Typologia

Typologia
Author: Frederic W Goudy
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 196
Release: 1978-01-18
Genre: Design
ISBN: 9780520032781

Typologia presents more or less graphically Frederic Goudy's work in type design and describes his own methods of type production. His remarks on type legibility and fine printing, as presented in the body of the book, present the conclusions of a craftsman intensely interested in every phase of typography. The book itself, which Goudy was asked by the University of California Press to write, plan, and supervise, has been set in a type designed by Goudy and and first employed for the exclusive use of the University–University of California Old Style.

Letters of Credit

Letters of Credit
Author: Walter Tracy
Publisher: David R. Godine Publisher
Total Pages: 230
Release: 2003
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 9781567922400

The revolution in typesetting - a revolution that over the past two decades has eliminated a five-hundred-year-old system of hot metal production and replaced it with one of photo-generated and computer-driven composition - shows no sign of winding down. This book, more than any other we know, traces the steps that went into that revolution and simultaneously makes the argument that the letter forms themselves are in process of evolution. Tracy argues that, whether they are of the sixteenth or the twentieth century, the forms that comprise our alphabet are subject to the same rules of good taste, proportion, and clarity that have always obtained. But what we face today is vastly different from fifty years ago. For the first time, new technology has made the proliferation (and, as some would maintain, debasement) of letter forms fast and easy (or quick and dirty.) With fifty years of professional experience on both sides of the Atlantic (including thirty years as head of type design for the British Linotype Company), Tracy is in a unique position to make this argument and arrive at his sad conclusion: the design of distinguished, contemporary typefaces is far outnumbered by the mediocre and downright bad. Part of the reason for this deplorable deterioration is a lack of critical analysis of the particular esthetics involved. This step-by-step examination of type-design esthetics is precisely what Tracy provides here, while avoiding both the promoter's hype and the manufacturer's claims. Here are the gut issues of what makes type good or bad, legible or unreadable. Extensively illustrated with both typefaces and line drawings, this book belongs on the shelf of anyone interested in thehistory of letters or in the artistry and peculiar problems that lie behind their production.

Frederic Goudy

Frederic Goudy
Author: D. J. R. Bruckner
Publisher: ABRAMS
Total Pages: 150
Release: 1990
Genre: Architecture
ISBN:

A biography of Frederic W. Goudy (1865-1947), the American designer of typefaces who was considered one of the leading type makers in history. The illustrations show the evolution of Goudy's typefaces, from drawings to printed samples, as well as many examples of his page designs.

Stop Stealing Sheep & Find Out how Type Works

Stop Stealing Sheep & Find Out how Type Works
Author: Erik Spiekermann
Publisher:
Total Pages: 182
Release: 1993
Genre: Computers
ISBN:

An entertaining, informative and educational tour through the most basic unit of communication--type. Explains in every-day laymen's terms what type is, how to select it, and how to use it to improve the reader's communication. Includes over 200 illustrations and photographs.

Anatomy of a Typeface

Anatomy of a Typeface
Author: Alexander S. Lawson
Publisher: David R. Godine Publisher
Total Pages: 436
Release: 1990
Genre: Design
ISBN: 9780879233334

"To the layman, all printing types look the same. But for typographers, graphic artists and others of that lunatic fringe who believe that the letters we look at daily (and take entirely for granted) are of profound importance, the question of how letters are formed, what shape they assume, and how they have evolved remains one of passionate and continuing concern. Lawson explores the vast territory of types, their development and uses, their antecedents and offspring, with precision, insight, and clarity. Written for the layman but containing exhaustive research, drawings and synopses of typefaces, this book is an essential addition to the library of anyone s typographic library. It is, as Lawson states, not written for the printer convinced that there are already too many typefaces, but rather for that curious part of the population that believes the opposite; that the subtleties of refinement as applies to roman and cursive letters have yet to be fully investigated and that the production of the perfect typeface remains a goal to be as much desired by present as by future type designers. Anyone aspiring to typographic wisdom should own and treasure this classic."--Amazon description.

China Under the Covers

China Under the Covers
Author: Margaret E. Davis
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2017-01-25
Genre:
ISBN: 9780967026442

Bookbinding, adventure, and more in the Middle Kingdom, the cradle of the printing arts

As If By Chance

As If By Chance
Author: Kevin Reed Donley
Publisher: Fulton Books, Inc.
Total Pages: 208
Release: 2023-12-21
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN:

The age of print was begun by Johannes Gutenberg in 1440 in Mainz, Germany. His invention of the mechanized and mass production of print replaced the previous handwriting of the scribes and was a transformative achievement. It was both the product of and a catalyst for far-reaching intellectual, social, and political changes that began during the Renaissance and continued for centuries right up to the present. The age of electronic media was begun by Steve Jobs in 1985 in Cupertino, California. His integration of the elements of desktop publishing--personal computer, page-layout software, page-description language, and laser printer--replaced the previous photomechanical processes of printing and was a transformative achievement. It was both the product of and a catalyst for the intellectual, social, and political changes during the digital revolution that will extend for generations into the future. This book discusses these two bookends in the age of print. It follows the transitions and stages of innovation in printing between the fifteenth and twenty-first centuries and shows how the inventors responsible for this progress are bound together in a chain of revolutionary technical change called disruptive continuity. While the works of Gutenberg and Jobs are separated by more than five centuries, there are striking parallels and differences between these two innovations. They both sparked the quantitative expansion of literacy and the spread of knowledge around the world. However, the emergence of electronic publishing--especially in its present-day social media forms--has brought a vast increase in the consumption of information while also heralding a qualitative transformation that places the tools of wireless and mobile multimedia publishing into the hands of billions of people on earth. Much in the same way that there was a historical lag between Gutenberg's invention and the full impact of printing on the world, so too in our own time, the long-term societal consequences of electronic publishing have yet to be realized.