When considering the chronologies of type history it is best not to simply focus on the history of type and list its creation and development but rather to look at all the social and political occurrences that have effected it. As designers we do this in order to understand where and why the rules and traditions of typography have formed, and by extension how to break and challenge these in the right way.
In its most simple form type is what language looks like. As a design discipline it has become a modernist social and political pursuit. What is meant by this is that it has rules and regulations that are followed such as function dictated by form as preached by the bauhaus movement. But more on that later.
Great variations in the visual structure of the letters in our latin alphabet can occur without causing damage to the meaning of each shape. This shows that the system we have chosen for our visual form of language is very robust and the collective agreement that gives it universal meaning, ingrained in our society.
Type comes fro a need for language to exist in a visual form. We cannot say when language began because it had no physical existence and therefore was not preserved. However, we can estimate. The current belief is that Mesopotamia in approximately 3200BCE was the centre of its gestation. It is fair to say that not all of this originated in Mesopotamia, rather it was its position between the two developing cultures of China, Africa and America that allowed it to collect influences from all of them.
The formation of civilization allowed people to come together for long enough for the agreements of meaning that create language to form. Visual forms of this language were required by this society and alphabets began to form in a structure of vowels and consonants relating to phonetics. The first full alphabet was greek which eventually went on to develop into what we know as the latin alphabet now. The use and therefor development of these alphabets is effected by trade, commerce, where people settled and social structures.
There are great variations in the symbols used to represent each letter varies greatly from font to font, often because of developments in production methods that are used to create type. We tend to think of the birth of typography, or set type at least, as 1450 with Gutenburg's wooden letter press. However, at the same time the Chinese were developing similar technology, if not far superior to our own. Yet to the majority of the public typography is almost exclusively related to printing presses with metal and wood type, hand rendered lettering and other similar disciplines is often completely unknown by those who are targeted by it.
It is a logical connection that the fact that language and our pronunciation of it varies, so should the visual aspect of language (type).
William Foster:
-Arguably did the most for type as a design discipline than any designer.
-At the time (1870) no one was taught to read by law, so written material demand was very low as was the audience for it.
-He brought into creation the Elementary Education Act.
-Suddenly the audience and demand for written material shot up.
Walter Gropius:
(1919-1933)
-Looked at type as a broader design process.
-During the age when hand made type was most prolific, everything was in its form, shape and decoration (arts and crafts movement).
- But by the time of Bauhaus there was a need for mass produced type that was readable and suited to its purpose.
Max Miedinger:
(1957)
-Designer of Helvetics.
- It was made to reflect swiss technology and many people feel that it is the perfect deign and symbol of modernist design.
-It was designed for a specific function (branding and identity) not so shaped by the process.
- The systems, processes and rules of modernist design, as epitomised by Helvetica, were widely applied and utilised.
-25 years later Ariel was designed to replace Helvetica, possibly considered as intellectual property infringement (just beyond the 25 year limit on intellectual property.
Steve Jobs:
(1990)
-Created the Mac Classic, providing advanced technology to the masses that previously would only have been available to professionals.
-Fonts and typefaces became ubiquitous because of the ease with which they could be created.
- Type was suddenly seen as an effective method of communication, i.e. the Obama Presidency campaign's use of Gotham to show someone dependable and strong.
Since this realisation that type can be an effective form of communication it has become an image in its own right. type can now be an object its self, not simply part of an object. Type effects our spaces and environments. The development of the strength of meaning that could be imbued into type meant that a balance started to form between form and function.
"Typography has fostered the modern idea of individuality, but destroyed the medieval sense of community and interaction."
-When we have the power to do anything with type, convey any idea or concept, the important thing is to exercise control.
-The creation of the internet creates a new platform for type and communication.
Bill Gates:
-Internet explorer was the first browser and subsequently all others were shaped on it. It created great limitations as to the designs that could be used on websites and within the browser its self.
-In general the internet has effected the way that the written language has developed. For example, shorter words and abbreviations.
There is no single approach within typography that applies to everything. Chronologies of type developments are transcultural and cultural because there are no general accepted meanings and languages.
"Change and improve the words and I believe we can change and improve life" This points out the way that language and words can shape and control meanings and by visually improving and shaping the visuals of the words we can improve our personal thoughts and our society in general.
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