Task 1

19/10/14

                  Anatomy of Typography

Definition

         Typography is a design or selection of letter forms to be organized into words and sentences and printed or displayed electronically.

History of Typography

         Typography originated after the invention of printing from movable type in the mid-15th century. The three major type families in the history of Western printing are roman, italic, and black letter (Gothic). All had their origin in the scripts of the calligraphers whose work was ultimately replaced by printing. In the succeeding centuries typographers have created some 10,000 typefaces (a complete set of letter forms of a particular design). Depending on the style of their letters, typefaces are categorized as old style, transitional, and modern. Commonly used typefaces include Caslon, Baskerville, Bodoni, Garamond, and Times New Roman.

Alphabets evolved from drawings of early man into pictographs and ideograms. An ideogram or ideograph is a graphical symbol that represents an idea, rather than a group of letters arranged according to the phonemes of a spoken language, as is done in alphabetic languages.

Typographic terms all designers should be familiar with. Here are the main topics:

What’s in a Letter?

Serif and Sans Serif

X-height

Measuring Type

Spacing

Typographic Colour

Using the Right Character

   Alignment

   Copy fitting

Choosing and Using Typefaces

   Combining Typefaces in a Publication

Glossary of Typographic Terms

Advantages of Typography.

1) Trendy Design: These are flat designs, I believe they are perfect for blogs and if you love it all sort of designing will be fun.

2) Usage of bright colours:  flat designing are mostly bold colours because such colours put visitors in a good mood. (Enlightenment)

3) Perfect for mobile phones: Mobile devices have small screens and they cannot handle too much of clutter that’s why the typography is small and fit able.

Disadvantages of typography:

1) Trends have short life span: Well, we all know that everything trend that hits the designing world has an ending and same goes for flat design. You never know when the sun sets on flat designing.

2) Usability issues may arise: A lot of people are not comfortable with minimalistic approach as they believe it affects the functionality of the website since designers are trying to keep things simple.

3) Harmonious Colour Palette is difficult to find: Creating a nice colour palette is not at all an easy task. A combination is easy if you plan to use 2 colours however, if you plan to use 4-5 colours, creating harmony between them is not at all an easy task.

 

Roman:

        The Roman alphabet is the product of a long series of simplifications and refinements. Like other forms of writing, its most distant ancestors were tallies and pictograms. These evolved into ideograms which, in turn, resolved themselves into phonetic symbols — first symbols representing syllables, then signs indicating consonants, and finally letters standing for both vowel and consonant phonemes. The Greek alphabet achieved this final step. Simplification of signs involved ease in writing and reading as well as emphasis on smaller units of sound.

 

 Uses of Roman lettering

1)  Romanian are used to provide emphasis or contrast in running Roman text. 

2) The Roman lettering are used for foreign words or phrases not considered fully part of the English language.

3) They are used to start a noun word example some ones name,       Ikon.

4) Use Roman lettering to denote titles.

5) Roman lettering are used for vehicles plate numbers.

6) Use to practice test in the Tips section to improve your knowledge of when to italicize text. 

 

 

Examples of Roman Typography.

 

 

 

 

Work Done by Ikon

How it applies to me.

   Roman lettering is more on the straight and bold of the letter, how the stand erect. It’s actually more of stenciling because its takes time to create lettering but to get the actual forms and shape you must use guide lines. I prefer Roman because it’s has directions.

 

 

Reference:

Adams, C. J., n.d. Roman lettering, oxford word press. s.l.:s.n.

 

.