Type is a modern obsession. We only have a sense of history because of type. Type is the visual representation of language, through this we can communicate world wide and also look back to see how things were. It is speech made visible - a durable visual form.
No consensus when language began being visualised. 3200bce (ish) was when the population had spread out and people began to settle in Mesopotamia. Occidental development in an American direction and also oriental so the language began to split and type became very different.
There is no single approach within typography that applies to everything.
"All that is necessary for any language to exist is an agreement amongst a group of people that one thing will stand for another"
The first alphabet to exist was Greek and we have derived our alphabet from this today. The Gutenburg press went into production in the 1450s, this made movable type more accessible and therefore text and information became widely available. This along with William Foster in 1870 bringing in the Elementary Education Act meant that everyone between the ages of 5 and 12 had to go to school. This had a huge impact on type as it meant more people were reading and taking an interest in learning.
1957 - Max Miedinger. The creation of Helvetica, swiss design slowly began to bring out technical designs. Helvetica was one of the first types to be designed under 'function before form' it was made for readability first and look second. It was revolutionary in the type world. Ariel was designed 25 years later by microsoft with minor adjustments so they didn't have to pay the font license fee. Strangely 25 years is the amount of time that a design is protected for.
1990 - The first apple mac was invented to sell for less than US $1000. It was made so that everyday people could use it and not just the rich and wealthy.
Gotham font was created in 2000 and adopted in to the Obama campaign.
Vincent Connare invented comic sans in 1994 - he also worked for microsoft.
1990 - Tim Berners - Lee created the world wide web and browser and kindly gave it away free.
1995- Bill Gates Invented internet explorer. This laid the foundations of web browsers templates for the next 18 years.
No comments:
Post a Comment