HISTORY REVEALED

This week’s lecture walks through the history of type and the significance of the creative contributions made by several notable designers including:

Hoefler & Frere-Jones

All typefaces are historical.
- Jonathan Hoefler
Think of the alphabet as camps of like-minded shapes.
- Tobias Frere-Jones

I was saddened to learn about the partnership dispute and ultimate dissolution between Frere-Jones and Hoefler. I had no idea that had transpired until doing additional research into these exceptional type vanguards. Whitney is the primary face for my organization, the University of San Francisco.

Scher paints maps leveraging her passion for typography.

Paula Scher

Type has spirit. Type doesn’t have to be this clean mechanical thing that is simply doing its job. It can be this marvelous thing to engage with.
- Paula Scher

Eddie Opara

I am a graphic designer. I am also a tinkerer.
-Eddie Opara

Work for ACLU by Hyperakt, agency founded by Vasker and Peraza

Vasker & Peraza

Infographics are about typography getting out of the way of the message
-Deroy Peraza

Typography is an expression. It can convey many things including:

voice
texture
emotion
tension
dynamics
movement
direction
education
information
and much more.

The advent of the Gutenberg press allowed for the mass production and diffusion of printed type. It was seen as the industrialization of typography.

Stencil forms, painted street signs, which gave way to the ghost signs of modern day are relics of a hand-tooled era of typography. These expressions gave way to logos and branding enabling companies to create consistency and recall.

Wayfinding typography really took hold with the London Underground and Paris Metropolitan. These systems paved the way for Massimo Vignelli and Unimark’s New York Subway signage system.

REFERENCE:

Blackwell, Lewis (2000) Edward Fella: Letters on America, Princeton Architectural Press

Baines, Phil (2003) Signs, Lettering and Environment, (London: Laurence King)

Bentley, Alexander and O’Brian, Michael J. (2017) The Acceleration of Cultural Change (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press)

Falmouth University (2018). History Revealed | Lecture. History and Futures GDE720 19/20 Part-Time Study Block S2 (Falmouth, UK: Falmouth University)

Hustwit, Gary (2015) A Rare Interview with Graphic Design Legend Massimo Vignelli, Fast Company, 24 March (Accessed: 5th December 2018)

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