Annotated Bib

    Bishop, Terence Alan Martyn. “English Caroline Minuscule” / By T.A.M. Bishop. n.p.: Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1971., 1971. Print.
Included several looks at different examples of caroline minuscule. Some early but mostly more recent examples of how it’s evolved. It wasn’t the most useful source but it did provide a look with how regular lowercase text really is very similar to caroline minuscule. Which helped me understand what other texts were saying about them being similar but to actually see it was totally different. I was able to then align the two on one page to show the audience my findings.

    Claassens, G. H. M., and Werner Verbeke. Medieval Manuscripts in Transition:
Tradition and Creative Recycling. Leuven: Leuven UP, 2006. Print.
Provides an in depth look at the contextual influence of the time during the medieval and middle ages. What I got from this book was a better idea that even though there was such a raise in Christianity, that the influence of the Pagan Roman religion was still present and had an influence shaping the content of the type, as well as, the type itself. For instance, there is a chapter about Eros, the God of love being modified for a Christian audience to better suite the time. Just as the manuscript lettering seems to closely relates to Roman Rustic writing.

    Drogin, Marc. Medieval Calligraphy:Its History and Technique. New York: Dover Publications, 1989. Print.
While this was more of a how-to book, when I first picked it up, I stuck with it because of the the fact that it covered so many of the study topics that I would need to know for Project 1 since it covered type style from the fourth thru fifteenth centuries. However, there were facts that I used about Carolingian Minuscule, Roman Rustic writing and even some about gothic. The thing that really helped were the pictures of each typestyle. Which includes a step by step guide on how to replicate the typestyles. This was helpful in breaking down the characteristics of the typefaces.
Things like, stroke weight and serifs. 

    Dumville, D. N. English Caroline Script And Monastic History : Studies In Benedictinism, A.D. 950-1030 / David N. Dumville. n.p.: Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK ; Rochester, NY : Boydell, 1993., 1993. Print.
Provided a very detailed look at the English zeitgeist during the tenth century. Including how the rule of St. Benedict influenced the different forms that were later developed out of Charlemagne’s initial ordering of the typeface. Which included the English reform that lead away from the use of the initial blackletter that were more difficult to produce and read.

    Hattaway, Michael. Ioppolo, Grace. "Early Modern Handwriting." New Companion To English Renaissance Literature & Culture (2010): 177. Print.
This was another collection book with different papers by different experts on the subject of early handwriting. It was interesting because for the life of me it was difficult to understand and seemed more meant for other experts in the field. However, some thing that I found interesting was one section by Grace Ioppolo. Which discussed the way handwriting plays a role in what kind of typestyle would be used for a given text. With the idea that a single text could be written in multiple typestyles as what would be  deemed appropriate for said document.

    Madan, Falconer. Books in Manuscript: A Short Introduction to Their Study and Use,
with a Chapter on Records. London: K. Paul, Trench, Trübner &, 1893. Print.
This is the creme de la creme source. I actually just stumbled on this source while
looking for another book. It spoke to me. Upon reading through it, it’s filled with
everything including manuscript information. It has a history on the different writing
materials, the history of writing itself. As well as, famous manuscripts. It’s my go to
source for kind of an overall brief on early writing history. The amazing thing is that the
book looks so old, tattered and worn out, being published in 1893, but it’s filled with so
much good information.

    Scott, Kathleen L. Tradition and Innovation in Later Medieval English Manuscripts.
London England: British Library, 2007. Print.
This source discusses and takes a close look at Medieval Manuscripts, with careful
attention paid towards the fifteenth century. Which was a time when primarily religious
tales were written down. Many of which were Christian stories, which this source
primarily focuses on. Many of the manuscripts contained different pieces of artwork that
would pertain to the content of the manuscript. Which is why I selected it for a source, I
want to use some of the images in it to show how the type, which seems so regal and
elegant works perfectly with the artwork.

    Shaw, David J. "Notes On Some French Textura Gothic Types Of The Late Fifteenth
And Early Sixteenth Centuries." Hellinga: Festschrift/Feestbundel/Mélanges. 441-446.
Amsterdam: Isreal, 1980. Print.
This text was from the book: The Palaeotypography of the French Renaissance which was a collection of different papers on Sixteenth-Century typefaces. I initially picked up this book because I saw that this paper by David Shaw had to do with Textura Gothic type. Up to the point that I had picked it up, I had yet to find a good source which at that point even included Gothic type by it’s other name of textura. However, this would not be one of those sources. This paper talked about the importance of different letter cutters during the French Renaissance and include some allusion to which typefaces they used. However, the fact that textura was being used in Europe during the fifteenth century was import because it showed that it was not only limited to a small concentration of the continent.

Pictures Finally

Finally I'm sitting in class and the pictures that I've had on my phone for practically the whole semester are able to upload. I realized there were some images that I didn't even write about because I wouldn't able to upload them. So this post is gonna be a mashing of images.
I've got a box of cigarettes from India. My buddy got them awhile and I couldn't help but notice the type on the box itself. So simple. Yet so beautiful. Looking at it again now I have a better understanding of the serifs themselves.
Then I have the sign outside City Lights in North Beach. A bookstore had to have some eye-catching type outside of it.
Then the final one which I just love graffiti art was a Banksy inspired piece in North Beach which I always love the way the type looks so handwritten when it comes to Banksy style art.

Final

MY BRAIN IS FILLED WITH SO MUCH TYPE!
Plus trying to study for all the other finals I have at the beginning of next week. Stress and more stress. Looking at the type anatomy and the typeface classification is pretty simple after seeing it for so long. It's just the type founders and years that are difficult as shit to remember. Willy Caslon and Johnny Baskerville 1700 - 1800's. Surprisingly, this is helpful to write it out. Freddy Goudy, 19th century. Nick Jensen - late 19th century. Stanley morrison - times new roman. Matt Carter - 90's. Eric Speakerman - late 80's and Herbet Bayer in 1925. That's about all I can remember now off the top of my head. Back to studying.

Coppola

I was drinking a bottle of Coppola chardonnay with my grandfather this past Thursday. Not a big fan of chardonnay, but this was pretty good. Anyways, the point is the type on the bottle. It was very intriguing. In the foreground you had large modern type style lettering falling into one another. It reminded my of the what we've seen in some of our type studies where all the letters are jumbled together to make a shape more than to be legible. In the background on the Z and Y axis were legible words. I asked my grandpa what drew him to this Coppola bottle over the others and he said the block of letters stood out to him as a shape amongst the others. This was the same thought I had. There was a def. hierarchy though with this layout. It gave me some ideas for project 2. Too bad we're already done with it. I might try some of this with project 3. We'll see.

Sierra Nevada

I was in a bar last night and they had a Sierra Nevada rep there promoting their winter collection. I was noticing the typeface they had chosen for each of their beer types. The one that really stood out to me was their Narwhal Imperial Stout. My favorite types of beers are dark and this was a dark but I didn't know that immediately. Yet I was drawn to the typeface. The serifs on the typeface were very sharp and medieval looking. It was like a new type of Gothic typeface. Very large and white against a black backdrop. The same went for the smaller typeface underneath that read "Imperial Stout" in a dark gold. It definitely fit the product.
I know we watched the Helvetica film yesterday about how it works for so many different products. But there's definitely something about picking a specific font to really sell a product. Especially when it's one like Gothic that stands out in a sea of Helvetica.

Guest Speaker

Blog has been glitchy lately. It wouldn't let me post Friday or Saturday.

Anyways, I really enjoyed our guest speaker on Friday. It was insightful to hear about the different ways advertising is used in the local neighborhoods. I was thinking about the family she mentioned that has their three children going to graphic design school during the week and then works with their parents painting ad signs on the weekend. I wonder if since the old way was a kind of apprenticeship from the older generation to the younger generation, then perhaps now with the younger generation getting an education in design they can provide the older generation with new ideas. Kind of an expansion of design ideas that they wouldn't have to find through just magazine and TV ads.

Project 2

Finally finished up project 2 today. It was tough figuring out which different layouts I was gonna use for each one. I have about 36 different layouts on the computer. From there I narrowed it down to my top 20. Which was around 5 for each layout. I printed those out and cut them all today. It took the entire class period just to narrow it down to a couple for each layout. I tried putting each layout against those in the same category then picking some out and trying to see how it would look as a complete presentation. I also did a few changes to some of the layouts to things that I didn't like initially or issues that I foresaw. Once I got home I looked at them again and it was much easier to pick a layout for layouts 1 and 2. The final two layouts I had narrowed down to 3. I must have ordered and paired them 9 different ways. Once I picked the final 2 then it came down to ordering it. Since I used Baskerville and the rules for layouts 3 and 4 were essentially the same. I've got an idea of in what order it should go now. But I think it may change when I look at it again on Monday morning. Hopefully not because looking at it now I feel like this is it. It conveys the importance I put on the different parts of the text.

Project 1 Continued

With the project 1 presentations wrapping up yesterday, I finally got to answer my question about the different influences of type over the time. It seems like it wasn't a consistent religious and governmental influence like I had thought. After day 1, with Patrick and Blair's time period on day 2 there was a big shift in revolution and freedom. This created a rift between the classes and type they used. This thought continued on through the different eras into the early to mid 20th century and on into the present with type being developed by people different from the wealthy elitists. With education being more readily available, type was able to be developed by many different types of people. The theme seemed to shift to type being developed to stand out from everyone else. With so many different types around today, there is something for everyone hoping to be different. However, type is more based on ease of readability. I can only hope that we don't lose the older artistic types. They take more time and effort to use but their beauty is irreplaceable.

Apparently this didn't post last week like it was supposed to. Weird blogger glitch. 

Parade

Saw a couple signs at the Giants parade. One was kind of a parody sign. It reminded me of those signs that you used to see outside of shows. Like it would be that bands poster advertising the show that night and in black san-serif letters over a white rectangular sticker it would have "sold out" on it. There was the same kind of thing at the parade. It was on several of the street banner posters that are around the city. There's different Giants players and it says, "playoffs, we're in" on it. Well on Wednesday there was a sticker over it in the same style that said, "we won". I thought it was a hella sweet idea to do that. Another sign was in the office windows above where we were standing there was a different letter in each window, spelling out "The Giants". I couldn't figure out the type font. There were serifs but the serifs were kind of weird. It was a typical serif on the T's and E's but what was weird were the way the 'H' and 'A' had octagons on the end where the typical serifs should have been. I have a picture that I'm gonna try and upload later, along with the others I still have.

Project 1

Finally got my presentation for project 1 done. Whew! Between my project and the one that followed I've noticed the history of type is a very interesting in relation to the influences of the times and the evolution of type in general. Especially pertaining to the influences of different eras and what not. Just from our presentation alone, the religious aspect was very influential. I'm interested to see where that leads to when we get to the modern presentation and see if there is still religious influence when it comes to type. I'll presume at this point that there will be since there still is religious influence in other aspects of the world outside of religion.

Handwriting

There's no real way to put handwriting into a typeface. I guess that's why handwriting is unique. Even though we all learn the same way to print letters with those two lines and the little dash along the middle to differ upper and lower case letters. Just this past week I was helping my step-niece print her letters that way. However, when I was at work this weekend I had four different people writing ticket orders and all of their handwriting was different. Some added extra loops to their letters, others were very straight forward. One was such chicken scratch that it looked like they were writing during an earthquake. I guess what I'm saying it that it's weird how we all learn the same but turn out writing differently.

Ben Frank

I few weeks ago I was in North Beach and one of the parks there has a statue of Benjamin Franklin. I know, it's weird already. But that's beside the point. I was looking at the inscription of the statue. I noticed a sanserif type. Which I think it might have to do with it being chiseled into the granite base. It would be harder to use a chisel and add serifs. It made be think about what materials you're working with when working on a typeface. That can play a big role. It also makes it easier to read without the serifs since the kerning would be different with serifs.

Hella Big Type

Working on exercise 2 was an interesting process in discovering how fonts and their pieces and layouts can be visually pleasing. I had about 5 different types and letter layouts when I first started part 2 of the assignment. That expanded to about 10 because I kept changing the placement on the page. On Monday when I left class I had it narrowed back down to about 5. I took them home and laid them all out, alone then all together to try and see what stood out to me. I had one design that I was leaning towards but I felt strongly connected towards the others because I knew what I liked about those types as well. Whether it was the shape of the serifs or because I felt the two letters were complimentary. I asked a few people what they thought. The consensus was the layout which I had been leaning towards all along. I asked why they liked it, receiving a simple response of "it looks good". For me though I loved the way the spine of the S curves so elegantly. As for the J, I loved the stroke weight and the serifs. It reminded me of something written long ago. Also the way they connected, together but separate which is why I didn't overlap them. Overall I was pleased and will probably blow something up that big again. It helps me appreciate the little details. Prolly won't be at kinkos since that guy was kinda a douche.

Overwhelming

I've been having trouble posting pictures on this. It's been hella annoying but I figure I'll just write and come back to add pictures later for context.

Going through the library looking for research has been interesting. Especially when it's for a typography class when type stands out more and more. Just looking at a small section of books and trying to pick books out where the type face stood out to me was overwhelming. I had to go in one by one and check each book row by row, rather than try to take it all in and see what stood out to me. I'm happy with my choices for books and had some great finds. It's interesting to study the book before I start really going through it. Just noticing the outside type compared to the inside. The way it fills the page. I've even started to do that with some of my old and new books.

College Gameday

I've really began to notice type this week. Specifically when I was watching ESPN the other day. They have this show called: ESPN College Gameday. While I've watched the show numerous times, I've always hated the logo but could never really place my finger on it. Until I looked at the type. The way it's laid out is so damn ugly. The way the words 'college' and 'gameday' are curved is my first pet peeve. It's set against this shield which I feel should remain perfectly horizontal. But my disgust doesn't end there. The way 'college' is set in bold compared to 'gameday'. It doesn't look uniform and makes the entire logo fall apart rather than come together. The only saving grace I find is 'ESPN' in gold, very simple and classic which keeps the platform it's set on (in this case the shield). I'd love the chance to design something better.