TYPOGRAPHY HISTORY Gutenberg to the Industrial Revolution
By Fred Lameck
CONTENTS
Introduction 3 Konrad Sweynheym & Arnold Pannartz
5
Nicolas Jenson 7
Francesco Griffo 9
Claude Garamond 11
Jean Jannon 13 William Caslon 15
John Baskerville 17 Franรงois-Ambroise Didot & Giambattista Bodoni
19
Vincent Figgins & William Caslon IV
23
The Industrial Revolution
21
Robert Besley 25
Index 27 Works Cited 28
2
Introduction Sharing and spreading ideas is at the heart of communication, and typography is an essential tool in crafting a message. Johannes Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press in 1450 ushered in the era of mass communication, and typographers would emerge to create the letterforms needed to communicate ideas that would spark the Reformation and bring us into the Renaissance.
3
The work of Gutenberg will be taken further with the start of the Industrial Revolution, where typography will play a key role in the further growth of mass communication. Type designers will also become key players in communication used in commerce.
TYPOGRAPHY HISTORY
4
Konrad Sweynheym & Arnold Pannartz The 42-line bible was the first typographic book printed on Gutenberg’s printing press, and churches and monasteries played an important role in the develop of typography. A German monk named Konrad Sweynheym and his partner Arnold Pannartz created two roman and one Greek type designs from 1464 to 1473 (Bringhurst 343). The roman typefaces they designed drew upon hand written script. They worked in central Italy.
5
Considered the first typefaces with roman characteristics, it featured a thick and modulated stroke. Also, the stems are vertical, and we can see abrupt pen formed terminals (123). It was then in 1467 that they created the first Roman-Style type. It was modeled from manuscripts written in Caroline minuscules and Roman capitals. Some modifications included a thinner stoke and the bowls were more circular.
TYPOGRAPHY HISTORY
6
Nicolas Jenson Building on the work of Sweynheym and Pannartz, Nicolas Jenson created an early Venetian typeface. Jenson was a French punchcutter and printer. While working in Venice, he is attributed to creating at least one roman, one Greek, and five rotundas (339). Compared to typefaces created by Sweynheym and Pannartz, Jenson’s roman has a thinner stroke. We can also see a more consistent humanist axis and abrupt, flat and slightly spread bilateral foot serifs (123).
7
TYPOGRAPHY HISTORY
8
Francesco Griffo In 1494, scholar and printer Albus Manutius established the Alpine Press in Venice. Under his house, a Bolognese punchcutter named Francesco Griffo created a roman type used in Deaetna by Pietro Bembo. In this roman type we can see modern characteristics like the rising and perpendicular crossbar of the letter “e.”
9
Then Griffo, in 1501, created the first italic typeface influenced by chancery script handwriting. According to Bringhurst, these early italics were called Alpine Italics. Some characteristics we can see in Griffo’s italic is lower case letters paired with small, upright roman capitals and stems vertical or of generally consistent slope (127).
TYPOGRAPHY HISTORY
10
Claude Garamond With the creation of the first italic typeface, the sixteenth century begins to see typographers taking advantage of roman and italics in the same manuscript, and sometimes on the same page (126). Many were influenced by the Mannerist art movement of the Renaissance. During this period we see sloped roman capitals added to italic lower case letters.
11
Claude Garamond was an important typographer during this period. He was a French punchcutter who worked in Paris. He created several romans and at least two italics, which we would now considered Old Style typefaces. According to Bringhurst, “Garamond’s romans are stately High Renaissance forms with humanist axis, moderate contrast and long extenders (230).” Although he did create italics and some of the first sloped capitals, he did not mix roman and italics like some of his contemporaries.
TYPOGRAPHY HISTORY
12
Jean Jannon Garamond’s work is closely connected by some interesting circumstances to Jean Jannon, a French punchcutter. He was a Protestant printing illegally under a Catholic regime. The type he cut and cast during the early seventeenth century was seized in 1641 by agents of the French crown. It was revived and misidentified as the work of Claude Garamond after two hundred years in storage.
13
Today he is credited with making the first Baroque typefaces that he cut in Paris and Sedan. Bringhurst describes his work as elegant and disorderly. He uses widely varying axes and slopes, and his designs are sharply serifed and uses asymmetry (231).
TYPOGRAPHY HISTORY
14
William Caslon With the arrival of colonialism and some significant works of English literature, British typographers began to make their mark. William Caslon was an English engraver, punchcutter, and typefounder. He created many Baroque romans, italics, Greeks and other non-Latin typefaces (334). The styles he created would be used throughout the British Empire. One example is Benjamin Franklin’s use of Caslon type in his book, M. T. Cicero’s Cato major, or Discourse on Old Age. He is consider to be the first great English typecutter.
15
TYPOGRAPHY HISTORY
16
John Baskerville Another English typographer would emerge in the eighteenth century. A British calligrapher, printer, and businessman by the name of John Baskerville. The Neoclassical typeface named after him would become popular in the American colonies and Republican France (216). Compared to the Baroque and Renaissance typefaces, Neoclassical types are more static and restrained (128). Neoclassical types move further away from the original roman styles based on handwriting.
17
Bringhurst states, “If Baroque letterforms are ambidextrous, Neoclassical letters are, in their quiet way, neitherhanded.�
TYPOGRAPHY HISTORY
“If Baroque letterforms are ambidextrous, Neoclassical letters are, in their quiet way, neitherhanded.�
18
François-Ambroise Didot & Giambattista Bodoni Then in 1784, François-Ambroise Didot, a Parisian printer and punchcutter, created the first true Modern style typeface. His legacy is carried on by his son Fermin Didot, who created several Neoclassical faces and Romantic fonts. In 1791, another Modern Style typeface is created by Giambattista Bodoni (pictured), an Italian printer, punchcutter, and designer.
19
Some unique characteristics of Bodoni’s typeface is its geometric construction and hairline serifs.
{
In 1765, Thomas Cottrell introduced Display types two inches tall, which will set the stage for the use of typography for commerce.
TYPOGRAPHY HISTORY
}
20
The Industrial Revolution In 1799, Nicolas-Louis Robert invented the paper-making machine, and another 15 years later Friedrich Koening’s steam-powered printing press is invited. These two innovations, as a part of the Industrial Revolution, have a huge have an impact on mass communication. For the first time, newspapers can be produced quickly for mass distribution. This leads to smaller print shops, known as jobbing presses, opening to fill the demand for smaller run print items, like letterheads and business cards. All of these advances will have an effect on the typography that emerges during this time.
21
TYPOGRAPHY HISTORY
22
Vincent Figgins & William Caslon IV In a move away from Old Style and a stark contrast to Modern Style typefaces, the Industrial Revolution sparks an increased need for typefaces for mass communication. Vincent Figgins, a British punchcutter and typefounder, shows the first Egyptian, slab-serif, typeface in 1815. Then a year later, William Caslon IV, the great grandson of the original William Caslon, gives the world the first sans-serif Latin typeface. He based it on signwriters’ letters, and it only had capital letters.
23
The slab-serfs and sans-serifs that they created worked well at large sizes, perfect for commercial use. In 1827, the manufacturing of large display wood types is made possible by the mechanical router invented by Darius Wells. This leads to the creation of more Display fonts perfect for posters, and in 1833, Figgins introduces outline types, and during the 1830s to 1880s Wood-type posters become popular in America and Europe. TYPOGRAPHY HISTORY
24
Robert Besley There were a number of English typographers that emerge in the nineteenth century. It is not surprising then that the first known registered typeface would come from England. Robert Besley published Clarendon, a Victorian slab-serf, in 1845. According to Bringhurst, “These faces reflect the hearty, solid, bland, unstoppable aspect of the British Empire.”
25
Clarendon’s interesting characteristics was its fat ball terminals, vertical axis, large eye, low contrast, and tiny aperture (223). The technological advances made in the Industrial Revolution profoundly influenced typography, and its use in mass communication. These changes would slowly usher us in the twentieth century, where typography will play an increasing role in mass communication and a burgeoning advertising industry.
TYPOGRAPHY HISTORY
{
Then in1866, the first keyboard typesetting machine, the Linotype, is invent by Ottmar Mergenthaler. It becomes the standard for printing magazines, newspapers, and posters.
} 26
INDEX
Baskerville, John
17
Figgins, Vincent
23
Bodoni, Giambattista
19
Griffo, Francesco
9
Besley, Robert Caslon, William
Caslon IV, William
27
Cottrell, Thomas
Didot, Franรงois-Ambroise Didot, Fermin
TYPOGRAPHY HISTORY
25 15 23 19 19 19
Garamond, Claude
Jannon, Jean Jenson, Nicolas
Manutius, Albus Pannartz, Arnold Sweynheym, Konrad
11 13 7 9 5 5
WORKS CITED
Bringhurst, Robert. The Elements of Typographic Style. 3rd. Vancouver: Hartley & Marks, 2004. Print. Carter, Rob, Ben Day, and Philip B. Meggs. Typographic Design: Form and Communication. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2002. Print.
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CLARENDON