Type History in 2 Volumes!

Today’s type history lecture was about an overview of typography, typographers, and the development of visual styles from the 15th Century to today.

If you are interested in learning more, I recommend Type: A Visual History of Typefaces and Graphic Styles, Volumes 1 & 2. These are great references that provide a comprehensive and detailed overview of type and its development. In order to accommodate a vast amount of material, the writers have divided the text into two volumes. Volume 1 covers 1600-1900, Volume 2 covers 1900 to the mid-20th century.

Type: A Visual History of Typefaces and Graphic Styles, Volume 1

This book offers an overview of typeface design, exploring the most beautiful and remarkable examples of font catalogs from the history of publishing, with a special emphasis on the period from the mid-19th century to the mid-20th century, when color catalogs were at their height. Taken from a Dutch collection, this selection traverses the evolution of the printed letter in all its various incarnations via designed catalogs displaying not only type specimens in roman, italic, bold, semi-bold, narrow, and broad, but also characters, borders, ornaments, initial letters and decorations as well as often spectacular examples of the use of the letters. The Victorian fonts are accorded a prominent place in this book. In addition to lead letters, examples from lithography and letters by window-dressers, inscription carvers, and calligraphers are also displayed and described.

Featuring works by type designers including: William Caslon, Fritz Helmuth Ehmcke, Peter Behrens, Rudolf Koch, Eric Gill, Jan van Krimpen, Paul Renner, Jan Tschichold, A. M. Cassandre, Aldo Novarese, Adrian Frutiger

Type. A Visual History of Typefaces & Graphic Styles, 1901-1938 (Volume 2)

This book offers an overview of typeface design, exploring the most elegant fonts from the history of publishing.
Featuring works by type designers including: William Caslon, Fritz Helmuth Ehmcke, Peter Behrens, Rudolf Koch, Eric Gill, Jan van Krimpen, Paul Renner, Jan Tschichold, A. M. Cassandre, Aldo Novarese, and Adrian Frutiger.

Why is knowing the history of typography important?

How can your knowledge of type history help you in approaching projects and work?

What other type history books can you recommend?

The Encyclopedia of Calligraphy Techniques: A Step-By-Step Visual Guide →

Here’s the calligraphy book we used in class on Tuesday. It’s a comprehensive guide to the 10 major calligraphy hands, starting with the formal and classic Roundhand. The book also has a great collection of illuminated letters (the starting point for the modern drop caps). You can find this book at the SVA library, Amazon and Strand.

What’s Your Type Reading List: Doyald Young, Art of the Letter

Doyald Young is recognized as one of the modern masters of the lettering arts. Since the mid-1950s, Young has designed logotypes, corporate alphabets and typefaces all by hand lettering. Young still begins each job in the same manner he learned from his mentor, Joe Gibbey—with an HB pencil on trac­ing paper. “Depending on how long the logo is, I usually make a rough sketch about 1½- to 2-inches wide, sometimes smaller,” says Young.“I draw the letters in skeleton form to see how the word looks. Often, I’ll explore different character shapes and propor­tions and try to make the logo a distinctive shape.”

While draw­ing letters with a pencil first—rather than constructing them on screen—may seem old school to many young designers, the process allows Young to quickly try many solutions to the design problem. “A rough sketch of a logo takes only a minute or so to do,” he says, although he cautions that in-depth knowledge of different type styles is critical to the process.

In 2009 AIGA awarded Young the prestigious AIGA Medal for “for demonstrating the power of a lifelong love of the craft of calligraphy, type and graphic design, for his contributions as an author and for his dedication as an educator.”

To learn more about him, here a some of the best articles I found online:

STEP: Doyald Young, Master of Dangerous Curves
By Allan Haley
The master lettering artist’s path to prominence leads to Dangerous Curves.

AIGA 2009: Medalist Doyald Young
By Marian Bantjes
How do you get to be one of the greats of graphic design? If Doyald Young is the example, start with a well-rounded education in life, study with the masters, pay homage to your mentors, work hard, work long and, practice, man, practice.

Letter Cult Interview with Doyald Young
If Matthew Carter is the greatest living type designer, and Hermann Zapf the greatest living calligrapher, Young completes the trinity as the greatest living designer of logotypes.

Doyald Young official website

Purchase Doyald Young books