for them, until the large wholesale printing of recent years, moveable type have seldom been practical or economical...The invention of printing from wooden blocks was therefore the invention of printing in china"
Nobody knows whether the process of Block printing in the form of playing cards, money or books spread to Europe before the process began there. We do not know when block printing first began in Europe but there is evidence that it was used for printing textiles from at least the sixth Century and we do know that playing cards were popular in France in the late fourteenth century.
However the wooden block printing process used for pictures and text did not lead to the invention of moveable type in Europe.
The invention of moveable type by Johannes Gutenberg was down to his knowledge of metal as a goldsmith. His invention was made after around ten years of trial and error to bring about the popular printing process that opened the door to lots more different typefaces emerging.

Ancient Greek Font.

Greek - Τηε γρεεκ αλπηαβετ. Αλτηουγη τηερε αρε μανψ σιμιλαριτιες ηερε ανδ λεττερς ωε ωουλδ ρεξογνισε τοδαψ τηερε ηας αλσο βεεν σομε δραματιξ ξηανγες.

Translation, Helvetica- The Greek alphabet. Although there are many similarities here and letters we would
recognise today there has also been some dramatic changes.

( I found a conversion website where you can type in English and get it changed to Greek called Type Greek - its reliability cannot be 100% certain but it does match the letter i have found in previous research)


For example the symbol for the letter A in upper case is the same as that used in many modern Serif typefaces, the lowercase letter a although recognised as the letter a it takes on a slightly alternative form than the commonly used current typefaces but is similar to more quirky fonts.
Other letters such as r have developed beyond recognition.  φσνπ fjnp. No lines or shape bear resemblance to the current day letters.

The First alphabets- With reference to "The complete Typographer" by Christopher Perfect

The Origins of the alphabet has caused much debate, there are many different theories as to when the first writing system was established.
The introduction of a writing system was a huge step for civilisation and helped develop many aspects of life from education, communication or clarification in the form of directions, recording stock, wealth etc
An alphabet is 'A writing system with one unique visual sign (letter) for each consonant and vowel sound (although there were no vowels in the earliest alphabets) which can be combined to form visual units (words) to represent a spoken language.'
The alphabet has been the most successful writing system. From about 1500BC it has survived despite many dramatic changes in the history of the Western world and is still used today.
Though we do not know how the alphabet came about what is known is that the Semitic people - the Phoenicians developed a new phonetic language in 1500BC which is what is believed to be the first alphabetic system. It consisted of a symbol for each of the 22 consonant sounds. It had some visual similarities to Egyptian Hieroglyphs though significantly the phoenician alphabet did not use any pictograms.
Due to the phoenicians strategic positioning on the Eastern Mediterranean coast in a bid to maximise the use of sea travel when it came to exporting their goods. These business relationships with neighbouring areas allowed the phoenician alphabet system to spread, by 800BC it had made its way west to Greece.
During this time in Greece there was many different dialects and alphabets in use. However eventually two alphabets emerged the Ionian in the east of the country and the Chalcidian in the west.
There were several similarities between these early Greek alphabets and the phoenician alphabet. These include the order and names of letters and the direction of writing which was from right to left. (or sometimes alternative)
From about 500BC the direction of writing was reversed so now read left to right.
403BC the Ionian alphabet was officially adopted as the Classical Greek alphabet in Athens. it was Chalcidian however that had been the most influenced by the phoenician alphabet and was the model for all other succeeding alphabets to emerge from Western Europe.
Around 675BC trade developed between Greeks and the Etruscans who had migrated from Asia to the west coast of Italy. This communication that the influence of the Greek Chalcidian spread to Italy and is believed to be a main factor behind the Etruscan alphabet.
The Etruscans remained dominant in Italy for some 250 years . 100 years later their power was lost to Rome. They left considerable legacy to the Romans such as architecture, law, roads and other trappings of a civilised society.
the Etruscan alphabet was inspiration of the Roman alphabet which we still use today. The Romans made slight adoptions to some letters, introduced others and removed a few too. The result was a 23 letter alphabet we still use today with the addition of J,U and W which were not added until the Middle ages.

Reviving the rules of typography by David Jury - continued

Transitional
During the last decade of the 17th Century that in France the first development of the Old Style occurred. A font for the Imprimerie Royale was created. This departure from Old Style had a huge impact on designers and printing types..
During the 18th Century the best known of these designers emerged - John Baskerville. He was an amateur printer and type founder who is acknowledged for creating one of the earliest Transitional style typefaces.
Baskerville not only made developments to type style but he also developed the printing process and he made advances in ink and paper-making which enabled him to rationalise the production of type but he still maintained the characteristics of hand written font.
The book describes Baskerville as "an open form (similar to Old Style) but set at an angle that is closer to vertical and with a greater contrast between the thickness and thinness of line (similar to modern)"
The differences between Baskerville and its predecessors may appear to be very slight but at the time John Baskervilles books were revolutionary. They were not well received, partly due to the typeface but also because of the whiteness and smoothness of the paper which gave it a 'sheen' in contrast to the opacity and darkness of the ink. Some cities went as far as accusing his books of causing blindness.
Although his books were rejected in England for more than 150 years it was these characteristic of his books as well as the type design itself  that had such an influence over Didot and Bodoni later.
Pierre Simon Fournier, said in his Manuel Typographique (1764 - 66) said of Baskerville "He has spared neither pains nor expenses to bring [his types] to utmost pitch of perfection"

Modern
" I want magnificance...I don't work for the common reader" Bodoni
The Didot  family in Paris and Giambattista Bodoni in Italy ignored all aspects of calligraphy. They introduced a rationalistic design based on what was of interest at that time in science and all things 'factual'.
They themselves were influenced by the results of research carried out in france 100 years earlier. During this experiment a team of 3 mathematicians and scientists were asked to look into the whole process of type design and its manufacture. The result was the use of a grid which enabled designers to 'execute to the smallest detail, the letter we have decided on' and they used drawing instruments rather than free hand. Their initial prints were printed from copper plates and had a dramatic impact.
Pierre simon Fournier introduced his two volume Manuale Typographique which lay out the key characteristics of 'science and economy'initiated in Paris by the Imprimerie Royale- 1702. he was a firm believer in a rational method of describing types. He had a point system that was used for describing the measurement of type which is what helped the production of the later Didot and Anglo-American point systems.
Bodoni and Didot being contemporaries were aware of each others work. They shared influences and nature of work which encouraged them to produce books which would be appreciated as works of art.
Allen Haley notes "Bodoni's work was probably the most honoured, and the least read, printing of its time'.

Sans Serif
Has also been known as Grotesque, Grot, Monoline and Jobbing type
Herbert Bayer "Why two characteristics, A and a for a single sound a? One character, one sound. Why two alphabets for one word? Why two systems of characters when a single one gives the same results?"
The first Sans Serifs were a 'by-product' of the interest of the exploration of Athens and the architectural revival at the end of the 18th Century. However it was swiftly adopted to answer the need for a simple, utilitarian font that could be used throughout newspaper advertisements, lottery and theatre tickets, programmes and later posters. In the printing world this range of materials was given the generic term 'jobbing' or 'ephemeral' work.
Sans Serif was popular and widely used when a short loud statement was required due to its uncluttered, highly legible, bold characteristics.
The rush to respond to this demand for Sans Serif fonts for commercial purposes meant that the quality suffered considerably of the early designs. For example Vincent Figgins' Sans - 1832.
The 'quirkiness' of some of the characters gave it individuality and made it stand out that were used to seeing perfectly formed and refined typefaces, they looked like 'mistakes' almost. They gained attention, achieving what it was designed to do but not in the way it was intended.
The printing trade however disliked these non- conservative fonts, branding them 'Grotesque'.
In the 19th century following world war two the early geometric 'minimalistic' qualities of Sans Serif provided the starting point for new designs. They wanted to communicate the optimism of the new modern age post war. They wanted to embrace the social advantages of mechanisation and mass production however this mechanistic structure of the early designs hindered readability.
Twenty five years later, Adrian Fruitiger's Sans Serif Univers was drawn considering optical balance rather than being constructed geometrically. It was an attempt to design a truly Utilitarian Sans Serif that could have been applied anywhere. Fruitiger  designer 21 variations of Univers, a family of different widths and weights as well as Italics which were slanted versions of their Roman counterparts rather than being calligraphic in origin as was the norm.
It was designed specifically for the photo-typesetting technology.
There has been a steadily increasing number of Sans Serif font designs since the 1960's that have been designed with the specific purpose of reading.
The invention of a new type of pen, the ball point that was developed for the use of pilots during WW2 might have led to the acceptance of 'monoline' Sans Serif types in general use.
The computer also appears to be 'encouraging a resurgence of interest in humanistic old style typographic values of warm, comfortable and readable types'

What I have learnt from Reviving the rules of Typography - David Jury

I found this book very interesting and useful when it came to learning more about some of the different type styles that I have been studying.

Blackletter
Blackletter can also be called Gothic, Textura, Fraktur or Old English.
A form of Blackletter was used for Gutenberg's 42 lined bible which was the first book published in the Western world to have survived. This type was described byAF Johnston "An upright and angular letter, characterised by an almost entire absence of curves" and was believed to be based on type derived from Roman inscriptions. It still continues to be used occasionally in Europe.
Johnston mentions that Gutenberg's type is difficult to differentiate between, such an an n being made up of two i's placed in contact. However people say that it has such an immaculate setting that offers a balance that has never been surpassed.
Blackletter is still used for newspaper mastheads, legal documents and organically produced food. Due to its German originals and Hitlers application of it as the "True German Typeface" it has also got associations with more disturbing connotations.

Old Style
Old Style represents the earliest Roman typefaces. Roman typefaces are made up of two distinct parts, The Uppercase or capitals derived from Roman stone inscriptions and the lowercase developed from hand-written books of christian scribes in Northern Europe.
Shortly after Gutenberg's invention of moveable type hand written and stone inscribed Roman lettering was able to be cut into metal type.
The characteristic associated with Old style focus on the quality of hand written font that would be produced with a broad-nibbed pen with a varying width thickness.
The appearance of books adapted with the developments in the printing process. Original Old Style typefaces such as Garamond, Plantin, Janson, Caslon etc are still considered to be amongst the most readable typefaces and therefore are frequently used in publications.

Characteristics of the Greek alphabet points.

Just a few points on Greek alphabet I found
-The Greek alphabet is the first alphabet in the sense that it had a different symbol to represent each of its 24 letters.
-It emerged in the 8th or 9th century BC after the fall of the Mycenaean civilisation.
-It led to the abandonment of the Linear B script descended from the linear A script, early Greek writing systems.
-Descended from the Phoenician alphabet and has influenced others such as the largely common of its era Latin.
-Its symbols are still used today in many instances: symbols in maths and science, particle names in physics, components of star names and other purposes.
-The Greek alphabet we recognise today came from the Greek dark ages.
-The biggest development from the phoenician alphabet to the Greek is the additive of vowels. It also added 3 new consonants.
-Greek used to be written right to left but later became written right to left.
-When letters were adopted from phoenician to Greek names were maintained or modified slighty to fit in with Greek phonology.
-The borrowed names had no meaning in Greek except labels for letters however later added Greek symbols did have proper Greek meanings.