Contextual Ligatures by Valeria Farina

€ 7,50

A project by:

Alessandro Dallafina: alessandro.dallafina@gmail.com Valeria Farina: tamachan_87@yahoo.com Andrea Gessa: braindamagedkx@gmail.com

Laboratorio di Design Concept Teachers: Mauro Panzeri Pier Antonio Zanini Many thanks to: Andrea Bergamini Francesco Franchi Stefano Meroni Politecnico di Milano Communication Design, 2010

Contextual Ligatures

Boss Said

elcome on Ligatures. What you have in your hands is a journal of typography about typography. As you may have already noticed, this is a magazine with a double reading: Contextual and Discretionary. The latter addresses the issues closer to the fans of glyphs and kerning, while Contextual treats typography applied to the everyday world: typography, how it is and how it should be. This issue features a major report on road signs: when they were developed, who the protagonists were and how we arrived at todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s babel of signs and signals. Studies on this kind of typography could provide great help to the people: which characters are the most appropriate, which weights are more suitable for fast viewing, how much tracking is necessary and which corrections are needed, going from positive to negative. All these studies have been conducted in isolation (often with very positive results), as there isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t any institution or organization that deals with the development of an effective empirical study of signage â&#x20AC;&#x201C; an activity that any driver on the road would very much appreciate.

Road signage is a good example of how this art, that seems to belong to an older time, has actually a big impact on our daily lives. Typography is at a crucial moment in its history: while governments insist on mistreating it, digital publishing sets it free from being a matter for the chosen few, making it available to those who are unfamiliar with its rules as well. While on the one hand there are numerous events that bode well for a return to the golden age of Venetian printers, on the other hand we are faced with an unfortunate and raw use of what has been discovered as if it were the latest fashion. It takes just a few minutes browsing web sites about graphics to see how typography has become a new virus. Text becomes image, dominated by effects of light and such, but rarely the typeface adds any meaning to the image: most of the time its choice is based on stereotypes or pleasant curves only. Every cloud has a silver lining and, from some of these resembling drifts, several valuable ideas, which are worth working on and may be able to produce some really interesting works, may eventually arise. Darth Vader 1

Index

INDEX

Issue #1  Summer 2010 on cover: Greenhills of Aglientu, A. Gessa & A. Dallafina

Report

ROAD SIGNAGE

A journey into the world of signage. When it was born, who the main designers are and which types are used.

34 REQUIREMENTS

In a few decades there has been a general change of reading habits.

Guilloches

Gargantua

THYPE!

Three days of hard work at Politecnico di Torino in honour of typography. 18 Hyperactivitypography 20 Lodi printing museum 23 Typo Chess board

Traffic signs and road signs should provide information to road users and travellers. 40 PICTOGRAMS

When and why were road signs born? The first typographic project for a signage system: London Tube.

Measure Type

Event Report

27 HISTORY OF SIGNAGE

32 SIGNS OF DESIGN

Tech

BOOK VS IPAD

Print is dying. Digital is surging. Let’s understand if and how books could be replaced.

Contextual Ligatures

46 League of moveable Type Anthropology

READaBILITY & LEGIBILITY What does reading really mean? What is the difference between legible and readable?

52 Coming together project report

NEWTON The Italian science magazine is back with a new look. Let’s discover the project.

Year 1, issue n#1 – Reg. trib. of Milano number 1537 of September 28, 2009 Responsible director Demetrio Stratos

Director Darth Vader executive editor Paul Di Anno Editorial Chief Joe Strummer Editorial staff Dom Howard Chris Wolstenholme Matthew Bellamy Philip Morris Valeria Farina Andrea Gessa Photographic Research Giorgio Canali Office Manager Lita Ford

Graphic & Art Direction Alessandro Dallafina Valeria Farina Andrea Gessa Infographics Alessandro Dallafina Valeria Farina PHOTO EDITOR Gianluca Chilenzi TYPOGRAPHY EDITOR Stefano Meroni Contributors Andrea Bergamini Giò Fuga Big Lebowski Aegir Hallmundur Gianluca Pirotta Jos Buivenga Stefano Meroni

MEET THE MAN

Francesco Franchi Interview with a rising star in Italian editorial design.

63 aGENDA

management via Stradivari 8 – 20149 MI Phone: +39 02.2233456 managemet@ligatures.com www.ligatures.com/mgm

Contacts via Stradivari 8 – 20149 MI Phone: +39 02.2233456 info@ligatures.com www.ligatures.com

printer Magazeen Print s.r.l Jackson street 8 – 20149 GB Phone: +31 0223.2233456

distribution Hatzeel Unliever street 28 – 20344 GB Phone: +31 0223.2233456

News

NEWS

EDITOR – Andrea Gessa

Your daily dose of visual and typographical inspiration. We search, we find, we review all the good things you need to know.

Lectures by Martin Majoor In the build-up to TYPO Berlin 2010 – Passion a couple of tweets by Martin Majoor caught the attention. One tweet announced that on Friday, May 21, he and Sébastien Morlighem will present the book they wrote about José Mendoza y Almeida. Mendoza, now 83 years old, designed typefaces like Pascal, Photina, and ITC Mendoza. Many consider him to be the “godfather” of French type design. Not only will visitors of TYPO Berlin be able to attend this presentation by Martin Majoor live, in another tweet he revealed that he had collected some of his old lectures (in English, German and Dutch) and put them up on poster in a series of collectibles we will make available through the his personal website for viewing. website of TypeTogether. Posters will be rolled and shipped in a tube. http://www.martinmajoor.com/ Bree: I love her Poster

http://www.type-together.com

and photographs converted to 3D. Considering it’s already threedimensional in the 2D plane when you pop on the glasses it is a multidimensional-typographic experience! Also, lend your ears to Naive Melody by Talking Heads – the inspiration for the piece (the lamp shade dance at the end of that clip is definitely one to keep in mind

for your next party). The magazine is designed by Christine Messinesi and you can down an online version. http://www.cofa.unsw.edu.au/

Typekit Accounts Expansions The talented brazilian designer Multi-dimensional Type Marina Chaccur designed this poster featuring Bree, the successful This must be the place was pub- Typekit is going to be as versatile award winning typeface designed lished this month in Incubate’s 3D as possible, so they are removing by V. Burian, published in 2008 by issue. Equipped with glasses this some limitations on how you can TypeTogether. This is the second issue has many of the illustrations use your account. Starting today, 4

Contextual Ligatures all Portfolio and Performance accounts can be used with unlimited websites. No matter how many domain names you own, you can use Typekit on all of them now. Use as many fonts as you like, across as many sites as you want. And if you’re a designer or agency working on client sites, go ahead and use your single account to serve them all. http://typekit.com/ Must! Have! This! Book! The in-school design agency Studio 3 (part of the Norwegian

U’, he actually meant that.” You can browse through its 166 pages and, if you like it order the book, you can do it right via web. www.hyperactivitypography.com Colosseo Letterpress Poster

Typography Contest. The results were announced by Kamel Gaddas, WinSoft International CEO in a ceremony held at the Adobe Beach Bash today in Dubai. The theme of the contest was collaboration and communication, two fundamental values for WinSoft International as well as UNESCO’s theme for 2010, the

What began as a 10-year wedding anniversary to Rome concluded a year later as an artistic endeavour to re-imagine the Coliseum with type. In March 2009, Cameron and his wife, Suzanne, spent several days in Rome to celebrate their 10-year anniversary. This was also a chance to observe in detail the Coliseum, which Cameron had

already selected as the next subject in his series of letterpress posters. Over the course of the next 12 months, the artwork was handcrafted character by character, totalling roughly 250 hours of work from start to finish. CharWesterdals School of Communica- acters from the Goudy Trajan and tion’s graphic design department) Bembo Pro typefaces form the recently published a book, Hyper- Coliseum (or Colosseum), also activitypography from A to Z. known as today as Colosseo (ItalThis book is one rollicking read, ian) and originally known as Amwhether you love vintage-style il- phitheatrum Flavium (Latin). lustrations, type, or both. Taking its inspiration from chil- http://colosseotype.com dren’s activity books of the midtwentieth century, Hyperactivitypography from A to Z includes Arabic Typography CONTEST games such as “match the typeface with its era” and corny jokes: “Why WinSoft International is delighted is the typographer’s wife jealous? to announce the ten winning Because when he texted her ‘I love designs in the WinSoft Arabic

Rapprochement Between Cultures. First place was awarded to Dareen and Habib Khoury for their work “World Cultures Interaction”. They described the design as “The word Rapprochement in 27 different languages ... With image of several hands in a circular movement that symbolizes the interaction between world cultures and nations which also depicts the desire to live peaceful coexistence. The texts over elaborate the truth behind a mutual respect for human dignity and the protection of morals, as an entrance to the dialogue and interaction between civilizations.” http://www.winsoft.com/

World

MEASURING TYPE A selection of the most commonly used typefaces were compared to see how economical they are.

Aegir Hallmundur | Photos – Tom Wrigglesworth

’ve just seen this project on drawing them out on a wall using Swiss Miss and I really like the biros: idea. Matt Robinson and Tom “A selection of the most Wrigglesworth compared just how commonly used typefaces were much ink different common typecompared for how economifaces use at the same point size by cal they are with the amount of ink which they use at the same point size. Large scale renditions of the typefaces were drawn out with ballpoint pens, allowing the remaining ink levels to display the ink efficiency of each typeface.” It’s not a scientific analysis or anything but it is a gloriously fun thing to do. I like the way they ended up with a graph made out of biros at the end of it, showing how much ink is left, the resulting evidence is its own data. It’s a great way of explaining typographic colour too. Love it.  Matt Robinson Matt has recently graduated from Kingston University, achieving a First Class degree in Communication Design. He has won the HP invent D&AD Student Yellow Pencil and Best new Blood on July ‘09 and the Dotitos YCN Commendation on July ‘08. www.matthewrobinson.co.uk

Contextual Ligatures

Guilloches Let’s discover this mathematical technique and its possible application in graphic design.

anknote patterns fascinate me. I can get lost for hours in all the details, seeing how the patterns fit together, how the lettering works, the tiny security “flaws”, they’re amazing. Central to banknote designs are Guilloche patterns, which can be created mechanically with a geometric lathe, or more likely these days, mathematically. The mathematical process attracted me immediately as I don’t have a geometric lathe and nor do I have anywhere to put one. I do, however, have a computer, and at the point I first started playing with the designs (mid-2004) Illustrator and Photoshop had gained the ability to be scripted. So off I went, using the hypotrochoid equations on Mathworld to create rather rough and ready pattern; scripting at this point didn’t have a very usable set of functions for creating beziers, so I had to use crummy line segments. The process took ages and served just to prove to me that I could do it, but the results were too poor to go much further. Then, a couple of years later I discovered Grapher on the Mac. Aha! Now here was a program that could create the patterns I was after and export to EPS. Well, kind of.

Aegir Hallmundur

a The basic hypertrochoid equation. This makes a nice rosette.

b The guilloches applied to the old italian 500.000 Lire.

I can get lost for hours in all the details, seeing how the patterns fit together, how the lettering works.

World It could create the patterns, most of the time, and export to EPS, though not always. I got a couple of patterns out of it and had a look round for other options. Again, not much – not much that I could afford, that is. There are still some extremely frustrating limitations though. First of these is the resolution of drawing the graph. I’m sure for most graphs the default resolution is fine, but when creating these patterns you need tiny increments. Tiny tiny ones. If the line is going from one side of the graph to the other and back again a thousand times in a couple of radians, you don’t want the graph program to start dropping line segments, or corners, or anything really. Grapher does allow you to increase the resolution, but it’s not sticky, change anything in the equation and it pops right back to the default. Every. Single. Time. The same thing seems to happen with the line thickness too; I wanted all the designs to be at 0.1, but it kept changing it back to 1.0. Frustrating! There are a couple of other UI things I’d change, like having an option to keep axes at 1:1 ratio to each other, even when you resize the window. Another, deeply irritating frustration with the whole process is to do with Illustrator. Try and

Guilloche patterns, which can be created mathematically, are crucial to banknote design.

Excentro

Excentro is a simple but advanced tool that can create guilloche designs like backgrounds, borders or rosettes.

I know there are programs devoted to creating these patterns – Excentro being apparently one of the most popular, but I’d rather use the software tools I already own first. I played a bit with Excentro and it certainly makes some things a hell of a lot easier – but I’ll hold off buying it for now until I’ve got an actual project I can use it for.

open an exported EPS in it, and you get “An unknown error occurred”. Photoshop can accept the EPSs as placed objects, and InkScape can (eventually) open them, so Grapher seems to be outputting valid EPS files. I suspect that the number of lines in the graph is causing the premier vector editing app in the industry to fall over. Oh dear. Still, after all this, I can still get the patterns made, and get them into an image editing program, which is quite something. Now I just need to find the magic numbers to create just the right patterns I want. 

www.excourse.com b This beast creates the pattern over here. The m is not strictly necessary for this one, but varying it is good for experimentation.

Contextual Ligatures

Grand Gargantua A journey in the art of typography moveable type Perhaps nowadays few will know the exact meaning of these two words, but until the middle of the twentieth century a letter was a small piece of lead, and to use it for printing you literally had to move it around, by hand. This simple object: a piece of lead with a letter on top, formed the central part of Gutenberg’s invention, back in the middle of the 15th century. To cast letters Gutenberg and all of the printers and type foundries that followed him used matrices. To make matrices you first had to cut punches made of steel – a little softer than today’s steel – that was cut with a sharp steel knife or an engraving tool. But still, to cut a letter on top of a very small piece of steel, and to do so with such precision and consistency required extraordinary skill. Remember the magnifying glass had not yet been invented and even eye glasses were very rare. To create the complete sets of more than a hundred different punches with letters, abbreviations, and other typographical signs that were all of the same size, all of the same design, and all equally pleasing to the eye when viewed en masse – it seems hardly conceivable that people were able to do just that. But they did it, and with results that we use up to this very day. INITIALS AND ORNAMENTS Until the 18th century and for brief periods in the 19th and early 20th century, books were often decorated with initials and ornaments. The earliest printed books were decorated by hand, like their written ancestors; but soon printers began to use little woodcuts that could be used year after year in thousands of copies.

Paul Dijstelberge

Many of these initials and ornaments are abstract, but most are figurative: little pictures that furnish unexpected insights into the thinking of our ancestors. They illustrate every human activity, and it is fun to trace the different pictorial traditions of countries and cities and all the changes they went through during those centuries. You will find musical instruments, beautiful women, defecating little angels, knights, and monsters of every kind. Book historians often use these little pieces of wood to identify printers – some of the most famous and subversive books of all ages were printed without the name of the publisher, and the research of this kind of book is a quest without end. But the sheer delight of looking at these beautiful little pieces of art is perhaps the most rewarding aspect. GRAND GARGANTUA And so a grand project begins: with John (the editor of ilovetypography.com), we are building a website to bring these rare treasures to everyone. Grand Gargantua – a history of typography will chart the course of typography from the incunabula. For some time, I have been photographing (in high resolution) books of the Amsterdam Special Collections, and uploading them to Flickr. Grand Gargantua will take this one step further, by organising and tagging these very high-resolution images, in addition to providing some commentary and historical perspective. Our grand plan for Grand Gargantua is to gather some 50,000 samples in the next five or six years. We hope that you will follow us in our adventures. 

Paul Dijstelberge. Born in 1956, he was a restaurant cook for 14 years and an expert bibliographer for 17 years. He completed his PhD on the use of initials and ornaments in the 17th century, and currently works as an Associate Professor to Professor Dr Lisa Kuitert (History of the Book) at the University of Amsterdam; and as a curator at the Special Collections. He publishes in the field of the history of the book and also writes short stories that have been published in several literary magazines. He lives in Leiden with his wife and two daughters. www.grandgargantua.com 9

Event Report

Turin, May 5, 9:00 am: 80 students, 8 professional graphic designers and 3 go-ahead boys are at the beginning of a fabulous, life-changing experience named

Contextual Ligatures

Three days of hard work at Politecnico di Torino in honour of typography TEXT â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Valeria Farina | Photo â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Marta Bernstein

Event Report

custom ligature

The term Thype is a junction of the words “type” and “hype”, which characterizes the explosion of commercial promotion

Marta Bernstein

Bauer Bodoni

Helvetica

ypoGraphy and letters are an “Invisible Need” without which communication wouldn’t have evolved into nowadays forms and the everyday items we are all familiar with. “Invisible” because we don’t often capture the entire and complex form of a glyph, our attention being held by the meaning the text bears, forcing the process that gives shape to the language to be hidden and put aside. “Need” because typography is nowadays a necessary tool to transmit messages internationally and with rapidity, from newspapers to sms, from web to books. Thype! is born from the wish of making tomorrow graphic designers more aware of the basic principles of each proper communication product that has its roots in typography. The event consisted in three days of lectures, conferences and four different workshops. The conferences were held by the designers involved in the event plus a very special guest on Thursday 6: Francesco Franchi, art director of IL, an italian monthly magazine winner of several awards for its graphic treatment, the conscious and innovative use of infographics, the beauty in composition and the depth of its reports. 12

Paolo Ciampagna

Meet the Man  We met Francesco Franchi, unveiled his secrets, investigated his deepest hidden treasures and bothered him with a thousand questions to let our readers have a taste of what’s happening in his genius-like mind and at IL’s editorial department. “IL–Intelligence in lifestyle” is a monthly magazine, geared towards men. It is sold together with the newspaper “Il Sole 24 ORE”, the leading financial and economic daily newspaper in Italy. One of its strong features is the use of the grid, the typography and the headline design, taking inspiration from the Swiss formalism, and the bold and witty design of the 70s Italian and North European popular magazines. at page 60 of Contextual

Michele Bortolami

Tommaso Delmastro

Contextual Ligatures

Roberto Nacco

Roberto Balocco

editorial design

poster design

logo design

type design

2nd floor

1st floor

Piero De Macchi

Event Report

Editorial Design

Logo Design

Contextual Ligatures

Type Design

Poster Design

Event Report

Who were they?  80 students from the whole country were selected over 200 who sent their portfolios

THE THREE MUSKETEERS  An insight on the organizers

nicolò brusa

born 01/12/1987 in Biella graduated in Graphic & Virtual Design at Politecnico di Torino www.nicobrusa.it

francesco carletto

born 06/10/1987 in Biella graduated in Graphic & Virtual Design at Politecnico di Torino http://issuu.com/fra.carletto

matteo pont

born 21/01/1987 in Turin graduated in Graphic & Virtual Design at Politecnico di Torino www.behance.net/ MatteoPont

Everyone was enthusiastic with his speech, both the students and the professionals, who also felt a little intimidated by the young and talented designer. The workshops were divided in: ›› Type Design, with Italian well-known type designer Piero de Macchi; ›› Poster Design, with Elyron Studio; ›› Logo Design, with Undesign; ›› Editorial Design, with LS Design Studio. 80 students, 20 per class, were picked after an accurate selection and put under the guide of the professionals involved. Eventually, the results were quite amazing. The students produced greatly valuable artefacts, the designers were extremely satisfied with their “pupils” and the three organizers were highly praised for the initiative (and for offering beer, wine and pizza at the end of each day). 

Contextual Ligatures

The Workshops Type design Short lessons were organized about the history of typography, then the students were asked to create a typeface. They also experienced writing with a calligraphic pen.

piero de macchi He began his professional career in 1956 working for the Nebiolo Typefoundry Artistic Department together with Aldo Novarese. In 1992 he started the calligraphic Association From Sign to Writing. He’s interested in type design, calligraphy and artistic creations. www.demacchi.it

logo design Students were given a slogan and a specific grid (sometimes even pre-designed modules) and they were asked to create a logo with the elements they had.

undesign studio Founded in Turin in 2003 by Michele Bortolami and Tommaso Delmastro. Based on the link within design and branding it gave birth to a designing system named undesign, that means arriving to the final synthesis proceeding by subtraction, so that the form is reduced to a symbol of itself; objective and accessible to everyone. www.undesign.it

poster design They approached the theme “Invisible Need” by looking first for a meaningful sentence. What came out was “Solo perché non lo puoi vedere non vuol dire che non esista” (only because you can’t see it, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist) and a kind of artistic collage with the works of the students who were asked to re-interpretate the sentence keeping in mind to follow the leading theme.

elyron Elyron is a society composed by two graphic designers, Roberto Necco and Roberto Balocco. They create graphic projects for firms or for events, proposing solutions with coordinated image, experimenting with creation and typography.

editorial design Short lessons were given about typography and editorial composition, together with a main brief: realizing an editorial project inspired by Salone del Libro, that was going to take place in Turin.

LS graphic design LS is a graphic design studio and creative company located in Milan (Italy) and Nashville (Tennessee, USA). As for the most compelling experiences, it all begins with a bunch of friends, brought together by a unique ardour. The strengths that characterize them are a tight team spirit that fosters creativity and innovation and a veracious passion for their job.

www.elyron.it

www.lsgraphicdesign.it

Books

Hyperactivitypography Hyperactivitypography from A to Z is an activity book for typographers illustrated in a vintage style to give it a sweet and childlike look. Who said typography had to be boring?

yperactivitypography from A to Z is an activity book for typographers illustrated in a nostalgic vintage

They have made a really nice and fun activity book for typographers illustrated in a nostalgic vintage style style to give it a sweet and childlike look. The book is packed with activities, ranging from silly to hardcore nerdiness. It’s great to test your skills on and to learn new things while having fun. Who said typography had to be stiff and boring? Hyperactivitypography is a book designed by Studio 3, an in-school design agency at the Graphic Design Department of Westerdals School of Communication in Oslo, Norway. They have made a really nice and fun activity book for typographers illustrated in a 60s style and with plain pastel colours.

Author: Studio3 Publcation date: 2010 Publisher: Arctic Paper Price: 17€ Pages: 192

Arctic Paper

Originating in northern Europe, we are a paper group with a dedicated passion for making superior graphic fine paper for demanding fine paper users. Being ideal for creative design, our paper qualities offer a wide range of applications, including book production, advertising, office materials and other qualitative printed matter. We want to combine delivery of our fine paper with knowledge that inspires better business for our customers.

Andrea Gessa | Photos – Studio3

Contextual Ligatures The paper is heavy and smells like a real book should. This book is one rollicking read, whether you love vintage-style illustrations, type, or both. Taking its inspiration from children’s activity books of the mid-twentieth century, Studio 3 made a book that will make every typography addicted giggle just like a little child. Hyperactivitypography from A to Z includes games such as “match the typeface with its era” and corny jokes. You can browse through its 166 pages and order the book online. 

Hyperactivitypography takes its inspiration from the children’s activity books of the mid-20th century

aBOUT THE MAKERS



Studio 3 is an in-school design agency at the Graphic Design Department of Westerdals School of Communication in Oslo (Norway). Studio 3 was established in 2002 and exists of a handpicked selection of 15 truly dedicated 3rd year’s graphic design students. They don’t work with unnecessary complicated models and methods, but by asking themselves relevant-

but-triggering questions about the problem. They solve problems creatively, by reading problems creatively. They solve problems together with the client, not on their own behind closed doors. All finished products that leave the studio are supposed to be based on strong, surprising and fresh ideas and embrace form as much as content. http://www.studio3.no/

Exposition

Museum of PRinting In the centre of Lodi has been opened the Museum of printing and printmaking, born from the great passion of Eng. Andrea Schiavi for this art and its important history.

une 2008: in the centre of Lodi was created the Museum of printing and printmaking, born from the great passion Eng. Andrea Schiavi had for this art and its important history. The museum occupies two thousand square meters on the ground floor of what was, until the eighties of last century, the former printing Lodigraf. The collection is among the most important in Europe and along with the Tipoteca Italiana of Cornuda, which is specialized on typefaces, is the most complete in Italy. This includes machinery, equipment and memorabilia from different eras, showing all print jobs, from the woodcut intaglio, screen printing by the letterpress, offset printing by lithography, from manual to mechanical composition in lead up to the typesetting and computer. A living museum not only dedicated to schools but to every lover and curious about this historic art. At the entrance the visitors find the Binding room, a fascinating gallery whose walls feature large panels from an ancient bookbinding; many machines are ready for cutting, folding, sewing sheets of paper printed, and complete the product-book with different finishes on the cover or back.

a A detail of the Linotype

a The art gallery, with the press machines

GiĂ˛ Fuga | Photos â&#x20AC;&#x201C; GiĂ˛ Fuga

Contextual Ligatures These goldening presses, sewing and creasing machines, all fully functional, were produced by the most prestigious European factories in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. To document the operation of different women, traditionally involved in the work of bookbinding, the typical binder bar with all the ancient manual equipment of the Legatoria Torriani, active in the nineteenth century in Cologno Monzese. Very curious is the system presented for the first printing of sheet music where the staves are engraved with a kind of rake and then insert the notes recorded directly from the punches. The next gallery is the Art Room where you can admire a selection of calcographic and lithographic presses of great historical interest built from the sixteenth century to the nineteenth century, as well as some copper plates engraved as copperplate engraving around 1850. Noteworthy is also the collection of lithographic stones of great size from the publisher Vallardi of Milan, conducted between 1870 and 1930. On the walls there is a review of proofs to a single theme (a shell), made by famous contemporary artists from Lodi, to document the various ways of calcographic printing, in addition to other techniques such as woodcuts, linocut and screen printing. The third major area is the Hall of Letterpress where, among the hundreds of historical artefacts reported its former glory, are located many printing presses in cast iron produced in Europe and America in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Using the Linotype

ďŁż

The Linotype machine operator enters text on a 90-character keyboard. The machine assembles matrices, which are molds for the letter forms, into a line. The assembled line is then cast as a single piece, called a slug, of type metal in a process known as â&#x20AC;&#x153;hot metalâ&#x20AC;? typesetting. The matrices are then returned to the

A living museum not only dedicated to schools, but to all lovers and curious about this historic art.

type magazine from which they came. The name of the machine comes from the fact that it produces an entire line of metal type at once, hence a line-o-type. This allows much faster typesetting and composition than original hand composition in which operators place down one precast metal letter, punctuation mark or space at a time.

b The linotype componets Elevator Distributor

Magazine

Assembler Mold disk

Vise Keyboard

Exposition In the same room there are the first printers, from simple manual table, to more complex plates and top cylindrical, manually operated or electric. Down the hall a real hot-metal foundry with the presence of Linotype and Monotype fully functional machines for fusion and mechanical composition with composers who complete manual with the collection of numerous bills of typefaces, mostly Italian, preserved in old drawers, with punches, matrices and wooden characters. To enrich the precious collection a complete system for educational use in the manufacture of paper pulp from the watermark, the machinery for printing cards values, collections of old cars and typing system for printing in Braille, and a significant complete implant for enamel Press relief (rilievografia) with two beautiful antique presses capable of printing in multiple colours. Last in the museum, the Hall of presses there is a rich and elegant selection of presses from the nineteenth century, mainly, from the famous Dell’Orto factory. Of particular interest are the presses Stanhope and Albion belonged to Claudio Wilmant, the most famous engraver and founder active in Lodi and Milan in the nineteenth century. Successively printing presses and other presses of fine workmanship follow, and finally, in the centre of the room, you can see the jewel of the museum: the “Columbus Press”, invented by American George Clymer, built in London since 1817. It is the only specimen preserved in Italy. 

A real hot-metal foundry, with fully functional Linotype and Monotype machines

a Andrea Schiavi with Mario Luigini

Pages printed every year

trillion

1886

Introduction of the Linotype

a A detail of the Heildeberg Cylinder

a The Columbus Press

Contextual Ligatures

Typographic Chess Board An amazing project, a must-have house compliment for all the typography appassionés.

he typographic chess board is a conceptual project that uses letterforms as the pieces and is based around the idea that typography is a game:

b The white pieces are set in Caslon Bold Condensed

b The black pieces are set in Univers Bold Condensed

“The grid system is an aid, not a guarantee. Like the grid on a chessboard it creates structure whilst permitting a number of possible strategies, each unique to its user. These strategies have varying strengths and weaknesses and must be employed tactically depending on the situation or opponent. This allows the subject to look for an appropriate solution, but does not guarantee success.

Stewart Walker – Photos: Stewart Walker

Stewart Walker  He has just graduated from Duncan of Jordanstone Art and Design College, Dundee with an upper 2nd class (2.1) honours degree. He’s enthusiastic about design, passionate about typography and a keen collaborator. www.zeropoint25.com

One must learn how to use the grid and its varying strategies; as with chess, it is an art that requires practice.” The white pieces are set in Caslon Bold Condensed while the black ones in Univers Bold Condensed, which represents the traditional and modern sides of typography. The pieces are cast in resin and the board is 5 millimetres thick black acrylic with 45 degrees laser engraved lines to represent the white squares. 

a A typographic puzzle for the Typography museum of Thisdick.

Report

Road Signage A journey into the world of road signage. When it was born, who the main designers are, which typefaces are used, what the biggest problems are and how they can be solved. Andrea Bergamini | Photos – StockExchange

Road Signage – Index



1.History of signage.........................p. 27 2.The signs of design.......................p. 32 3.Good signage requirements.........p. 34 4. Pictograms...................................p. 40

Contextual Ligatures

ollow the signs and you can not be wrong... If this is the answer of the person we ask the way, we are already resigned to the idea that, unless we find another one more precise, we will get lost for sure. Unfortunately this is how signage works in Italy, or rather, how it doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t work: just for example, 6.91% of the accidents in Italy in 2005 were caused, according to istat, for incidents involving noncompliance signal stop. Research on the state of road signs made by 3m also underlined that in none of these cases the intersection has shown horizontal and vertical signage both according to the law. The data show that the too often unjustified weaknesses of our signage system are there (the first 3m of research dating back to 1998), but the problem remains dramatically visible every day on our roads. Old signals living with the new ones, information that, when not entirely â&#x20AC;&#x153;eatenâ&#x20AC;? by the surrounding nature, are consumed by rust, misplaced or simply not placed at all, and then if it is true that the system of road signs of a country constitutes one 25

Report of the first cards for tourists who visit it, alas! One of the main problems of Italian signs appears to be the absence of a committee that deals with inventory, test and sanction and remove cases that are not actually under. The work of 3m, although it constitutes the main reference of the inefficiencies of our signalling system, is named after the world leader in the production of the “face”, the film that covers the iron or aluminium to form the signal. Would therefore be quite natural to think the conflict of interest would with ease cause the distrust of the

data provided by 3m, only to get in the car and maybe lose the way after a few kilometres.

What is signage? Signage is any kind of visual graphics created to display information to a particular audience. This is typically manifested in the form of wayfinding information in places such as streets or inside/outside of buildings.

Type design for signage The design of a typeface requires constant reference to the context of use, as well as ongoing audits of the work, aimed at identifying the correct anatomical proportions and properly balance the thickness and counterpunches. In type design for road signs, this makes that the theory and case studies, although they offer interesting insights and solutions, should continually be compared to “field” verify. For this reason the prototype signals become an essential tool designed to compare the forms with the known human and physical problems; they do not lead to a final solution, but to a possible solution, to constantly call into question to make sure of the actuality and validity of the project choices.

Shape Code These specific shapes on signs send messages to the audience and form a set of rules to follow when developing signage.

stop

warning

mandatory prohibitory

Colour Code These specific colours on signs send messages to the audience and form a set of rules to follow when developing signage.

warning prohibitory

mandatory

temporary

Contextual Ligatures

ROAD SIGNAGE ďŁż 1

History of Signage Follow the signs and you cannot go wrongâ&#x20AC;Ś Where and when were the road signs born?

t seems necessary to introduce this historical analysis of road signs citing a good example which dates back almost at the same time as roads and of which numerous examples still remain: the milestones. These signal elements were positioned on the main Roman roads from 123 BC following a proposal by the tribune Gaius Gracchus. Initially placed every thousand steps (hence the term mile) from the Servian walls of Rome to the most remote Roman provinces, they pointed to the distance from the capital or major cities. The usefulness of these communication tools was such that, long after the end of the Roman Empire and more precisely in 1773 in Britain, the General Turnpike Act imposed various consortiums to build guides at intervals of a mile with the aim of having a tool to charge tolls. Britain is not the only country where this communication model survives: in other European countries like France or Portugal, or even East Asian countries like Japan we can still find the information provided on more or less modern panels or stones, but retain the structure with three elements: street name-distance destination. Roman milestone d

Report italian focus At the sitting of the Council of the Italian Cycling Touring Club of October 1895, L.V. Bertarelli, after noting that the Vice-Consul of Senigallia had placed on its own will, along about 40 km of the Via Flaminia, plates placed on poles, with distances in kilometres, asserted that an important sum should be placed in the budget to give this service a certain development throughout Italy. Indeed it was clear how important it was to adopt a system of signposts. On country roads, in fact, there were crossroads and intersections without any warning and the situation was no better for what concerned road safety, totally missing information about the steepness of slopes, dangerous curves or the presence of level crossing which interrupted the journey. Following the model of the French Touring Club, which provided for a subscription membership to cover the placement of signs, the TCI had set a figure of 25 pounds per flag pole. These signals consisted of a very robust iron rod, Y-shaped, approximately 3 meters high. On this auction was attached a sign of cast iron which had above the word Italian Touring Club and down the name of “donor”. The content was in the middle, bearing informations on the hazard type and distance from it. In 1898 was held in Luxembourg the Second International Congress, attended by 17 tourism groups; here was adopted a statute of fifteen articles, the first of which declared constituted a Ligue Internationale des Associations Touristes. In 1903 by the Touring Club was created a Permanent Commission for road signs, which decreed that they should be clearly marked distances, the proximity of the crossings, the place of treacherous escarpments, directions of the crossroads. The Commission also proposed to start with the signage of Milan-Lecco-SondrioStelvio, boosting propaganda in the technical departments of provinces and major municipalities to devote the utmost attention not only to the installation of signs, but also their maintenance.

First milestone d

Road signs should clearly mark distances, directions, the proximity of crossings and the presence of treacherous escarpments.

1773 – General Turnpike Act 1898 – Second International Congress Uniform signage among countries Symbols instead of writings 1908 – First Road International Congress 1931 – Conference of Ginevra Shape code 1949 – Protocol of Ginevra

19th century signage

 Until the late 1800s throughout the continent was not felt it necessary to any other type of road signs, if not the name of the street where you were and the distance from another fixed point. This is also understandable in light of the fact that the only means available so far for commuting and non-urban were horses or wagons; only

the advent of the bicycle and the first car then lead to a revolution of the road, both for the development of new infrastructure, and an increase in travel speed. The transport revolution has resulted in a questioning of existing reporting systems have increasingly proved inadequate for the new speed of vehicles.

Contextual Ligatures This was carrying a complex organization in order to offer a full and effective work. In this organization of resources also took part the Italian Automobile Club, who had at that time a similar commission. The Commission ACI/TCI felt the need for Italy to stay in line with what was done in this field in other countries, where the signs were installed with coherent plans. It was for this reason that a first division into three categories was introduced: direction danger and slowing down signs: in this way the information could be useful not only to motorists or cyclists, but also to drivers of wagons and to pedestrians themselves. The utility of a well-designed signs began to appear so obvious. In the postwar period, following the union of Fiat and Pirelli in the work, the projects resumed with great fervour; a definitive distinction of signs into three categories with specific forms was established. It was decided, in fact, to give and arrow shape to direction indicators, a triangle for the danger ones and a circular one for limitation or obligation. The rectangular shape was kept for signs of locations on the outskirts of settlements or the names of rivers, monuments and a few other cases. These innovations of form, that the Touring Club was the first to adopt, won international acclaim at the Geneva Conference of 1931. In the ’50s, also began to develop a certain interest in marking, trying to meet the needs of motorists, concentrated look at the road in front of him. Since 1959 the whole signs equipment related issue in Italy was governed by the new single text of the rules of the road, according to the Geneva Protocol of 1949. In 1973, for the following reasons, it was decided to close the signs service. The road signs service has done its usual work of support, counselling and provision of signs on public administrations and institutions that have control of the signs. The sector has now assumed such a large development, both for the experience gained by agencies, and because many companies have emerged that can provide satisfactory supplies. The Touring Club has now considered finished its function, in other times so pioneeristic. A.B. 

Printing techniques The techniques currently used in the production of road signs are basically two: serigraphy and cut film. The first is made in the case of standardized whole signals (and only in certain contexts, for pictograms), if that can be reused several times previously

engraved plate thus optimizing costs. The film, ink more expensive, but necessary if the signal is a “unique” is used for most indicators, overlapping layer white films cut green, blue or black, under the law of the case.

Film cutting

alluminum (or iron) reflective film green sticker (or blu) black label (also colored)

Serigraphy alluminum (or iron) reflective film red silkscreen ink black silkscreen ink

Report

Origin and diffusion of the two main road signage typefaces Infographics â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Andrea Bergamini

Iceland United Kingdom Ireland

Canada

Spain

United States *

Portugal

Egypt Mexico

Colombia

Peru

South Africa Chile Note: Far from being exhaustive, this map traces the paths of the two main typefaces for signage, from the known origins to the countries where they could be find in their original forms or derivated ones

Legenda: Transport (and derivates) H. Gothic (and derivates) both fonts path of the font * substituted with another font

Contextual Ligatures

Denmark Holland* Italy

China

Greece

Emirates Thailand Malaysia

Australia

N. Zealand

Report

ROAD SIGNAGE  2

Signs of Design The first typographic project for a signage system: the London Underground by E. Johnston One of the first examples of type design for signage is the project of Edward Johnston, the British calligrapher got commissioned to design an uppercase character for the coordinated image of the London Underground by Frank Pick, Director of London Transport. Beside being a coordinated image project which is still valid and effective after nearly a century, according to Giovanni Lussu it can be considered part of the first of modern sign design for a public service. The character was terminated by Johnston and Eric Gill, his assistant in 1916. It is worth mentioning this project, although it is not a character for road signs, because it is a checkpoint for the design of the shift in the big city and because its sudden, geometric, yet elegant design, has influenced many sans serif characters, including, for example, Gill Sans, 1927 The lowercase version of the character was designed later, for the warnings and that alphabet was one of the most identifiable characteristic for the identity project of the London tube. 32

Edward johnston The father of london underground signage system and bullet logo

E. Johnston was a British craftsman who is considered the father of modern calligraphy. He has influenced typeface designer and sculptor Eric Gill, author of the London Underground logo. He is famous for designing the sans-serif Johnston has used throughout the London Underground, as well as the famous round symbol.

Jock Kinnear describes the possible influences of the work of him who was master of his master: It is interesting to note that Johston was a teacher of calligraphy, and recommended a method of proportioning letters similar to that practised by Arab calligraphers. Both were based on the diamond dot produced by a quill or reed pen held at an angle, but there is no trace in Johnston’s published notebooks that he was aware of the work of Muhammad Ibn Muqlah, who formulated the rules of letter design still followed by Arab calligraphers. It is ironic that while Muqlah’s work laid the foundation of a shift from the primitive Kufic style to the following Naskhi Johnston’s study of medieval calligraphy should have been the basis of his “essential letters”, which one can see as a setting aside of five letter hundred years of development and to return to first principles. it was indeed typical of his questing natures that

Contextual Ligatures b Design table of the Logo

should be know this, he was a seeker of perfection, alike in his and his graffiti lettering. Two details of the Underground Sans can probably be attributed to his lifelong study and chief preoccupation: the diamond and the dot over the “h” gave the toe to the lower case “L”.

b Wooden letterpress of Johnston Sans

10.01 1863

Opening of London Tube

His station lettering still functions superbly and bears witness to two influences: the 10th century Winchester hand, which he admired above all others and which was in turn derived from the Carolingian script, and the early Caslon, from Roman inscriptions. A.B. 

The original London Underground map, designed by Herry Beck, 1931 33

Report

16.09 1950

Geneva Traffic Convention

ROAD SIGNAGE  3

Good Signage Requirements Traffic signs or road signs are signs erected at the side of roads to provide information to road users. But not many people know what the variables and the rules behind road sign design are.

or passive information function: given the nature of vehicle of instruction, they are intended to provoke an immediate reaction to their observers. This is why, instead of camouflage and disappear into the environment in which they are inserted, they must prevail in the eye of the observer, clearly identifiable and readable. Since the sender-receiver model for the transmission of messages, semiologist Pierre Guiraud suggests three different modes of communication: indication, representation o know well the issues related to injunction: they deal respectively with being, the design of road signs it may be knowing and acting. Mollerup says therefore, to define a “theory useful to refer to the definition and some considerations about the com- of wayfinding”, the three categories of Guiraud municative functions of signals: the can be renamed in identification, explanation dictionary De Mauro says: a “signal” is the in- and education. The locations signal is therefore an example dication, visual or auditory, conventionally established, which provides news, a message or of identification, because it identifies the place where you are. Combining an arrow to a place an order. we instead have an explanation in this case an directional explanation. The last case is an exMESSAGES Although in the wayfinding design a sign is ample of instruction: the “no parking” falls into actually just the culmination of a process of this category because the message instructs the broader analysis, we can focus on this “goal”, reader on what can or can not do. The signpost image is a special case in which decomposing into its basic elements and using the three categories are simultaneously present them as tools for analysis and design. For the semiotic, road signs are sets of signs and can effectively synthesize what has been that have not, however, only a communicative said so far.

T 34

The Geneva Convention on Road Traffic is accepted in a majority of the nations; major non-signatory countries include Germany, which did not have a government yet at that time. The main regulation about international driving licence is in Annexe 9. Switzerland signed but did not ratify the Convention.

08.11 1968

Vienna Road Convention

In 1968, the European countries signed the Vienna Convention on Road Traffic treaty, with the aim of standardizing traffic regulations in participating countries in order to facilitate international road traffic and to increase road safety. Part of the treaty was the Vienna Convention on Road Signs and Signals, which defined the traffic signs and signals. As a result, in Western Europe the traffic signs are well standardised, although there are still some country-specific exceptions, mostly dating from the pre-1968 era.

Contextual Ligatures

CONTENT Wanting to this list the main “components” signals, it is little wonder seeing as an indication of how that figure is made up of five messages, three graphical and two others that could be defined as morpho-semantic: typography, arrow, pictograms add to the aforementioned form and colour.

Flaminia A type system for road signs

 The Flaminia project is based on the MA thesis by Andrea Bergamini which reacts to the chaotic and poorly executed road signs seen throughout Italy. The core idea of the project is that lettering for traffic signs should always be tested in real-life environment, and the final solution must always be based on such testing.

This led to the design of the Flaminia type system, which permits users and designers to test and interpolate a variety of letterforms using four Multiple Master axes. Flaminia is a tool for designing high-quality, well-legible type for road signs, and it will be available for free. at page 20 of Discretionary

TYPOGRAPHY The evolution of technology for the writing on signals led to a clear distinction between lettering, term referred to a production of unique pieces that fit the support on which they are produced, and typographic character, an industrial product capable of serial reproduction and automation, most often designed and implemented in a context other than that which will be used. The design of fonts for signs must consider many variables ranging from material used for production, letting distance, possible visually impaired end users. With the signage typography becomes a three dimensional typography. According to Smitshuijzen signs projects aim at reaching the biggest number of users of any other typographic design, and in most cases probably beyond any realistic expectation. Many researches were carried out to be able to understand which characters are more readable than others, but all have led to conclusions that have simply confirmed what the printers already taught: we have greater ability to read what looks most like what we already know, because reading is an at activity that we learn and that becomes the result of habit, but we have no innate quality that allows us to distinguish shapes or letters. Quoting Smitshuijzen, still in its Signage Design Manual he states that: “The sans serif font, often recommended in the signage design, are not really characters more suitable than serif character. [...] But it is true that serifs help guide the eyes on the lines of text, then the serif characters tend to behave better than sans serif fonts when reading long texts.

Report When the characters are very small, or observed at a very long distance, the details tend to become less noticeable or even disappear. Characters should be designed to be as simple as possible, so sans serif fonts are more likely to be more suitable in these circumstances.â&#x20AC;? A proof of this assertion is that the character Rawlinson, designed by Montalbano for signs of U.S. National Park Service has responded very well to the tests, going to successfully replace the character previously in use, Clarendon. As for the contrast of the letters, however, we can say that letters with a minor difference in thickness behave better in extreme conditions such as those of research/reading signals. In addition to the shape of glyphs the design must also take into account the spacing between letters and margins to be adopted in the signals. The signs can be considered an extreme application of the type design, and requires a very thorough knowledge, as well as a large number of experimental tests to obtain the optimal form and proportion.

Directional Arrows d Directional arrows are a type of traffic sign directing people to points of interest such as commuter rail stations, colleges, tourist attractions, neighbouring communities and the like, but the popularity of these signs is falling because of the use of websites on which to look up driving directions such as Mapquest.also of types of water that give you directions

ARROW Adrian Frutiger in his Signs and symbols, says: â&#x20AC;&#x153;When two oblique lines come together to form an angle, the image of a movement or a direction is somehow produced. [...] In the conventional sign of the arrow the inland areas of the angle are enlarged and doubled by taken part.â&#x20AC;? This sign, used by the oldest humans (one of the first metaphorical use of the arrow was alleged to the greek astronomer Hipparchus around 150 BC), found great success in the Western world after the end of the nineteenth century, when in London was proposed to eliminate lettering indicating a direction to replace them with a symbol that had a universal value. In the early Italian street signs a curved arrow indicated a dangerous turn and the horizontal a direction.

The design must also take into account the spacing between letters and the margins to be adopted in the signals.

Contextual Ligatures Since then many different experiments and regulations followed, regarding the uses and meanings of different arrows; a curious experiment of the 1962 (Gwyneth Walker & Marc de la) has first studied readability of various forms of arrow, showing that this was higher in the indicator with a full point, the inverted V-shaped and a rather thin tail. Although many fonts do not include any “arrow” glyph, it should be seen as an alphabetical component of a typeface: often, in fact, the signs projects are required as part of corporate images and the ability to use arrows perfectly integrated with the letters can make a strong added value to your project. Smitshuijzen says about it that each source should include a set of arrows, varied, ranging from a minimum of four (↑, ↓, ←, →), to which you can possibly add the diagonal directions. Talking about arrows it is also worth quoting a passage from the book, Wayfinding, Craig M. Berger, in which the theme of the arrow was seen from a very practical point of view, with the precise directives in which order should directional signs be placed: “In Europe there has been great creativity in developing arrow designs for signs, including arrows that form the shape of signs (Paris), triangular arrows and chevrons (Italy), and fat lines with cutouts (U.K.). In North America signs have used Federal Highway arrows for some time. Ironically, this arrow form was found to be not highly legible in tests by the Pennsylvania Transportation Institute, with Meeker and Associates and Terminal Design, except when designed with a very long tail. Many urban sign designers today use the Montreal Expo arrow head. This arrow, designed for the 1967 Montreal Expo, has a long thin tail and a wide, narrowline head, and has tested very well for legibility.”

Many fonts do not include any “arrow” glyph, but it should be considered as an important alphabetical component of any typeface.

a Arrows of Four Season Hotel, Singapore

b Arrows of Köln–Bonn Airport

The position and placement of arrows on signs is another key area in which extensive testing has been carried out. Various studies have shown that the eye tends to follow the 37

Report direction of the arrow at high speeds, indicating that a left arrow be placed to the left of the message on the signs and a right arrow to the right of the message. However, this becomes very difficult in urban situations; signs are often forced to compromise, with arrows placed below messages instead of immediately to the left or right.

Signs and symbols A. Frutiger

ďŁż

Adrian Frutiger Born May 24, 1928 is one of the prominent typeface designers of the twentieth century, who continues to influence the direction of digital typography in the twenty-first century; he is best known for creating the typefaces Univers and Frutiger.

Another arrow placement issue that affects The Highway Code legibility is the hierarchy of arrows. A consist- This code provides for the ent rhythm of arrows is just as important for use of a number of signs, legibility as arrow placement. Most designers which should always be use the system recommended by John Follis in accompanied by a textual Architectural Signing and Graphics by which explanation, this precept, destinations that are straight ahead are placed essential in the light of the at the top of the sign, followed by destinations foregoing, however, is too on the left, and then destinations on the right. often dismissed. Once the driver understands this hierarchy, it is easier for them to read the signs. It is therefore important to consider the fact that the arrow is part of the signal as much as the text and the coherence of a signaling system may be less when, as required by the Highway Code, are expected even three different types of direction indicators.

A journey into the world of forms. From the fundamentals of design history of the scriptures, mystical symbols from the mark and modern signage, experience design by Adrian Frutiger explores the relationship between thought and sign. A book full of examples from various traditions of image, where the variety of expressions graphics is sorted and analysed to the extreme complexity of visual communication.

Paperback: 360 pages Publisher: Watson-Guptill Date: September 1, 1998 Language: English Price: 19 â&#x201A;Ź

Contextual Ligatures FORM The classification of Mollerup is confirmed by the signals provided by the Highway Code, which have three main functions: to provide information (names of places, streets or historical monuments), give directions or instruction with obligations, prohibitions and dangers. With the evolution of the speed of travel, the quantity of time required to recognize a threat and the subsequent reaction time have now by far exceeded the capacity of human reaction, requiring a precise structure based on shapes, colours and, in some cases, even pictograms. By referring to Frutigerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Signs and Symbols, he is to identify the origin of the shape and colour signals a necessity dictated by its attempt to distinguish them from the surrounding environment. In a modern city in fact rectangular or square forms prevail (for example houses, skyscrapers or buses and trains), so the warning signs or prohibition, which must capture more look, are diamond-shaped, triangular or circular; the lines outlining these forms have a much more marked contrast with the surrounding urban environment.

Warning sign shape In most countries, they usually take the shape of an equilateral triangle with a white background and a thick red border. But these two variables may varies from country to country.

COLOUR As for colour, red was chosen as most suitable to represent prohibitions, instructions or warnings of danger because they it is not often occurring in nature. Green, because of his massive presence, should be avoided. Blue is used only for the signals of invitation or direction. As noted in History of Road Signage, the almost standardized system used in Europe is partially derived from the one introduced by the Touring Club in 1931 and consists mainly of a category based on four specific forms and colours that vary depending on the content of signal. In the U.S., however, for some strange reason, the most prevalent form is a yellow diamond: beside the presence of the limit described above for people who do not speak the language, this system may be ineffective in terms of reaction times because the signals are unrecognizable from a distance. Â If the complexity of the signal is a problem of interpretation for the wayfinder even in front of a single signal, it becomes even more important when he has to decode multiple signals next to each other, when they are stacked or side by side. In this case we must take into account that the number of elements to split to get the information needed will be five times the number of signals! A.B. î &#x201C;

a An example of italian warning sign shape

Report

ROAD SIGNAGE  4

Pictograms In a few decades there has been a general change of reading habits that led to the near impossibility of communicating certain info without pictograms.

AIGA system This system of 50 symbol signs was designed for use at the crossroads of modern life: in airports and other transportation hubs and at large international events. Produced through a collaboration between AIGA and the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), they are an example of how publicminded designers can address a universal communication need.

The first pictograms date back a long way since the first writing systems, such as the Egyptian or Mayan, were pictographic. Even the Chinese alphabet has a figurative origin and has been gradually simplified and abstractgrams to be concise and understood, if not unied to reach the form we know. Thousands of years after the Egyptian or versally, by users rather broad and overcoming Maya writing, and more specifically in 1936, language barriers (not cultural) otherwise diffian Austrian economist and sociologist, Otto cult to resolve. Giovanni Lussu, however, warns Neurath, laid the foundations for a design ap- on “pictograms fever” that would suggest that: proach to the use of pictograms. In fact, he was “It is easier to decode a sign than a clear deeply convinced of the possibility of developwriting, although there is no sign that in ing an international visual language, assuming itself has some significance: [...] the pictothat while the word divides, the image unite. gram must be first learned, which means The potential that Neurath had the great converted into the mental system of refermerit of insight was the ability of the picto-

Contextual Ligatures ence that oversees your language. [...] As to which one is realized in the design of interfaces for the computer: the current trend, very reasonably, is that you always accompany the pictogram with the text in the clear. [...] Like it or not, the universal visual language of our planet (until they were replaced by Chinese or others to come) is now written in simplified English, and must deal with this. Proper use of pictograms in the design field can be assessed only with a proper culture of writing.” Frutiger, on the other hand, distinguishes three different ways to represent information pictographic: the first includes those signs that as realistic figures, usually in the form of silhouettes, leave no doubt about the meaning, regardless of the language and way of life of those who sees them. A cigarette crossed out and the telephone have become universally understandable. There is no need of a special training to understand these signs, which give immediate information. The second type includes diagrams whose

Neurath works Some examples from the book “The language of pools” Neurath originally intended Isotype to be used by educators of young children, but it wound up instead heavily influencing modern public signage, statistical graphics, and information graphics

meaning is not comprehensible at first glance and requires some mental work. This is the case of traffic signs as those for “priority” and “traffic in both directions”. In this group there are many examples of signs whose meaning remains doubtful to many people even after many years of use. For example signals formed by a combination of abstract elements, as in the case of a square with an opening on one side, a room and a door with the arrow indicating the direction of travel. This signal requires a much longer time for consideration of decision time available to the pedestrian that is approaching the door in question. A sign of this kind will never satisfactorily serve its purpose, because it was designed to be both inappropriate to immediate visual recognition and for a basic process of learning. In the case examined, we prefer verbal information: “inside” or “outside”. The third group includes indicators that are not based on pictorial but abstract signs, and therefore require an appropriate time to learn. Once absorbed into the subconscious, as the signs of the alphabet, they are understood immediately. The clearest examples of this category are signs of “one-way street” and “forbidden direction”, now used even on pedestrian streets, universally known and respected. Complex problems on pictographic design arise when it comes to services rather than specific objects such as “customs”, “lost and found”, “self service”, “waiting room”. The problem of indicating the toilets will probably never be solved except by verbal means, because the distinction between men and women represented in the West with pants and skirts do not work everywhere. In this regard it is interesting to note that the U.S. signalling is primarily textual, unlike the European one based more on pictorialdiagrammatic component: a justification for this choice can be easily detected whereas in the former case, notwithstanding a vast territory, the Interstate wind up thousands of miles where there is a linguistic uniformity, whereas in Europe the opposite is true, and a few hundred miles away, the driver can be in countries whose official language is completely different. In this case, a system based on graphic conventions becomes a necessity. A.B. 

Otto Neurath Philosopher and social theorist, member of the influential “Vienna Circle”, was particularly associated with “physicalism”, which aimed to establish an entirely materialist foundation of knowledge. His best philosophical work was published in the group’s journal Erkenntnis. In Vienna, he became involved in a project which evolved into the “Gesellschafts-und Wirtschaftsmuseum”, which tried to convey complicated social and economic relations to the Viennese public, known as the Vienna method

Tech

Print is dying, digital is surging: everyone is confused.

BOOK VS IPAD

Craig Mod

Let’s understand how books can be replaced. If they can!

ike the publishing industry wobbles and Kindle sales jump, book romanticists cry themselves to sleep. But really, what are we shedding tears over? We’re losing the throwaway paperback. The airport paperback. The beachside paperback. We’re losing the dregs of the publishing world: disposable books. The book printed without consideration of form or sustainability or longevity. The book produced to be consumed once and then tossed. The book you bin when you’re moving and you need to clean out the closet. These are the first books to go. And I say it again, good riddance. Once we dump this weight we can prune our increasingly obsolete network of distribution. As physicality disappears, so too does the need to fly dead trees around the world. You already know the potential gains: edgier, riskier books in digital form, born from a lower barrier-to-entry to publish. New modes of storytelling. Less environmental impact. A rise in importance of editors. And, yes – paradoxically – a marked increase in the quality of things that do get printed. From 2003-2009 I spent six years trying to make beautiful printed books. Six years. Focused on printed books. In the 00s. And I loved it. I loved the process. The finality of the end product. I loved the sexy-as-hell tactility of those little ink and paper bricks. But I can tell you this: the excitement I feel about the iPad as a content creator, designer and publisher – and the potential it brings – must be acknowledged. Acknowledged bluntly and with perspective. With the iPad we finally have a platform for consuming rich-content in digit-

Contextual Ligatures al form. What does that mean? To understand just why the iPad is so exciting we need to think about how we got here. I want to look at where printed books stand in respect to digital publishing, why we historically haven’t read long-form text on screens and how the iPad is wedging itself in the middle of everything. In doing so I think we can find the line in the sand to define when content should be printed or digitized. This is a conversation for books-makers, webheads, content-creators, authors and designers. For people who love beautifully made things. And for the storytellers who are willing to take risks and want to consider the most appropriate shape and media for their yarns.

The iPad Is a tablet computer designed and marketed by Apple for Internet browsing, media consumption, gaming, and light content creation. Released in April 2010, it established a new class of devices between smartphones and laptops.

c An Amazon Kindle compared to the Apple iPhone.

The Core of Thing For too long, the act of printing something in and of itself has been placed on too high a pedestal. The true value of an object lies in what it says, not its mere existence. And in the case of a book, that value is intrinsically connected with content. Let’s divide content into two broad groups. Formless Content and definite Content Formless Content can be reflowed into different formats and not lose any intrinsic meaning. It’s content divorced from layout. Most novels and works of non-fiction are Formless. When Danielle Steele sits at her computer, she doesn’t think much about how the text will look printed. She thinks about the story as a waterfall of text, as something that can be poured into any container. (Actually, she probably just thinks awkward and sexy things, but awkward and sexy things without regard for final form.) Content with form – Definite Content – is almost totally the opposite of Formless Content. Most texts composed with images, charts, graphs or poetry fall under this umbrella. It may be reflowable, but depending on how it’s reflowed, inherent meaning and quality of the text may shift.

display reading Designers do this consistently when choosing paper sizes, margins, and typefaces for physical media, and we should not be scared to question convention in interaction models to improve the ease of reading the materials we are asked to design, so long as we can do so in a way that is better for the user or reader. One primary area horizontal orientation can improve reader experience is with the flow of the eye. Consider the path the eye takes when reading on a normal, vertically scrolling block of text in a window, versus how the eye behaves reading shorter, smaller segments of text arranged in columns horizontally. The benefit is in the equilibrium of how the eye moves. With smaller columns placed horizontally, the eye can move left to right to read a line, move down to take in the next, then when finishing a column, can jump to the next and disregard previously read columns.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing Maecenas feugiat ultricies elit, vitae egestas ligula ligula lacinia eu. Sed molestie consequat tempus. Cras suscipit quam lorem, in semper nunc. Sed sit amet dolor justo. Sed sit amet blandit mi. Aenean suscipit hendrerit magna, id blandit augulvulputate. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing

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Maecenas feugiat

ligula lacinia eu.

Cras suscipit quam

amet dolor justo.

suscipit hendrerit

Lorem ipsum dolor

The amount of horizontal movement required of the eye can be balanced with a reasonable vertical measure (the height of the column). The horizontal orientation also allows for something we take for granted with pagination in books: the ability to disregard and not reread text we’ve already read. Rereading and losing position, in fact, is a common problem with long, vertical swaths of text. It’s difficult to disregard already read text, and the flow of the eye is not balanced because the implied movement is usually so strongly vertical. The reader is also frequently interrupted by the need to reorient the text by scrolling to produce new paragraphs to read. It’s not torture, but I think the readability is worse than we realize due to our acclimation to the vertical reading environment. We do so much of it, we had to adapt. But that doesn’t mean it’s optimal.

Tech The universal container It’s no wonder we love our printed books – we physically cradle them close to our heart. Unlike computer screens, the experience of reading on a Kindle or iPhone (or iPad, one can assume) mimics this familiar maternal embrace. The text is closer to us, the orientation more comfortable. And the seemingly insignificant fact that we touch the text actually plays a very key role in furthering the intimacy of the experience. The Kindle and iPhone are both lovely – but they only do text.

The iPad changes the experience formula.(Fig. 5) It brings the excellent text readability of the iPhone/Kindle to a larger canvas. It combines the intimacy and comfort of reading on those devices with a canvas both large enough and versatile enough to allow for well considered layouts. Well, most obviously that a 1:1 digital adaptation of Definite Content books will now be possible. However, I don’t think this is a solution we should blindly embrace. Definite Content in printed books is laid out specifically for

Here’s an example of how you can read a common newspaper

Print on the screen Oliver Reichenstein wrote an excel- piece harder to read, and in the Wired lent piece on some of the print conven- app they rapidly become tiresome and tions that have been used in the Wired distracting, but that’s not an effect (and other) apps and how they don’t limited to on-screen reading – I’ve work. I agree with what he’s said, but found some newspapers and printed perhaps not to the same degree. He magazines hard to read for exactly presents many assertions as hard fact, this reason, but I’ve read stuff on as absolute truth, and I simply can’t screen just fine too, and the opposite accept them as such. Generally, yes, (and conventional understanding) is multi-column layouts can make a true too. Wired’s use of multiple col-

umns feels jarring, and in most cases throughout the magazine I’d like to just read the page as a single column of text. His other points on signalling, ornamentation and mixing fonts are largely true, but again, they’re not the entirety of the truth. It’s a matter of how skilled you are as a designer whether you make each thing work or not. Hard rules are true until you discover all the exceptions, and when dealing with human behaviour and preference.

Designer: Kender Flimann Design date: 2009 Publisher: Wired UK Price/monthly: 10€ Price sigle app: 40€

Contextual Ligatures that canvas, that page size. While the iPad may be similar in physical scope to those books, duplicating layouts would be a disservice to the new canvas and modes of interaction introduced by the iPad. Take something as fundamental as pages, for example. The metaphor of flipping pages already feels boring and forced on the iPhone. I suspect it will feel even more so on the iPad. The flow of content no longer has to be chunked into “page” sized bites. One simplistic reimagining of book layout would be to place chapters on the horizontal plane with content on a fluid vertical planenner. At the end of every column you can find a page with news and short articles. In printed books, the two-page spread was our canvas. It’s easy to think similarly about the iPad. Let’s not. The canvas of the iPad must be considered in a way that acknowledge the physical boundaries of the device, while also embracing the effective limitlessness of space just beyond those edges. We’re going to see new forms of storytelling emerge from this canvas. This is an opportunity to redefine modes of conversation between reader and content. And that’s one hell of an opportunity if making content is your thing. The rules for iPad content are still ambiguous. None of us has had enough time with the device to confidently define them. I have, however, spent six years thinking about materials, form, physicality and content and – to the best of my humble abilities – producing printed books. So, for now, here’s my take on the print side of things moving forward. So don’t worry books are not dead! 

The infinite canvas is the idea that the size of a digital page is theoretically infinite, and its content is not limited by conventional page sizes. An artist could conceivably display a complete comics story of indefinite length on a single “page”. Scott McCloud introduced the concept in his book Reinventing Comics.

iPhone 4 Height: 115,2 mm Width: 58,6 mm Depth: 9,3 mm Weight: 137 gr Display: 3,5” Resolution: 960x640 326 ppi

iPad Height: 242,8 mm Width: 189,7 mm Depth: 13,4 mm Weight: 0,68 kg (Wi-Fi) 0,73 kg (Wi-Fi + 3G) Display: 9,7” Resolution: 1024x768 132 ppi

Unboxing iPad Johnathan Bonnell and John Kumahara have created/ designed an infographic detailing recent data statistics about the iPad. Besides being beautiful designed the infographic contains interesting facts such as usage intention and amount iPad sold compared to the first iPhone.

Web

THe LEague of Moveable Type Caroline Hadilaksono & Micah Rich

Enough with the limitations of the web, we won’t have it. You’ll find only the most well-made, free & open-source fonts.

e are Caroline and Micah, the founders of The League. As designers on the web, we have a calling to raise the standards of the webdesign world. We’re not the only ones who value good design, and it’s time for the web world to catch up with it. We understand the challenges that comes with the internet, but with our recent discovery of @font-face, we started getting excited. For those who aren’t up to speed, @font-face is a fairly new addition to web styling, letting a designer specify the location of their own font files. Instead of having to design with just a handful of web-friendly fonts, we’ll be able to use any typeface we desire. Well, that’s our vision, anyway.

OpenSource Type Movement There are people who design typefaces for a living, and we want them to make money off of something that they do well. This revolution is not a movement against type foundries and type designers; it’s quite the opposite. The kind of revolution we want is a change in the way people think about doing business. We want type foundries and typographers to start thinking, “Maybe there’s nothing wrong with 46

b Goudy Bookletter 1911, made by Barry Schwartz, is based on Frederic Goudy’s Kennerley Oldstyle. These are letters that take command of the space around them; notice, for instance, the bowed shapes of the v and w.

b League Gothic is a revival of an old classic: Alternate Gothic No.1. It was originally designed by Morris Fuller Benton for the American Type Founders Company (ATF) in 1903. The company went bankrupt in 1993. And since the original typeface was created before 1923, the typeface is in the public domain.

giving things away sometimes.” It’s not always about the money, sometimes it’s also about making a contribution to the society, in this case, the design community. Giving one typeface away for free will most likely only boost sales, and it’s a good deed. We want more people to look at it like that: like they have a responsibility to do something good for their peers. We’re not asking type designers and type foundries to sacrifice profit, we’re asking them to contribute to a greater cause, to create a community where we not only have a high design standard for print and web alike, but also a community where we’re able to share our creations, knowledge, and expertise with our peers and the world. Everyone’s Welcome to Come As a user, everyone is welcome to browse, download, and use our collection of hand-picked typefaces. In the spirit of sharing, all fonts made available by The League are subject to SIL’s Open Font License. It means that you’re allowed to use these fonts personally or commercially, as long as you credit the original creator, and if you made tweaks and changes to the typefaces, any new typefaces resulting

Contextual Ligatures b Raleway made by Matt McInerney, is an elegant sans-serif typeface, designed in a single thin weight. It is a display face that features both old style and lining numerals, standard and discretionary ligatures, a pretty complete set of diacritics, as well as a stylistic alternate inspired by more geometric sans-serif typefaces than it’s neo-grotesque inspired default character set.

The @Font-Face Rule

b Chunk is an ultra-bold slab serif typeface that is reminiscent of old American Western woodcuts, broadsides, and newspaper headlines. Used mainly for display, the fat block lettering is unreserved yet refined for contemporary use.

With the release of Safari 3.1, website makers can use any licensed TrueType or OpenType font

b “Prociono” (pro-tsee-O-no) made by Barry Schwartz is a roman with blackletter elements.

The @font-face rule allows for linking to fonts that are automatically activated when needed. This permits authors to work around the limitation of “web-safe” fonts, allowing for consistent rendering independent of the fonts available in a given user’s environment. The user agent will download the font and use it when rendering text within paragraph elements. If for some reason the site serving the font is unavailable, the default font will be used.

from it should be licensed under the same terms. That way all our fonts and any new fonts resulting from them will always be open. The Members As a contributor to our collection of high-quality typefaces, anyone who has a well designed typeface to share with the world is welcome to request membership. However, as founders of The League, we will use our best design judgement whether or not to add a typeface to our collection. Not because we don’t appreciate anyone who has something to share, but because we want to maintain the highest of standards. The League members are a group of very special people. It includes, us, the founders, as well as the all important Contributors, and those interested in participating and supporting the movement. These are the people who made it all possible, the reason why we have beautifully crafted, handmade typefaces for everyone to enjoy, the people who help us fuel this revolution, and those who keep the open-source type movement alive. So, thank you all.  47

Antropology

The brain and the act of reading: discover how it works

READABILITY & LEGIBILITY What does reading really mean? How does our brain do it? Here you will find a little taste of what the huge difference between legible and readable is about.

n a significant portion of the artwork, not only when designing a font for text, reading is a fundamental objective. If you want to maximize readability in relation to â&#x20AC;&#x153;space-savingâ&#x20AC;?, for example, often we are forced to act on hearsay, according to tradition, common places or common sense, without these criteria being formalized or analysed. It almost feels the need to have a reasoned documentation on the subject of reading, which can serve as a tool for planning and reflection, not in competition but to support to the tradition and to the skills of the designers. To what extent formal amendments traditionally made on a character, with the aim of

EXP

improve readability, really meet this need? How typographic variables (which come from centuries of actual practice) influence the process of reading and how the characteristics of visual perception may make the choice of this or that character in a given context? How does the thinking and research on reading and its cognitive and physiological cues can provide the theoretical matter on visual communication? If writing is an essential element in graphic design, studying the reading process may be decisive for anyone involved in visual communication. The written word, even considering the typographic matter itself has various levels of planning: the design of the typeface is a simple portion of the overall problem of reading. To observe experimentally the variation of some parameters on reading performance in a particular context, according to the variables of type design, aims to raise an issue: reflect on the meaning and function of certain formal characteristics in relation to perpetual compromise between easy reading, attractive appearance and economy of space. You can not expect to find a definitive answer to

a Readability d Legibility

The design of typefaces only plays a simple part in the complex problem of reading.

Contextual Ligatures

c Young Girl Reading, c. 1770 oil on canvas, 81.1 x 64.8 cm. Jean-Honoré Fragonard, French, 1732–1806

questions related to reading: although research in these areas did not lead to significant results or lead to conflicting results, it would ensure a fruitful cross-disciplinary comparison and deep reflection and planning; for these reasons we think it is very important that the research on these issues does not stop. The typographic tradition is a strong point of reference, established by centuries of practice, testing and corrections, but it is also true that writing fluctuates constantly and, most of all, the contexts in which writing is applied are radically changing the conditions of the problem. For example, consider a book of fiction, the yellow pages and a street sign: it is evident the change of the purpose the condition and characteristics of the media and how they have changed over time. You can not expect to find a unique solution to the problem of reading. For example, in the character recently developed for the U.S. highway signs, the ClearViewHwy, it can be seen as some shimmering detail that underscores the constant, though unnoticed, the evolution of Latin characters especially the sans serifs. If you look at the structure of such letters, it is clear that the dominant figure of the old character (E-Modified) is an ellipse; on the contrary, ClearviewHwy is strongly squared. In “o” and “e” you can see the difference. Where does this square shape come from? Has it a specific function? Undoubtedly a square shape widen the interior space of the letters without increasing the space horizontally, but this is probably not the only the motivation of the adoption of such shapes and curves. For nearly twenty characters are drawn like this. It is not impossible that the characters designed for monitor display, with their square shapes made by the rigid geometry of the pixels have affected our sensibilities to characters with more orthogonal conformation. This does not mean that the origin of everything is also linked to stylistic factors, if highly popular, the characters can be expected to influence our

The typographic tradition is a strong point of reference, established by centuries of practice, testing and corrections.

Antropology

Readability & legibility LET’S make SOME CLARITY BETWEEN TWO TERMS too MANY TIMES Abused

KINROSS Readability: you’re sitting in an armchair, a novel by Raymond Chandler in hand, your side is a glass of beer and a cheese sandwich. Legibility: you’re in a psychology laboratory, some meaningless sentence composed in a sans serif font with a three-millimetre x-height, shot on a screen, a man in a white coat comes towards you with pliers and a blinkometer. FOSTER Legibility: is the ease with which the current text can be included in normal reading Visibility: concerns the identifiability property of a character or a printed form.

perception of the written text. Officina (of Erik Spiekermann) is one of the most famous exponents of this type of square characters, and in some ways is the origin of the phenomenon: a typefamily designed for mail and presumably inspired by the characters of electronic typewriters, when the “trendsetters” started to use it because of its appearance, this character has earned the status of “Cool” and spread exponentially. The features of his design have become a fashion and as such constitute a substantial proportion of written texts. Since then many characters have been designed with a similar formal structure. I do not think that the design of ClearviewHwy, for example, despite being a purely technical type, is not affected by this influence. In the past, some studies have shown that the factor “coolness” affects the research on the readability, simply because the reader develops a habit and gets more familiar with the fonts most used at the time of the experiments. Dirk Wendt, for example, in a large study of 1969 states that every source of innovation shows a rather poor result in test about readability only because readers are less familiar with the design. Previously psychologist Miles Tinker (1942) had considered this familiarity with certain forms of other relevant factors perceptive character. The aesthetic connotation therefore appears to be a variable that can reasonably be taken into account in ergonomic character, not only in terms of enjoyment, but also in functional terms. But this does not mean that perceptual factors substantially affect the reading: what relationship, for example, lays between the geometric domain of visual forms and the written symbols? Is there any interference between the two domains? What is the extent to which a letter is similar to a line or a circle? Are commonly found in reading the perceptual phenomena that characterize the visual search and recognition of shapes? Neuropsychology Of Reading One of the key prerequisites for any research on reading, readability and writing, is a reference to physiological and cognitive processes that underlie these activities. A written text

Mechanism of reading

 Having a range of scientific topics to be addressed in a magazine for graphic made us think that could have been an opportunity to try to treat the text itself in an experimental form, even if the embryo. we have involved some graphs have tried to interpret some chapters focus more on the denotations of communication. at page 14 of Discretionary

Contextual Ligatures is in many ways similar to an image and it is therefore reasonable to hypothesize that the same perceptual processes that are implicated in the analysis of a figure operate even in the case of reading, at least in the early process. The luminous information that hits the back of the eye (retina) reaches through the optic nerve a sorting nucleus (thalamus), which “redirects” the same information on three different channels: one for the colour analysis, a one for the form and one for the movement. The integration of the three types of signals occurs at different levels in the cerebral cortex, where it has to extract a “invariant” of the image/word which is not affected by design characteristics, spatial position and size. The informational processing has reached a high level here and is ready to be complemented with semantics and phonology. The path described, which commonly takes the information in the case of visual recognition (whether this refers to images, objects or words), is called “ventral route”. In reality, however, objects also have a place in the space, a local organization of its parts and, often, a movement. And indeed there is a second way of processing visual information, which in this case is processed according to their just mentioned size, the spatial location, the local organization and movement. This way is called “backbone”, and is essential for orientation and detection of objects in natural settings. In our research we are reflecting on the theme of space syntax as a medium for the development of new communication tools and areas of writing. This begs the question if the backbone way can play a role in this. And perhaps the fact that there is a way that can convey a certain piece of information raises the idea of space as syntax. The sequentiality and linearity were always dimensions that highly characterized areas of writing closer to us. However, there are writings in which the bond of linearity is broken and the spatial dimension assumes a precise denotative function: the space can be read! Just think Aztec writing, or the Semantic Typography of Stefan Themerson proposed by Giovanni Lussu, or geographic maps, unicode or the work of information design by Ladislav Sutnar. The high frequency and distribution

Rod cells in the retina

million

Rod cells, or rods, are photoreceptor cells in the retina of the eye that can function in less intense light than can the other type of photoreceptor, cone cells. Named for their cylindrical shape, rods are concentrated at the outer edges of the retina and are used in peripheral vision. More sensitive than cone cells, rod cells are almost entirely responsible for night vision.

(both geographical and historical) of this writing form is such as to arouse the suspicion that the linear writing is a special case within a much wider one. More than a hypothesis, a provocation, with the creation of a form of writing that does not base its syntax on the positioning within the sentence but on the placement of the elements in space; the activation of new brain areas, precisely those of the dorsal route, could become crucial in the process of reading. Areas of this road would come into play interfaced with the classic areas for higher-order interpretation and processing, but provides a fundamental contribution (in parallel) for the development of a primary channel that until now has never (or almost ) been activated during reading processes, that of spatial relationships. This proposal is bold, but may contain great potential. 

Cone cells in the retina

million

Cone cells, or cones, are photoreceptor cells in the retina of the eye that function best in relatively bright light. The cone cells gradually become sparser towards the periphery of the retina. Cones are less sensitive to light than the rod cells in the retina but allow the perception of colour.

About the authors



Exp is an independent research group that began operating in 2004, is formed by a team of type designers, graphic and semiotic. The objective of Exp is to study the phenomena of reading and writing. Specifically, it deals with addressing the influence of some variables on the printing process of reading. www.expresearch.com

Action!

Coming Tog

r Valeria Farina

400 designers from all over the world participated in the project “An ampersand for Haiti”. Font Aid: a Brief History



he Society of Typographic Aficionados (SOTA) is proud to announce the release of “Coming Together”, a font created exclusively for Font Aid IV to benefit the victims of the recent earthquake in Haiti. The font consists entirely of ampersands, to represent the idea of people coming together to help one another. Type designers, graphic designers, and other artists from around the world contributed artwork to the font.

The font is being be sold for $20US and is available through font distributors Ascender Fonts, Veer, FontShop, and MyFonts. All proceeds from the sale of the font will go to Doctors Without Borders, to help with their relief efforts in Haiti. The “Coming Together” font contains over 400 glyphs and is supplied as a single, crossplatform OpenType font. All glyphs are accessible using OpenType-savvy applications, Unicode-savvy utilities, the Character Map utility on Windows, and FontBook on Mac OS X.  52

Swedish type designer Claes Källarsson conceived of the initial Font Aid project in 1999. More than 25 type designers participated in designing a collaborative font, with proceeds going to UNICEF to help war and disaster refugees. In 2001, SOTA became involved when Stuart Sandler was inspired by Källarsson’s efforts and initiated Font Aid II. This second collaborative charitable typeface was created to benefit the victims of the September 11 tragedies in the US. The font was made up of almost 100 question mark glyphs contributed by designers from over 20 countries. With your support, Font Aid can continue its efforts to assist others in dire need of aid. www.typesociety.org/fontaid.html

buy it from www.ascenderfonts.com/font/coming-together-font.aspx www.veer.com/products/typedetail.aspx?image=UMT0000515 www.fontshop.com/fonts/foundry/sota new.myfonts.com/fonts/fontaid/coming-together

the glyph

 A moment of relief after all this reading. Can you recognize the font for each &? Try the typo geek game! at page 62 of Discretionary

Contextual Ligatures

Project Review

Leftloft: their new work analysed and explained

Newton

The Italian science magazine is back with a new look. Letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s discover the project.

Andrea Gessa | Photos â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Leftloft

Contextual Ligatures

Project Review

Gianluca Pirotta

Lettering The lettering project is from Leftloft, a studio based in Milan. This custom typeface is a sans serif unicase with some alternates (the “a” and the “A”), a heavy weight. It is used mainly for the heading, the names of the section and the drop caps. Obviously Leftloft didn’t aim at readability, as you can see from the very small counters.

b This is a unicase type face. Apertures are very small, stroke is almost 1/3 of the height.

We interviewed one of the chief designers involved in the project of Newton’s restoration.

a The lettering applies to the headings of every rubric. The colours are used to distinguish the column.

100 28 100 a Letters have a proportion of 1:1, making this a squared typeface.

b This is a case of negative tracking: letters are overlaying one another with transparence.

What did you do specifically? While addressing the design of the brand new Newton we tried to consider all the fundamental aspects of the magazine: the rationalization and hierarchization of content, navigation, typography, graphics, page layout, the infographic and illustration. All this to convey to readers the idea that Newton was on sale again, after some years of absence, and with new unpublished content. Furthermore, throughout the phase of the project, there was the desire that our work should both transmit the editor’s philosophy and put the magazine clearly among scientific magazines on newsstands. The problem of this project was that after delivering it we could not follow the art direction of the magazine, in our opinion necessary due to the difficulty of applying a completely new graphic design, especially at such a delicate time as the beginning. Why did you choose such a fat font? Newton is a medium-high level scientific magazine, but it wants to be accessible to the general public. We thought that, to communicate this, it was essential to work on the heading, to make clear the approach of the magazine. Both we and the direction liked the work very much, so we decided to create a font and make it a characteristic element of the entire magazine. Is there a connection between the shapes of characters and the content of the magazine? Sure. The serif font, used for text, was chosen for its readability. As for the sans we used Titillium: a project developed by Luciano Perondi with the Academy of Fine Arts in Urbino. This font is, in our opinion, an interesting and innovative typographical Open Font License project, which perfectly reflects the spirit of Newton.

Contextual Ligatures Typefaces in use Along the custom lettering for the heading Newton uses two typefamilies: Farnham, of Christian Schwartz, and Titillium, a project from Accademia di Belle Arti di Urbino. Titillium is a sans serif, very minimal and white. Altough it comes with different weights, it’s used mainly the light one. Titillium is used for the titles

of the main articles, excerpts and tles are written with this typeface. subhead. It’s legibility makes this Farnham give the page a good texfont suitable for small captions. It ture, maybe not the best, the mood works well also within the boxes. stays light and relaxed. Too bad for Farnham is a modern serif font, the total absence of ligature. heavily influenced by the work of This couple of typefaces goes Johann Fleischman, a German- well together because of the simiborn punchcutter contemporary lar proportions and their edgy and of John Baskerville. angular curves. Farnham is used for all the long text, except boxes. In some cases ti-

OpenSource Font

Titillium Titillium was born within the Academy of Fine Arts of Urbino with the participation of students of the Master’s degree CampiVisivi and Luciano Perondi. Aim of the project was the construction of a font made available through an open source web platform, responsible for the sharing of source code and publishing projects with the same font. Type designers interested in the amendment or revision of Titillium are invited to cooperate in creating and sending the source code to their product, which will be made available to users in the relevant section.

100 250 400 600 800 999

a full set of weights Luciano Perondi has been involved in type, graphic and information design since 1998. He has designed several custom typefaces for corporate identities, events, publishers, sign systems. www.molotro.com

100 250 400 600 800 999

Titillium is highly recognizable thanks to his edgy shapes. It has very wide apertures that give this type family an outstanding legibility. Even with long texts Titillium doesn’t tire the eye and give the reader a pleasant time. ¹⁰/12

Titillium is highly recognizable thanks to his edgy shapes. It has very wide apertures that give this type family an outstanding legibility. Titillium doesn’t tire the eye. This paragraph was written with Titillium 100 on a 8/10 line.

Titillium is highly recognizable thanks to his edgy shapes. It has very wide apertures that give this type family an outstanding legibility. With long texts Titillium rocks. This paragraph was written with Titillium 250 on a 6/8 line. Titillium is highly recognizable thanks to his edgy shapes. It has very wide apertures that give this type family an outstanding legibility. Even within shit Titillium rocks. This paragraph was written with Titillium 250 on a 4/6 line.

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz / 0123456789 ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ &*?!-:;.

CKgaDan

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz / 0123456789 ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ &*?!-:;. Paolo Mazzetti is a graphic Designer at Robilant Associati, information designer at EXP – non profit graphic research group. www.robilant.it

Designers: CampiVisivi Luciano Perondi Paolo Mazzetti Design date: 2008 Price of the family (11 fonts): free

Project Review Structure ner Rita Levi-Montalcini. The magazine has four sections, At the end of every column you named after the famous scientists: can find a page with news and Charles Darwin, Leonardo Da short articles. Vinci, Albert Einstein and Galileo. Each section talks about a dif- Grid System ferent topic, from the human to Newton lays on a 7 modules the society, from the earth up to grid, which allows one of the modthe whole known universe. ules to be left blank and give breath The distinction between sec- to the page. In addition, this grid tions is mainly based upon colors. allows to find space for citations. The three columns have a large This allows the reader to choose measure, which gives the reader a the field it prefers. Every column begins with a pair comfortable view. The blank column is moved to of editorials, written by notable scientist, like the Nobel Prize win- liven up the page.

Farnham Christian Schwartz focused on Fleischman’s exuberant angularity, carrying it to all weights of his new Farnham series. Farnham has a rationalist look with a liberty struggle. The proportions are close to the Baskerville. The axis is vertical for the roman and quite slanted for the italic. Farnham has a very wide x-height, which is a good thing for small texts (its primary use). The family contains a text version and a display one. The text version has three weights, while the display one comes with light, medium, regular, bold and black. Farnham comes with a very elegant swash typeface, and italic and small caps. The biggest con is the absence of ligatures.

Designer: Christian Schwartz Design date: 2004 Publisher: Font Bureau Price of the family (42 fonts): 750€ Price of a single face: 40€

Here’s an example of the close up, a page with the brief news, placed at the end of a column. On the recto page the starting of the next column.

Contextual Ligatures Some pages, with less relevant articles, lay on 9 modules, while the editorial articles on 2 wide columns, which amplifies the importance of the author. The columns are usually short, with a few ones as tall as the page margins. The vertical rhythm gets broken with excerpts from the article, with colored text, a bigger body height and a different typeface. The grid gets suspended for the beginning of a new section like the one shown below. î &#x201C;

Leftloft was founded in 1997 in Milan (Italy) by Andrea Braccaloni, Francesco Cavalli, David Pasquali and Bruno Genovese. Their work goes from web, to editorial design, to type design to signage and corporate identity. Among their clients Pirelli and Corriere della Sera. www.Leftloft.com

Colour identifies the section

Column

Author, nation and city

Revelant excerpts from article

Page number with integrated layout

Date

Meet the Man

An interview with the (info)graphic designer

FRANCESCO FRANCHI

Valeria Farina

We met a rising star in Italian editorial design, art director for IL – Intelligence in Lifestyle.

ere we are, facing one of the Swiss formalism, linear typography and preyoungest and more up-and-com- dominantly black titles. ing graphic designers in the italWhy did you choose those magazines? ian editorial world. We met him, unveiled his seThose magazines were an expression of increts, investigated his deepest hidden treasures and bothered him with a thousand questions tellectual, moral and cultural heritage of a to let our readers have a taste of what’s hap- particular historical period. They were very pening in his genius-like mind and at IL’s edito- innovative and influential, breaking the mold. Their form was an expression of their content. rial department. We wanted to achieve this with IL, where the Tell us about IL. Were you inspired by some graphics, more than aesthetics, becomes ethics. other magazine? What are the main difficulties encountered IL’s design is inspired by the popular maga- while working at a magazine like that? zines of the ’60s and ’70s, both italian and from You must be careful to repetitivity. Frequency northern Europe. From Epoca to L’Europeo, their characteristic was a simple design, yet a does not mean routine. For this reason we alvery bold visual aesthetic, with elements of ways try to renew ourselves, to experiment and

Contextual Ligatures

c A famous infographic made by Franchi. Published on the italian Journal “IL”

learn from our mistakes, always developing and designing new sections of the newspaper. Why did you give so much space to the use of infographics? Writing is not enough because the technology of speech is undergoing a restructuring towards new multiple languages. It is the great lesson of our time, going back to combine different languages to enhance understanding.

The complexity of today’s situation can no longer afford a rational-synoptic approach and the presence of a mix of knowledge and skills becomes the condition for a process of rational decision.

Page numbers are often used to indicate data in the article. How do you do that? We start with the page number, we turn it into numerical data and we look for the related news. Why and how do you combine many articles with the listening of a song? IL – awards EUROPEAN DESIGN AWARDS 2009 www.europeandesign.org SND Malofiej 17 – International Infographic Contest 5 silver medals www.snd.org

It is another level of reading. We try to add detail and above all create an experience for the reader. Favourite fonts? When selecting a font I tend to favor families with different weights. I always try to combine a timeless character with a more contemporary one. So it was also for IL, combining Akzidenz to Publico. 61

Meet the Man What is the difference between the editorial design in Italy and elsewhere in Europe? A publishing project is a cultural and intellectual operation and a business method centered on public opinion. Following the great European liberal tradition, in Italy we should return to a service function, rediscover the sense of information, which is something very different from communication. We should focus on a precise cut of the journalistic phrase, careful to the reader’s needs, reader who remains the owner of the newspaper. Relationship with the editor: there must be a bit of journalists in each designer and vice versa? Of course. The complexity of today’s situation, in fact, can no longer afford a rationalsynoptic approach and the presence of a mix of knowledge and skills becomes the condition for a process of rational decision. These are qualities that not only require different knowledge, but also the assumption of a role that, all claims to stand above the parties abandoned, will be able to interact creatively with other actors within each case. 

Franchi was born in

1982 

He got a bachelor degree in Industrial Design at Politecnico di Milano in

2004 

He attended some courses specializing in Graphic Design in London at London Metropolitan University in

2005 

He got the Master of Science in Industrial Design in

2007

His thesis on newspaper design proposed a new design paradigm for action in the redesign of a newspaper

b Double inside pages from the magazines

 He has been working at Il Sole 24 ORE as Art Director for IL – Intelligence in lifestyle magazine since

2008

IL uses a lot of illustrations d

a “IL” magazine first cover

Contextual Ligatures

Agenda

EDITOR – Valeria Farina

The main typography-related events in the world. June 9-14, 2010

Caratteri mobili: 3D Alphabet Docks en Seine Paris, France

The graphic design by Francis Dondina, playful reinterpretation of alphabetic signs, dimensional lettering almost destined to become a full furniture, is a faithful transposition facilities and becomes a live show from Les Trois Ourses proposal.The transformation is the work of A4Adesign that, export forms designed by graphic from print and carton. These are forms that become mobile to read, or rather letters that decorate everyday scenarios: tables, chairs, stools, bookcases, coat racks, sofas and built-cut sheets of honeycomb cardboard. http://www.a4adesign.it

June 17 – July 26 2010 The New Typography MoMA New York, NY

blank field in which blocks of type and illustration (frequently photomontage) could be arranged in harmonious, strikingly asymmetrical compositions. http://www.moma.org

July 18–23, 2010 Type Camp Book Arts Buffalo Buffalo, NY

Return to the handmade at Type Camp Book Arts in Buffalo, New York. Here you will discover a new sense of tangibility in this “unplugged” printing workshop as you will get ink under your fingernails, cast your own lead type, and even use power tools to kern letters. This working printing museum has hundreds of metal and woodtype fonts and flat bed and platen presses, all of which allow for total immersion. When we say put your hands on we mean it! http://www.typecamp.org

In the 1920s and 1930s, the socalled New Typography movement August 17-22, 2010 brought graphics and information Typecon 2010: Babel design to the forefront of the artis- Century Plaza Hyatt Regency, tic avant-garde in Central Europe. Los Angeles, CA Rejecting traditional arrangement Topics at TypeCon cover a of type in symmetrical columns, modernist designers organized broad range of interests, including the printed page or poster as a typography, type design, font pro-

duction, graphic design, new media, printing history, calligraphy and hand lettering, the book arts, advertising, type in motion, literacy, type sales and marketing, legal issues, type and design education, and other related areas. http://www.typecon.com

September 8–12, 2010

The Word in Dublin Dublin Castle Dublin, Ireland

From the Book of Kells to Samuel Beckett and beyond, the word has always been at the centre of Irish political, cultural and social life. Dublin is therefore the ideal place for a gathering of those who are closely involved with the visual and material form of words. Thus from the cultural heart of a literary city the theme for ATypI 2010 has offered itself up. This year, for the first time since the Vancouver conference in 2003, Robert Bringhurst will be among our keynote speakers. Those who have heard his sonorous renditions of Haida poetry or ancient Greek prose will know what an effective presence he can be; those who have read his books will know how intricately he interweaves ideas and the day-to-day world. http://www.atypi.org 63

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