Typography & Typeface Design
INTRODUCTION
Design is everywhere. It may be a bit of cliché, but it is definitely true. We live in an age of mass consumption and mass communication, and everywhere we look we can find examples of design. As an industrial design student I, naturally, tend to focus at product design, but there are of course many other design disciplines.
However, there is one design discipline that I for some reason never perceived as design, until
I was scribbling in my notepad one day. I was bored and drawing variations of the letter “T”.
At first, it was just mindlessly doodling, but then
I realized what I was actually doing. I wasn’t just drawing the letter, I was designing it. It may sound like a trivial discovery, but for me it was a revelation that immediately triggered my curiosity. The truth is: typeface design is everywhere, and because of this it easy to forget that typefaces are products of design too. Somebody designed the logo of your favorite soft drink brand, somebody designed the font that is displayed on the
“emergency exit” sign, and somebody designed the very letters you are looking at right now.
Even in product design typefaces and typography can play a major role.
Once I started to take notice of the amount of typography around me, it became almost overwhelming, and I couldn’t help but starting to wonder. Who designed these typefaces and with what purpose? Where do they come from and how did they become such a big part of our everyday life? But above all, what can I as an industrial designer learn from studying this huge but for me uncharted design discipline?
Typography in the middle of the desert
HISTORY
If we trace typography back to its roots, it is fair to say that it typography and typeface design emerged somewhere mid-15th century with the introduction of movable type printing in
Europe. Up to that point books and texts were always handwritten, but movable type printing allowed for new possibilities and
Design is everywhere. It may be a bit of cliché, but it is definitely true. We live in an age of mass consumption and mass communication, and everywhere we look we can find examples of design. As an industrial design student I, naturally, tend to focus at product design, but there are of course many other design disciplines.
However, there is one design discipline that I for some reason never perceived as design, until
I was scribbling in my notepad one day. I was bored and drawing variations of the letter “T”.
At first, it was just mindlessly doodling, but then
I realized what I was actually doing. I wasn’t just drawing the letter, I was designing it. It may sound like a trivial discovery, but for me it was a revelation that immediately triggered my curiosity. The truth is: typeface design is everywhere, and because of this it easy to forget that typefaces are products of design too. Somebody designed the logo of your favorite soft drink brand, somebody designed the font that is displayed on the
“emergency exit” sign, and somebody designed the very letters you are looking at right now.
Even in product design typefaces and typography can play a major role.
Once I started to take notice of the amount of typography around me, it became almost overwhelming, and I couldn’t help but starting to wonder. Who designed these typefaces and with what purpose? Where do they come from and how did they become such a big part of our everyday life? But above all, what can I as an industrial designer learn from studying this huge but for me uncharted design discipline?
Typography in the middle of the desert
HISTORY
If we trace typography back to its roots, it is fair to say that it typography and typeface design emerged somewhere mid-15th century with the introduction of movable type printing in
Europe. Up to that point books and texts were always handwritten, but movable type printing allowed for new possibilities and
References: The Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst (Hartley & Marks Publishers, Canada, 1992) Helvetica (Documentary, Gary Hustwit, USA, 2007)