A font that caught my attention during this lecture was Univers as this lecture was after my typography lesson in which we learnt about letter pressing and we saw the fonts classified into tiny cabinets. What intrigued me was that Univers has such a huge family and the way that they are named.
Upon further research, I found out that the first Univers family had 21 varying fonts and has since expanded to 44. It was designed by Adrian Frutiger from 1954-57 and produced by the Deberny & Peignot foundry in 1957. It is the first typeface to number its fonts based on the weight-55 is the base weight, anything smaller is thinner and anything larger is thicker while odd numbers are bolded fonts and even numbers are italicised fonts.
Univers typeface was very popular when it was released, even more so than Helvetica which is more popular now. It is preferred due to its versatility with its large family of variations, and its clean-cutness. It has been used widely in branding and signages (e.g. London signages).
I personally really like san serif fonts as I find them very practical and clean. Before this lecture, I use Helvetica a lot but then I realise that Univers is another font that I would like to work with and am excited to! These few weeks to come have been eye opening and for a student majoring only in visual communication, I have learnt a lot on the milestones of graphic design and typography and have expanded my reference library! I think that even though we have to listen up due to the quizzes, the content itself was interesting and I liked that we not only learnt about design but also photography! Thank you for these past weeks!
This lecture was filled with a lot of interesting examples exemplifying the various art movements but the work that I found most interesting was the Beggarstaffs’ ‘Kassama’!
‘Kassama’ by the Beggarstaff Bros., 1894 https://www.cam.ac.uk/beggarstaffs
It reminds me of the posters that we have now like:
Magnum advertisement by Thomas Danthony, 2018 https://www.danstapub.com/magnum-pleasure-icon-art/‘Balloons’ by Malika Favre for Papyrus https://www.malikafavre.com/balloons
But of course, these are digitised while the Beggarstaffs worked with collages and paper cut outs.
The ‘Beggarstaffs’ made up of two artists: William Nicholson and James Pryde. Nicholson was English while Pryde was Scottish and they are brother-in-laws as Nicholson married Pryde’s sister. In 1894, they formed the ‘Beggarstaffs Bros.’ after seeing the word on a fodder sack and teamed up to create posters that were known for their bold simplicity. This was during the Art Noveau period where the use of curvilinear and floral shapes was abundant in posters.
Below are the posters ‘Gismonda’ by Alphonse Mucha and ‘Hamlet’ by the Beggarstaff Brothers. Both are produced in 1894, life sized and for theatrical productions but both are in very different styles. Mucha’s ‘Gismonda’ was in the Art Noveau style with the curvilinear and whiplash strokes and shapes while ‘Hamlet’ was done with stencil and painting over brown paper. ‘Hamlet’ compared to ‘Gismonda’ is very simplified and not ornamented at all, be it the illustration or the typography. It exemplifies how the Beggarstaffs went against the style of their time and created posters that are radically different.
‘Gismonda’ by Alphonse Mucha, 1894 https://www.myddoa.com/gismonda-alphonse-mucha/
They were not the only ones who went against Art Noveau as Lucien Bernhard and Ludwig Hohlwein’s Plakatstil and Sachplakat (‘Poster Style’) also similarly advocated for simplification, flat colours and a focus on the central object being advertised (after the Beggarstaffs beginning around 1905 hence we can see their influence).
‘Priester’ by Lucien Bernhard, 1905 https://www.britannica.com/topic/Plakatstil
The Beggarstaff Brothers went their separate ways after five years as they were a commercial failure due to the boldness of their works but they were regarded highly for their influence and originality.
I think that the style of the Beggarstaff Brothers can be seen in today’s graphic design and posters. Instead of stencils and paper cutouts, we have vectorised designs that favours simplification and limited colour palette. The Beggarstaff Brothers’ influence can be seen in the art of modern artists like Malika Favre.
‘In The Shade’ by Malika Favre for the ‘New Yorker’, 2016 https://www.malikafavre.com/intheshade
Personally, I feel like poster design today has become restricted by digitisation. More can explore a mixture of analogue and digital methods to fully utilise and combine the raw craftsmanship quality of art and the tools of digital illustration to create designs that are timeless.
The Kelmscott Press was set up by 1891 by William Morris, an influential artist of the Victorian 19th Century who headed the Arts and Crafts Movement. The movement started in the wake of the Industrial Revolution where the artists found that craftsmanship and design have been jeopardised by machines and mass production. Hence, the art of this movement reflected the spirit and styles of old medieval art.
The Kelmscott Press also printed books in the Medieval way with ornamental illustrations (done by his long time friend and partner Edward Burne-Jones). It reflected Morris’ admiration for Medieval scripts, books and craftsmanship. Everything was created from scratch: Morris created three typefaces and paper was made from linen and modelled after a 14th century Italian paper. It is made without chemicals, so was the ink that the press used. Very close attention was paid to the margins of the books as Morris wanted them to mirror the margins of Medieval books (the innermost margin is smallest followed by the top margin then the outermost margin then the bottom).
His philosophy for the books he has printed was that he wanted to produce beautiful books but as the same time, they must be easy on the eyes and readable. The three fonts that he printed were: Golden, Troy and Chaucer, all named after the books the fonts were first printed for (The Golden Legend, The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troy and The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer). He wanted to use a font that is consistent in stroke widths (unlike modern fonts with the huge contrast in thin and thick strokes) for readability and modelled Golden after the typography of 15th century printers. He then created a roman font Golden and the Gothic font Troy. As criticism towards Gothic letters was mostly of the difficulty to read them, he created the font without bundling the letters together so that it is not condensed and is as readable as a roman font. The Chaucer is a smaller version of Troy.
Golden Font https://www.pinterest.com/pin/207236020329990348/?lp=trueTroy Font http://luc.devroye.org/fonts-24795.html
He also believed the modern printers used space too sparingly and left too many rivers. He felt that space should be used just enough to separate words and should be done so consistently and frowned against excessive leading.
The Press’ most celebrated work was ‘The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer’, later known as the ‘Kelmscott Chaucer’ that reflects the popularity and influence of the Press. It closed down seven years after it was established. When Morris passed away in 1896, his successor Sydney Cockerell tied things up in a year or two and closed it to preserve his legacy.
Pages from the ‘Kelmscott Chaucer’ https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/the-kelmscott-chaucerPages from the ‘Kelmscott Chaucer’ http://morrissociety.blogspot.com/2010/08/ideal-book-william-morris-and-kelmscott.html
Thoughts:
I think that it’s very admirable of Morris to want to pay tribute to medieval books and print and the lengths that he would go to ensure that authenticity. In our capitalistic society today, what saves cost and time would be the preferred method and so a Kelmscott Press would most likely not survive if it were to be set up now. However, I feel like a Press like this would remind us of a kind of beauty and craftsmanship that is lost as technology becomes increasingly advanced and preferred.
The Didot Typeface was created around the late 1780s to the early 1800s by Firmin Didot who hailed from the famous French Didot family. The Didot family were renowned in the French printing industry and his brother Pierre Didot first printed the typeface and eventually printed the famous poem ‘La Henriade’ by Voltaire in Didot.
1819 version of Voltaire’s La Henriade
The Didot typeface is known as a ‘modern’, ‘neoclassical’ or ‘Didone’ typeface. These typefaces can be recognised by high contrast between its thick and thin strokes and thin and straight horizontal serifs. They are known as ‘neoclassical’ as they reflect the neoclassicism of that time. Neoclassicism is an art movement from the mid 1700s to the mid 1800s, during the ‘Age of Enlightenment’. It stands for the simplicity and geometry reflected in Greek and Roman art and rejected the gaudiness and excessive ornamentation that characterised the Rococo period before. The Didot typeface reflects neoclassicist values as it is not overly ornamented and is geometrically precise.
These typefaces are known to be elegant but can be quite hard to read due to the drastically varying thick and thin strokes. They are usually used for large prints and titles but not for body texts.
The Didot typeface is similar to the Bodoni typeface by Giambattista Bodoni.
Research by Jaketsmith on the similarities and differences between Didot and Bodoni typefaces: https://jacobsmithdesign.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/screen-shot-2009-09-29-at-1-36-08-am.png
As can be seen, Bodoni’s serifs are thicker and it has a lower X height. Both typefaces faced a problem called ‘Dazzling’ when they were first printed where the thin strokes are so thin that they do not appear in print.
I decided to choose the Didot typeface as I liked how elegant it looked when I did my typography assignments. After researching on it and understanding the ideals and history behind its strokes and serifs, I’ve come to appreciate it even more and will definitely pay closer attention to modern typefaces in the future!
