Design is a social activity, if you doubt on that please look around. Look at the label on the bottle of water you are drinking, the pen you are holding, or these lines of text you are reading right now. Everything around us is communicating with us. We receive messages and participate with them no matter we do it on purpose or not. But which kind of design element can do that? Actually every element plays their part, grid system arranges information, pictures call viewer’s attention, color expresses emotion, but one of the most talkative elements that interact with people is typography. It has been doing its job in design for a very long time, keep and send information, express feeling, teach history class, and so on. Nevertheless, social’s need change continuously, so typography has to adjust itself through different period of time. How typography manages to balance its beauty and function from the past to present and what’s going to happen in the future.
In
the past, typography concerned on beauty and decoration, since it was the
imitation from nature. So it has more sense of emotional feeling than we see in
the present day. However, the changed of typography follow the social’s need
and invention of technology. For example, the richly influence from religion in
medieval era shows the use of shiny gold color and decoration, the invention of
Gutenberg’s printing system, and so on. Typography changed in many ways from
the past especially during 19th century. To adjust itself to the coming of
modern world, it changed to be more function and objective. Even though, what
Marinetti did in Les mots en liberte futurists (The Futurist
Words-In-Freedom)(1919) was bent and twisted typefaces to express speed and
aggression according to his poetry. This shows typography still carried the
idea of emotion’s expression from the past.[1] 
Different from the past, in modern era typography has to concern on legibility and readability more than beauty like the old typography. This moment of changed, it created transitional typeface that concern both decoration of old style typography and high readability of modern typography such as Baskerville. El Lissitzky believed that, the idea of art will become materialism and can be mass produce in this world of industry.[2] So it comes to consideration of how to compromise the balance between functional and printing price. By that reason, to put a large among of text in printing industry, typography has to be simpler, so the use of geometric typefaces was the answer. The foundation geometric typeface, Futura by Paul Renner created by using all geometric proportion. Inspired by the Bauhaus philosophy, it shows a strong sense of simplicity and geometry shape, which still popular in countless corporate logo, commercial products, and advertisements in the present day, such as Louis Vuitton, Red Bull, Ikea, and so on.[3]
In
the present day, typography has more variety of usage. Since there is a lot of
differences media invented. For example, text that appears on digital screen
instead of papers, moving text in motion media or animation, and so on. Also
audience for typography has more variety than the past. There is no rule or
standard, design depends on what you want to communicate with your audience.
Even Comic Sans could be used efficiently if you use in a proper way. In other
words, beauty and function of typography in the present day depends on target
audience, if it communicates to your audience, it is beautiful and functional.
One example that deals with subjectivity and objectivity very well was David
Carson. Carson expressed his subjectivity by breaking all typography rules. He
deconstructed typefaces, broke grids, and crashed text layout. With a tiny
design background, he has no limit in design. He sat the whole article in
Dingbat font once, while he was working for Ray Gun magazine.[4] Of course the
whole article is unreadable, but that grab people’s attention to the magazine
and makes them curious and want to know about the article. As Ray Gun was a
magazine for teenager, it needs a strong sense of confidence instead of formal
layout. However, while post-modernism and young generation love Carson’s works,
but his works against the idea of practical designer, which design should aim
for perfection instead of subjective expression. It’s still a debate until this
present day, that Carson is a designer who worth to study or not, but without a
doubt that his name has brought up to be an example countless times in design
class.[5]
If
the world keeps moving this fast, in the near future, typography would be
faster and easier to consume as well. As you can see in phone’s text message or
informal message, that the message has shorten in an inappropriate way. Such as
“how are you” write in “how r u” or use symbol and emoticon. This might be a
sign that affect typography in the future. We write and read less and less, and
the book may be eliminated altogether. The time may come when we have to learn
to communicate by electronic or extrasensory means. Again, that typography might
change according to our need.[6]
In
conclusion, typography has been changing for a long time in human history. It
represents our life in differences period of time. As in the past, writing,
reading, and book material is for rich or noble people so the typography at
that time concerned on beauty and decoration. When time change, printing and
digital technology came in and reading is for everyone, typography changed to
be more functional than the past. In my opinion, we are living in the world of
communication. If typography can send messages and interact with people, I
consider it beautiful and functional.
_________________________________________________________________
1. F.T. Marinetti, Graphic
Design Theory: Manifesto of Futurism, ed. Helen Armstrong (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2009), 20-24.
2. El Lissitzky,
Graphic Design Theory: Our Book,
ed. Helen Armstrong (New York: Princeton
Architectural Press, 2009), 25-30.
3. Skylar
Challend, Know Your Type: Futura. http://idsgn.org/posts/know-your-type-futura/
(accessed 12 Oct. 2012).
4.
Exhibitions/Events Magazine, Helvetica VS
Zapf Dingbats, 2012. http://magculture.com/blog/?p=1209 (accessed 12 Oct.
2012).
5. Adam Banks, An interview with David Carson, http://www.adambanks.com/
wordpress/david- carson-riverside-quark-macuserinterview/1175/ (accessed 12 Oct.
2012).
6. Herbert Bayer, Graphic
Design Theory: On Typography,
ed. Helen Armstrong (New York: Princeton
Architectural Press, 2009), 44-48.
I thought that this was extremely interesting. I had never given any thought to how typography has changed throughout history depending on who was the consumer. It seems to be a consumer driven commodity that is constantly in flux. I wonder how different forms of typography that may be considered art, such as calligraphy, would fit into this. Is it more similar to the ancient and decorative religious texts of the dark ages? Or does it exist is a world of typography as art or mental excercise?
ReplyDeleteI can't wait to read part two. Thank you for bringing something to light I never thought of before, but now makes so much sense.
After reading this post I have an understanding of why typography has evolved. It does make sense that today typography is about clarity. Messages have to be sent out instantly and clearly to the audience. I do think it’s interesting that you said in the future we might communicate by electronic or extrasensory means. Do you think this will be applied to other languages as well? If we do end up using a non-textual medium in the future, it would almost be like we are going back to prehistoric times where we use images to communicate with each other.
ReplyDeleteThis is Shiva Majidi's post
DeleteI thought that this post was so interesting. I never thought about typography and how it could illicit emotion until I read your post. The way a script can feel romantic or nostalgic, or the message that moving text can send, even subconsciously, seams like an underrated philosophical topic as well as an interesting way of thinking about communication. We think about communication as what the words we read are saying, not what they necessarily look like. But change the font, and boom, you’ve got a new message. Fascinating ☺
ReplyDeleteThis is Stephanie Arnemann's post, btw :)
DeleteI never thought about the art in subways but I have found them to appear differently than when not on a subway. They appear to more color and catching and I wonder if that has to do with the dim and dullness of subways. I feel that ads and signage are not meant to be stared at for a long periods of time. They are short and sweet and to the point. I have seen many ads in subways that are long and require more reading than usual but it does make sense considering people have to wait and have time to look more into signage at the subway.
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