the history of
Typography I
will be exploring the development of language and letterforms that we use today from the earliest known form of typographic communication. I find it very intriguing to discover where the alphabet came from and how different cultures borrowed and developed ideas from one another to create the alphabet we use now. My findings will be logged as a report of facts and opinions, both topically and in terms of how methods could be used in modern design processes.
B
y
A
m y
L
i
Page 1
T
C
av e
P
a i n t i n g s
he earliest form of communication can be dated back 40,000 years ago to pre-historic times. This communication method was known as cave painting, and was practiced by early civilians such as the Neanderthals, who would use red and yellow ochre; charcoal and iron oxides to paint imagery upon cave walls and rocks. Many of these images consisted of wild animals. This was done as a form of ‘hunting magic’; whereby members of society believed more animals would appear for them to hunt if they were painted. The visual idea can be supported by the fact that cave paintings are classified as ‘pictograms’: they contain no words and have a sense of narrative. Another theory has arisen that tribe leaders composed cave paintings by illustrating their visions and dreams whilst in a trance. This could be factual, given the narrative aspect usually included in cave art.
Above: Tracings
of
hands,
another
common edition to cave paintings. I really
like the sense of community suggested by having the hands all overlapping and clustered in one area.
Below: The Chinese ‘mountain’. It is an ideogram
as
it
character example
does
not
for
of
an
literally
resemble mountain peaks; however the
three vertical stems represent peaks in a symbolic way.
Turning
pictograms
into ideograms was the first step to
creating letterforms. In modern design, ideograms
aren’t
used
that
much
in
comparison to pictograms, which are commonly used on internet explorer interfaces to represent
‘home’ functions.
‘search’
and
F
Ideograms rom pictograms, ideograms were soon developed by Islamic and Chinese cultures. These were abstract symbols instead of literal; so for example, a star represented the heavens instead of just a star. The ancient Egyptians soon adopted this concept and created Hieroglyphics, whilst ideograms are still used in Chinese alphabets today; there are 5000 characters in total.
Page 2
O
H
i e r o g l y ph i c s
ver 700 hieroglyphics make up the Egyptian alphabet. When written, punctuation and spacing between words aren’t used; instead, they are written within narrow columns or rows. This in itself is quite confusing, but in addition, hieroglyphics can be written left-to-right and vice-versa. One can tell which direction hieroglyphics can be read through whichever way human and animal symbols are facing. Hieroglyphics were traditionally carved into tomb walls; however by 2,900 BC, the Egyptians created a cursive script called ‘hieratic’. This was a simplified version of hieroglyphics, which was more suitable for writing on parchment and stone.
I
P
h o e n i c i a n s
n 1200 BC, independence was gained from the Egyptians by Phoenicians, who soon developed their own alphabet made up of 22 characters, which was composed entirely from letters that would be read from left to right in horizontal lines. Original letters of the Phoenician alphabet show a large influence from Hieroglyphics: the first letter, ‘aleph’, means ‘ox’ and was developed from the Hieroglyph of an ox’s head. The Phoenician alphabet was the first to be widely used across multiple countries, and it has been the basis for writing systems of Greek, Latin, Hebrew and Arabic alphabets
Above:
rosetta
stone:
a
decree
by
the king is inscribed three times, in hieroglyphics, demotic (a generic script) and greek.
I
like how hieroglyphics are
generic shapes as opposed to detailed
imagery like in cave paintings; it shows a
degree
of
characters
development
are
more
as
symbolic.
these they
4th century, so the stone became key for deciphering it. became out of use in the
Below: The
first
character
in
the
phoenician alphabet,
‘Aleph’. Although it represents an ox head, the character represents the letter ‘A’ we use today when viewed at a horizontal orientation. I find this similarity very interesting, and it has given me awareness about the development of the modern alphabet.
Page 3
T
G
r e e k
A
lphab e t
he Greeks were the first to adapt the Phoenician alphabet by adding the first five vowels; however at this stage, punctuation and spaces between letters still weren’t used. In addition to this, all of the characters were still written in an uppercase format, and no serifs were used. The word ‘alphabet’ itself derives from the Greek alphabet, as it combines ‘alpha’ and ‘beta’, the first two characters.
R
R
o m a n
A
lphab e t
oman civilization later adapted the alphabet from the Etruscans, whose version was heavily adapted from the Greeks. The Romans remodeled the letters: C, D, G, L, P, R, S and V, whilst keeping the remaining letters of today’s Western alphabet intact. In addition, they brought back the use of F and Q, which were originally used by the Phoenicians but discarded by the Greeks. It was the Romans who placed the Z at the end of the alphabet: at first they discarded it, but brought it back soon after as they thought it to be indispensable. This stage in typographic history marks the first use of serifs, and the use of both thick and thin strokes in letterforms. The first typeface containing these features was created in 1757 by John Baskerville. Modern Roman typefaces which feature hairline serifs were namesakes of creators: Firmin Didot and Giambattisla Bodoni in the 1780’s.
Above: A
diagram showing the first few
characters of the greek alphabet, with their names and symbols.
Some initials of
the letter names are consistent with the modern alphabet,
I
E.G: K, L, M, N.
like finding comparisons between our
alphabet now and previous ones as it gives
me
better
understanding
about
around which era certain features were first used.
Below: A
modern example of the use
of roman inspired typeface: didot.
The
thick
the
and
thin
strokes
support
roman origin, as do the hairline serifs.
This
typeface is used for front covers
of harper’s bazaar magazine. it is quite an elegant typeface, so
I
would think
that it would be effective on wine bottle labels or high end fashion branding as it suggests quality.
Page 4
F
R
o m a n
n u m e r al s
rom the adoption of the Greek and Phoenician letters, the Romans used I, V, X, L, C, D and M to create Roman Numerals. These letters represent the numbers 1, 5, 10, 50, 100, 500 and 1000 respectively, and were introduced to calculate taxes and finances when Romans were world leaders. The most traditional use of Roman numerals was to label the order of family offspring of the same name: the most common example of which can be seen with past English monarchs (E.G George I, George II.) This numbering system was used until 900AD, where Hindus adapted this method to create the Arabic Numbering System. Arabic numerals are the most common symbols used to represent numbers: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9.
Above: A In modern
r ab i c
B
C
all i g r aph y
efore the development of the printing press, a scribe wrote all forms of media by hand. Such media includes labels, maps and books. The letterforms took the shape of the tools used to makes them; stone and chisel or a flat brush on paper. There are different styles of calligraphy, the first of which came from Arabic script, which is composed of 28 letters. The Arabic alphabet, like many others, contains influences form the Phoenicians and Greeks. Overall there are 6 main scripts in Arabic
Roman Numerals.
society we see this form of
typography most commonly on clock faces.
I
like the dynamic effect of the
thick and thin stems on the letters; in my opinion, this is the point where letterforms were first used for aesthetic purposes.
Roman
numerals
would
be
a useful method for making a piece of graphics more traditional looking.
Below: example of how arabic calligraphy is used to create islamic art.It seems to have been influenced by the pictorgram concept.
A
series of
I
like the idea of manipulating
type to form imagery as it is very visual and eye-catching. It reminds me somewhat of
1960’s
posters in which typography
was manipulated in a similar manner.
The
arabic script appears to be sans serif and cursive; the first cursive typeface was created in
1557 by Robert Granjon.
Page 5
calligraphy: Farsi, Naskh, Kufi, Deewani, Req’aa and Thuluth, and they respresent different artistic styles. This range in calligraphy heavily influenced Islamic Art. A
A
s i a n
C
all i g r aph y
second style of calligraphy is perhaps the most common or well known: Chinese calligraphy. With there being an individual symbol for each word (first developed in 1500 BC) it was hard to turn all of them into printing press stamps; therefore calligraphy remained a tradition for centuries, with scribes using a flat brush and ink to make the letterforms. R
I
o m a n
C
all i g r aph y
n Roman times, where Latin was the official European language , Monks would transcribe text from the Bible onto decorative paper in a narrow Gothic style to fit more words onto lines as the paper was expensive. Upon the creation of the printing press in 1440 by Johannes Gutenerg, penmanship declined, and there was a large demand for handwriting skills to write invitations and important documents in calligraphy, which flourished during the Renaissance. At the same time (1501), the Aldine Press was invented by Aldus Manutius, who introduced copperplates, which allowed italic scripts to be formed with the press.
Above: Chinese flicks
seem
spurs.
I
calligraphy.
to
like
represent
the
variation
widths as in
Roman
the
seem
scrpit
Chinese
The
small
serifs in
or
stroke
typefaces, it makes elegant.
governments
In 1958,
introduced
writing system for composing a
a
Chinese
phonetic alphabet. This was called Pinyin, and promotes a national language and and
is
used
to
popularize
teach
pronunciation
Beijing
dialect.
Below: A tray of movable type used on the Gutenberg Press. Individual letters were placed on a tray and sent through a series of mechanical rollers to print. This is where the terms ‘uppercase’ and ‘lowercase’ originate: The capital letters were found literally, in the upper case of the trays of letter punches and viceversa for lower case. Perhaps it is from this
process
that
letterblocks
were
created to produce typography.
Page 6
It is thought that his punchcutter, Francesco Griffo, created the first italic typeface. Soon, rounded-tip pens were invented, which made it difficult to create the cursive nature of calligraphy. It is due to this that the skill is not common anymore.
T
M
e d i a
a n d
F
o n t s
he spreading popularity of the printing press also brought the early forms of newspapers (around the 17th century.) A ‘default’ typeface didn’t orginiate until 1931, whre Stanley Morrison was comissioned by The Times newspaper to create an ‘easyto-read’ typeface. He went on to create Times New Roman. This typeface ha clear Roman influence due to the variation in stem thickness as well as the serifs, which Morrison included in Times New Roman due to the concept that serif fonts enable audiences to read more easily. I agree that sentences flow better; however I prefer sans serif typefaces because they seem more modern and nice to look at, particularly on screen. I find that they are more legible when printed at small point sizes and are very diverse; particularly typefaces like Helvetica. In 1996, Matthew Carter designed two typefaces: Georgia and Verdana for Microsoft (founded in 1975). These typefaces were specifically designed to retain their legibility at small sizes.
Above: An
Helvetica is This typeface was designed in 1954 by Max Miedinger . It is very versatile; being used for many brand identities and logos. Anotehr purpose of this typeface is road signs. It is suitable example of how
used in the present day.
for this as it is sans serif and therefore clear
from
far
distances;
allowing
drivers to read upcoming signs easily.
Below: Another use of Helvetica. The Microsoft logo uses the italic form. A designer called Scott Baker designed this logo, including the slash between the ‘o’ and ‘s’ to separate the two words and to convey the suggestion of speed. I like the simplicity as to how this was done, as it is subtle but is appropriate for a business corporation.
Page 7
P
o s t s c r i p t
T
I
&
r u e t y p e
n 1985 Adobe created Postscript; a language for printing documents from laser printers; however the software can be adapted to produce imagery from other devices. Four years later, Microsoft and Apple created their own version to be used on their operating systems. This was called Truetype, and contains a lot of fonts and their variations. The software is very diverse due to the range of fonts; it can be used to fit any purpose. C
o n cl u s i o n
Above: The logo for the I -Operating System. This is a mobile system developed by Apple Inc in 2007 for the i-Phone; however it has since been adapted to be used on other Apple products such as the i-Touch and i-Mac.
I
have explored many angles of the development of the alphabet and typefaces. I have found it very interesting to see where different typefaces have been influenced from and how different cultures adapted letteforms. I particularly liked finding more out about serifs and how they originated from Roman times. I like their concept of the thick and thin strokes and the elegance this brings as well. In addition, I like the idea of ideograms as these could be useful elements or logo design or branding due to the subtle imagery within the symbol. Modern examples of ideograms could be ‘no smoking’ signs or hazard warnings; although these contain no typography, they do take basic letterforms and manipulate them to form symbols. Page 8