The move to France | Civilite

Tracing back to the sixteenth century and with the likes of Dutch influence, French Civilité was born as a script that flourished in northern Europe. Most known for his cutting of Garamond Italic, Robert Granjon was a French typefounder and punchcutter working in Antwerp, France when he developed the French Civilité type. Granjon’s typographical ideas have served as the bases for most of the twentieth century’s Garamond revivals.

Civilité is a type that was designed as a French response to the Italian Italic in 1558. This specific type is among one of the most challenging to comprehend and it was Robert Granjon that achieved its most elite form. French Civilité’s elegant lines and theatrical touch derives from its use as a script for rendering contracts as well as its use to address checks. The non-connecting upright script ensures that no additional text could be added.

Cursive Script (basis for Civilité style)

Recto and Verso pages from Book of Hours (Horæ Beatæ Mariæ Virginis) France; Early XVIth Century.

Granjon’s typographical ideas have served as the bases for most of the twentieth century’s Garamond revivals.

Italy | Venetian Old Style

Photo: Nicolas Jenson's Roman Type used in Venice ca. 1470

We credit Nicolas Jenson, French born typographer and the “Father of Roman Type”, for the transition and development of Roman typeface into Venetian Old Style. Used in the 1470 printing of the tract, De Evangelica Praeparatione, Eusebius, Nicolas Jenson is thought to have designed the model for font types that immediately followed. Subsequently, the brothers Johann and Wendelin de Speyer created printed material in half-Gothic-half-Roman type known as “Gotico-antiqua”. Combining these styles leaves us with simplified Gothic capitals and Gothic minuscule forms with mixed elements of Carolingian. Old style typefaces are reminiscent of the humanist calligraphy from which they came from. This form of type normally has a left-inclining curve axis and is often bracketed. Throughout the years, there have been many new versions of Venetian Old Style types, however the exact number is unknown.

Photo: Aulus Gelius, Noctium Atticarum, printed in Venice by Nicolas Jenson, 1472

The transition to Roman type began some time before 1472 in Venice, Italy when Nicolas Jenson designed the typographic style that mimicked the appearance of handwritten scribes. There are unique characteristics that lend themselves to the identification of Venetian Old Style. This includes a larger contrast between thick and thin strokes and are generally more refined looking in appearance.

At this time, Venice, a lively trading post in Italy, became the focal point of type design and printing the late 15^th century. Equally influential work came from printer and publisher Aldus Manutius. Manutius printed books that were renowned for their elite scholarship content and high technical and aesthetic quality. These books found themselves in high demand and other printers began copying the typefaces. Aldus’s most popular type was called Bembo, named after the typeface designer. Bembo quickly became popular and spread throughout Europe. Today, all of the Old Style type designs can be traced back to the Bembo design.

Nicolas Jenson

Characteristics of Textura

Photo: German blackletter typefaces

• Tall, narrow letters, as compared to Carolingian.
• Letters formed by sharp, straight, angular lines. A visible high degree of "breaking" (lines that do not connect with each other).
• Ascenders (in letters such as b, d, h) are vertical and ofte in sharp finials
• When a letter with a bow (in b, d, p, q) is followed by another letter with a bow, the bows overlap and the letters are joined by a straight line.
• A related characteristic is the half r, the shape of r when attached to other letters with bows; only the bow and tail were written, connected to the bow of the previous letter. In other scripts, this only occured in a ligature with the letter o.
• Similarly related is the form of the letter d when followed by a letter with a bow; its ascender is then curved to the left, like the uncial d. Otherwise the ascender is vertical.
• The letters g, j, p, q, y, and the hook of h have descenders, but no other letters are written below the line.
• The letter a has a straight back stroke, and the top look eventually became closed, somewhat resembling the number 8. The letter s often has a diagonal line connecting its two bows, also somewhat resembling an 8, but the long s is frequently used in the middle of words.
• Minims, especially in the later period of the script, do not connect with each other. This makes it very difficult to distinguish i, u, m, and n. In black letter this would look like a series of single strokes. Dotted i and the letter j developed because of this. Minims may also have finials of there own.

via @wiki

The shift to Germany | Textura

The evolution of the Textura typeface began in Germany in 1200. Also known as Gothic bookhand, Textura is recognized by its tall, narrow, black letters that somewhat resembles woven fabric and is similar to the calligraphic form of black letter. The highest form of Textura was used for precious manuscripts. The usual form was used for literary works and university texts. The third form of Textura was the cursive form and used in textual glasses as well as less important books. Overall, this form of cursive typeface was difficult to read and not well favored, however legibility was not of concern. Due to the heavy condensed handwriting style of Textura, about twice as many characters as its predecessor, Carolingian, could fit into the same amount of small space.

Johannes Gutenberg used this movable typeface when he printed his first 42-line Bible in the 1450’s. Within the next decade, Johann Mentelin and Heinrich Eggestein, two printers from Strasbourg picked up on this trend and began printing their own Textura-style type. When William Caxton, the first printer in England, learned the craft of printing in Germany, he bought Flemish equipment adopting the Textura type in his books.

It became evident at this time that printing was no longer a secret and Gutenberg was to thank for encouraging the recognition and spread of movable type. He acknowledged that the invention of printing would revolutionize the world. His reaction to this epidemic led him to teach and train workers in the new art in order to make books accessible at reasonable costs. His goal was to promote learning across Germany and in doing this; the Textura typeface was spread across Europe.

Around the year 1470, Nicolas Jenson, a fellow type master who had worked with Gutenberg created the Roman typeface. The elegance and simplicity of this type was widely accepted and European craftsmen began to adapt their type to match the kind of lettering their consumers preferred. This marked the beginning of the end for Textura. Today, Textura is rarely seen outside of German speaking countries other than on newspapers, banknotes, and college diplomas.

Moveable Type

Following Johannes Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press emerged a shift in the humanist movement. Note that prior to the printing press, virtually every book, record, or document was a hand written manuscript by scribes. With the Renaissance expansion to Germany, France, England, and Spain in the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, northern humanists found value in the spread of literacy. The problem was the high expense and time consumption tied to the reproduction of books. After the printing press was unveiled, books were multiplied at rapid rates for low costs and libraries soon grew filled with books full of information. We now refer to this time period as an information revolution that facilitated the advancement of science, technology, and scholarship and preservation of knowledge.

Photo: A page from the Apocalype, a block book printed in Europe in the late 1450's. Block books were short hand scribed wood blocks that were carved to illustrate text and pictures. Most block books were replaced by printed type after the invention of the printing press.

The Machine That Made US

Check out this exerpt from the movie, “The Machine That Made Us” by Stephen Fry

(http://youtu.be/5xQpx7PoX8U)