Type form & function - basic research

Type form & function

- A handbook on the fundamentals of typography

Although this book serves as a basic overview of the entire concept of typography and its applications, I thought the title alone gave enough reason to pick it up and give a little introduction to my essay research. 

Immediately from the preface, there are hints towards themes I would like to look into in my essay with the passage: 

"Our reading habits have changed, morphing us from a culture of readers to a culture of skimmers thanks to easily digestible chunks of information found through text messages or twitter feeds. A designers job will become more challenging as the quantity of messages, information, and noise increases. The designer who possesses a sharp typographic understanding will best meet that challenge, especially during a time period when the common user knows the difference between Times and Arial, Comic Sans and Hobo". 

The passage gives reference to new challenges faced by a designer in the information age. I feel these challenges include a need to create increasingly custom typefaces so as to stand out from a crowded and well-known market. Also, the quote calls into question the way we now read things as if the average person now has a more keen interest in type than ever before, the tone and form of a typeface are increasingly considered. One of my core questions is; does this make the traditional concept of legibility less important? 

The book then goes on to give a historic summary of type from hieroglyphics through Guttenberg to postmodernism, computer type, and the influence of the internet. This information I would say I have covered in previous years essays and shouldn't need to be touched on in any detail throughout my essay. Where I may have focused on a strong factual introductory paragraph or two in past I think this essay should avoid too much boring and potentially irrelevant background. 

The next section opens up to the broad question of form. 

"There will never be a font that is as pervasive as Helvetica again, because there are going to be too many typefaces out there, too many designers wanting to do things that are specific" 

-Jeffery Keedy 1990

Keedy's quote touches on the idea of hyper customisation within contemporary design, the information age has made it possible to not only create but share typefaces with few limits across a global network. This allows us to tailor forms to exactly the aesthetic of a company or concept or source appropriate material online. 

"Graphic Designers spend time pushing and pulling existing letterforms in order to create a unique typographic composition. These one-off designs can become a simple word, rendered as a corporate identity, magazine masthead, movie title, t-shirt emblem, advertising headline, or poster graphic, among others. But, it's not as simple as it sounds. It takes skill and knowledge to create letterforms that communicate the message to the intended audience" 

The passage goes on to discuss the potential issue of typeface overpopulation or pollution and finishes with the answer/question "Why do we need more typefaces? Why not?" opening up a dialogue on whether the contemporary surplus of design is necessary but also saying that it allows for increased creative freedom with type. 

The book goes on to explore prominent features and application of type. Including the emphasis on function promoting balance and neutrality of characters in highly legible/readable 'text type' and the contrasting 'display type' which is very much so more a question of form. 

"at times, legibility may not be as important because the concept or message might call for a font with more vigor" 

this calls into question one of the themes I would like to pursue in the essay, the question of how we read display and logo-types.

Type can be characterised as having both denotive and connotative properties as explained in the following passage 

"Denotation refers to the direct, literal meaning of a sign. A drawing of a bird looks like a bird. Connotations, however, have an extended or deeper mean that lie beneath the ideas, values, attitudes, or behaviors. A person described as a bird might be deemed wimpy, but if a basketball player is called a bird, this connotes images of somebody who can soar in the air with a basketball."  

So a logotype could be read in two different ways in regards to both form of the characters and function of their semantics.  

"A typographic designer starts from the word up; a graphic designer starts from the picture down" 

- Erik Spiekermann

Amanda Altman of A3 Design said that well-executed typography "says what you want it to say without saying it"  

"Good design, at least part of the time, includes the criterion of being direct in relation to the problem at hand - not obscure, trendy, or stylish. A new language, visual or verbal, must be couched in a language that is already understood." 

- Ivan Chermayeff, 1989

Patrizia Kommerell & Gabriel Shalom of KS12 on their logotype design for German fine art gallery Mayerei with inspiration taken from the fashion typography of Milan. 

"...a lot of fashion designers create elegant forms with the repetition of the same shape. For example, Gucci is the just G and the C and the C. I'm inspired by the idea of generative grammar. We set up a kind of conceptual system, and if we stick to it, it generates all the characters. (...) With Mayerei, it was like, how can we make these letters in as few forms as possible, and make them a modular system so they can be combined in other ways to make pictograms?" 

     

Rhetoric -

the art of effective or persuasive speaking or writing, especially the exploitation of figures of speech and other compositional techniques