Typography I

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Boustrephedon

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The writing of alternate lines in opposite directions (as from left to right and from right to left)

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Cuneiform

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- A writing system of pictographs
- Sumer, 4th millennium BC
- Extinct by the 2nd century AD
- written on clay tablets
- blunt reed used as stylus

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Hieroglyphics

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A system of writing mainly in pictorial characters

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Ideograph

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A graphic symbol that represents an idea or concept.

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Kanji

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Logographic Chinese characters that are used in the modern Japanese writing system.

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Logogram

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A single symbol representing an entire morpheme, word, or phrase, as for example the symbol (%) meaning per cent.

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Mnemonics

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Any learning technique that aids information retention. Mnemonics aim to translate information into a form that the human brain can retain better than its original form.

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Papyrus

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- A thick paper-like material produced from the pith of the papyrus plant
- First used in ancient Egypt

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Phoenician Alphabet

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- A non-pictographic consonantal alphabet
- Used for the writing of Phoenician, a Northern Semitic language
- Classified as an abjad because it records only consonantal sounds

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Phonetic

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Grammatical characterization of systems of sounds or signs

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Phonogram

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A grapheme (written character) which represents a phoneme (speech sound) or combination of phonemes

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Pictograph

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- an ideogram that conveys its meaning through its pictorial resemblance to a physical object
- Also called a pictogramme or pictograph

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Rebus

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A representation of words or syllables by pictures of objects or by symbols whose names resemble the intended words or syllables in sound

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Rongorongo

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- A writing system of glyphs discovered in the 19th century on Easter Island
- Written in alternating directions, a system called reverse boustrophedon

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Rosetta Stone

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- An ancient Egyptian granodiorite stele inscribed with a decree
- Issued at Memphis in 196 BC on behalf of King Ptolemy V
- The decree appears in three scripts: the upper text is Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, the middle portion Demotic script, and the lowest Ancient Greek. Because it presents essentially the same text in all three scripts (with some minor differences between them), it provided the key to the modern understanding of Egyptian hieroglyphs.

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Sanskrit

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- The classical language of Indian
- The liturgical language of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism
- The name Sanskrit means "refined", "consecrated" and "sanctified". It has always been regarded as the 'high' language and used mainly for religious and scientific discourse.

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Typography

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The art and technique of arranging type in order to make language visible.

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Writing Systems (Summeria, Egypt, China & India)

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Summeria = Cuneiform
Egypt = Hieroglyphics
China = Kanji
India = Sanskrit

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Ascender

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The part of a lowercase letterformthat rises above the x-height, ormeanline.

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Descender

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The portion of the lowercaseletterform which goes below thebaseline.

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Codex

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- A book made up of a number of sheets of paper, vellum, or similar
- Hand-written
- Usually stacked and bound by fixing one edge and with covers thicker than the sheets, but sometimes continuous and folded concertina-style.

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Font

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A set of type of one particular face and size

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Typeface

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- A set of one or more fonts each composed of glyphs that share common design features.
- Each font of a typeface has a specific weight, style, condensation, width, slant, italicization, ornamentation, and designer or foundry

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Sans Serif

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A typeface without serifs.

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Serif

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A stroke that is added at thebeginning or end of a main stroke of a letterform.

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Triumphal Arches

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- A monumental structure in the shape of an archway with one or more arched passageways, often designed to span a road.
- Two massive piers connected by an arch, crowned with a flat entablature or attic on which a statue might be mounted or which bears commemorative inscriptions.

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Rustic (lettering)

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Lettering which has a rough or textured appearance

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Illumination (Gold leaf)

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Gold beaten into a thin sheet.

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Initial Capitals

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- The letter at the beginning of a word/text
- Larger font than the rest of the word/text
- Sometimes decorative with great detail

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Uncial

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- A style of writing characterized by somewhat rounded capital letters.
- It provided the model from which most of the capital letters in the modern Latin alphabet are derived.

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Half Uncial

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- A majuscule script (written entirely in capital letters)
- Commonly used from the 3rd to 8th centuries AD by Latin and Greek scribes.
- Written in either Greek, Latin, or Gothic.

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Book of Kells

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- An illuminated manuscript Gospel book in Latin, containing the four Gospels of the New Testament together with various prefatory texts and tables.
- Created by Celtic monks ca. 800 or slightly earlier.
- Largely drawn from the Vulgate, although it also includes several passages drawn from the earlier versions of the Bible known as the Vetus Latina.
- It is a masterwork of Western calligraphy and represents the pinnacle of Insular illumination.
- Widely regarded as Ireland's finest national treasure.

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Carolingian Minuscule

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- A script developed as a calligraphic standard in Europe so that the Latin alphabet could be easily recognized by the literate class from one region to another.
- Used in the Holy Roman Empire between approximately 800 and 1200.
- Codices, pagan and Christian texts, and educational material were written in Carolingian minuscule throughout the Carolingian Renaissance.
- The script developed into blackletter and became obsolete, though its revival in the Italian renaissance forms the basis of more recent scripts.

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Textura

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- AKA: Blackletter, Gothic script, Gothic minuscule
- A script used throughout Western Europe from approximately 1150 to well into the 17th century

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Rotunda or Humanist

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- A specific medieval blackletter script.
- The difference between the Rotunda and other blackletter scripts is that broken bows appear only in a few letters such as d.
- Originates in Carolingian minuscule.
- Sometimes, it is not considered a blackletter script, but a script on its own. It was used mainly in southern Europe.

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Johann Gutenberg

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Invented the movable printing press.

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Moveable, reusable type

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- the system of printing and typography that uses movable components to reproduce the elements of a document (usually individual letters or punctuation).
- The world's first known movable type system for printing was created in China around 1040 A.D. by Bi Sheng
- the first metal movable-type system for printing was made in Korea during the Goryeo Dynasty in 1234
- were expensive, and required an enormous amount of labour involved in manipulating the thousands of ceramic tablets

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Leading

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- The distance between lines of type. Aterm that has been retained from thedays of metal type.
- AKA: line spacing.

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Ligature

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Two or more letterforms that arecombined to create a single letterform.

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Aldus Manutius

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- Became a printer and publisher when he founded the Aldine Press at Venice.
- Invented italic type, the modern use of the semicolon, developed the modern appearance of the comma, and introducing inexpensive books in small formats (like paperbacks).

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Italic

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A style of letterform that is midwaybetween roman and script with apronounced diagonal slant.

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Claude Garamond

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Claude Garamond was first to specialize in type design, punch cutting, and type-founding in Paris as a service to many famous publishers.

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Robert Granjon

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- French designer of type and printer.

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Copperplate Engraved

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- the family of printing and printmaking techniques in which the image is incised into a surface, and the incised line or sunken area holds the ink.
- Normally, copper or zinc plates are used as a surface or matrix, and the incisions are created by etching, engraving, drypoint, aquatint or mezzotint.[

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Old Style

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- characterized by a diagonal stress (the thinnest parts of letters are at an angle rather than at the top and bottom)
- subtle differences between thick and thin lines (low line contrast)
- excellent readability
- reminiscent of the humanist calligraphy from which their forms were derived
- normally has a left-inclining curve axis with weight stress at about 8 and 2 o'clock; serifs are almost always bracketed (they have curves which connect the serif to the stroke); head serifs are often angled.

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Transitional

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- AKA: baroque serif typefaces
- First appeared in the mid-18th century.
- Among the most common, including such widespread typefaces as Times New Roman (1932) and Baskerville (1757).
- They are in between modern and old style, thus the name "transitional."
- Differences between thick and thin lines are more pronounced than they are in old style, but they are still less dramatic than they are in modern serif fonts.
- Other transitional serifs include Bookman, Century, Georgia and Plantin.

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Modern

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- AKA: Didone serif typefaces
- First emerged in the late 18th century
- Characterized by extreme contrast between thick and thin lines.
- Modern typefaces have a vertical stress, long and fine serifs, with minimal brackets.
- Serifs tend to be very thin and vertical lines are very heavy.
- Less readable than transitional or old style serif typefaces.
- Common examples include Bodoni, Didot, Computer Modern, and Walbaum.

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Egyptian

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- AKA: slab serif
- Usually have little if any contrast between thick and thin lines.
- Serifs tend to be as thick as the vertical lines themselves and usually have no bracket.
- Slab serif fonts have a bold, rectangular appearance and sometimes have fixed widths, meaning that all characters occupy the same amount of horizontal space (as in a typewriter).
- Sometimes described as sans-serif fonts with serifs because the underlying character shapes are often similar to sans-serif typefaces, with less variation between thin and thick shapes on the character.
- Slab serif typefaces date to around 1800.
- Examples of slab serif typefaces include Clarendon, Rockwell and Courier.

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Display/Decorative

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- Decorative and display fonts became popular in the 19th century and were used extensively on posters and advertisements
- They are only powerful when their use is limited.
- Not suitable for using in body text.
- examples: a wild west style, horror or Christmas.

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Uppercase

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- a backformation and not used by printers to classify capital letters.
- The upper case contained accented letters, numbers and capital ligatures in addition to capital letters and comes from the antique age of setting type for printing presses, when printers kept the type for these letters in the upper drawers of a desk or in the upper type case, while keeping the type for the more frequently-used smaller letters in the lower type case within easy reach.

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Lowercase

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- Originated in the early days of the printing press used with movable type in letterpress printing.
- The individual type blocks used in hand typesetting are stored in shallow wooden or metal drawers, known as cases, with subdivisions into compartments known as boxes to store each individual letter.
- In many countries the majuscules and minuscules are stored separately, with a pair of boxes for each typeface at a specific size.
- For typesetting, the two cases are taken out of the storage rack and placed on a rack on the compositor's desk.
- By convention, the case containing the capitals (and small capitals) stands at a steeper angle at the back of the desk, with the case for the small letters, punctuation and spaces, at a shallower angle below it to the front of the desk, hence upper and lower case.[

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Hairline

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the thinnest stroke of a letterform.