An exploration of a significant art: type designing.
The twentieth century saw many developments in printing techniques and how fonts were made. Beginning with cold metal type at the start of the century, the industry moved to hot metal type, phototypesetting, and finally digitization. In each phase, certain type designers excelled in harnessing the latest techniques to create beautiful, innovative, and functional new fonts.
Against a background story of the evolution of technology, the role of the designer, the rise of the advertising agency, and the changing function of the printer, this book explores thirty-eight key type designers, how they worked, the fonts they designed, and their lasting influence on typography. Here, you will find Frederic Goudy and Edward Johnston, Stanley Morison and Roger Excoffon, Hermann Zapf and Adrian Frutiger, and renowned contemporary designers Neville Brody and Carol Twombly, plus many more.
Taken together, the work and working lives of these extraordinary designers chart the radical changes in typography during the twentieth century.
This is the only complete edition available of one of the most famous and most useful books of commercial art ever printed. George Bickham, a noted engraver and calligrapher, first compiled this work back in the 1740's, from the best specimens of 24 of the leading calligraphers of his day. Unfortunately, Bickham published his work in 52 separate parts, over a period of eight years. In Bickham's own day it was difficult to get a complete set of the Universal Penman; today, apart from this edition, it is virtually impossible, for most surviving 18th-century copies lack certain rare plates. This Dover edition, however, contains every plate which Bickham engraved, and each is reproduced from an original so remarkably clear that these modern plates are actually better than most 18th-century originals. This book contains more than 210 full-page plates, each crammed full of beautiful and interesting material. To list only part of its contents: - Over 125 pictorial scenes, clear copperplates of drinking scenes, family scenes, commerce, rustic festivities, duels, more. - Over 200 script pictures, male and female heads, busts, cherubs, griffins, birds, fish, etc. - 19 complete alphabets: round hand, round text, Old English, florid, foliated, and others. - 275 lettered specimens, overlaid with fine flourishes, swirls, spirals, featherings, volutes, etc. - Over 100 panels, frames, cartouches, and other effects Over 950 lettered specimens, with thousands of words that can be lifted right off for reproduction. Individual items in this book are permission-free, and may be used (up to ten items per use) without permission, payment, or credit line. Calligraphers find Bickham the best source for English round-handwriting; commercial artists, advertising directors, and designers all find Bickham first-rate as a source for immediately usable pictures and script that suggests antiquity, quality, and reliability. Craftspeople have found it rich in unusual ideas and motifs, while libraries and art historians find it a wonderful collection of 18th-century pictures illustrating art-life.
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