Reviving the rules of typography by David Jury - continued

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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'