Typography Graphic Design Thesaurus

144 Pages·2006·0.7 MB·English

Typography & Graphic Design
Thesaurus
Version 1.1 · May 31, 2006
Paul M. Hoffman
Copyright 2006 Paul M. Hoffman.
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For copies of this thesaurus in electronic form, see <URL:http://hoffmancommapaul.com/tgdt/>.
for Rachel,
who kept me sane

Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction 1
Scope and aims 1
About thesauri 1
Why a new thesaurus? 2
Development 2
User guide 5
Organization 5
Classification notation 8
Use 8
Extending the thesaurus 9
Sources 11
Principle sources 11
Ancillary sources 11
Systematic listings 13
A. Activities and Processes Facet 15
C. Communication, Information, and Language Facet 21
E. Entities Facet 31
L. Places Facet 33
O. Objects and Materials Facet 35
P. Properties and Concepts Facet 39
S. Styles and Periods Facet 45
V. Visual Elements Facet 47
W. Created Works Facet 55
v
Alphabetic listing 63
Appendix A. New term proposal 131
Appendix B. Identifiers 133
Typefaces 134
Characters 134
Languages 134
Writing systems 135
Software 135
File formats 136
vi
Acknowledgments
The author expresses his thanks to those who helped evaluate an earlier version of the
thesaurus: Caryn Anderson, Gerald Benoît, Michèle Cloonan, Lorrie Fleming, and Darin
Murphy.
vii

Introduction
The Typography and Graphic Design Thesaurus (TGDT) is a new information retrieval
thesaurus constructed for scholars, students, and practitioners of typography, graphic de-
sign, and related fields. The core of the TGDT is a list of approximately 1,900 preferred
terms that have been selected and arranged for use in indexing, cataloging, classification,
and other applications; an additional 600 terms are provided as access points leading to
their preferred alternatives.
Scope and aims
The TGDT is comprised primarily of terminology on typography and graphic design,
and secondarily on Web design and the book arts – printing, binding, and paper. Particu-
lar emphasis is placed on terms that relate to practice, but terms of historical or theoreti-
cal significance are included as well.
The TGDT is intended first and foremost as a tool for the indexing and cataloging of
works that are about typography and graphic design, not of the products of typography
and graphic design – though it may prove to be suitable for the latter.
About thesauri
An information retrieval thesaurus is much more than a simple list of synonyms; it is a
structured, carefully chosen set of interrelated terms. The primary purpose of such a the-
saurus is to promote the consistent use of terms in describing and retrieving information
objects; this is accomplished by giving a preferred status to terms with commonly under-
stood, unambiguous meanings.
Thesauri such as the TGDT have several advantages over unstructured vocabulary
lists:
¶ They limit synonym sets to a single preferred member, in order to promote consis-
tency and improve the likelihood that terms used by a searcher will match those used in
indexing.
¶ They include non-preferred synonyms as cross-referenced entry points, to promote
ease of use.
¶ They impose a hierarchical ordering of terms, facilitating the discovery of concepts
the user might not otherwise have considered and providing an overview of the full scope
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of a topic; additional, associative relations provide a richer web of connections between
terms, enhancing browsability.
Why a new thesaurus?
Some existing controlled vocabularies overlap in coverage with TGDT, but none has an
emphasis on the fields it covers. What’s more, rapid changes in these fields since the ad-
vent of computerized typesetting and the ascendancy of the Web and Web design have
left an increasingly large need for a controlled vocabulary on typography or graphic de-
sign.
Development
Sources
A number of diverse sources were consulted, including other thesauri, dictionaries, glos-
saries, manuals, journal articles, and textbooks. To these were added terms from the
author’s experience, terms found on graphic design and typography-related Web sites, and
other reference materials. A list of principle sources begins on page 11.
Standards
The TGDT has been constructed to conform closely to the ANSI/NISO Standard
Z39.19-2005, with the following caveats:
¶Parts of a whole have generally been included in their singular form, by analogy
with the standard’s recommendation on body parts and other cases with literary
warrant (ANSI/NISO Z39.19-2005, §6.5.1.1).
¶Selected identifiers for certain classes of proper names are listed, but are not consid-
ered preferred terms. These are described more fully in Appendix B.
Term selection
The fields of typography and graphic design are no different from other fields in the di-
versity of terminology used by scholars and practitioners.
When choosing terms, three primary considerations were made:
¶ Relevance. Does the term fall within the scope of the TGDT?
¶ Currency. Is the term in current use, or is it obsolete?
¶ Clarity. Does the term clearly and unambiguously identify a concept?
In many instances, a single term may have several, sometimes conflicting uses; such
terms are either rejected in favor of an unambiguous alternative, clarified with a disam-
biguating qualifier – for example, typesetters (equipment) as distinct from typesetters
(people) – or is used only in a limited sense in the TGDT, as indicated by a scope note in
the alphabetic listing. In contrast, two or more terms may be fully or partially synony-
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