Chronologies 1: Type Production and Distribution
Importance of chronologies
- Type is a modernist obsession
- The written word endures while the spoken word disappears
- Type is what language looks like
Nobody can agree when language actually began, but was near to 3200 BC? In Mesopotamia people came up with phonetic sounds which led to the creation of the Greek alphabet (symbols).
Johannes Gutenberg started work on the printing press in 1436, and went into production in 1450.
In 1870 William Foster changed education. Up until this date, no one was taught to read, so he introduced schooling for children aged 5-12. Before this, only the rich and wealthy could read.
Walter Gropius recognised 2 conflicting typefaces and set up the Bauhaus (1919-1933). This formed the basis of modernist thinking and was the birthplace of modern design education.
- Max Miedinger (1957) created Helvetica
- 25 years after Helvetica was released, Arial came out which basically ripped off Helvetica's design.
Steve Jobs created the first Apple Macintosh in 1990 which was the beginning of the transformation to digital type and was sold at affordable prices.
Type and image: promote, educate, persuade
Type as image: decorative, illustrations
Type on things: skin, pear, mug
Type as object: light, sculpture, spatially interactive
Since 1995 when the globally adopted browser Internet Explorer was introduced to the web, longer documents began to decrease as they don't work as well on the internet. The short documents we are reading instead poison our ability to read long documents.
We navigate our whole lives using words. Change and improve words, change and improve life.
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