History of Typography
Back in the olden days, people used magical machines called printing presses where instead of using computers, they had to make iron casts of each letter and arrange them on the press to print a set of pre-defined letters making these really cool things called words which make sentences. The final result of this was a fancy shmancy piece of paper with the words written on them so that people didn’t have to risk getting old time carpal tunnel like the monks whose jobs were to write copies upon copies of books to be distributed to the lucky and rich people of the time. Lucky for us, we live in an age that makes printing text a simple task of clicking a print icon.
Today’s typography has transformed into an art form, not just a way of communication, which means it, like all professional work, has it’s own jargon or way of speaking. This means there are a few terms that should probably be cleared up.
- Onomastics – The study of proper names of all kinds and the origins of names
- Closure – Filling in missing pieces to see a recognizable form
- Type Foundaries – Designers or Companies that make fonts
Many people choose to take the creative route and make their own fonts, this can be easy to do if you have some creativity and the right software. Some software that is great for creating your own fonts is Adobe Illustrator and Adobe PhotoShop. In both programs, there is a great toolbox called align, this box can align objects horizontally, vertically and just about every other way, it’s a great way to keep things together. You can play with the size and look of normal text with the character, paragraph and open-type toolboxes. Overall, Adobe loves typography.
References:
http://articles.sitepoint.com/article/principles-beautiful-typography
http://www.andyrutledge.com/common-fate.php
http://www.andyrutledge.com/closure.php
http://www.adobe.com/designcenter/dialogbox/type_is_image.html
http://cis051.wordpress.com/2010/01/26/typography-and-the-printing-press/
