how about a typeface project (with an in-class vernissage) for next week?

look at the borders of this 10th-century Canterbury manuscript 

dear class. the task is to design an illumined paragraph (a group of sentences in a block) in the style of illumined manuscripts. 

like this: 

with rubrication of an uncial (or capital) like this: 

please, observe the following guidelines: 

1. an 8 1/2 x 11-inch sheet of paper. lined or blank. if lined preferably soft lines. 

 

2. think of a script that embodies your own aesthetics, that is, the way you'd execute "print" if you had all the time in the world.  

3. design your capitals (uncials) and minuscules (lower case). this is the time to choose either serif or sans-serif. don't mix them!

3. once you design your types, follow them! remember the whole thing needs to be as homogeneous as possible! practice obtaining a FLAWLESS execution. 

4. use a pen. ink is the closest to incunabula. felt tip? gel? ballpoint? fountain? up to you. 

imagine the sort of trace you want: thick? thin? (not too thin; not a legible option). smooth? a bit scratchy? keep in mind the thickness of your mark!  

 

5. as you practice each letter (by repeating it) think of each of its parts: leg, belly, spur, stem, spine, belly, loop, ascender, and descender. every detail of this design must be deliberate.

6. decoration: this is the most beautiful part. REMEMBER you leave the rubrication for last. leave space for your decoration.  

7. inserts: if your uncial has a bowl: "b" or "p" or "q" or "o" you may insert a motif inside it. 

 type parts: 

8. your printed text should exhibit cohesion and counterpoint. for your design think of a template: 

 

9. you may want to use ligatures, but you need to be consistent, for instance:

DO NOT IMPROVISE.

10. now comes an essential routine of  typography: kerning/leading

* think of kerning/tracking, or the spacing in between letters. 

choose the best space between your letters. 

* now, think of leading, or the suitable space between lines. 

typography has its own rules. the result is readability. you want each character to stand on its own and be a part of a community. 

11. think of your choice of leading (i.e., the space between lines). when you show your piece, I will ask you about your choices! 

(take a look at this helpful video to understand the difference between kerning, leading & tracking)

12. again! remember to leave space for your uncial or capital (this is the last design element of the composition).  

practice your rinceau (leafy or flowery, geometric, abstract, historical, or anything else in between). the rinceau is extremely important as this was the scribe's contribution to the manuscript.  

go ahead you scribes!

what's the mystery behind "secretary hand"?

high middle ages, england. a beauty, isn't it? 

as writing gets complicated and diverse, one needs to make it faster and less protocolar. the hand wins! but the hand needs training. this is the beginning of calligraphy. we talked about this briefly in oir last class. here are some examples:

insular miniscule,

chancery hand,

secretary, ancient

secretary hand happens almost "by itself," out of the need for a hand that was fast, more legible and universally recognizable than the older book hands of the High Middle Ages. 

& what was the rush?

BUSINESS! and a more dependant personal correspondence, in cities, chanceries and courts.

so we see that the entertainment value of graphic art gained an audience

Casper von Regensburg, My heart Doth Small, 1485

how do you handle a "Book of Hours"?

Book of Hours, Paris, 1410

   
books of hours were devotional books of prayer used by individuals at home rather than in church. 

These are very different times from today. The division of labor of the regular folk is 5am-7pm, with work and a little distraction in between. These books served as personal religious guides, with calendars of feast days, popular psalms, and, at their heart, a set of daily prayers to the Virgin tied to the hours of the day. 

The image of the Annunciation accompanies the psalms and prayers for terce, which were said at 9am. 

Some of these books were carried as such:

They often contained a very large number of illustrations -both because they were pleasing to look at, and also because their messages could be understood by children and those whose ability to read was limited. the images also provided an opportunity for spiritual reflection and prayer for salvation. 

above, the 1496 famous illustrations for the Dance of Death, showing that all classes of society were subject to the inevitable command to walk with death. other illustrations concern themselves with secular subjects, representing with realism the occupations and sports of everyday life. 

lettera imperiale (kind of the Norton anti-virus of middle ages)

lettera imperiale, Giovanantonio Tagliente (1523)

another development is the "lettera imperiale" provides evidence of the so-called "chancery" script well into the Renaissance.

Handwriting is not displaced but becomes more specialized.

why do some medieval texts seem to baroque and complicated? they become less susceptible to forgery. 

digital documents can be forged. they suggest an authentication process.   

romanesque architecture as a kind of typeface

Above late romanesque, the Pisa cathedral (behind, the Pisa tower),

What do we see?

1. exterior and interior elements focus on order, unity, readability, and monumentality.
2. the style reaches churches, monasteries, town houses, farm houses, and castles!
3. the material is masonry. why? fire prevention. wooden ceilings,

 santa maria cosmedin, rome, 9th century

4. round arches are a major hit & people loved them! 

 basilica st. procopius, Trebic

5. archivolts which are arch moldings,

now that you know the parts, look at this beauty:

 church of st. pierre moisac, 11th century

sculptors competed to get a hand on these projects! the execution is amazing (and of course anonymous). 

6. parts to remember, from top to bottom of a Romanesque church: the tower, a few clustered columns, a parapet, then images of religious figures, some round arches, a tympanum with sculpture, and finally a central entrance next to flanking side entrances.

characteristics: 1. massive solidity and strength (as above). 

 2. early romanesque employed rubble walls, 

 

i.e., irregular stone facade, smaller windows and unvaulted roofs. late romanesque exhibits a refinement with increased use dressed stone and more elaborate vaults. 

3. romanesque uses barrel and groin vault. barrel vault goes back to eguypt and persia, but again, greece & rome). groin vaults are roman and disappeared until rescued again in caroligian architecture. why? they looked elegant & ponderous. 

                                                                (barrel) temple of jupiter, croacia,

 

                                                            santa maria cremini, venice

4. capitals are late corinthian,  why corinthian? the Corinthian capital is essentially round at the bottom (where it sits on a circular column) and square at the top, where it supports the wall or arch. it was achieved by cutting a rectangular block and taking the four lower corners off at an angle so that the block was square at the top, but octagonal at the bottom. this shape lent itself to a wide variety of superficial foliate treatments!

                                                                (groin) grande sauvy abbey, france

 

                                                            capitel from the Pisa tower, 

5. arches are nearly always semicircular, for openings such as doors and windows,

6. plan: most churches have the romanesque plan and were changed afterwards. 

is this half uncial circa 9th century AD (the majuscule becomes -as it was- compressed by gravity) not similar to romanesque?  

 

doesn't this floor plan reminds you of a "T" plus the catedra?

the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela plan has an expansive appearance. 

santiago was the most significant pilgrimage site in Europe. The narthex (antechamber to the entrance), the aisles (passage bet.rows), the large aisled transepts and numerous projecting chapels reflect this. the chancel (near the altar) is short and the altar set so as to provide clear view to a vast congregation simultaneously.

gutenberg's paper (when paper used to be really good)

most 15th-century paper is of a very high quality, as is the paper used for the Gutenberg Bible.

later the quality of paper declined - most disastrously in the 19th century when paper-makers began using wood pulp. the paper used in the Gutenberg Bible was imported from Caselle in Piedmont, northern Italy being one of the most important centers for paper-making in the 15th century.

it can be identified because its watermarks. about 70% of the paper has the watermark of an ox head, 20% show a bunch of grapes (in two versions),

its size is known as royal folio, already at that time a fairly standard size of paper, each sheet measuring about 43 x 62 cm, before being folded.

how is this paper made? take a look at this video.

la "Romain de Ratdolt" (from Euclid's Elements)

augsburg-born printer (1447-1527). a master printer and type designer, he worked from ca. 1474 until ca. 1486 in Venice, where he printed many fine books. 

Ratdolt returned home and produced the first printer's type specimens sheet with a beautiful decorative initial and 15 different fonts to announce the occasion. he had the first type specimens sheet in the world, showing rotunda, roman and Greek typefaces in various sizes (date: 1486). 

Ratdolt specialized in missals, liturgical works, calendars, astronomical, astrological, and mathematical subjects, and often included masterful diagrams to illustrate the text. 

in 1482, he printed Euclid's Elements of Geometry, which became William Morris's reference source for his "while-wine" decorative borders. ratdolt died in 1527 or 1528. he's one of the first to use the so called frontispiece orné.  he uses the referred to as Romain de Ratdolt (1486).

__________
FYI, Euclid's Elements is perhaps the most successful book ever written.

a general pragmatic literacy developed in the eleventh century. how? convents!

page from the codex ambrosianus

by the 11th century, the corpus of religious works comprised gospels, bibles, psalms, liturgical instruments and writing of the church fathers. 

the corpus of classical works comprised texts from history and philosophy, medicine, drama, poetry, drama and rhetoric.

people read much more, way more. how come? 

convents are houses of learning!

still for the most part this is confined to the learned class (they can afford to go to convents to study).  

Codex Sinaiticus

Above, the Codex Sinaiticus, with examples of Uncials and Speculum (see the curved back of the "e" and the strokes of the "m" as is the bowl of the "a." 

There is also the Gothic rotunda, associated for the humanistic study and used for classical as well as vernacular texts. 

Let's try to imagine how these small serifs "changes" take place. A scribe decides to make a different mark; beautify an "m" by bending its leg, or lengthen the "e"'s tail. Others scribes like it and may follow the trend. After many years, that anonymous monk's design eventually becomes standard "practice." 

As we see, including the design at this time is a social activity.

(One style of the rotunda is associated with the Italian poet Petrarch, and thus with the coming of vernacular literature).

what's vernacular? the speech of the common folk.

it is cool to make your own codex. here's how,

gothic script = gothic buttress

Missale Bellovacense, vellum leaf from France (late 13th Century). Transitional Gothic Script.

take a look at this missale from late 13th century. what do you see?

the mark of the script reminds one of the architecture of the epoch: 

pointed & angular. the ligatures become more frequent, it's a more efficient manner of writing, perhaps more elegant.

the letters aspire to move upward, into the spiritual heavenly realm. why? because during the 14th century, the "hands" and "feet" of the letters as well as ascenders and descenders become shorter and more robust. the Gothic counters this trend. 

think of the difference between Gothic and Romanic.

isn't this gothic buttress a form of typeface leg?

VIVA BASTARDA (the typeface of the German bourgeoisie)

french bastarda 15th century

bastarda means "lowborn." 

why? this is the writing of scholars. quick, almost calligraphic.

outside the church's scriptorium, and the palace, people write fast: business transactions, notes, the everyday affair, think of cheap editions. b-movies.

here's  star desginer jonathan barnbrook's own bastard typeface. 

colophon

a colophon refers to the note at the end of a book containing information such as the name of the work, author and printer, as well as the place of printing and the date. 

in texts before 1500, the colophon was the only area of reference for this information within the book. this is before the implementation of the title page. 

colophon of the diamond sutras, 

john fortescue, a learned commendation of the politique lawes of englande (1567)

colophon from the Birgitta, 1492

from canon ternionum, 1460

Chinese invention of printing

Pages of Pen ts'ao medical herbal. See how illustrations and calligraphy were used for headings

Printing in East Asia originated in China, evolving from ink rubbings made on paper or cloth from texts on stone tablets used during the sixth century. 

Chinese seals (also called chops) used as a form of relief printing in 300 AD

Mechanical woodblock printing on paper started in China during the 7th century in the Tang dynasty. The use of woodblock printing spread throughout East Asia. As recorded in 1088 by Shen Kuo in his Dream Pool Essays, the Chinese artisan Bi Sheng invented an early form of movable type using clay and wood pieces arranged and organized for written Chinese characters. The use of metal movable type was known in Korea by the 13th century during the Goryeo period, with the world's oldest surviving printed book using moveable metal type being from 1377 in Korea (from Wikipedia).

Another early form of Chinese graphic design in printing was playing cards. These sheet dice were first printed on heavy paper cards when paged books replaced manuscript scrolls (from MHGD).

Yuan Chao Meng-fu's 14th century painting of a goat a sheep has both painting and chop prints