Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable and appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, point sizes, line lengths, line-spacing (leading), and letter-spacing (tracking), as well as adjusting the space between pairs of letters (kerning). The term typography is also applied to the style, arrangement, and appearance of the letters, numbers, and symbols created by the process. Type design is a closely related craft, sometimes considered part of typography; most typographers do not design typefaces, and some type designers do not consider themselves typographers. Typography also may be used as an ornamental and decorative device, unrelated to the communication of information.
A logo is a graphic mark, emblem, or symbol used to aid and promote public identification and recognition. It may be of an abstract or figurative design or to include the text of the name that it represents as in a wordmark.
In typography and lettering, a sans-serif, sans serif, gothic, or simply sans letterform is one that does not have extending features called "serifs" at the end of strokes. Sans-serif typefaces tend to have less stroke width variation than serif typefaces. They are often used to convey simplicity and modernity or minimalism. For the purposes of type classification, sans-serif designs are usually divided into these major groups: § Grotesque and § Neo-grotesque, § Geometric, § Humanist and § Other or mixed.
Herbert Percy Horne was an English poet, architect, typographer and designer, art historian and antiquarian. He was an associate of the Rhymers' Club in London. He edited the magazines The Century Guild Hobby Horse and The Hobby Horse for the Century Guild of Artists, which he founded with fellow architect Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo in 1882.
Selwyn Image was a British artist, designer, writer and poet associated with the Arts and Crafts Movement. He designed stained-glass windows, furniture, embroidery, and was an illustrator of books. Image was the seventh Slade Professor of Fine Art at Oxford from 1910 to 1916.
Mary "May" Morris was an English artisan, embroidery designer, jeweller, socialist, and editor. She was the younger daughter of the Pre-Raphaelite artist and designer William Morris and his wife and artists' model, Jane Morris.
Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo was a progressive English architect and designer, who influenced the Arts and Crafts Movement, notably through the Century Guild of Artists, which he set up in partnership with Herbert Horne in 1882. He was the pioneer of the Modern Style and in turn global Art Nouveau movement.
William Henry Bradley was an American Art Nouveau illustrator, artist and film director. Nicknamed the "Dean of American Designers" by The Saturday Evening Post, he was the highest-paid American artist of the early 20th century.
Rudolf Koch was a German type designer, professor, and a master of lettering, calligraphy, typography and illustration. Commonly known for his typefaces created for the Klingspor Type Foundry, his most widely used typefaces include Neuland and Kabel.
Lucian Bernhard was a German graphic designer, type designer, professor, interior designer, and artist during the first half of the twentieth century.
The International Typographic Style, also known as the Swiss Style, is a systemic approach to graphic design that emerged in Switzerland during the 1950s but continued to develop internationally. It expanded on and formalized the modernist typographic innovations of the 1920s that emerged in part out of art movements such as Constructivism (Russia), De Stijl and at the Bauhaus (Germany). The International Typographic Style has had profound influence on graphic design as a part of the modernist movement, impacting many design-related fields including architecture and art. It emphasizes simplicity, clarity, readability, and objectivity. Hallmarks of the style are asymmetric layouts, use of a grid, sans-serif typefaces like Akzidenz Grotesk and Helvetica, and flush left, ragged right text. The style is also associated with a preference for photography in place of illustrations or drawings. Many of the early International Typographic Style works featured typography as a primary design element in addition to its use in text, and it is for this that the style is named. The influences of this graphic movement can still be seen in design strategy and theory to this day.
Modern typographers view typography as a craft with a very long history tracing its origins back to the first punches and dies used to make seals and coinage currency in ancient times. The basic elements of typography are at least as old as civilization and the earliest writing systems—a series of key developments that were eventually drawn together into one systematic craft. While woodblock printing and movable type had precedents in East Asia, typography in the Western world developed after the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in the mid-15th century. The initial spread of printing throughout Germany and Italy led to the enduring legacy and continued use of blackletter, roman, and italic types.
Emil Ruder was a Swiss typographer and graphic designer, who with Armin Hofmann joined the faculty of the Schule für Gestaltung Basel.
Philip Baxter Meggs was an American graphic designer, professor, historian and author of books on graphic design. His book History of Graphic Design is a definitive, standard read for the study of graphic design.
The Modern Style is a style of architecture, art, and design that first emerged in the United Kingdom in the mid-1880s. It is the first Art Nouveau style worldwide, and it represents the evolution of the Arts and Crafts movement which was native to Great Britain. Britain not only provided the base and intellectual background for the Art Nouveau movement, which was adapted by other countries to give birth to local variants; they also played an over-sized role in its dissemination and cultivation through the Liberty department store and The Studio magazine. The most important person in the field of design in general, and architecture in particular, was Charles Rennie Mackintosh. He created one of the key motifs of the movement, now known as the 'Mackintosh rose' or 'Glasgow rose'. The Glasgow School was also of tremendous importance, particularly due to a group closely associated with Mackintosh, known as 'The Four'. The Liberty store nurturing of style gave birth to two metalware lines, Cymric and Tudric, designed by Archibald Knox. In the field of ceramic and glass Christopher Dresser is a standout figure. Not only did he work with the most prominent ceramic manufacturers but became a crucial person behind James Couper & Sons' trademarking of Clutha glass, inspired by ancient Rome, in 1888. Aubrey Beardsley was a defining person in graphic design and drawing, and influenced painting and style in general. In textiles William Morris and C. F. A. Voysey are of huge importance, although most artists were versatile and worked in many mediums and fields, influencing them all to an extent. Because of the natural evolution of Arts and Crafts to Modern Style, lines can be blurred and many designers, artists, and craftsmen worked in both styles simultaneously. Important figures include Charles Robert Ashbee, Walter Crane, Léon-Victor Solon, George Skipper, Charles Harrison Townsend, Arthur Mackmurdo, William James Neatby.
Philip Alston Willcox Purvis, son of Melvin Purvis, is an American graphic designer, artist, professor and author.
Marion Harry Alexander Spielmann was a prolific Victorian art critic and scholar who was the editor of The Connoisseur and Magazine of Art. Among his voluminous output, he wrote a history of Punch, the first biography of John Everett Millais and a detailed investigation into the evidence for portraits of William Shakespeare.
Thomas Maitland Cleland was an American book designer, painter, illustrator, and type designer.
Century is a family of serif type faces particularly intended for body text. The family originates from a first design, Century Roman, cut by American Type Founders designer Linn Boyd Benton in 1894 for master printer Theodore Low De Vinne, for use in The Century Magazine. ATF rapidly expanded it into a very large family, first by Linn Boyd, and later by his son Morris.
The Century Guild of Artists was an English group of art enthusiasts that were active between c.1883 and 1892. Their work was primarily based on 18th century motifs, though some work was Art Nouveau in style.
