Ackley's Blog: Typography

Introduction To Typography

What is Typography?

-The style and appearance of printed matter and the art procedure of arranging type or processing data and printing from it.

-Typography is from the Greek word τύπος typos "form" and γράφειν graphein "to write“.

Definition

-Study of the design of typefaces and the way in which the type is laid out on a page to best achieve the desired visual effect and to best convey the meaning of the matter.

The Invention of the moveable type printing press

-Moveable type was found in 15th century, it includes type of wooden blocks about 100 years before a modular system was developed in Europe about 1450.

-Johannes Gengfleish Gutenberg, a man from German who learned his metal smithing skills. Gutenberg was knowledgeable in metal carving and casting. He was successful spawned the method of mechanical writing.

Printing method from wooden block to metal letters

machine that make wood letters

-At first Gutenberg produce wooden block letters than he develop it into metal letters.

-Gutenberg experiment with metal type versus wood type. Woodcuts were not durable, split in the press after repeated use, new blocks had to be carved for each new impression. He believes that metal type could be reproduced more quickly once a single mold could be made.

Biography of Gutenberg

Name- Johannes Gensfleish zur Laden Gutenberg

Born- 1398 at Mainz, Germany

Died- February 3, 1468 at the same place

Occupation- Engraver, Inventor, and printer

Religion- Catholic

The Mechanization of writing

-In the 15th Century, type casting metal was formulated from a combination of lead , tin and pewter.

-Antimony was later added and copper or bronze were used for the matrix and steel to punch.

Gutenberg’s system of casting Individual Metal type (steps to make punch metal letters)

1.The process starts from a steel bar. The end of a steel bar carve with a letter, the punch.

2.That Letterform is struck into softer metal bar made of copper to create a matrix, the letter now is right readable.

3.The matrix placed into a type mold. Molten metal is poured. The mold produce a wrong reading letter.

4.The type caster shakes the mold to avoid air pockets and the letter form instantly ready to remove.

5.As a final step cast letterform is released from the mold . The wrong reading letter prints as a right reading final.

Picture below , the mold that were used to make letters

The metal letters that had been produced

After final dressing the cast letters were distributed to storage bins. From there , the metal letters were picked and arrange with a device called composing stick

Each stick was filled and transferred to a tray on a composing table

Example the use of composing stick

Composing Table

Are composing stick and composing table is still used nowadays?

-Composing stick and composing table are not used nowadays because of modern technology. But the metal letters is still used nowadays to design decorating items handicrafts.

Metal letters used to decorate handicrafts

Other Metal Handicrafts

The Old typewriter also can relate to Guttenberg Method using Metal bars

Digital Collage

-Our task is first we take a picture of a certain typography that been used in branding or packaging

Then we use photoshop to do a collage typography

Collage by using a brochure and magazine books

my work show an advertisement of a laptop

Typography Expression

-In this task. I choose to develop the cheese font. Why I choose cheese font is because I want to develop more to advertise cheese food to make people get attractive to the packaging product.

10 Development for Typography, my typo is to develop cheese font