Typography is the art, craft and techniques of type design, modifying type glyphs, and arranging type. For other uses or meanings of Caslon see Caslon (disambiguation. Type design is the art of designing Typefaces Although the technology of printing text using movable type was invented in China and despite the esteem which Calligraphy A glyph is an element of writing Two or more glyphs representing the same symbol whether interchangeable or context-dependent are called Allographs the abstract unit they Typesetting involves the presentation of textual material in graphic form on Paper or some other medium. Type glyphs (characters) are created and modified using a variety of illustration techniques. For other uses see Character. In Computer and machine-based Telecommunications terminology a character is a unit of An illustration is a visualization such as a Drawing, Painting, Photograph or other work of Art that stresses subject more than The arrangement of type is the selection of typefaces, point size, line length, leading (line spacing) and letter spacing. In Typography, a typeface is a set of one or more Fonts designed with stylistic unity each comprising a coordinated set of Glyphs A typeface usually comprises In Typography, a point is the smallest unit of measure being a subdivision of the larger pica. In Typography Line length is the width occupied by a block of typeset text, measured in Inches, picas and points. In Typography, leading (ˈlɛdɪŋ rhymes with heading) refers to the amount of added vertical Spacing between lines of type In Typography, letter-spacing also called tracking, refers to the amount of space between a group of letters to affect density in a line or block of text
Typography is performed by typesetters, compositors, typographers, graphic artists, art directors, and clerical workers. Compositing is the combining of visual elements from separate sources into single images often to create the illusion that all those elements are parts of the same scene Typography is the art and techniques of arranging type, Type design, and modifying type Glyphs Type glyphs are created and modified using a variety A graphic designer (also known as a graphic artist and communication designer) is a professional within the Graphic design and Graphic arts industry The term art director is a blanket title for a variety of similar job functions in Advertising, Publishing, film and Television, the Internet Until the Digital Age, typography was a specialized occupation. Information Age is a term that has been used to refer to the present era Digitization opened up typography to new generations of visual designers and lay users. The term graphic design can refer to a number of artistic and professional disciplines which focus on visual communication and presentation
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Etymology: Typography (from the Greek words τύπος type = "to strike" "That by which something is symbolized or figured…" and γραφία graphia = to write). Etymology is the study of the History of Words &mdash when they entered a language from what source and how their form and meaning have changed over time Greek (el ελληνική γλώσσα or simply el ελληνικά — "Hellenic" is an Indo-European language, spoken today by 15-22 million people mainly
Typography traces its origins to the first punches and dies used to make seals and currency in ancient times. See Punchcutting for the use of punches in typography In Numismatics, a punch is an intermediate used in the process of manufacturing A die is a specialized Tool used in Manufacturing industries to cut shape and form a wide variety of products and components A seal can mean a wax seal bearing an impressed figure or an embossed figure in paper with the purpose of authenticating a document but the term can also mean any device for A currency is a unit of exchange, facilitating the transfer of Goods and/or services It is one form of Money, where money is "Ancient" redirects here For other uses see Ancient_(disambiguation. The first known movable type printing artifact is probably the Phaistos Disc, though its real purpose remains disputed. The Phaistos Disc ( Phaistos Disk, Phaestos Disc) is a disk of fired Clay from the Minoan palace of Phaistos, possibly dating The item dates between 1850 BC and 1600 BC, back to Minoan age and is now on display at the archaeological museum of Herakleion in Crete, Greece. The Minoan civilization was a Bronze Age civilization which arose on the island of Crete. Heraklion or Iraklion (Ηράκλειο Irákleio, iˈɾaklio̞ Candia is the largest city and capital of Crete. Crete ( Greek: Κρήτη transliteration: Krētē, modern transliteration Kriti) is the largest of the Greek islands and the Greece (Ελλάδα transliterated: Elláda, historically, Ellás,) officially the Hellenic Republic (Ελληνική Δημοκρατία
Typography with moveable type was separately invented in 11th-century China, and modular moveable metal type began in 13th-century China and Korea, was developed again in mid-15th century Europe with the development of specialized techniques for casting and combining cheap copies of letterpunches in the vast quantities required to print multiple copies of texts. Movable type is the system of Printing and Typography that uses movable components to reproduce the elements of a document (usually individual letters or punctuation China ( Wade-Giles ( Mandarin) Chung¹kuo² is a cultural region, an ancient Civilization, and depending on perspective a National Movable type is the system of Printing and Typography that uses movable components to reproduce the elements of a document (usually individual letters or punctuation China ( Wade-Giles ( Mandarin) Chung¹kuo² is a cultural region, an ancient Civilization, and depending on perspective a National Korea is a geographic area composed of two sovereign countries a civilization and a former state situated on the Korean Peninsula in East Asia.
In contemporary use, the practice and study of typography is very broad, covering all aspects of letter design and application. These include:
Since digitization, typography has spread to a wider ranger of applications, appearing on web pages, LCD mobile phone screens, and hand-held video games. Edward Estlin Cummings (October 14 1894 &ndash September 3 1962 popularly known as E A web page or webpage is a resource of information that is suitable for the World Wide Web and can be accessed through a Web browser. A video game is a Game that involves interaction with a User interface to generate visual feedback on a video device. The ubiquity of type has led typographers to coin the phrase "Type is everywhere". Omnipresence is the ability to be present in every place at any and/or every time unbounded or universal presence
Traditional typography follows four principles: repetition, contrast, proximity, and alignment. Contrast is the difference in visual properties that makes an object (or its representation in an image distinguishable from other objects and the background Distance is a numerical description of how far apart objects are In Typesetting and Page layout, alignment or range, is the setting of text flow or Image placement relative to a Page
In traditional typography, text is composed to create a readable, coherent, and visually satisfying whole that works invisibly, without the awareness of the reader. LaTeX (ˈleɪtɛ Even distribution with a minimum of distractions and anomalies are aimed at producing clarity and transparency.
Choice of font(s) is perhaps the primary aspect of text typography—prose fiction, non-fiction, editorial, educational, religious, scientific, spiritual and commercial writing all have differing characteristics and requirements. For the Wikipedia guideline regarding editing articles see WikipediaManual of Style. Fiction is the telling of stories which are not real More specifically fiction is an imaginative form of Narrative, one of the four basic Rhetorical modes. Non-fiction is an account or representation of a subject which is presented as Fact. For historic material, established text typefaces are frequently chosen according to a scheme of historical genre acquired by a long process of accretion, with considerable overlap between historical periods.
Contemporary books are more likely to be set with state-of-the-art seriffed "text romans" or "book romans" with design values echoing present-day design arts, which are closely based on traditional models such as those of Nicolas Jenson, Francesco Griffo (a punchcutter who created the model for Aldine typefaces), and Claude Garamond. Origins & etymology Serifs are thought to have originated in the Roman alphabet with inscriptional lettering —words carved into stone in Roman antiquity With their more specialized requirements, newspapers and magazines rely on compact, tightly-fitted text romans specially designed for the task, which offer maximum flexibility, readability and efficient use of page space. Sans serif text fonts are often used for introductory paragraphs, incidental text and whole short articles. A current fashion is to pair sans serif type for headings with a high-performance seriffed font of matching style for the text of an article. History Ancient usages Sans-serif letter forms can be found in Latin Etruscan, and Greek inscriptions for as early as 5th century BC
The text layout, tone or color of set matter, and the interplay of text with white space of the page and other graphic elements combine to impart a "feel" or "resonance" to the subject matter. With printed media typographers are also concerned with binding margins, paper selection and printing methods. A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a medium (such as paper or cloth thereby transferring an image
Typography is modulated by orthography and linguistics, word structures, word frequencies, morphology, phonetic constructs and linguistic syntax. The orthography of a language specifies the correct way of using a specific Writing system to write the language Linguistics is the scientific study of Language, encompassing a number of sub-fields Morphology is the field of Linguistics that studies the internal structure of words Phonetics (from the Greek φωνή ( phonê) "sound" or "voice" is the study of the physical sounds of human speech In Linguistics, syntax (from Ancient Greek grc συν- syn-, "together" and grc τάξις táxis, "arrangement" is the Typography also is subject to specific cultural conventions. For example, in French it is customary to insert a non-breaking space before a colon (:) or semicolon (;) in a sentence, while in English it is not. In computer-based Text processing and Digital typesetting, a non-breaking space or no-break space ( NBSP) is
Readability and legibility are often confused. In writing and typography Readability is defined as reading ease, especially as it results from a writing style Readability is most often and more properly used to describe the ease with which written language is read and understood – it concerns the difficulty of the language itself, not its appearance. Factors that affect readability include sentence and word length, and the frequency of uncommon words.
In contrast, legibility describes how easily or comfortably a typeset text can be read. It is not connected with content or language, but rather with the size and appearance of the printed or displayed text.
Studies of legibility have examined a wide range of factors including type size, type design. For example, comparing serif vs sans serif type, italic type vs roman type), line length, line spacing, colour contrast, the design of right-hand edge (for example, justification, straight right hand edge) vs ranged left, and whether hyphenated. Origins & etymology Serifs are thought to have originated in the Roman alphabet with inscriptional lettering —words carved into stone in Roman antiquity History Ancient usages Sans-serif letter forms can be found in Latin Etruscan, and Greek inscriptions for as early as 5th century BC In Typography, italic type /ɪˈtælɪk/ or /aɪˈtælɪk/ refers to cursive Typefaces based on a stylized form of calligraphic Handwriting. In Typography, "roman" type has two principal meanings both stemming from the stylistic origin of text typefaces from inscriptional capitals used in In Typesetting, justification (can also be referred to as 'full justification' is the Typographic alignment setting of text or Images within
Legibility research was published from the late nineteenth century on, but the overall finding has been that the reading process is remarkably robust, and that significant differences are hard to find. So comparative studies of seriffed vs sans serif type, or justified vs unjustified type, have failed to settle the argument over which is best.
Legibility is usually measured through speed of reading, with comprehension scores used to check for effectiveness (that is, not a rushed or careless read). For example, Miles Tinker, who published numerous studies from the 1930s to the 1960s, used a speed of reading test that required participants to spot incongruous words as an effectiveness filter.
These days, legibility research tends to be limited to critical issues, or the testing of specific design solutions (for example, when new typefaces are developed). Examples of critical issues include typefaces (also called fonts) for people with visual impairment, and typefaces for highway signs, or for other conditions where legibility may make a key difference.
Much of the legibility research literature is somewhat atheoretical — various factors were tested individually or in combination (inevitably so, as the different factors are interdependent), but many tests were carried out in the absence of a model of reading or visual perception. Some typographers believe that the overall word shape is very important in readability, and that letter by letter recognition (sometimes known as parallel letterwise recognition) is either wrong, less important, or not the entire picture. Studies that distinguish between the two models have favored parallel letterwise recognition, and the latter is widely accepted by cognitive psychologists.
Some commonly agreed findings of legibility research include:
Legibility is also compromised by letterspacing, word spacing and leading that are too tight or too loose. In Typography, letter-spacing also called tracking, refers to the amount of space between a group of letters to affect density in a line or block of text In Typography, leading (ˈlɛdɪŋ rhymes with heading) refers to the amount of added vertical Spacing between lines of type Generous vertical space separates lines of text, making it easier for the eye to distinguish one line from the next, or previous line. Poorly designed fonts and those that are too tightly or loosely fitted can also result in poor legibility.
Typography is an element of all printed material. Periodical publications, especially newspapers and magazines, use typographical elements to achieve an attractive, distinctive appearance, to aid readers in navigating the publication, and in some cases for dramatic effect. A newspaper is a written Publication containing News, information and Advertising, usually printed on low-cost paper called Newsprint. Magazines, periodicals or serials are Publications generally published on a regular schedule containing a variety of articles, generally By formulating a style guide, a periodical standardizes on a relatively small collection of typefaces, each used for specific elements within the publication, and makes consistent use of type sizes, italic, boldface, large and small capital letters, colours, and other typographic features. A style guide or style manual is a set of standards for design and writing of documents either for general use or for a specific publication or organization In Typography, a typeface is a set of one or more Fonts designed with stylistic unity each comprising a coordinated set of Glyphs A typeface usually comprises Some publications, such as The Guardian and The Economist, go so far as to commission a type designer to create bespoke typefaces for their exclusive use. The Guardian (until 1959 The Manchester Guardian) is a British Newspaper owned by the Guardian Media Group. The Economist is an English-language weekly news and International affairs publication owned by The Economist Newspaper Ltd and edited in London A type designer is a person who designs Typefaces Some type designers are employed by Type foundries, or operate them
Different periodical publications design their publications, including their typography, to achieve a particular tone or style. For example, USAToday uses a bold, colourful, and comparatively modern style through their use of a variety of typefaces and colours; type sizes vary widely, and the newspaper's name is placed on a coloured background. USA TODAY is a national American daily Newspaper published by the Gannett Company. In contrast, the New York Times use a more traditional approach, with fewer colours, less typeface variation, and more columns. In Typography, a column is one or more vertical blocks of content positioned on a page separated by margins and/or rules Columns are most
Especially on the front page of newspapers and on magazine covers, headlines are often set in larger display typefaces to attract attention, and are placed near the masthead. A headline (sometimes termed a news hed) is text at the top of a Newspaper article indicating the nature of the article below it A masthead is a list usually found on the editorial page of a Newspaper or Magazine, of the members of the newspaper's Editorial board.
Display typography is a potent element in graphic design, where there is less concern for readability and more potential for using type in an artistic manner. The term graphic design can refer to a number of artistic and professional disciplines which focus on visual communication and presentation Type is combined with negative space, graphic elements and pictures, forming relationships and dialog between words and images. Negative space, in Art, is the space around and between the subject(s of an image
Color and size of type elements are much more prevalent than in text typography. Most display typography exploits type at larger sizes, where the details of letter design are magnified. Color is used for its emotional effect in conveying the tone and nature of subject matter.
Display typography encompasses:
The wanted poster for the assassins of Abraham Lincoln was printed with lead and woodcut type, and incorporates photography. Abraham Lincoln (February 12 1809 &ndash April 15 1865 the sixteenth President of the United States, successfully led his country through its greatest internal
Typography has long been a vital part of promotional material and advertising. The Encyclopædia Britannica is a general English-language encyclopaedia published by Encyclopædia Britannica Inc Overview The NGS's historical mission is "to increase and diffuse geographic knowledge while promoting the conservation of the world's cultural historical and natural Promotion involves disseminating information about a product, Product line, Brand, or company Advertising is a form of Communication that typically attempts to persuade potential Customers to Purchase or to consume more of a particular Brand Designers often use typography to set a theme and mood in an advertisement; for example using bold, large text to convey a particular message to the reader. Type is often used to draw attention to a particular advertisement, combined with efficient use of color, shapes and images. Today, typography in advertising often reflects a company's brand. A brand is a collection of Images and ideas representing an economic producer more specifically it refers to the descriptive verbal attributes and concrete symbols such as a Fonts used in advertisements convey different messages to the reader, classical fonts are for a strong personality, while more modern fonts are for a cleaner, neutral look. Bold fonts are used for making statements and attracting attention.
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The history of inscriptional lettering is intimately tied to the history of writing, the evolution of letterforms, and the craft of the hand. Guillemets ( or after French) also called Angle quotes, are line segments pointed as if arrows ( « or ») sometimes forming a complementary A hyphen ( -) is a Punctuation mark It is used for both Words to join and to separate Syllables It is often confused with the dashes The question mark (? also known as an interrogation point, question point, query, or eroteme, is a punctuation mark that replaces Quotation marks or inverted commas (informally referred to as quotes and speech marks) are Punctuation marks used in pairs to set off speech A semicolon (   ) is a conventional Punctuation mark with several usages The slash ( /) is a punctuation mark It is also called a virgule, diagonal, stroke, forward slash, oblique dash, The solidus ( ⁄) is a punctuation mark that is not found on standard keyboards Interword separation is the act and the effect of mutually separating the written representations of Words The early Semitic languages mdashwhich had no vowel In writing a space () is a blank area that is devoid of content which separates words letters numbers and punctuation An interpunct ( ·) is a small dot used for Interword separation in ancient Latin script, being perhaps the first consistent visual representation of word boundaries An ampersand ( &) also commonly called an " 'and' sign," is a Logogram representing the conjunction "and" The typographic character @, the at sign, denotes a pan-lingual abbreviation of the word 'at' An asterisk ( *) (Latin asteriscum "little star" from Greek ἀστερίσκος) is a Typographical symbol or Glyph The backslash ( \) is a typographical mark ( Glyph) used chiefly in Computing. In Typography, a bullet is a typographical symbol or Glyph used to introduce Items in a list, like below also known as the point of a bullet Caret is the name for the symbol ^ in ASCII and some other Character sets Its Unicode code point is U+005E and its ASCII code in hexadecimal is 5E The currency sign ( ¤) is a character used to denote a currency when the symbol for a particular currency is unavailable In many national currencies, the cent is a monetary unit that equals 1/100 of the basic monetary unit The euro sign (€ is the Currency sign used for the Euro, the official currency of the European Union (EU See also Pound (currency.The pound sign (" £ " or " ₤ " is the symbol for the Pound sterling —the currency of the ¥¥ ₪The sheqel sign ( ₪) A dagger ( †, &dagger U+ 2020 is a typographical symbol or Glyph. The degree symbol (° Unicode: U+00B0 HTML: &deg is a typographical symbol or Glyph, that is used to represent degrees of arc (see The inverted question and exclamation marks are used to begin interrogative and exclamatory sentences respectively in written Spanish. The inverted question and exclamation marks are used to begin interrogative and exclamatory sentences respectively in written Spanish. In Logic and Mathematics, negation or not is an operation on Logical values for example the logical value of a Proposition Number sign is a name for the symbol #; it is the preferred Unicode name for the Code point associated with that Glyph. The Numero sign (U+2116 or Number sign is used in many languages to indicate ordinal numeration especially in names and titles for example instead of writing the long " The percent sign ( %) is the symbol used to indicate a Percentage (that the preceding number is divided by one hundred The pilcrow (¶ Unicode U+00B6 HTML entity &para also called the Paragraph sign or the alinea ( The prime symbol ( ′  double prime symbol ( &Prime  triple prime symbol ( ‴  etc The section sign (§ Unicode U+00A7 HTML entity &sect is a typographical character used mainly to refer to a particular section The tilde (~ (/ˈtɪldə/ is a Grapheme with several uses The name of the character comes from Spanish, from the Latin titulus Diaeresis or trema See also Diaeresis History Historically the diaeresis mark or trema is far older than the umlaut mark The underscore _ (also called understrike, underbar, low line, or low dash is a character that originally appeared on the Typewriter. Note "broken bar" and the glyph "¦" redirect here For other uses of this term please refer to Asterism disambiguation page The symbol ☞ is a Punctuation mark called an index or fist. In a Mathematical proof, the therefore sign (∴ is a symbol that is sometimes placed before a Logical consequence, such as the conclusion of a The interrobang ( ‽, is a nonstandard English -language Punctuation mark intended to combine the functions of the Question mark (also "؟" redirects here For the Arabic question mark see Question mark. This page lists Japanese typographic symbols which are not included in Kana or Kanji. A sarcasm mark or sarcasm point identifies text as being Derogatory or ironic. The widespread use of the computer and various etching and sandblasting techniques today has made the hand carved monument a rarity, and the number of lettercarvers left in the States continues to dwindle. Sandblasting or Bead blasting is a generic term for the process of smoothing shaping and cleaning a hard surface by forcing solid particles across that surface at high speeds
For monumental lettering to be effective it must be considered carefully in its context. Proportions of letters need to be altered as their size and distance from the viewer increases. An expert letterer gains understanding of these nuances through much practice and observation of their craft. Letters drawn by hand and for a specific project have the possibility of being richly specific and profoundly beautiful in the hand of a master. Each can also take up to an hour to carve, so it is no wonder that the automated sandblasting process has become the industry standard.
To create a sandblasted letter, a rubber mat is laser cut from a computer file and glued to the stone. The sand then bites a coarse groove or channel into the exposed surface. Unfortunately, many of the computer applications which create these files and interface with the laser cutter do not have many typefaces available, and often have inferior versions of typefaces that are available. What can now be done in minutes, however, lacks the striking architecture and geometry of the chisel-cut letter which allows light to play across its distinct interior planes.