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, fine, but 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. this is sort of safe space between humans (for example the safe space when we're inside an elevator).

* 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 independently and at the same time 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. remember to leave space for your uncial or capital (this is the last element of your design).  

practice your rinceau (the 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!

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.

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

Printing! A Chinese invention

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

old book, parts

watch this short didactic video, 

Books are solid 3-d marks to be handled, felt & browsed & smelled,

Book by Gregorius Bock, 1500s

newton's Principia Mathematica, 1667

here is an excellent list of famous "first edition" books,

what is a frontispiece?

the word frontispiece comes from the French, which was originally an architectural term referring to the decorative facade of a building.

palazzo Doge, venice, 1419

in books, a frontispiece refers to a decorative or informative illustration facing a book's title page (being the verso opposite the recto title page).

Thierleben (Life of Animals) first published in the 1860s by Alfred Edmund Brehm

from the infamous worship of priapus, 1738

a milton poem by william blake, 1810

the raven, by Edgar Allan Poe, illustrated by Manet, 1978

Illuminated manuscripts

meister beaucicaut, paris, 1410

the graphic mark of early middle ages is the Illuminated Manuscript. 

as light reflects from the pages of these handwritten books, it gives the sensation that the page is literally illuminated. but more conventionally we're talking about specific medieval documents where the text is presented with flourishes such as borders, and miniature illustrations. 

why? 

the purpose is religious. illuminated manuscripts were used in the roman catholic church prayers, liturgical services, and psalms, well into the 13th century onward and typically include proclamations, enrolled bills, laws, charters, inventories, and deeds.

the earliest illuminated manuscripts in existence come from the Kingdom of the Ostrogoths and the Eastern Roman Empire and date from between 400 and 600 CE. 

watch this video about the fantastic codex argenteus

most illuminated manuscripts were written on parchment or vellum. these pages were then bound into books, called codices (singular: codex). 

generally, the word codex is used for all decorated and illustrated handwritten books produced from the late roman empire until Gutenberg in 1450.

The mark of calligraphy? what for?

Calligraphy is the is the design and execution of lettering with a pen, ink brush, or other writing instrument. 

Calligraphy flourished and evolved as logographic selection in the forms of marks whether religious, announcements, cut stones inscriptions and memorial documents. 

So, all these are examples of calligraphic marks:

For the Chinese, calligraphy reigned supreme. Some studies connect calligraphy with intellectual abilities such as clerical speed, accuracy, spatial ability, abstract reasoning, digit span, short-term memory, picture memory, and cognitive reaction time (Kao, 1992). In Confucian tradition, calligraphy facilitates the enhancement of cognitive and perceptual tasks such as visual and

auditory attention, concentration, and spatial reasoning.

A different (Zhu and Dai, 1998) study showed enhanced traits or behavioral tendencies with increased calligraphy practice comprising emotional stability, soberness, conscientiousness, trust, self-sufficiency, relaxation, and high learning ability. 

Public calligraphy?

the difference between graffiti and calligraphy is that the latter is contained in the former.

we need to understand that the calligraphy mark goes anywhere: 

sheet of paper, stone, metals, walls,

north africa, 

 

tibet,

 

morocco

china

The manor: design as agricultural self sufficiency

Medieval farmers were highly adept. they used the three-field system of crop rotation (a method which goes back to the best-developed system up to that time). A history of the three field system here.

Why?

crop rotation means planting different types of crops in the same area across a sequence of growing seasons. the rotation reduces reliance on one set of nutrients, pest and weed pressure, and the probability of developing resistant pests and weeds.

growing the same crop in the same place for many years, known as monocropping, gradually depletes the soil of nutrients and selects for a highly competitive pest and weed community.

so, wheat or rye was planted in one field; oats, barley, peas, lentils or broad beans were planted in the second field. the third field was left fallow. each year the crops were rotated to leave one field fallow.  

the system also ensured that the same crop was not grown in the same field for two years.

medieval farmers did what they could to increase the fertility of the land. they used "marl" (a mixture of clay and carbonate of lime) and seaweed. 

in addition they used the best fertiliser: animal dung. 

The mark of feudalism

This is tan epoch known as FEUDALISM.

In its various forms, feudalism emerged as a result of the decentralization of the Carolingian empires which both lacked the bureaucratic infrastructure necessary to support cavalry without the ability to allocate land to these mounted troops.

Feudalism happens as a result of legal and military modes of production and exchange that flourished between the 9th and 15th centuries. 

 Broadly defined, it was a way of structuring society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labor. it derives from latin feodum or feudum (fief).

Moving forward to the early middle ages

The history of the Middle Ages lasts from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries (1000 years!)

It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and transitioned into the Renaissance. 

The Middle Ages is the middle period of Western history, which includes classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. 

Middle Ages is divided into the early, high, and late Middle Ages. 

What's going on?

1. population decline (like us today in the West), 

2. counter urbanization (unlike us, today globally), 

3. collapse of centralized authority (opposite of us today), 

4. invasions and mass migrations of tribes (like us today), 

The large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, made up for new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. 

In the 

7th century, North Africa and the Middle East (what had been the eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire) came under the rule of the Umayyad Caliphate, an Islamic empire, after conquest by Muhammad's successors. 

how to unpack "Virgilius Vaticanus" (circa 400 ad)

see above, an early manuscript containing fragments of Virgil's Aeneid, made in Rome in about 400 AD., one of the oldest surviving sources for the text of the Aeneid.

what do we have here?

1. the text: written by a single scribe in rustic capitals. there is no separation between words. (if they aren't there is because they didn't need them). 

the scribe probably worked first leaving spaces for the illustrations, which were added by three different painters, all of whom used iconographic copybooks.

2. the illustrations: are contained within frames and include landscapes and architectural and other details. see that the miniatures are set within the text column, although a few miniatures occupy a whole page. the human figures are painted in classical style with natural proportions and drawn with vivacity. we realize an illusion of depth quite well. the interior scenes are based on an earlier understanding of perspective, but occasional errors suggest that the artists did not fully understand the models used.

3. the punctuation: many people see these scrolls and go: what a monotonous way of writing!

here I have two points to make: first, the role of the scribe is to simply record everything he or she heard, to create documentation. since speech is continuous there was no need to add spaces. the scribe is not making an aesthetic statement. 

4. how about the reader? the reader of the text happened to be a trained performer, who would have already memorized the content and breaks of the script. now, during these reading performances, the scroll acted as a cue sheet and therefore did not require in-depth reading.

guess what, without punctuation, the reader had more freedom to interpret the text; they could insert pauses and dictate the tone, making the act of reading a significantly more subjective activity than it is today). so, with no punctuation the reading context is RICHER! you have more ambiguity.

they knew what they were doing!

early math (the moscow papirus, 2000 bc)

what is the purpose of early math?

counting... MEASURING! 

as the lines inside the polygon attest.

where it all begins? what was math good for? 

around 3000 BC in Mesopotamia. Sumer, Akkad, and Assyria followed closely by Ancient Egypt and the Levantine state of Ebla

why? we need arithmetic, algebra, and geometry for taxation, commerce, trade, and also for astronomy and to record time and formulate calendars.

yes, MATH IS A MARK.

When graphic mark becomes a symbol and that's how meaning is transmitted

Benito Mussolini Headquarters, Palazzo Braschi, Rome, 1930s

 

 

See how the mark becomes a symbol, in this case, the addition of the building. this is the federation of the fascist party in Rome (designed by the architect Giuseppe Valadier designed the chapel on the piano nobile or first floor. He also designed the white marble facade of the adjacent church of San Pantaleo which is named the piazza in front of the Palazzo Braschi).

 

architects in the 1930s took their cues from the forms of classical roman buildings. the difference in meaning is that the buildings of imperial Rome have ornate details and rounded edges that give them a certain mediterranean warmth. this is not the meaning Mussolini wants to convey. a fascist building should be Teutonic. this is a wall of unrelieved travertine, filled with "SI" (meaning YES) to the new order.this is presuasion by repetition.

 

(not unlike what TV nowadays does to us: it repeats the message and we acquiesce without knowing). 

 

buildings (marks) change their function. 

this is Palazzo Braschi today:

 

Museo di Roma (1950s)