Lecture 3: Milestones in Type Development 1460 — 1840
1.
Humanism
15th century Italy was a center of humanism, a philosophical approach to life in which human rather than religious studies were emphasized. Study and examination of classical manuscripts, as well as those copied during the Carolingian period, influenced type design away from the blackletter form and back to the Roman ideal.
2.
Semi-Humanistic Type
Sweynheim and Pannartz
These Czech printers, trained in Mainz, Germany were the first printers in Italy. Working first at the abby of Subiaco in 1464, they moved to Massimi Palace in Rome in 1467. Sweynheim's punches were the first to follow the style of Classic Roman Capitals combined with the lowercase style of manuscripts from the 9th and 10th centuries.
3.
Nicolas Jenson
A Frenchman in Venice, 1470
Trained as a metal die cutter and later believed to have trained in Mainz, Jenson is credited with cutting the first roman style type. His highly legible and evenly colored typeface was based upon formal humanistis scripts. This 1470 face has been reinterpreted through the centuries by many including William Morris's Golden Type, Bruce Roger's Centaur, and Robert Slimbach digital Jenson for Adobe.
4.
Francesco Griffo
Italy, 1501
Griffo cut the first face based upon italic style script for printer Aldus Manutius. Italic was a face used to conserve space both in manuscript and print. The highly legible type he designed for De Aetna by Cardinal Bembo was used as a basis for the Monotype Bembo, 1929 by Stanley Morison.
5.
Old Style Type
The even and sturdy strokes of type from this period held up under the comparatively simple printing limitations:
• uneven pressure from a screw press
• rough paper surface
6.
The Golden Age of French Typography
Claude Garamond was commissioned by Simone de Colines to cut the first matching roman and italic face. He operated solely as a punch cutter, not as a printer and was one of the first to design and cast faces for sale to printers. On right is a set of his matrices. He is said to have freed type from calligraphic influences.
7.
Geofroy Tory
Champ Fleury, 1529
(See it in detail here)
This 3 book set put forth Tory's theories of uniform French pronunciation, letter forms based upon the proportions of the human body and the construction of letters based upon a grid of 100 units...a forerunner of methods used for modern digital type design.
8.
Philippe Granjean
1692, Le Romain du roi
King Louis the XIV commissions an exclusive typeface for the Royal Printing House, The Imprimerie Royale. The face is
a product of a committee of mathematicians, philosophers and others who used mathematics rather than calligraphy for the basis of their design. Some type historians claim that this is the first type design that disregarded the method of production. The final design was cut by Granjean.
9.
Pierre Simon Fournier
(le jeune), Paris
Fournier publishes his Manuel Typographic in 1764. One volume is an account of type founding and another is a display of his decorative roccoco style of letters and decorative cuts.
10.
Firmin Didot
Paris, 1783
The evolution of lighter typefaces reaches a pinnacle with the type of Firmin Didot. A 3rd generation of Francoise Didot who established the print shop, type foundry and bookselling business in 1713.
Firmin's father, Francoise Didot, started the point system of type measurement, using numbers rather than names. Firmin invented the process of stereotyping, as well as coining that phrase. Stereotyping involves casting a metal printing plate from printed material, i.e. a page from a book. Stereotyping allowed the publication and reprint of books at greatly reduced costs.
Didot type rejects the hand penned style for a cleaner more precise vertical stroke, extremely thin hairlines and horizontal serifs with almost no bracketing. The Didot typeface personifies the French neoclassical style of clarity and formality.
11.
Dutch Type
Christophe Plantin
(Visit the Plantin-Moretus Museum here) shown right
Born in France, originally trained as a book binder, printer Plantin settled in Antwerp producing types influenced by Granjean. Dutch type faces were sturdy and practical.
.
12.
England
Caslon, 1734
Because of restrictions on type founding in England most typefaces were imported — primarily from Holland. Historians have said "Just as Shakespeare gave England a national theatre, William Caslon gave the country a national typeface."
13.
England
Baskerville, 1725
Baskerville's elegant and solid type is considered to be transitional — bridging the old style and the modern style.
14.
Bodoni
Italy, c.1800
(See his typographic manual in detail here)
"The son of a master printer, Bodoni held to four principles from which a good typeface derives its beauty: uniformity of design, smartness and neatness, good taste, and charm. At the time of his death Bodoni was working on the first volume of this book, of which only 250 copies of the two-volume set were later published by his widow Margherita."
excerpt from Octavo
