Fat Face

HisGD 01/24

Transition type family

            -Rococco- intricate, detail

            -copperplate printing- more detail

England

            Political turmoil, limited printing

            Giambattista Bodoni

                        Revolution brings about neoclassicism

                        Inspired by transition typefaces- step between old and modern

                        Helps introduce modern

                        Redesigns alphabet to be more geometric and mechanical

                        Reinvents serif, removed brackets

                        Limited number of interchangeable units.

                        1 of 5 historical faces

Neoclassicism

            Bodoni evolves into “fat face”- display font

            Industrial revolution- advertising, buying, and selling

            Rural to urban, world change

            Rise of the middle class, breeds envy and contempt

            Social cost, long, days, unemployment, and tenants.

<Delancy street, New york- tenant museum>

<Gangs of New York- watch>

            Need to sell, competition= large Typefaces

            Wood Type-

Brought about by machines, power and routers

More styles, not limited to casting

            -Egyptian faces- just-for-fun name, even weight and big serifs

Two line Egyptian- also known as sans-serif

Tuscan face- “cowboy” face, crazy decoration

Dimensional letters, knocked-out letters

Compositor-lines up type for printing

Ephemera- printed material not to be saved or kept. Ex. Movie tickets

Ivan schmia-luggage tags

Turf wars broke out over poster placement between poster houses

Size and composition based on availability and organization, not design

5 historical faces

            Old style- Garamond

            Transitional- Baskerville

            Modern- Bodoni

            Egyptian-

            Sans Serif

Display

Black Letter

Hand

Script

Digbats

Leading- measured from baseline to baseline

- generally 20% (point size + 20%)

!!!!!!DO NOT USE AUTO LEADING!!!!!!!

12 points= 1 pica

6 pica= 1 inch

72 pica= 1 inch

Thoughts:
I find the Rococo type not as intricate as other rococo art. Im not a fan of rococo art but the type is nice and simple.
More importantly, it surprises me that, with printing type coming about in the 1500s, that it wasn't till the neoclassical era that Bodoni approached from a geometric standpoint and developed a more planned and mechanical typeface. But it must have been the growing industrial revolution that began the thought of looking at things from a mechanical stand point. Did geometric type make type easier to cast and easier to read when printed? Regardless of the reason, it later developed into a display font called fat face. It never even occurred to me that some fonts were designed only to be display fonts, which explains the lake of punctuation and other characters in font sets. But the advent of typography and wood type brought us the art of advertising. A trillion dollar market all developed from printers, type, and the industrial revolution. It was the first time that early graphic design gained exposure and type was seen as more than books and manuscripts. Although some of the types that came out of this era were not the greatest, it produced two great things:  2 line egyptian (sans serif fonts) and the understanding of typography. Sans serif fonts are one the staples of contemporary type and it was born so early on! But also, with wood type, printers could design their own fonts and use them in posters for advertisers. Since fonts had to radically stand out to grab attention, printers made some crazy and ridiculous typefaces. They may not have all been good, but it propelled type forward and began the thinking how type looked and was used.
I personally love the rise of ephemera. Since it is so simple and  quickly  designed that it has an attractive, warm quality. Also since ephemera, especially tickets, can represent a significant event or memory, it nostalgic qualities makes them all the more desirable.


Questions:
Up to this point we have been looking at fonts and typefaces in english lettering. But the other day i was looking in a type magazine and saw typefaces for other languages such as Arabic, chinese, and others. Was printed typography progressing at the same right in other parts of the globe and if not, what is the history behind printed type in the Middle East or Asia? Also, because ephemera is such a social icon and are appreciated much more than designers and advertisers perceive they will be, should we as future designers take a more thought design eye to how we design ephemera in order to capitalize on this old and consistent trend?