After Black Letter: Fifteenth Century

[Continuing on from last month's Medieval Typography post]

Gutenberg’s Black Letter types were gradually replaced by a lettera antica style during the Renaissance. This was preferred by Humanist writers and scholars and was more open and easy-to-read, although gothic typefaces have remained popular to this day, just gradually declining in use. 

Nicholas Jenson merged the gothic with the Italian type styles and came up with straighter lines and more regular curves, for the first roman typefaces. His fifteenth-century type was named after him and is still used today. Others from that time that are still in use are Garamond, Palatino and Bembo.

Trivia break:  

Jenson designed beautiful capitals that echoed carved letters seen in Roman architecture. His typeface was very readable and balanced, and even as late as the nineteenth century, he had admirers that imitated or evolved his style, including William Morris of the Arts and Crafts movement.

 

Because of their lighter shapes, roman letters lent themselves to another possibility: italics, which allowed for more words on a page due to the cursive letters being closer together. Aldus Manutius created these for his newly invented portable books. Italics saved time and space.

By the sixteenth century, those in the printing business were creating type families that included both roman and italic letters. Nowadays, of course, we use italics to stress a phrase or word or for a publication or film title. Italicizing is a popular tool in design.

Italics, however, are not just slanted roman letters. Italics carry over some elements from the parent roman letters in their type family, but are a completely different shape. Often this can be seen most clearly in the letter “a” – which in italics can appear as “a”.

 

Think New Year, Think New Type

Read the type...this is not hype...the time is ripe...to BE a type...

"She's a reliable type."   "He's a good type."   "That's a great type of company."  

"She's the type that's always on time."   "He's the type that meets deadlines."

Puns aside - they'll take you seriously if you take them seriously.

(Click on the image below.)


In Appreciation of Written Word

Enjoy my "through the years" morphology of TEXT and TYPE ... from cave scratchings to screen pixels!

Medieval Typography

Black Letter

Early print houses molded individual letters from lead in order to mass-print books on printing presses first invented by Gutenberg in the 15^th century (he had taken the idea for his life-changing invention from one day looking at wine presses and making a connection). These early typefaces were Black Letter, simulating the Gothic handwriting of scribes from earlier centuries, and were popular right up to the 20^th century, especially in Germany.






Although today we employ typefaces such as Humanist, Modern and others easier for contempory audiences to read, one tradition remains from the Middle Ages, and that is the drop cap, which although not
 the colourful, detailed drawings of early monks, nonetheless mark the beginning of a chapter.

 Individual characters gradually became lighter and more Roman, influenced by regional handwriting styles. Future posts will detail these later designs, but for now, have a look at the Black Letter typeface above – although illegible to many today, one must admit there is a certain beauty to Black Letter.


Many newspapers use some form of Black Letter for their name brand even today. See below.

 

 

 

Time to Head in Another Direction

Okay, enough about logos and branding for now. I'll wrap up with an Inukshuk from the True North Strong and Free, then continue on next month with typography - always a favourite for designers.

All Things Change: Including Logos!

A logo is often a viewer’s first impression; therefore it is essential that it represent its company accurately and quickly.

Your logo should signify what you’re selling. What is your product? I’m not asking whether it’s a radio or a can of soup or a cleaning service. I’m asking you to think about your mission statement and the image of your product. For instance, if it’s a radio, would that be a sleek, sophisticated radio that fits in a business-suit pocket? Or a utilitarian, large-sized box that can be hand-wound during a power cut or when you’re camping in the woods? Is your cleaning service an upscale Persian-carpet cleaner? Or a sterilizer of hospital equipment? You see how many variables there are? A logo should reflect the vein of a specific company.

Another aspect of logos is to keep longevity in mind. And although it is true that companies change over time, often evolving their logos with them, it’s a good idea to do this slowly, over years, so that consumers don’t think the product has suddenly disappeared. However, progression of a logo may be because of reasons other than an expanding firm.

Think of Canon cameras, originally called Kwanon. See the initial logo below.

Follow the progression and you’ll see two reasons for the changes. The first logo, although beautiful, was not scalable (see my earlier post about scalability: “Logos, Icons, Pictograms, Photographs in Social Media”). It also was not a familiar image or name in the western world at the time.  Kwanon is the Buddhist Goddess of Mercy – how many people in the West know that now, let alone 70 years ago when this Japanese logo was launched?

Gradually, the name changed, the picture was eliminated and the colour enhanced to a more specific spot colour. Remember from my earlier post, “Colour and Your Brand,” that viewers notice red objects very quickly, and that red symbolizes power and strength. Just about everyone now recognizes the Canon logo in an instant and knows it to represent a reliable camera.

Trivia break: Did you know that logos have existed for thousands of years? If you think about it – one thing logos say is “I made this.” And potters in ancient Greece and Egypt were inscribing their personal marks or initials onto the bottoms of their pots and bowls since way before the pyramids were built. It was a way to advertise themselves and their abilities.

Today, a good logo delivers a unique message about a particular company – and the most effective ones are instantly recognizable whether button-sized or billboard sized.

 

 

Logos, Icons, Pictograms, Photographs in Social Media

 

Most of us are aware that viewers respond to pictorial signs, for we are visual creatures and remember things we see – especially images.

Those in advertising know pictures are key to marketing, and these include logos, icons, pictograms and photographs. So what’s the difference between these four? Below are short definitions as they relate to the world of business.

Logo

In marketing, a logo is a graphic depiction or representation of a company name and is designed for instant recognition. As mentioned in my last post, a logo can consist of just an image, or it can be a logotype, or a combination mark.

 

 

The important elements of logos are scalability, and adaptability to both colour and black and white. The first of these, to be scalable, is because the logo must be identifiable within any media – for instance, in a large format for a billboard poster or else reduced in size for a thumbnail web graphic. For this reason, vector-based logos are more common.  As for colour versus black and white: most logos generally will be produced in colour, but they need to be recognizable in black and white too. How else would logos stand out if company brochures were photocopied, for example? A well-designed logo will be seen and known at any size and in any colour/non-colour format.

 

Icon

Icons are graphic depictions like logos, but utilized differently. They started out being used in a mainly informative manner – and still are – but now icons are also an entertaining way to convey messages. Examples of an icon’s use are as metaphorical or abstract analogies that a reader can understand quickly; for instance, a cursor turning into a pointy-hand when a line of text is linked and clickable. Icons are great at fulfilling functions on tablets and smartphones where a screen can’t hold sufficient explanatory text.

 

As well, icons can be animated: lines visually pulsate, buttons change colour when activated, cartoon characters move. Emoticons are a good example of moving icons: they are entertaining for they smile and wink at us, poke their tongues at us, and nod their cute little heads.

Well-thought-out icons are understood globally, across boundaries of language. This is why commonplace figures such as hands, vehicles, geometric shapes, animals and humans make the best figures for icons.

Pictogram

These are for guidance and are used to protect and warn the viewer; therefore they must be instantly decipherable.

 

There is an art to creating simple, single images that convey very clear messages. Pictograms, like icons, must cross cultural lines and be understood regardless of language. Therefore they must resemble that which they signify, or else be globally agreed up signs. Pictograms as such are not often used in the advertising world to market products, but they are important in keeping us from walking off a cliff…

 

 

     

Photograph

In marketing, an effective shot of the merchandise – think shoes, cars, lipstick – or an image demonstrating a lifestyle the merchandise gives us – think hammock on the beach; being admired by observers; jumping for joy – can do wonders for getting viewers to realize the benefits of your product.

Photographs are not logos, but can be as memorable and are another tool for alerting your clients and enabling them to recall your image when shopping around. One trend in contempory advertising is to use photographs of people performing a function or animals making eye-contact with the viewer.