FALL 2019
History of Typography Poster Series
For this type exploration I designed three posters to represent the historical relationship between three different typeface families. These typefaces I chose have been designed at least 100 years apart from one another and belong to different families of type classification. The final posters measure to 30" wide x 40" high.
Each poster included the name of the typeface family, the period of type classification, the date of the original typeface design, the ame of the typeface designer and/or founder, the place of typeface origin, a complete specimen of the featured typeface, historical variations with the same font name or appearance, later typefaces influenced by this font, a one-paragraph description of the historical significance of this typeface, and a list of at least eight sources for the research of each poster.
Gill Sans
Eric Gill
In the late 1900s, Edward Johnston’s sans serif, Johnston, influenced many designers to develop Humanist sans serifs. This included Eric Gill, who in 1927 drew a shop sign in sans serif alphabets. During that time, Stanley Morrison, the Monotype Corporation head manager, was looking for a sans-serif font. Morrison visited the shop that had Gill’s sign and decided to use a sans-serif type from Gill. Gill based his san serif to Johnston’s type because he was also a student of Johnston. However, even though Gill mentioned that he was influenced by Johnston, he also pointed out a difference. That difference was that Gill’s sans serif was meant for continuous text rather than display. According to Simon Loxley, Gill was quite fascinated by the classical roman proportions. Gill Sans established the Humanist sans serif and sparked the awareness of typefaces and its medium.
Jenson
Nicolas Jenson
During the mid 1400s, Nicolas Jenson, a frenchman, was sent to Germany to learn movable type by order of King Charles VII. Jenson mastered the skill and became known as the non-German printer of movable type. Years past and he moved to Venice, Italy where at the time was the most active trading center in Europe. There Jenson opened the city’s second printery. He designed his own Venetian typeface with the help of Johannes de Spira, another non-German, who developed a printing monopoly in Venice. Together they introduced the first roman typefaces and began the shift away from Gothic to Humanistic typefaces. And thus the founder of Roman printing was born.
Walbaum
Justus Erich Walbaum
