History Of Typography Research Articles

Promoting by Writing. The Role of Publication and Criticism in Shaping Graphic Design

This article attempts to analyse and critically discuss the evolution of graphic design promotion with emphasis on the influence of theory, professional criticism and publications on the development and perception of the discipline. It analyses the history of design from the epoch of mechanised production and invention of typographic print, through the development of theory and practice of typography, to the contemporary discourses and practices of design. Particular attention is paid to key figures and publications, which have had significant influence on the development of graphic design, such as the works of Joseph Moxon, Pierre Simon Fournier, Jan Tschichold, Beatrice Warde, as well as the later periodicals – “Graphis”, “Neue Graphik” and “Projekt”. Moreover, the text presents how the development of design theories and practices have been accompanied by the need for criticism and reflection over the role a applied graphics in the society, as apparent from such manifestos as Ken Garland’s First Things First and the activity of magazines, e.g. “Emigre” and “Eye”. There is emphasis on the meaning of attitudes and areas of designer’s operations, as well as their influence on contemporary design practices. The analysis highlights that the promotion of graphic design is not limited to visual aspects, but also includes a broad cultural, educational and social context, underlying its diversity and complexity. As the results of the analysis demonstrate, the discipline constantly evolves, responding to changeable social and technological needs, which contributes to its dynamic development and adaptation. Keywords: design promotion, history of typography, design criticism, graphic design theory, design practices evolution

Konrad Haebler’s Album of Incunabula in Moscow Libraries

The paper discloses the unusual treatment of duplicates and defective copies, characteristic of European libraries at the time when Haebler’s works were created and published (beginning of 20th century) and stresses the necessity of correct bibliographic treatment of the valuable printed materials in modern libraries. The paper also presents the famous album of West-European incunabula (Der westeuropäische Wiegendruck in Original-Typenbeispielen), compiled by Konrad Haebler in 1928, two copies of which are held in Moscow at the Russian State Library and the State Public Historical Library of Russia.This fundamental work in the history of typography by the prominent German expert on incunabula, one of the inventors of the Proctor-Haebler method in bibliography and founder of the world incunabula catalogue Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke, is analyzed in the aspect of the specific early 20th-century bibliographic principles underlying the composition of the album and the way the original old prints are presented in it. The album consists of a collection of 15th-century original fragments enclosed in a 20th-century overall structure (text booklet, case and set of labeled passe-partouts).This unusual composition can present classification problems in some modern public libraries, when the album is recorded as a whole, whereas the separate incunabula fragments are not catalogued. Moreover, a comparative study of several copies of the album available for analysis on- and offline, carried out in the study, proved that their sample collections were composed of different authentic incunabula leaves, thus making each album unique.

On the Time and Place of the Printing of Francysk Skaryna’s Little Traveler’s Book

As we continue to solve the issues of book science of the 16th century, we have to be very guarded in questions of terminology. This is of particular importance when we talk about the Little Traveler’s Book, which begins the history of typography in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. There is a widespread belief that the abovementioned book was printed in Vilnius approximately in 1522. It would be more correct to say that the Little Traveler’s Book was completed in Vilnius. One of its parts – a set of eight Akathists and eight canons – could have been printed earlier in Prague.
 This hypothesis can be supported with several arguments. In contrast with the Acts and Epistles of the Apostles (the Apostle, 1525), the Little Traveler’s Book is not dated anywhere and in terms of content, it is a heterogeneous (composite) publication. Considering the content of the Little Traveler’s Book, the elements that particularly stand out are the Akathists and canons that contain unique wood engravings, endpieces, vignettes, borders, and initials. Two wood engravings were made by one “Master of the New Testament,” whose works were published in the Prague Book of Psalms (1517).
 The autonomy of an Akathist as a particular publication is accented by the publisher’s acrostic colophon, written in the last Akathist via initials. The Akathists housed in Wroclaw (Wroclaw University Library, No. 305071) can represent the Prague period of typography. E. Nemirovkij’s “evidence” regarding the Vilnius origin of the Akathist is incorrect.

Hans-Karl Wiegandt e a introdução da litografia na Província do Gram-Pará em 1870

Este artigo se insere em pesquisa sobre a história da tipografia no Pará e apresenta o litógrafo Hans-Karl Wiegandt. Para tanto foram realizadas extensas pesquisas bibliográficas e documentais em instituições no Rio de Janeiro e no Pará. A técnica de impressão litográfica que permite a impressão de texto e imagem concomitantemente foi importante para nosso país nos momentos conturbados que antecederam a República. No caso do Pará, Wiegandt foi não apenas o primeiro litógrafo local como difundiu a técnica a seus contemporâneos, sendo responsável pelo cenário de jornais ilustrados que circularam no período e a farta utilização das imagens impressas em jornais, revistas, rótulos, embalagens. Os impressos ilustrados colaboraram para a construção dos ideais da modernidade. Espera-se com este artigo colaborar para o entendimento da do design no Brasil, ao voltar-se especialmente em regiões pouco estudadas.

A kora újkori szerb ortodoxia és a nyugat-ukrán kultúrközpontok kapcsolatai a liturgikuskönyv-kereskedelem tükrében

It is a false concept that the ideas of the Enlightenment and national awakening were transferred to the Slavic peoples of the Habsburg Empire solely by the Viennese artists and scientists whose activity was prompted and supported by the royal court itself in the 18th century. This statement is partially true, but not entirely. Vienna was one route of the transmission of Western European cultural and political influences, but its role should not to be overvalued in the examination of cultural relations between Slavic peoples and the Habsburg Empire. The Krypiakevich Institute of Ukrainian Studies in Lviv has carried out several significant researches in the last decades. Iaroslav Dmitrovich Isaievich has led the institute for fourteen years, he is also a member of the Academy of Sciences and his findings on the topic are of primary importance. His work on the history of typography and book trade made it inevitable to reconsider the contacts of the Western territories of the present-day Ukraine with the Slavicpeoples of the Austro-Hungarian Kingdom. The author of this paper, who is an expert of the old printed liturgical books of the Byzantine rite, has also come to the conclusion that book trade played a crucial part in the transmission of the Enlightenment. Apparently, the new ideas spread from Poland across Ukraine to the Serbs who lived in Hungary and on the Balkans. Serbian Orthodox Church as a determining factor in the national awakening was not taken into consideration either. As far as Orthodoxy is concerned, it is essential to make a distinction between the Greek and Serb churches and between the Russian and Balkan Orthodoxy as well. Consequently, the aim of this paper is to describe the contacts between the Serbs and the Ukrainian territories, to present the book trade between these peoples and areas, and to give a new insight into the ecclesiastical and national relations on the Balkans. Keywords: Serbian culture, liturgical book handling, Orthodoxie, early modern period, Western Ukraine

TIPOGRAFIKOS ĮTAKA KNYGŲ VIZUALINEI KOMUNIKACIJAI: KNYGOS DAILININKŲ POŽIŪRIS

The rapid technological growth of the past few decades has introduced dramatic changes in publishing technology, accompanied by an ever-increasing access to that technology. Pu­blishing has largely moved from the print shop to desktop. With more people having to deal with publication design (whether in MS Word or in professional design software), general knowledge of typography has become more significant in their work. In addition, typography has been facing new challenges as “page media” (books, magazines etc.) are becoming increasingly visual in order to serve the needs of a visually mediated society. These changes caused the emergence of new approaches dealing with typography as a visual medium.The object of this article is the impact of typography on the visual communication of a book. The theoretical part describes the history of typography and visual communication theories. The analysis showed that typographic elements can carry symbolic meanings and for this reason, typography has to be analyzed in the fields of semiotics and medium theory. Conducted qualitative research was des­ignated to determine the predominant viewpoint amongst Lithuanian book designers on the topic.The following conclusions have been drawn: typography has a strong pictorial potential, various typefaces (or fonts) carry different connotations and have diverse influences on the readability, as­similation, interpretation, and impact of the words and concepts they represent. Thus, if a document is a perceptual object, readers actively make judgments as they look at the page. Their perceptions of that page and its typeface(s) are determined in part by their prior experiences and by the asso­ciations connected with those experiences. It follows logically that readers could ascribe persona to both the typeface and the text itself based on these perceptions and associations. Additionally, it has been observed that Lithuanian book designers use such techniques in their works. Nevertheless, Lithuania has not developed a strong typographic culture yet due to the lack of typographic tradi­tions and theoretical works regarding this field.This article can be useful for publishing houses and their book designers, students and teach­ers of book graphics, book design and typography. Based on the theoretical and empirical material collected in this work, further researches can be made analyzing typographic culture in Lithuania.

The Rectangle in Typography

One of the features of the early printed book compared with its manuscript forerunner, the codex, is that all its lines are the same length, giving the text on the page the shape of a perfect rectangle. Yet in the history of typography that perfection has more than once been eroded. Three factors have been responsible for this: first, the shape and position of a word-break character (the hyphen) at the end of the line; second, the rise of the modern paragraph in the sixteenth century, leading to white space to the right of the last line and also to the left of the first line of a paragraph; and third, the arrival of unjustified typesetting in the second half of the twentieth century.

Stanley Morison's Aldine Hypothesis Revisited

Admiration for the graphic vigor of the past brought historic fonts back into use in the modern period and renewed scholars' discus sions of stylistic influence in type design. In this context, the British type historian, Stanley Morison, proposed in the 1920s a hypothesis that was to alter the writing of typographic history in the twentieth century. Then at the beginning of his career, and busy scouring ar chives for examples of fine printing, Morison observed that, at origin, the French roman types of the early sixteenth century shared traits with the romans used by the Italian Renaissance publisher, Aldus Manutius. The observation was at variance with the scholarly opin ion of the period. Aldus was known for his Greek type, and for hav ing had Francesco Griff o cut the first italic in 1501. Aldus's roman, by contrast, was overlooked by historians as they assessed the influ ence of Italian fonts on later French ones. Nicolaus Jenson's 1470 ro man was heralded instead as the most likely model for the designs. Praise for Jenson's roman was rampant in the literature. The most recent volley had come in 1922 with the publication of Daniel Berkeley Updike's landmark study, Printing Types, Their History, Forms, and Use.1 Updike identified the strengths of Jenson's font as readability, its mellowness of form, and the evenness of colour in mass, and continued: Jenson's roman types have been the accepted models for roman letters ever since he made them, and, repeatedly copied in our own day, have never been equalled.... No other man produced quite so fine a font, or had better taste in the composition of a page and its imposition upon paper.2 Updike went on to characterize the Aldine roman as distinctly inferior to Jenson's.3 Even so, with little debate, Morison's Aldine hypothesis was quickly considered proven. It was supplemented by others, and is incorporated as fact in the modern literature on the history of typography. Scholars who work in the area, however, constantly encounter both the value of Morison's insight and the limitations of his construct. My work on some of the principal theorists and prac titioners of French Renaissance typography,4 for instance, has raised many questions about the utility of the hypothesis, suggesting that it needs to be rethought and, if necessary, revised. 1 Daniel Berkeley Updike, Printing Types, Their History, Forms, and Use, A Study

The Edward Clark Collection:

This article describes the Edward Clark collection at Napier University, Merchiston Campus Library and the ongoing cataloging project of the materials in the collection. The collection includes rare and unique works, and traces the history of typography, printing and illustration to the present day.

The alphabetic labyrinth: the letters in history and imagination

The letters of the alphabet have been the object of speculation since their invention almost 4000 years ago. The symbols represent sounds, yet they exist in their own right, often invested with quasi-magical power. This book examines the many imaginative, often idiosyncratic ways in which the letters of the alphabet have been assigned value in political, spiritual, or religious belief systems over two millennia. The birth of writing was linked to religion and cosmology and was endowed with semi-divine status. Plato saw letter-forms as reflecting ideas, while the Pythagoreans assimilated them to number-theory. The Greeks employed letters for occult and divinatory purposes, while the Romans used them in more practical ways, such as the invention of shorthand. The Middle Ages saw the rise of further theories about letters in Christian philosophy, alchemy and Kabbalah. Theories of their divine origin and mystical significance continued into the 18th and 19th centuries, becoming involved with nationalism and revolutionary political theory. In our own day letters of the alphabet are the subject of scholarly research, and inspiration to graphic artists and a fertile field for mystical speculation. This book explores this realm, and should be of interest to cultural historians, art historians, and anyone interested in the history of typography.