Member bud… Posted January 24, 2009 Share Posted January 24, 2009 This topic was imported from the Typophile platform In my ongoing search for interesting type related art for home, does anyone know of a nice poster design, showing the evolutionary milestones in the development of type, at least in the latin alphabet, from blackletter, through humanist, oldstyle, transitional, modern etc, along with important names and dates? If none exists I think this would be a great project, and would produce something worthy of hanging on the office wall. Link to comment
Member par… Posted January 24, 2009 Share Posted January 24, 2009 The dates are a problem because type 'evolution' is not linear. Blackletter is a milennium younger than Roman capitals. prgr Link to comment
Member Dun… Posted January 24, 2009 Share Posted January 24, 2009 From Mason’s History of the Art of Writing: Link to comment
Member Pub… Posted January 24, 2009 Share Posted January 24, 2009 When I was in high school, long before I dreamed that I would work for much of my adult life as a graphic designer, I bought this big box of "Foot-High Letters" that I found in a museum gift shop. It was a 1960s Dover reprint of a 1940 publication, probably originally intended for use in art classrooms. They're really meant to show the distinguishing characteristics of type families rather than the history of type design, but they still make handsome conversation pieces. A quick Google search turned up few UK dealers who list this set for the equivalent of US $10 or less. Link to comment
Member Pub… Posted January 24, 2009 Share Posted January 24, 2009 Oh wait, you're already in the UK . . . Link to comment
Member Qui… Posted January 24, 2009 Share Posted January 24, 2009 I have a poster that compares different alphabets; the Phoenician alphabet, early Greek, late Greek and then our alphabet. If you think it might be of interest to you, I can make a photo of it tomorrow. I also have a fantastic bundle of poster-like things that shows different alphabets of around the world and a bit of the history of alphabets; see a few photo's on my flickr here, here and here. There are some more photo's of it on my photostream page here, at the bottom (unfortunately they're not currently in a seperate Set). Link to comment
Member Flo… Posted January 25, 2009 Share Posted January 25, 2009 Stammbaum der Schrift [Family Tree of Type] is a poster published by the Bauersche Gießerei in 1937, on the occasion of its 100th anniversary. Who ever thought Legende and Quick would represent the crowning glory of evolution? Link to comment
Member bud… Posted January 25, 2009 Author Share Posted January 25, 2009 Some great responses - thanks folks for taking time to reply. I'll look for that book, Mojo, it looks interesting none the less. Quincunx, nice samples, and I'd love to see that comparative poster... I like Florian's Family Tree of Type as well - very ornate (can you send me a high res copy or tell me where you found it?) Now there's a thing... when you end an parenthesised sentence with a question mark, do you then need to close the parent sentence with a period? Cheers all. Link to comment
Member Qui… Posted January 25, 2009 Share Posted January 25, 2009 I will make a few photos of that comparative poster asap then. :) Link to comment
Member nin… Posted January 25, 2009 Share Posted January 25, 2009 :-D On a related note: Here's a poster showing the history & succession of metal type foundries in Germany starting with Gutenberg. Christian Büning, who makes these, is on the German Typoforum, so I could get you in touch with him. Link to comment
Member Flo… Posted January 25, 2009 Share Posted January 25, 2009 I found it in the Flickr stream of Robert Michael. You can try asking him for a hi-res copy. Link to comment
Member bud… Posted January 25, 2009 Author Share Posted January 25, 2009 Thanks Quincunx. Eliason, LOL... shouldn't there be an ape in there somewhere? Altaira, thanks, that poster looks like a close match to what I'm after... I looked at the webpage, but not being multi-lingual, I couldn't make out the accompanying text. I'll have a go at putting it through the google translator, but it'll probably come out like some drunken haiku. Thanks... I'd buy one off the webpage, but I don't even know if that Paypal button is for the full sized poster? Steve Link to comment
Member nin… Posted January 25, 2009 Share Posted January 25, 2009 Steve, here's a quick translation of the text on that web site. Sorry if it sounds garbled – my brain's like 99% full of my font right now :-) An educational poster for real connoisseurs of the Black Art. For the first time, this overview shows all German type foundries, as well as more than 200 takeovers and transfers, as a logical, genealogical tree. Connecting lines highlight individual developments. The resulting view clearly outlines the rise and bloom of the Black Art, as well as its abrupt termination by the rise of phototype. Gutenberg was the first European to print with movable type. His idea quickly found enthusiastic followers, who continued to spread type casting throughout Germany and Europe. This new technology brought forth numerous new typefaces, the most important of which are displayed on the poster. I can recommend Christian's posters, though I haven't seen this one; I have his 2009 calendar poster and it's beautifully laid out and printed. I'm pretty sure he speaks English, so you could also email him directly with any further questions (there's an email link on the "Impressum" page). Link to comment
Member Ste… Posted January 25, 2009 Share Posted January 25, 2009 I don't know about poster, but for a info a really good book is Explicatio Formarum Litterarum -The Unfolding of Letterforms by Rutherford Aris. I got a complimentary copy at my first calligraphy conference in 1990. It covers first to 15th centuries very thoroughly with pullout timeline charts, lots of samples and notes. Don't know how available it is currently. Amazon shows it as unavailable, but John Neal has it in his site:https://www.johnnealbooks.com/prod_detail_list/s/9 Link to comment
Member par… Posted January 25, 2009 Share Posted January 25, 2009 If the poster or overview started at Renaissance, perhaps it would serve Steve's original purpose. Anything in the first thousand AD is about hand-writing ... am I right in assuming that the revival of Roman letterforms was only possible with moveable type? prgr Link to comment
Member _nu… Posted January 26, 2009 Share Posted January 26, 2009 a hammer & chisel was kinda quintessential too. Link to comment
Member asz… Posted January 26, 2009 Share Posted January 26, 2009 Tracking. That Explicatio seems very promising... have to check it out. Szabolcs Link to comment
Member jab… Posted January 26, 2009 Share Posted January 26, 2009 It would be great if any of the experts could comment on the information presented in this? Link to comment
Member Qui… Posted January 26, 2009 Share Posted January 26, 2009 > It would be great if any of the experts could comment on the information presented in this? Well I see Alessandro Segalini's name on that PDF, who is a frequent member of this board, so I think it's probably ok. :) Link to comment
Member eli… Posted January 26, 2009 Share Posted January 26, 2009 If you need a timeline of key type designs, this strikes me as a better place to start than that pdf. Link to comment
Member sco… Posted January 26, 2009 Share Posted January 26, 2009 woaa great link eliason! - Scott Link to comment
Member par… Posted January 26, 2009 Share Posted January 26, 2009 Craig: that web site is THE best resource on type, thanks. This one is from the 1982 Berthold Headlines E3, and has not withhstood the test of time well ;-( The high resolution is here. prgr Link to comment
Member Qui… Posted January 26, 2009 Share Posted January 26, 2009 I wish they'd slightly scale up that timeline on 100types, i.e. more space. It's way too crowded and crammed together right now to comfortably read. Link to comment
Member sat… Posted January 26, 2009 Share Posted January 26, 2009 Have you seen the "History" from Peter Bil'ak? It's a typeface system shows how typography evolved over the period. Link to comment
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