I'm OK, You're OK

By and large the 70's was about bold, geometric and sometimes three-dimensional fonts. Typefaces were often flashy and overly ornate (think Three's Company) as the nature of design demanded that type "work harder" to get the reader's (or consumer's) attention. Furthering the move to digital design, typesetting becomes more and more popular with the help of companies like The International Typeface Corporation (ITC...as in ITC New Baskerville) which began revamping old type in an effort to minimize the threat of font that was photographically copied.


Popular styles continue to repeat and the Art Deco soars during the 70's aiding a transition from the psychedelic 60's to the "business" look of the late 70's and early 80's.



Perhaps the best of all 70's fonts was Bookman, seen in the Spectra Setter ad above and here in a modern (as in recently created) design. It's the quintessential 70's face; it's showy and little too ornate, it's had a tough life and it's trying real hard not to show its age, but somewhere underneath all that glitz and flash is a pretty face with a message.



Quiz Question: What font, which utilizes a charted system of easily recognizable faces was finished in 1976 by Adrian Frutiger?

A good type student...

would set these real pretty-like in a poster.

Absolute and Relative Measurement - Points and Picas are absolute measurements (ie they're the same anywhere) while relative measurements relate to a specific font (the em or en for example).

Points - Measurement from baseline to baseline. 12pts = I pica

x-height - Main height of the lowercase letter, without ascenders and descenders.

The em. The en - An “em” is a unit of measurement defined as the point size of the font—12 point type uses a 12 point “em.” An “en” is one-half of an “em.”

The em dash – Used as a break in a sentence or text, the full width of the capital M in any font.

The en dash - Half the width of the em dash, typically used for durations.

The Hyphen – Used to hyphenate words or separate phone numbers.

Alignments: Justifcation, Flush Left, Flush Right -

Letterspacing - refers to the distance between letters which effects the density of a line or block of text. Also called tracking.

Kerning - The adjustment of letterspacing to balance the negative space between letters.

Tracking - See letterspacing.

Word Spacing - the distance between words, condensed faces require less space while expanded faces need more.

Widow - A short line at the end of a paragraph or column. (does this apply to all type or just paragraphs?)

Orphan - A single word at the beginning of a column or page.

Leading - In short, line spacing, pronounced like the metal (Pb) and refers to the physical strips of lead placed between lines of type (Really?)

Indent, Fist Line Indent, Hanging Indent - A way of aligning text. First line indents are typical of paragraphs where the first line is set in from the rest of the body of text, a hanging indent is the reverse of this where the first line is set regularly, the body of text hangs from it with an indented space.

Adrian Frutiger is Organized. And Awesome.

Type is a little bit like sculpture. Flat, two-dimensional sculpture. On paper, and with ink. That people read...

It makes sense then that Adrian Frutiger, having been discouraged by his father and school teachers would turn from sculpture to printing. Frutiger's wood-engraved essay on European letter types would get him noticed by the Deberny Et Peignot foundry in Paris where he would eventually develop the typefaces, "Président", "Phoebus", and "Ondine." At Deberny Et Peignot, Frutiger would strive to create a unified font family and, this is where it gets a little obsesive, creates a variation of 21 fonts, numbered according to weight and face. Ultimately the success of his most identifiable font, Univers shows a mastery of both artistic vision and a holistic view of technical process (important points to master for any sculptor) and Frutiger's passion for type design is startlingly evident in his work, which includes a complete overhaul of French transportation signage. Read that again. He's responsible for nearly all of the road and airport signage in France.

In 1987, Frutiger was awarded the TDC medal for those "who have made significant contributions to the life, art, and the craft of typography." Seriously.

Note to self: be more like Adrian Frutiger.

Thank You, John Baskerville

As a printer, John Baskerville strived only for perfection and insisted on controlling nearly every aspect of the printing process and ultimately brought great change to printing process, producing among other things, a sturdier printing bed, faster drying ink and wove papermakeing. The result is a catalog of tedious yet exemplary publications including a run of John Milton's "Paradise Lost" in 1758 as well as a folio Bible printed for the University of Cambridge in 1763.

Adopting a style cleaner and simpler than those of French and Italian printers of the time, Baskerville refined the letterforms of William Caslon, "creating type with more extreme contrast of thick and thin strokes" and produced layouts that highlighted his mastery of the craft, especially his italics which "showed his calligraphic mastery."*

While British rivals shunned Baskerville, American printers took notice and soon Benjamin Franklin introduced Baskerville's type to the States and soon it became the standard type of government documents.

*Quoted from Typophile.com

Grids=Good

In doing a little research on grids and checking out designbygrid.com per Chris' recommendation the theory and practice of grid structure makes a lot of sense. Initially, while staring down at a handful of tiny little Paul Rand clippings I couldn't help but feel that we were being forced to use some sort of designer's set of training wheels. It's a bit like learning to color inside the lines before you start drawing your own pictures. The catch is, you're in your twenties and you have to prove that you have the motor skills and wherewithal to keep your reds and blues within said lines. A little bit ridiculous...or is it?

Clicking my way through several websites and even thumbing through the latest How mag I realized, like the iPod of the design world, grids are everywhere. And for good reason. First, they make a designers job easier and perhaps more importantly, more efficient. Nothing is as daunting for a designer, artist, writer etc than staring at a blank page. Grids make short work of that first tricky step and off you go, filling in the proper info where necessary.

The second realization I had (and this one's a big one for selfish only children like myself) is that grids take all of your information and make it easier for the viewer too. And we're not just talking about your target audience but also for your client. If everything's laid out in easy to manage modules or columns the viewer can easily find and assess the information they need quickly and again, efficiently.

Here are a couple I found especially nice:

Ungarbage.com gives you a pretty little grid that's clearly defined by the background. Post-it like notes keep all of your information in easy to handle modules.



And 31three.com is nice and simple with a few pretty straightforward columns on a pleasing background. It really doesn't get much simpler than that. Super successful if you ask me.