Akzidenz Grotesk

02) Designed by Gunter Gerhard Lange (1921-2008)

03) Akzidenz Grotesk was released in 1896.

04) It is classified as Grotesque Sans-Serif

05) Sans-serif fonts are fonts without serifs. In print, san-serif fonts are more widely used for headlines instead of body text. This is due to the fact that the lines of the serifs supposedly guide the human eye through large blocks of text more effectively. Sans-serif fonts, however, are very frequently used in the body text of web documents. Computer screens usually cannot reproduce serifs, as the often look distorted.

Sans-serif fonts were originally called "grotesque" because they were said to resemble cave art.

06) Other fonts in this classification include Helvetica, Univers, and Franklin Gothic.

07) Other events of 1896 include the first modern Summer Olympics in Greece, the X-Ray machine was released for the first time, and 27,000 people are killed by an earthquake and Tsunami in Japan.

08) Gunter Gerhard Lange was born in Germany in 1921. He left his hometown of Frankfurt-an-der-Oder to go to school, but he was called to join the military when World War II broke out. He was injured a year into his military service, resulting in the loss of his leg. Because of this, he was discharged from the German Army.

In 1941, he set out to get his masters at the Academy of Graphic Arts and the Book Trade in Leipzig. He took classes in calligraphy, typesetting, printing, drawing, etching and lithography. He studied under prefessors such as Professor Hans Theo Richter and Professor Georg Belwe. When he completed his masters, Lange became the assistant to Professor Walter Tiemann at the Leipzig Institute.

After the war ended, Lange did freelance work in Leipzig.
He moved to Berlin in 1949 and attended the University of Pictorial Arts, where he studyed freelance art with Professor Paul Strecker and drawing with Professor Hans Ullman. Berlin in 1949 and undertook further studies in painting and drawing at the Hochschule füldende Künste. While in Berlin, Lange also did some freelance painting. This is apparent in his typefaces, as many of them have calligraphic influence. His early works, such as Derby and Boulevard are script fonts. His later works Champion and El Greco are scripts as well. When he graduated, Lange continued to do freelance work. His first major client was Berthold AG, the typeface foundry. He became artistic director in 1961 and continued to hold this position 1990.

Lange is responsible for all of Berthold AG's growth in typeface since 1960. He helped to revive several classic typefaces and designed some of his own (including Concorde and Imago). He was known for his meticulous attention to detail, and this is apparent in his work. For example, in looking at Akzidenz Grotesk, it is very clear that attention has been paid to consistency in the form of each letter. Everything is cleanly aligned and nothing seems out of place. Lange was also good at making something very simple seem very effective. For example, the tail on the "Q" in Akzidenz Grotesk. Although it is very minimal, it is a shape that has never been seen before.

Aside from his career as a typographer and artistic director, Gunter Gerhard Lange was also a teacher. He began teaching in 1955. He taught first in Berlin, where he taught for five years. He went on to teach and lecture about graphic arts in Hamburg, Leipzig, Munich and Vienna.

09) "It is the work of anonymous typecutters: craftsmen, specialists, whose professional background and experience meant they were familiar with the finest subtleties and principles, and not just those of Grotesque. They gave Akzidenz-Grotesk the ultimate accolade a typeface can have: a functional, formal rightness, transcending the whims of fashion."

-- Karl Gerstner

Font Classification

Font Classification exists because typographers needed a way to organize the various styles throughout the eras of the letterform, and separate their own era from the past. Fonts are classified based on serifs, weights, and the stress of the typeface. Old Style: This classification originated in the Renaissance period. These fonts are usually low-contrast with diagonal stress and "bracket" serifs. Examples include Bembo, Caslon, and Garamond Transitional: This classification designed to build off of the styles of the Renaissance period. The contrast became more defined and the brackets became lighter. Examples include Baskerville, Perpetua, and Caslon. Modern: Due to advances in technology, Modern styles are more technically exact. THey feature extreme contrast and flatter serifs. Example include Bodoni, Bauer Bodoni, and Walbaum. Slab Serif: This classification was needed as posters, flyers, and advertisements became more important to businesses. These fonts generally have only one weight and feature very flat serifs. Examples include Serifa, Rockwell, and Memphis Clarendon Sans Serif: Fonts from the 19th century that don't use serifs. There are many different classifications of sans-serif fonts, including geometric, grotesque, and humanist. Each of these differ in weight and stress. Examples include Gill Sans, Frutiger, and Univers Script: These fonts are based on the fluid strokes of handwriting. Script can be "casual" or "formal," depending on how closely they resemble formal calligraphy. Examples include Kuenstler Script,Caflisch Script, and FIG Script. Blackletter: Typefaces based on writing used from 1150 to 1500. This classification comes in many forms, because versions were created in many European nations. Examples include Old English, Rotunda, and Fraktur. Grunge: Fonts that often look distressed or "Do It Yourself." Many of these fonts feature stencil marks or dirty looking marks outside of the letters. Examples include AcidDreamer, Argosy, and Dark Horse. Monospaced: Also called a "fixed-width" font because each letter occupies the same amount of space. These fonts were first designed for typewriters. Examples include Courier, Monaco, and Prestige Elite

Representatives

ITC

The International Typeface Corporation was founded in 1970 by Herb Lubalin and Aaron Burns. The ITC was important because they were the first to make their typefaces readily available to designers. While manufacturers like Linotype and Monotype provided the equipment necessary to produce type and sold typefaces designed to work on their own machines, the ITC gave their customers the ability to reproduce their typefaces on any machine. The in turn paid their designers a royalty based on the sale of their designs. This, however, eventually became a problem because it allowed designers to pirate these typefaces.

The ITC now a huge bank of fonts that are all available at their website, http://www.itcfonts.com/. Fonts are available for purchase in themed packs, or one-by-one.

The ITC has designed fonts such as Goudy Sans, Woodland, and Luna. I really liked Luna a lot because it had some shapes I had never seen before. For example, the lowercase "o" on the bold version of Luna. I like the way it is weighted to one side. It seems as though you generally see o's that are completely symmetrical.

Matthew Carter

Born in 1937, Matthew Carter developed a wide range of typefaces, thanks mostly to his background in metal type, phototype, and digital type. Carter's designs have been very influential over the past few decades because they cover so many different styles and utilized so many different technologies. Carter began his career with a punch-cutting internship with a printing house in the Netherlands. He then went on to freelance in London. He freelanced for six years as a typemaker and then a type designer. In 1965, he became the house designer for Merganthaler Linotype in New York. Carter then moved back to London to do more freelance work.

Some of Carter's most well-known fonts are Verdana, Shelley Script, Yale, and Big Caslon. These fonts are now available through Carter & Cone Type Inc., who produce and market the designs of Matthew Carter.

One Matthew Carter typeface that really stood out to me was Big Caslon. I think it's really interesting how Carter designed two different Q's for each typeface. In Big Caslon, Carter offers a Q with a short tail, as well as one with a long tail. I like the long-tail Q because it's much different from most other Q's in that has such a straight tail.

Adobe Fonts

Adobe was established in 1984 in Mountain View California. Adobe is so important because they are one of the first to have a stronghold on the computer-based typography. They revolutionized printing by developing the PostScript Language, which allowed images to be printed with clean, curved lines. Adobe followed this up with Adobe Type Manager (1989), which allowed typography to be smooth on-screen as well. Computer type had previously been more pixelated. Adobe would continue to revise and improve their programs for the next two decades and they remain at the forefront of computer publishing. Adobe also began to create its own typefaces under the name Adobe originals. These typefaces were mostly revivals of older faces such as Garamond and Caslon. They eventually came out with new designs such as Trajan and Lithos.

These fonts can now be purchased at http://www.adobe.com/type/.

One Adobe font I really liked was Bickham Script Pro. I generally don't really like scrpt fonts because they often look to thin or delicate, and therefore don't standout. However, the Bickham Script uses a nice contrast of line widths and weights that make this typeface really pleasing to the eye.

Animal Logos

Here are some logos using animals that I think are pretty effective....







I really like the Bulls logo because it's so simple and symmetrical. It's lasted so long and I feel that that's a pretty good sign of an effective design.

The Orioles logo is interesting because it's a lot more realistic than a lot of other logos, but because of the flat coloring and lack of value changes it works really well.

The Bills logo is also really effective because it is so simple. It says a lot with a really simple silhouette and the red line adds a lot of movement.

Who is Adrian Frutiger?

Adrian Frutiger was one of the most important Typographers of the twentieth century. Frutiger was born in Interlaken, Sweden. As a boy, he showed early interest in Typography when he played with inventive handwriting that deviated from the perfect cursive he was taught to write in. Frutiger also showed interest in sculpture, but this hobby was discouraged by his father and his teachers.

In Interlaken, Frutiger spent his teen years working as an apprentice for printer Otto Schaerffli. He later went to Zurich to study under Walter Kach and Alfred Willimann at the School of Applied Arts. At this school, students focused more on calligraphy than constructing letters with drafting tools.

Adrian Frutiger created many typefaces in his lifetime, with the most recognizable being Univers and Frutiger. Frutiger was used for Charles de Gaulle International Airport because its legibility fit the need for "way-finding signage." Univers was part of a group of sans-serif fonts that were released in 1957. Univers is unique because it uses a system of numbers, rather than names, to distinguish different members of the font family. This family consists of 44 numbered faces. The Univers grid serves as a system of organization for the font family. The grid organizes the typefaces in such a way that we can tell how each member was derived from the original Univers typeface.

Who is John Baskerville?

John Baskerville was a famous typographer and businessman from Great Britain. Born in 1705, Baskerville started out as a printer in Birmingham, England. He worked for the University of Cambridge in 1958.

Baskerville created many typefaces, with the help of his punchcutter, John Handy. Many of these typefaces were very similar, and were all lumped into the "Baskerville" font family. Benjamin Franklin noticed and admired these typefaces and brought them to the United States. They were eventually used for American government publishing. In the 1920's, some of Baskerville's fonts were revived and rereleased under the name "Mrs. Eaves," as Baskerville's wife's name was Sarah Eaves.

Aside from his accomplishments in the field of Typography, John Baskerville also in innovator in print, paper, and ink production. He came up with a way to make paper that was smoother and whiter, which made rich black text look much better. In printing, Baskerville was ahead of his time because he was the first to use layouts with wide margins and leading between each line of type.

Baskervile died in January of 1775, and was buried in the garden at his home. The remains of his body have since been moved on numerous occasions do to the demolishing of several buildings where his body was stored.

John Baskerville was unique because of the innovations he made in typography and printing. Rather than trying to cram loads of text onto one page, Baskerville strived to improve legibility by adding larger text and improving word spacing. This gave his layouts a much more modern look than the other typographers of his time.