Typographic Design Form and Communication

370 Pages·2011·0.76 MB·English

by  Rob Carter

Typographic Design:
Form and Communication

Fifth Edition
Saint Barbara. Polychromed
walnut sculpture, fifteenth-
century German or French.
The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.
Typographic Design:
Form and Communication

Fifth Edition
Rob Carter
Ben Day
Philip Meggs
JOHN WILEY & SONS, INC.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Carter, Rob.
Typographic design : form and communication / Rob Carter,
Ben Day, Philip Meggs. -- 5th ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-470-64821-6 (pbk.: acid-free paper);
ISBN 978-1-118-12966-1 (ebk)
1. Graphic design (Typography)
I. Meggs, Philip B. II. Day, Ben. III. Title.
Z246.C217 2011
686.2’24--dc22
2011017540
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
In memory of our friend, colleague, and teacher Ben Day (1942–2011)
“The whole duty of typography,
as with calligraphy,
is to communicate to the imagination,
without loss by the way,
the thought or image
intended to be communicated
by the Author.”
Thomas James Cobden-Sanderson
Contents
Introduction xi Interletter and interword spacing 79
1 The Evolution of Typography 1 Type size, line length,
and interline spacing 80
From the origins of writing
to Gutenberg’s invention Weight 81
of movable type 2
Character width 81
Typography from Gutenberg
to the nineteenth century 7 Italics 81
The nineteenth century Legibility and color 82
and the Industrial Revolution 12
Justified and unjustified typography 85
Typography in the
twentieth century 18 Paragraphs and indentions 85
A new century and Legibility and electronic page design 87
millennium begin 27
Typographic details 88
2 The Anatomy of Typography 31
5 The Typographic Grid 91
Letterforms analyzed 32
Background 92
The typographic font 35
Structure and space 92
Historical classification of typefaces 38
Proportion 94
Typographic measurement 42
Single column grids 97
The type family 45
Multi-column grids 100
3 Syntax and Communication 49
Modular grids 105
Typographic syntax 50
Improvisational structures 110
Typographic space 60
6 The Typographic Message 111
Visual hierarchy 64
A multidimensional language 112
ABA form 70
Verbal/visual equations 115
4 Legibility 75
Function and expression 121
Distinguishing characteristics
of letters 76
The nature of words 78
Capital and lowercase letters 79
7 Typographic Technology 125 10 Typographic Design Education 187
Hand composition 126 Generation of a typographic sign
from a gestural mark 188
Linotype 127
Letter/digit configurations 189
Monotype 128
Urban letterform studies 189
Ludlow 129
Inventing sign systems 190
Phototypesetting 130
Letterform analysis 190
Digital typesetting 132
Flowering typography 191
Electronic page design 134
Sequential typographic
8 Typography on Screen 139 forms in space 191
Rendering type on screen 140 Visual organization and
grid structures 192
Selecting typefaces 143
Introduction to systems design 193
Legibility factors for on-screen typography 146
Designing with a single letter 194
Programming for Web design 148
Typography and
Structuring Web pages 150 image transformations 194
Case studies in Web design 152 Experimental compositions
with found typography 195
9 Case Studies in Typographic Design 161
Syntactic explorations
Integrating type and image using onomatopoeic terms 196
in poster design 162
Type chronology booklet 197
The U.S. National Park Service
Unigrid System 166 Expressive typography:
form amplifies message 198
Book design:
VAS: An Opera in Flatland 169 Computer improvisation
and manipulation 198
Typographic film titles 173
Observing systems in our surroundings 199
Buenos Aires Underground (Subte) 176
Interpretive typography:
Information design: exploring legibility and impact 200
Metropolitan World Atlas 180
Symphony poster series 200
A typographic program
for the 17th Street Farmers’ Market 184