2/17/10

Typography Convergence

Explain, giving examples, how convergence of design and technology has immensely increased the scope of typographic design.

When I consider that in the early days of type how each letter was carved or cast and then set up manually in a press, it just seems so ridged, concrete and so much more difficult to be creative. Sure you could adjust letting and kerning, but as far as going back in and changing the size or font on an individual letter, or line, that would mean resetting that line on the plate and repressing. Here I a picture of some on looking over bins of letter and setting up type.


As a designer today with millions of fonts available at my fingertips, I am amazed at what the process used to require. Today it is so easy to make adjustment to large sections of copy with a “command A” and few clicks of a mouse. Even take as website for example, you can adjust countless pages of copy through a single style sheet.

Technology has also enabled designers to use and in some cases abuse typeface like never before. When using a cast letter for printing, that was it. Now with graphic software we can do anything we want to the letter. Sometimes when I don’t like the look of a letter in a certain font, I can go in manually and change that letter myself no disrespect to the original designer, but sometimes it doesn’t look right.. Even great software like Adobe Illustrator has evolved over the past few years. Looking back to version 10 there was never a 3-D tool to quickly manipulate text into a 3d effect. I believe this tool started in CS, Illustrator 11.
The old way http://www.wowwebdesigns.com/power_guides/3d_text/
The new way: http://www.gomediazine.com/tutorials/create-dream-design-3d-typography/


Resources:
1. AIO Lecture
2. History and Foundations of Typography www.infoamerica.org/museo/pdf/evolucion.pdf
3. http://www.jimmydrobinson.com
4. http://www.gomediazine.com/tutorials/create-dream-design-3d-typography/
5. http://www.wowwebdesigns.com/power_guides/3d_text/
6. http://mediadesigner.digitalmedianet.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=22141
7. http://www.wpdfd.com/issues/23/typography/

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