Printing and Typography
Larger scale, greater visual impact and new tactile and expressive characters were demanded as rapid expansion of jobbing, advertising and posters were produced by the industrialized societies. For this exact reason lithographic printers were giving letterpress printers a very competitive run for their money, as lithographic printing was limited only to the artist’s imagination in comparison to letterpress printing's more rigid designs.
The reason for the competitive edge that lithographic printing brought to the printing industry lies in the production process of it. The following videos explains the process of both Lithographic and Letterpress printing quite thoroughly so that the difference is easy to spot and the competition easily understood.
Lithographic Printing
Letterpress Printing
So as one can see, the two processes produce completely different looking results. Keep in mind the letterpress cannot produce pictures. One has to either paint the image and print over it if you want to produce something like the front page of the booklet at the end of the letterpress video or, like back in the days where letterpress printing was still a new invention, arrange the type so that voids as left behind where a professional illustrator would have inserted the images afterwards.
Lithographic printing allowed freedom of expression as one can produce any kind of image of print onto that stone. It was truly limitless as to what could be produced and that is the edge the industrial revolution needed.
So, let's do a little time-line of the who's who involved in the evolution of typography. Firstly, let's get some names and relations straight. The grandfather of the typographic revolution is William Caslon. He had two apprentices - Joseph Jackson and Thomas Cotterell. Each of them had their own apprentices as well. Joseph's apprentice was Vincent Figgins and Thomas's pupil and successor was Robert Thorne. Got that? Now let's get to who did what...
1765 - Thomas Cotterell initiated the trend of sand casting large, bold display letters. These letters were up to 12 lines of pica large in his specimen book. One pica is a unit of type size and length equal to 12 points today. So that means that Cotterell's display letters were up to 144 point large.
Here is a video sand casting simulation just to get an idea of what is referred to here:
Sand Casting
End of 1700s - By this time Vincent Figgins, who had a respectable reputation for mathematical, astronomical and other symbolic material, designed and casted a complete set of romans and had begun to produce scholarly and foreign faces.
1803 - Thomas's display letter type steadily grew bolder which eventually lead to an invention by Robert Thorne called Fat Faces - A roman typeface whose contrast and weight have been increased by expanding the thickness of the heavy strokes.
1815 - Vincent Figgins printed a specimen book showing ranges of modern style type in response to society's type design taste favoring modern style romans and new jobbing styles. This specimen book contained antiques, numerous jobbing styles, three dimensional type, Egyptian and Tuscan style typefaces. Since this publication, foundries proliferated fonts with boundless enthusiasm.
Before we continue, let me just define a few of the above-mentioned typefaces.
Antiques is a typeface that conveys a bold, machine-like feeling through slab-like rectangular serifs. This boldness was even portrayed in the heavy weight throughout the letters, as well as short ascenders and descenders.
Egyptians was possibly inspired by the ancient Egyptian culture and writing systems as similarities can be seen between the chunky geometric alphabets and the visual qualities of some Egyptians artifacts.
Tuscans - Serifs that were extended and curved characterized this typeface.
1816 - William Caslon published the first ever san serifs; or serif-less capitals. This was the first major typographic innovation of the 1800s. He named this typeface Two-line English Egyptian. "English" usually refers to the typeface being 14 points large. They were very little noticed until the 1830s and were only used for subtitles and descriptive materials until then.
From 1830 just about every foundry introduces a new san serif and each gave theirs a unique name:
Caslon called his later innovation Doric.
Thorowgood used Grotesques.
Blake and Stephson decided on San-Surryphs.
And Vincent Figgins dubbed his Two-Line Great Primer San-Serif.
1820 - Robert Thorne passed away. A gentleman who was no master in typographic design, punch cutting or printing, called William Thorowgood, bought his foundry at an auction with lottery money.
1821 - Thorowgood published Robert Thorne's fat faces that were finally ready for print just before he passed away.
1828 - William Thorowgood, six‑line Reversed Egyptian Italic, 1828. Types that appeared white against a printed black background
1830 - The Schelter and Giesecke Foundry issued the first san-serif font in a lower case alphabet typeface.
1832 - Vincent Figgins, two‑line Great Primer Sans‑serif, 1832. Both the name and wide use of sans‑serif typography were launched by awkward black display fonts in Figgins’s 1832 Specimens of Printing Types.
1833 - Vincent Figgins, published his two‑line Pearl outlined typeface. In outline and open fonts, a contour line of even weight encloses the alphabet shape, which usually appears black.
1828 - William Thorowgood, six‑line Reversed Egyptian Italic, 1828. Types that appeared white against a printed black background
1830 - The Schelter and Giesecke Foundry issued the first san-serif font in a lower case alphabet typeface.
1832 - Vincent Figgins, two‑line Great Primer Sans‑serif, 1832. Both the name and wide use of sans‑serif typography were launched by awkward black display fonts in Figgins’s 1832 Specimens of Printing Types.
1833 - Vincent Figgins, published his two‑line Pearl outlined typeface. In outline and open fonts, a contour line of even weight encloses the alphabet shape, which usually appears black.
1845 - William Thorowgood copyrighted a modified Egyptian typeface he called Claredon. This face was a condensed version of the traditional Egyptians with strong contrasts between thick and thin strokes and somewhat lighter serifs.
First half of 1800s - Ornaments such as plant motifs, pictures and decorative designs were applied to display letterforms.
To be completely honest, I actually enjoyed composing this post. Probably because I know this will make studying for a test a lot easier later on seeing as I also understand what was discussed in class now :P Next up and soon to come is The Wood-Type Poster and The Mechanization of Typography.
Comments
Post a Comment