lecture week 7a
“Typography is two-dimensional architecture, based on experience and imagination, and guided by rules and readability” - Hermann Zapf
Where do these rules come from? What is a grid? What are its origins? What are its functions?
Mesopotamian clay tablets used grids in their writing. They used the same material for their books as their buildings (Zigurat) - their books were also their bricks. When you start to think about it as a building material, you will start to see the grid system in the way things fit with each other. Using a square shape brick like object to write on influences how you use the space.
Luca Paccioli, Divina Proporzione - carrying on from the enlightenment of the Renaissance period. Trying to find the relationship between what nature has provided and mathematics (what man has constructed).
Francesco Torniello - form of letters from a mathematical point of view using a compass.
Albrecht Durer / Geoffrey Tory - Drawing letters instead of just copying.
Romain Du Roi - the King’s font. It was constructed on a grid. This was a landmark in typography in 1716.
Adobe 1995 - adobe postscript font takes after Romain Du Roi in the way that the grid has influenced the shape of the letterforms.
“The map is not the territory. Shaping context and connection is an act of architecture. A new form of space requires a new form of architecture. Space made of information requires information architecture”
Finding fonts in Google Maps images (???) this is so cool
“Our business is to design things which are suitable for a machine to make” - Eric Gill (check out his typography)
Effect of Machine in Language:
Rejection letter for Gertrude Stein from Arthur C Fifield Publisher, the effect of the typewriter means the sentences are short and the fullstops are bolder than the rest of the letters.
With the creation of machines, we develop new forms of communication - e.g.: Kaomoji ヾ( ￣O￣)ツ
The relationship between old Mesopotamian grids and typewriters and modern day printers exist - up to us to find ways to utilise traditional methods in our design.
