droppin' the caps

Continuing on with the drop cap research, here's the color palates, style word-associations, and key images I will be using to develop my illuminated letters...

 

and then there were three...

I have narrowed my options for project four from 6 down to 3...here's who made the cut:

M.C. Escher

From an early age I have admired M.C. Escher’s illustrations, most probably because my older brother had an Escher 365 day flip calendar, and everything my brother did or had was cool. It wasn’t until I was in high school, however, that I truly realized the genius behind his mathematically precise designs.

Biography:

Maurits Cornelis Escher (June 17, 1898 - March 27, 1972) was a Dutch artist most known for his woodcuts, lithographs and mezzotints, which tend to feature impossible constructions, explorations of infinity, and interlocking geometric patterns which change gradually into completely different forms.                                   
             Maurits Cornelis, or Mauk as he was to be nicknamed, was born in Leeuwarden, the Netherlands. He was the youngest son of hydraulics engineer George Arnold Escher and his second wife, Sarah Gleichman. In 1903, the family moved to Arnhem where he took carpentry and piano lessons until the age of thirteen.
              From 1912 until 1918, he attended secondary school; though he excelled at drawing, his grades were generally poor, and he had to repeat the second form. Later, from 1919, Escher attended the Haarlem School of Architecture and Decorative Arts; he studied architecture briefly, but then made a switch to decorative arts, studying under Samuel Jesserun de Mesquita, an artist whom he would remain in contact with until de Mesquita, his wife and son were murdered by the Nazis in early 1944. In 1922, Escher, having gained experience in drawing and particularly woodcutting, left the school.
             Escher travelled to Italy regularly in the following years, and it was in Italy, too, that he first met Jetta Umiker, the woman who would become his wife in 1924. The young couple settled down in Rome after marriage and stayed there until 1935; when the political climate under Mussolini became unbearable, the family moved to Château-d'Oex, Switzerland, where they stayed for two years.
             Escher, however, who had been very fond of and inspired by the landscape in Italy, was decidedly unhappy in Switzerland, so two years later, in 1937, the family moved again, this time to Ukkel, a small town near Brussels, Belgium. World War II forced them to move a last time in January 1941, this time to Baarn, the Netherlands, where Escher lived until 1970.
Most of Escher's better-known pictures date from this period; the cloudy, cold, wet weather of the Netherlands allowed him to focus entirely on his works, and only in 1962, when he had to undergo surgery, was there a time when no new images were created.

Escher moved to the Rosa-Spier house in Laren in the northern Netherlands in 1970, a retirement home for artists where he could have a studio of his own, and died there on March 27, 1972.

Sources:

http://www.biographybase.com/biography/Escher_MC.html 

"M.C. Escher:Visions of Symmetry", written by Doris Schattschneider

Alexander Rodchenko

After studying Alexander Rodchenko in art history last year, I have since been fascinated not only by his works but also by the history in which he lived in and helped create. As a Russian avant-garde artist emerging out of the tumult of the Russian society in the early 20^th century, his wide breadth of success across multiple medias as well his contribution to Constructivism makes him a figure to be admired.

Biography:

          Born November 23, 1891, in St. Petersburg, Rodchenko died on December 3, 1956. He attended the School of Arts in Kazan, Russia, from 1910 to 1914, then studied graphic arts at the School of Applied Arts in Moscow (1915). The artist was influenced by the Futurists, Cubism and Art Nouveau, and his mentor was Vladimir Tatlin.
          Rodchenko's first job was as an assistant to Tatlin at a 1916 Futurist exhibit in Moscow, at which ten of Rodchenko's pictures were shown. In 1918 Rodchenko helped found the Museum of Artistic Culture and became its first director. By 1920 he was one of the most active members of the Institut Khudozhestvennoy Kultury - also known is Inkhuk - and he taught a Vkhutemas (High-Grade Art - Technical Workshops). Beginning in 1918 he was active for several years with the Committee of Applied Arts, a government agency. In 1921-22 he did illustrative work in theater, films, typography and advertising, and continued throughout the 1920s to provide cover designs for a remarkably wide range of publications - from the poet Mayakovsky's books (1925-29) to scientific and technical literature for Moscow publishers. He also designed the cover of Kino-Fot, a periodical of the Russian Constructivists which began in 1922 and in which Rodchenko was regularly published.
           He took up photography in 1924 and gave a short series of talks on the medium at Vkutein (Fine Arts Technical School) in the early 1920's. From 1920 to 1930 he taught at the newly organized Free Public Art Studio (formerly his alma mater, Stroganov School of Applied Arts), where he also served as dean of the faculty of metal-work. Rodchenko began photo-reporting in 1926, working for the magazines Ogonok, Radioslushatel, Prozhektor, Krasnoye Studenchestvo, Dayosh, Za rubezhom, Smena, Borba klassov and the daily Vechernaya Moskva, among others. In 1932 the photographer, whose work was - and still is - widely exhibited, began working in photomontage.
          During his first and only trip abroad Rodchenko was awarded four silver medals at the Paris Exhibition of March 1925.
          Also involved in the film world, Rodchenko shot a newsreel series directed by Dziga Vertov, originally called Kino-Pravda and later called One-sixth of the World, which was begun in 1922. Between 1927 and 1930 he was "constructor-artist" of the films The Woman Journalist, Moscow in October, Albidum, The Puppet Millionaire and What Shall I be?. He also directed the documentary The Chemicalization of the Forest. Seemingly unlimited in his versatility, Rodchenko was also involved in theater, designing the costumes and props for Glebov's Pendulum and The Bed Bug in 1929, and was one of Russia's foremost painters, collagists and poster artists.
           A Constructivist, Rodchenko was one of the earliest photo-collagists. Some of his favorite themes were sports, the circus, festive processions and the Soviet way of life. He successfully experimented with close-up photography, and "the lens of his camera discovered objects of unusual architecture, rhythm, and plasticity" in objects removed from their usual surroundings. 

Sources: 

http://www.gyro.co.nz/pages/rodcko2.html

"Rodchenko & Popova: Defining Constructivism" edited by Margarita Tupitsyn 

Sebastian Onufszak

Sebastian Onufszak first caught my attention through his illustrations on the “Colorize” series of Ray Ban ads. I was instantly enthralled by his juxtaposition of vivid color, realistic detail, and fantasy style. His techniques are ones that I wish to explore in my own work

      

Biography:

       Born in Breslau, Poland in 1978, Sebastian Onufszak is a German visual artist focusing on print, interactive media and motion graphics.
       Since 2002 he has been working for an international range of high-end clients.   Additionally he is reknowned for his experimental live visuals which supported Funkstoerung, Mouse on Mars, Michael Fakesch and many more.
       His works were featured in numerous publications and exhibitions worldwide. He is founder of the well-known artist collective "Propagandabuero".
       Having worked as Creative Director at Parasol Island for more than two years, he is now available as a freelance designer and director.

Sources:
http://de.linkedin.com/in/onufszak 
http://www.designtaxi.com/article/100282/Featured-Artist-Interview-Sebastian-Onufszak/
http://reformrevolution.com/?paged=12

What is the illuminated letter? Or the contemporary counterpart the drop cap?

• Illuminated Letter: in Medieval manuscripts, embellished initial capital letters (hand-illustrated); often spilled into margins and borders and  almost invariably introduced gold in either leaf or powdered form
• Examples:



 Christ Pantocrator seated in a capital "U" in an illuminated manuscript from the Badische Landesbibliothek, Germany.






The illuminated letter P in the Malmesbury Bible  

  



From the Lindisfarne Gospels
• The Drop Cap: he first letter of a paragraph that is enlarged to "drop" down two or more lines, as in the next paragraph. Drop caps are often seen at the beginning of novels, where the top of the first letter of the first word lines up with the top of the first sentence and drops down to the four or fifth sentence. 
• Examples:



by typographer and illustrator Jessica Hische



by Jessica Hische



by typographer Helen Gordon

 

 

 

 

 

 

makes me VOMIT

I stumbled upon this poster while doing research for a paper for my ADS 540 course. I though it was significantly humorous, as 20 minutes before finding it I had become frustrated with my characteristics poster and sworn to loath it for all eternity. Just thought I would share : )

p.s. obviously typography does not make me vomit...we just have a budding love-hate relationship sometimes

Saul Bass and the new title sequence

In my ADS 540 course, we watched this title sequence created by Saul Bass. I couldn't help but admire its simplicity and also marvel at how far moving type has transformed in just a short amount of time. This sequence looks like something any one in our class could create, yet there is something so moving about the tension between the geometric rules and the division of the type. I guess that just goes to show you that everything I am trying to say is already present within the text. The task, then, lies with reducing my thoughts and expressions to their most pure essence...that is, to create with great design.

When you say three things, you say nothing at all

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTlrSYbCbHE

I love this moving type for its simplicity: minimal colors, simple composition, cohesive transitions. I read the saying "when you say three things, you say nothing at all" today and I think there is so much compacted into that small phrase. So often I try to "wow" the audience, which results in saying too much, which results in saying nothing at all.

The history of Serifa

Biography of font designer:

Adrian Frutiger was born near Interlaken, Switzerland, the son of a weaver. As a boy, he experimented with invented scripts and stylized handwriting in negative reaction to the formal, cursive penmanship then required by Swiss schools. His early interest in sculpture was discouraged by his father and by his secondary school teachers; they encouraged him to work in printing. Though in the world of print, he maintains the love of sculpture that has influenced his type forms.

            At the age of sixteen, he was apprenticed four years, as a compositor, to the printer Otto Schaerffli in Interlaken; between 1949 and 1951 he studied under Walter Käch and Alfred Willimann in the Kunstgewerbeschule (school of applied arts) in Zürich, where students studied monumental inscriptions from Roman forum rubbings. At the Kunstgewerbeschule, Frutiger primarily concentrated on calligraphy — a craft favouring the nib and the brush, instead of drafting tools.

arles Peignot, of the Paris foundry Deberny Et Peignot, recruited Frutiger based upon the quality of the illustrated essay Schrift / Écriture / Lettering: the development of European letter types carved in wood. Frutiger's wood-engraved illustrations of the essay demonstrated his skill, meticulousness, and knowledge of letterforms. At Deberny & Peignot foundry, Frutiger designed the typefaces "Président", "Phoebus", and "Ondine". In the event, Charles Peignot set Frutiger to work upon converting extant typefaces for the new phototypesetting Lumitype equipment.

Adrian Frutiger's first, commercial typeface was Président — a set of titling capital letters with small, bracketed serifs, released in 1954. A calligraphic, informal, script face, Ondine ("wave" in French), also was released in 1954. In 1955, Méridien, a glyphic, old-style, serif text face was released. The typeface shows inspiration by Nicholas Jenson, and, in the Méridien type, Frutiger's ideas of letter construction, unity, and organic form, are first expressed together. In 1956, he designed his first-of-three, slab-serif typefaces — Egyptienne, on the Clarendon model; after Univers, it was the second, new text face commissioned for photocomposition processing.

Charles Peignot envisioned a large, unified font family, that might be set in both the metal and the photocomposition systems. Impressed by the success of the Bauer foundry's Futura typeface, Peignot encouraged a new, geometric sans-serif type in competition. Frutiger disliked the regimentation of Futura, and persuaded Peignot that the new sans-serif should be based on the realist (neo-grotesque) model. The 1896 face, Akzidenz Grotesk, is cited as the primary model. To maintain unity across the 21 variants, each weight and width, in roman and italic, was drawn and approved before any matrices were cut. In the Univers font, Frutiger introduced his two-digit numeration; the first digit (3 though 8) indicates the weight, "3" the lightest, "8" the heaviest. The second digit indicates the face-width and either roman or oblique. The response to Univers was immediate and positive; he claimed it became the model for his future typeface: Serifa.

            Adrian Frutiger developed Serifa in 1964, and it was released by the Bauer Type Foundry in 1967. He based the shapes in Serifa on those in Univers, the sans serif family he designed in the 1950s. While Serifa retains the geometric, linear skeletons of Univers, it has the addition of unbracketed square serifs, a squatter x-height, and boxier caps. Because of these characteristics, Serifa is a true representative of the slab serif (or Egyptian) style. Slab serifs designs first emerged at the beginning of the nineteenth century and have had a couple popular revivals in the twentieth century. Serifa is surprisingly elegant and legible, and with its six weights, it functions well in both text and display typography. See also Glypha, which is a condensed version of Serifa.

In the early 1970s, the RATP, the public transport authority of Paris, asked him to examine the Paris Metro signage. He created a Univers font variation — a set of capitals and numbers specifically for white-on-dark-blue backgrounds in poor light. The success of this modern, yet human, typeface, spurred the French airport authority's commissioning a "way-finding signage" alphabet for the new Charles de Gaulle International Airport in the Roissy suburb of Paris. The "way-finding-signage" commission brief required a typeface both legible from afar and from an angle. Frutiger considered adapting Univers, but decided it was dated as too-Sixties. The resultant typeface is an amalgamation of Univers tempered with organic influences of the Gill Sans, a humanist sans-serif typeface by Eric Gill, and Edward Johnston's type for the London Transport, and Roger Excoffon's Antique Olive. Originally titled Roissy, the typeface was renamed Frutiger when the Mergenthaler Linotype Company released it for public use in 1976.

Frutiger's 1984 typeface Versailles is an old-style serif text with capitals like those in the earlier Président. In Versailles, the serifs are small and glyphic. In 1988, Frutiger completed Avenir ("future" in French), inspired by Futura, with structural likeness to the neo-grotesques; Avenir has a full series of unified weights. In 1991, he finished Vectora, a design influenced by Morris Fuller Benton's type faces Franklin Gothic and News Gothic. The resultant face has a tall x-height and is legible in small-point sizes.

In the late 1990s, Frutiger began collaborating on refining and expanding the Univers, Frutiger, and Avenir, in addressing hinting for screen display. Univers was reissued with sixty-three variants; Frutiger was reissued as Frutiger Next with true italic and additional weights. Collaborating with Linotype designer Akira Kobayashi, Frutiger expanded the Avenir font family with light weights, heavy weights, and a condensed version that were released as the Avenir Next font.

Adrian Frutiger's career and typeface development spans the hot metal, phototypesetting, and digital typesetting eras. Currently, he lives near Bern. In 2003, the Swiss watchmaker Ventura commissioned him to design a new watch face for a limited-edition line of wristwatches. He also designed a wordmark for the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad, India. Originally, the institute was named National Design Institute, however, the institute re-named itself to match Adrian Frutiger's stylized NID logotype alongside the name "National Institute of Design.

History of the font’s classification: slab serif

Slab serifs are also referred to as square serifs, Egyptians, or Mecanes and, in the early 19^th century when they first appeared, as Antiques. The early slab serif types which appeared in England from 1817 onward were display faces specifically designed for advertising and other jobbing work. Their heavy monoline and mechanical structure and unbracketed square serifs gave them more impact than the fat faces (“beefed-up Modern types), and they were a great success. Initially, these fonts were produced in capitals only, but lower-case forms soon followed, and slab serifs remained popular until the last quarter of the 19^th century.

            In the 1920s and 30s, a crop of new geometric-style slab serifs were released as a spin-off from the Geometric sans-serifs such as Futura. This string of Geometric designs included Memphis (1929), Beton (1931), Stymie (1931), and Rockwell (1934) – these types often have been referred to as Futura with serifs. The faces were tame compared to their fat and aggressive 19^th-century models and were more suitable for text setting, albeit on a limited scale. City (1937), a rather ugly design with poor legibility, was also released at this time.

In 1938, Schadow Antiqua by Georg Trump appeared. This was a slab serif with lighter unbracketed serifs. It had some contrast in the width of the letters and a narrower set width. The type is now available as Stempel Schadow (1983) and has a full range of weights and italics. Egyptian 505 and Egyptienne (1960), which have slightly bracketed concave serifs, are in the same mold. There has also been a steady flow of new geometric slab serif designs in recent times. Adrian Frutiger’s Serifa (1967) and Glypha (1979), ITC Lubalin Graph (1974) by Herb Lubalin, and Calvert (1980) by Margaret Calvert are some typical examples.

In the mid-1800s, a sub-group of slab serifs, called Clarendons, appeared. The first Clarendon was designed by Robert Besley in 1845 as a bold text face to accompany a Modern-style roman type, the popular text face of the day. Clarendons remained popular for most of the 19^th century, but went out of favor early in the 20^th century.

IN the 1950s, an outbreak of expanded (wide) sans-serifs sparked-off a complementary wave of new wide slab serif faces. The revival of interest centered around the Clarendon style. Among the expanded Clarendons appearing at this time were Fortune (1955), which is also known as Volto, and New Clarendon (1960), by Monotype. A small sub group of this category – mock-typewriter faces are also included in this section.

The modern Clarendons are undoubtedly the most suitable designs for text setting because of their large x-height and the fluent horizontal flow created by their strong serifs. Available in a limited choice of weights and widths (but no italics), Clarendon’s robust design is particularly suitable for newspaper setting because it reproduces successfully on a low-quality newsprint.

The regularized geometric sans-serifs such as Rockwell, Glypha, and Serifa, which all have a good selection of weights, italics, and large x-heights, are best suited to limited text applications such as brochures and other jobbing work. ITC Lubalin Graph with its huge x-height and slight quirkiness, and the condensed Beton, with its long ascenders and peculiar lower case y, are less applicable for text setting, as is Stempel Schadow, which has a number of idiosyncratic features. Egyptian 505 is more regularized but has no italic, while Egyptienne, somewhat unusually, has a flowing italic (most other slab serifs have a slanted roman style of italic).

History of the World: What was happening when Serifa was created?  (1964)

            Serifa was created by Adrien Frutiger in the year 1964. In that same year, Jeopardy made its first television debut, The Beatles came to the United States on tour for the first time, the United States Air Force began Operation Yankee Team in the Vietnam War, Malcom X formed the Organization of Afro-American Unity, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act into law, The Soviet Union launched the Voskhod 1 into Earth’s orbit as the first spacecraft with a multi-person crew and the first flight without space suits, and American civil rights movement leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. became the youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.

Bibliography:

-       http://www.linotype.com/2596-19071/part3.html

-       http://www.spiritus-temporis.com/1964/

-       The Complete Typographer, written by Christopher Perfect and Jeremy Austen

      -       Typographers on Type, edited by Ruari McLean