OUGD401 - Context of Practice Lecture 4

Chronologies 1: The History of Type – Production and Distribution – Part 1

For language to exist there must be an agreement amongst a group of people, both the sender and receiver must understand meaning language is negotiable.

Type is the visualisation of the spoken word. Type is concerned with the make of letters e.g. weight, line, tone etc. The term typography originally was used to describe:

- The art and technique of printing with movable type

- The composition of printed material from movable type

- The arrangement and appearance of printed matter

The term type and typography are different things. Typography is more specialist whereas type is more general. Typography is the craft of endowing human language with durable visual form. Type is what language looks like.

Cultural aspects are represented by different features of type e.g. weight, style etc.

In order to experiment and come up with new things there needs to be an understanding of key principles.

The written word endures as the spoken word disappears. Physical representation of language has developed at different times to the spoken language.

Trade has been the primary cause for the development of type. It was originally used as receipts etc. for transactions between people. This is when oral language became phonetics, trade helped to formalise writing. It was only later that written language became more descriptive.

Language is not a linear process and there is not just one version of language. It is influenced by social, cultural and political development around the world. We divide the world into two halves when describing the development of language in an area. Occidental is the Western Hemisphere and Oriental is the Eastern Hemisphere.

Mesopotamia 3200 BC – Hieroglyphs and pictograms were used for trade

The cuneiform system developed which meant that pictograms lost their early form and became conventional signs. These signs could indicate an object or could be used for their phonetic value.

The Rosetta Stone enabled researchers to decipher other languages through comparisons with already known languages. Through trade, war and cultural factors languages came together in conformity making it possible to translate between different languages.

Alphabets are a robust set of symbols which are commonly used over years and become engrained within the psyche.We have a learned knowledge of language and a common interpretation of what a letter or word looks like, this is due to social and cultural conditioning.

Letterforms can be bent and broken but still retain their meaning. Single letterforms can be portrayed in different ways but still be interpreted in the same way. This means ideas can be communicated through letters.

The origins of type and letterforms was dependant on technology and the aesthetics of the time. The physical production process has determined how a symbol looks e.g. a brush or in clay. These tools affect the physical form of the letters as well as affecting the aesthetic development of type.

In 1436 Johannes Gutenburg created the first movable printing press allowing publications to move away from the written word. This was developed through trade routes with China who had been using this technology for some time. This allowed type to become a physical thing.

Typefaces represent technological developments in history and have been used as a means of mass distribution as they were made to be reusable. Type was then designed for different purposes.

In 1870 William Foster managed to pass the Elementary Education Act which meant it became mandatory for people to be taught to read. This meant it was no longer just the upper classes who had this ability which made reading accessible to all. After this production methods changed and the mass production of printed material was introduced to meet demand. Writing became less and less formal and more of a hobby for people.

In 1919 Walter Gropius founded the Bauhaus school. The institute drew together arts and crafts disciplines enabling collaboration between creatives. Informed by mass production methods there was a focus on the combination of artisan and industrial techniques.

‘Since typography is a communication method that utilises gathering of related subjects and methodologies that includes sociology, linguistics, psychology, aesthetics and so much more there is no single approach within typography that applies to everything’

Shelley Gruendler