Day Seven: After Class

Today in class, we talked about chapter eight, An Epoch of Typographic Genius.

First, we went over any questions from blogs. It was useful because I was reminded what crible was. After questions and answers, we talked some more on chapter seven before moving to chapter eight. We talked about what Renaissance Man meant again –someone who studied/took part in different areas—and from today’s society, Bill Gates is a Renaissance Man. The Renaissance began in Florence/Venice, Italy, then moved to Germany, which then moved on to France. Garamond text was the first universally used letterforms. Claude Garamond eliminated the use of Gothic/blackletter text from all over Europe—excluding Germany. Moving on to chapter eight, there were many highlights covered. The Imprimerie Royale was a royal printing office, which had new letters created. Only royalties were allowed to use their text; death was a consequence. A specific grid was used, containing 2,304 tiny squares. The Roman du Roi was a new typeface invented with thin and thick strokes. It ended up not being very successful because the text shrunk after being printed (losing the tiny, preciseness). The Rococo Era was a time when designs were asymmetrical, filled with pastel colors, and made up of organic/floral forms. Pierre Simon Fournier le Jeune was a man who created a font family with italics and a variety of weights and widths. He also came up with font sizes. Around this time, war broke out, there was religious persecution, harsh censorship, and governmental control. William Caslon created fonts that were "friendly to the eye" and made bracketed serifs. Benjamin Franklin introduced Calson text to America. John Baskerville used woven paper and figured out how to make ink that had a good consistency. Rene Descartes and William Playfair introduced interesting grids and charts by using analytic geometry. Giambattista Bodoni created hairline serifs and used thicks and thinks in the letters. He was a great designer of graphics. The Didots were intelligent and were influenced by Bodoni; Bodoni was also influenced by the Didots. Fonts were soon measured by dots in the Didot system. William Blake was a man who had dreams of connecting letters and pictures throughout his designs. 

The most essential thing I learned today was the different between Old Style, Tranitional and Modern text. I took the online quiz and realized that I had no clue how to tell the difference between them. So now I know that the Old Style text looked sort of hand-written and the O's were thicker at a slant. Caslon font fell under Old Style text. Transitional text came after Old Style, and it did not show a major difference between thicks and thins of the characters. Its look was in between Old Style and Modern text. Baskerville belonged to this category. Modern type was machine-like with O's having thicker sides at the top and bottom (symmetrical if vertically cut in half). Bodoni and Didot fall under this category. Another thing I learned today was what crible was. I found out that it was the intricate dots among the decorations surrounding the text.

How was the woven paper made? Was it expensive to buy/produce? How long did it take to make it?
What was the reason for Germany not eliminating Gothic text?