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130 Alphabets and Other Signs

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charming samples of unusual alphabets, fonts, and signs

When it first appeared, this is a book I used to pick up and browse in bookshops, wondering whether to buy it or not. There was no need to be so cautious, because it’s quite cheap, and since taking the plunge it’s given me hours of enjoyment. Basically, it’s a sample book of fonts, characters, trademarks, alphabet designs, logos, and dingbats. But what makes the book so attractive is that the collection is both eclectic and suffused with a period charm of the inter-war years.

AlphabetsMany of the designs and fonts are drawn from that period – with a hint of colonial nostalgia in labels from products destined for Africa, China, and India. Even the pages are printed in a pre-faded manner and cut with rounded corners. But there’s also the cosmopolitan up-side to the same tendency, with fonts from the Victorian revival, Russian constructivism, and even an alphabet cut in bone by French prisoners during the Napoleonic wars.

There are elaborate display fonts, shaded letters, monograms, a set called ‘Huxley Vertical’ which seem like a precursor to Neville Brody, a selection of ink blots, labels from Joan of Arc laxatives, labels for matches, cigarettes and drinks, a two-page spread of ampersands, examples of visiting cards, Japanese packaging labels, even a typographic book-cover design by Natalia Goncharova from 1920s Paris.

Don’t expect any scholarly rigour. Although the collection is interspersed with a few short essays, there are very few technical details given. Many of the fonts are not even even given a name or credited by a caption. A full alphabet in Cyrillic on a single page is left to speak for itself. But somehow this doesn’t really matter.

The compilation is very obviously offered just as a source of visual stimulation, and it works marvelously. It would be a jaded aesthetic palate indeed which was not stimulated by the range and vitality of this collection. It’s a treat, from first page to last.

© Roy Johnson 2000

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Julian Rothenstein and Mel Gooding (eds), 130 Alphabets and Other Signs, London: Thames and Hudson, 1993, pp.183, ISBN: 0500277419

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20th Century Type: Remix

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illustrated showcase of 20th century type designers

This book became an instant classic on font design when it first appeared. The second revised and enlarged edition is even more impressive. In structure, it’s quite simple. Ten chapters are split into periods of a decade each. It starts from the Art Nouveau type of the early 1900s then works its way to the present via a series of beautifully designed pages.

Font DesignLewis Blackwell has a very keen eye and a sharp sense of historical innovation in spotting the typographical innovations developed by designers such as Marinetti and the Italian futurists, El Lissitsky, Moholy-Nagy, and the Bauhaus workers.

All the examples are illustrated by type in practical use, set alongside a number of sample font sets of what have become modern classics. There are some particularly good reproductions of book pages and the use of typography as a design feature.

What he’s done is to distil the essential innovations of designers such as Jan Tschichold and Paul Renner, and he places them in a well developed historical context. Into the middle of the century the names become Saul Bass, Roger Excoffon, Paul Rand, and Adrian Frutiger.

The 1960s sees the first signs of the influence of computer technology on type design, as well as the explosion of pop psychedelia on design. Some of the rock music albumn covers might make you cringe if like me you lived through that period.

In the 1980s the major influence is Neville Brody – who is still very popular and influential – as well as the Emigreé designers Rudy Vanderlans and Zuzana Licko. Next comes the ‘expressive’ school of David Carson. He challenged the notion of type’s legibility to the point where the pages of his work in the influential Ray Gun became almost unreadable.

Yet this experimental approach to designing type forms continued unabated in the 1990s, alongside more traditional work in public signage done by designers such as Erik Spiekermann. All of this is given generous coverage, and the book ends with a section on type description and classification – the most modern examples of which become BC (Beyond Classification).

This is an excellent piece of work which well deserves its place in the list of favourite typography manuals amongst professional designers.

© Roy Johnson 2000

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Lewis Blackwell, 20th Century Type: Remix, London: Lawrence King, 1998, pp.191, ISBN: 1856691160

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A 2 Z and More Signs

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unusual alphabets, fonts, logos, symbols, and signs

This is a compilation of the best-selling albumns of quirky typography, 130 Alphabets and Other Signs and A B Z: More Alphabets and Other Signs, with new materials added. Basically, it’s a sample book of fonts, characters, trademarks, logos, dingbats, and alphabet designs. But what makes the book so attractive is that the collection is both eclectic and suffused with a period charm of the inter-war years. Many of the designs and fonts are drawn from that period – with a hint of colonial nostalgia in labels from products destined for Africa, China, and India.

Alphabet Design Even the pages are printed in a pre-faded manner and cut with rounded corners to enhance this effect. There are elaborate display fonts, shaded letters, monograms, a set called ‘Huxley Vertical’ which seem like a precursor to Neville Brody, a selection of ink blots, labels from Joan of Arc laxatives, labels for matches, cigarettes and drinks, a two-page spread of ampersands, examples of visiting cards, Japanese packaging labels, even a typographic book-cover design by Natalia Goncharova from 1920s Paris.

The materials are the products of the main centres of modernist design in the first third of the last century: largely French, German, Czech, and Russian. The selection of material comes from private collections in London, Paris, Amsterdam, Prague, New York, and Mexico City.

Many of the designs appear here for the first time since their first use. Some of the examples, such as Karel Tiegel’s photo-balletic alphabet of 1926 and a Spanish civil war manual for illiterate soldiers, have never been reproduced before since they first appeared.

The sources of this new collection are wonderfully assorted. There are plenty of straight font sets, but also monograms, letter headings, package labels, posters, shop signs, opticians’ eye test charts, book jackets, film posters, technical manuals, propaganda leaflets, and magazine covers. The selection reflects mainly European modernism, constructivism, and Art Deco – though there are also novelties from Mexican graffiti and Asian medicine labels.

Each large page is striking in its muted, silkscreened colours, and the book
itself is amazingly attractive, with rounded corners, pre-faded yellow edges, and splotchy endpapers.

It has to be said that the main charm of this book is its unashamed retro feel; but I would defy anyone not to be pleased with the result. It is beautifully designed and produced, well printed, and altogether a must-have for anybody interested in typography and graphic design.

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© Roy Johnson 2006

Julian Rothenstein and Mel Goodwin, A 2 Z and More Signs, London: Thames and Hudson, 2006, pp.320, ISBN: 0500286043

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A B Z More Alphabets and Signs

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glamorous collection of font sets and graphic designs

This is a follow-up to the excellent 130 Alphabets and Other Signs – a fascinating collection of font sets, alphabet design, and attractively printed designs from the early part of the last century. The sources of this new collection are wonderfully assorted. There are plenty of straight font sets, but also monograms, letter headings, packaging labels, posters, shop signs, opticians’ eye test charts, book jackets, film posters, technical manuals, propaganda leaflets, magazine covers, and dingbats. The selection reflects mainly European modernism, and Art Deco – though there are also novelties from Mexican graffiti art and Asian medicine labels.

A B Z: More Alphabets & SignsThe materials are the products of the main centres of modernist design in the first third of the last century: largely French, German, Czech, and Russian. The selection of material comes from private collections in London, Paris, Amsterdam, Prague, New York, and Mexico City.

Many of the designs appear here for the first time since their first use. Some of the examples, such as Karel Tiegel’s photo-balletic alphabet of 1926 and a Spanish civil war manual for illiterate soldiers, have never been reproduced before since they first appeared.

I was slightly disappointed that there’s so little explanation or comment on the materials – except for some rather cryptic notes on sources in the index. This seems to have been done to keep the display area free of any visual clutter.

Each large page is striking in its muted, silkscreened colours, and the book itself is beautiful, with rounded corners, pre-faded yellow edges, and green splotchy endpapers.

It has to be said that the main charm of this book is its unashamed retro feel; but I would defy anyone not to be pleased with the result. It is beautifully designed and produced, well printed (in Hong Kong) and altogether a must-have for anybody interested in typography, design, or attractive books.

© Roy Johnson 2004

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Julian Rothenstein and Mel Gooding, A B Z: More Alphabets and Other Signs, London: Redstone Press, 2003, pp.221, ISBN: 1870003330

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An Essay on Typography

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classic study of the aesthetics and morals of good design

This is Eric Gill’s memorable and engagingly dogmatic work on unchecked commercialism, moral living – oh, and on typographic design too. An Essay on Typography is where Gill firmly established what he believed type design should be, what it should do, and how it should be done. I read Gill’s Essay from cover to cover, then I immediately read it again. It’s short, (133 pages, plus an introduction and afterword) but quite enjoyable.

An Essay on Typography The unassuming size of the book does not affect its flow as it is set in Gill’s own face, Joanna. Although the use of some odd contractions and word breaks may take a little warming up to, the book is a testament to book design and layout concerns as discussed in sections The Procrustean Bed and The Book.

In the section entitled Lettering, Gill lends his views on letter form history and follows their evolution from Trajan’s Column in Rome to the printed page of the 1930’s with his own engravings presented to illustrate the walk-through.

At times Gill is somewhat idealistic but many of the arguments he makes are timeless and most of his advice is practical- consisting of basic truths which will apply to the craft no matter what tools or level of technology are employed in the creation and implementation of letter forms.

In Typography, a clear line is drawn between mechanized industry, seen as the work of many as opposed to fine craftsmanship, being the work of the individual. With his focus more on the social aspect of these ‘two worlds’ of typography, Gill explores and defines the limits inherent to each:

…the commercial article at its best is simply physically serviceable and, per accidens, beautiful in its efficiency; the work of art at its best is beautiful in its very substance and, per accidens, as serviceable as an article of commerce

The exceptions to its usefulness are the occasional segue into what seems a little like preaching (this essay is thoroughly peppered with religious references) and some ideas he proposes, such as letter-spaced italics for emphasis, that have thankfully fallen by the typographic wayside. Or perhaps when he coyly proposes to abolish lettering as we know it in favor of what he calls ‘Phonography’ (a form of shorthand), in But Why Lettering. I would equate this to today’s practice of flame-baiting online.

© Delve Withrington 2000

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Eric Gill, An Essay on Typography, David R. Godine [1993], pp.144, ISBN: 0879239506

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Complete Guide to Digital Design

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This is a beautifully designed and an elegantly produced book. It’s an excellent counterpart to Bob Gordon’s other recent publication – Making Digital Type Look Good. First he offers a brief introduction which illustrates contemporary digital design in a variety of media – print, packaging, signage, exhibitions, Internet, and Multimedia. The rest of the book is in four sections. The first deals with basic design principles. That is, issues such as shape, line, colour, type, layout, images, and the dynamics of emphasis, contrast, and shade.

Complete Guide to Digital DesignThe next sections look in detail at the latest developments in design for print publications, public signage, exhibitions, for the computer screen, and for multimedia. If any of this sounds rather abstract, it has to be said that these principles are illustrated in a wonderful series of double-page spreads, orchestrated in a beautifully rhythmic series of variations on a five column grid. The book itself lives up to the high design values it is presenting.

The supposition is that many designers will be migrating from the world of print to that of the digital interface – and I think that is reasonable – since the Web gets some of its most efficient and elegant designs from the influences of print design.

There’s an account of the best software programs [QuarkXPress and PageMaker] and how they are used in print preparation. This is followed by a series of illustrated case histories and interesting details of what is now called ‘surface design’ used in instances as varied as cardboard engineering and multimedia exhibitions.

On designing for the screen, there are useful tips on coping with the frustrations of Web page composition – such as browser download times and display uncertainties. There’s an introduction to Flash, Web editors, and graphics packages such as Fireworks.

The section on multimedia concentrates on designing for CD-ROM and DVD using software such as Macromedia Director and Adobe After Effects – all of which are now within budget price range. The big advantage of this increasingly popular form of delivery is that the author can control the appearance of the finished design on screen.

This is a very elegant production which is worth owning as a stunning example of graphic design in its own right. But it will also form an excellent overview of what is current in the field of digital graphics.

© Roy Johnson 2003

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Bob Gordon and Maggie Gordon, The Complete Guide to Digital Graphic Design, London: Thames and Hudson, 2002, pp.224, ISBN: 050028315X

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Computers and Typography

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essays on readability and layout in electronic writing

As the price of scalable fonts has dropped and the range available has increased recently, many people have developed an interest in typography. For those with the slightest interest in the appearance of the printed page, the flight from Courier 10 c.p.i. is understandable. Those of us who have gone to libraries to dig out the available literature may have been impressed by the craftsmanship in print production which has been traditionally maintained by printers, type designers, and bibliographists of all kinds.

Computers and Typography But many will have been disappointed that there is so little available which deals with the type design which is now possible in conjunction with computers. Rosemary Sassoon’s book is one answer to this absence. She is a distinguished typographist, the creator of Sassoon Sans-Serif, a legible script for children’s books. This is her assembly of a series of articles exploring the theoretical and practical relationships between computers and what is possible in modern typography.

There are sections on Text Massage (line and word spacing) and the effect of layout on readability; the creation of new alphabets in Latinate and non-Latinate languages using bitmapped fonts; a couple of items on the history of typography and its effects; a piece on the visual analysis of a page of text; and then perhaps the most convincing essay in the book – Sassoon’s own essay on perception and type design related to writing for children.

This is a stimulating collection which I suspect will have an appeal for those interested in typography, book design, the new computer software, and the relationship between writing (and print layout) and our understanding of texts. There is a good index and each essay carries its own bibliography.

The message which emerges from a series of essays which are surprisingly varied both in length and written style is that we should learn from the good practices of our post-Gutenberg heritage – and we should not believe that access to a second-hand bundle of software will automatically make us layout artists.

As Alan Marshall argues in his cautionary essay on access to the new technology “So long as writing (in the full sense of the word, that is, spacing and layout as well as words and punctuation) is not taught at school and at university, most texts produced on micro-computers will never reach the standards necessary for the effective transmission of ideas or information from one person to another”. Be warned.

© Roy Johnson 2002

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Rosemary Sassoon, Computers and Typography, Oxford: Intellect, 1993, pp.164, ISBN: 1871516234

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Computers and Typography 2

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Rosemary Sassoon is a distinguished expert on handwriting, and a typographist celebrated for her font set ‘Sassoon Prima’, which helps young school pupils learn to read and write. Digital versions of her work are illustrated in Computers and Typography 2, her latest book. It’s a collection of essays on the role of digital type in graphic design and education. The emphasis in the first part is on page design. There’s advice on laying out web pages and a chapter on the typographical limitations of HTML.

Computers and Typography 2 The subject is then broadened out into multicultural aspects of typography. It looks at the way in which computerised type has affected other writing systems, and there are chapters on setting non-Latin languages and the differences between English (which has 26 letters) and Japanese (which has 10,000). The next section looks at how the introduction of computers has changed working practices, including the education of typography students. This is followed by a detailed account of the creation of a new font set for US telephone directories.

A chapter by Rosemary Sassoon on marketing her own digital typefaces will be of interest to professional designers. Of greater importance for most readers however is the excellent checklist of tips on making text readable on screen.

The next section deals with the making and shaping of letters, and the design of educational software completes the picture.

But for me, the most interesting contribution was the last, in which Roger Dickinson explores the interface between computers and learners – listing the devices and the technological strategies which can make learning more effective.

This is a good follow-up to Rosemary Sassoon’s first volume of Computers and Typography on topics related to digital type, and it will be of interest to web designers, information architects, and typographers – as well as ‘fotaholics’ .

© Roy Johnson 2002

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Rosemary Sassoon (ed), Computers and Typography 2, Bristol: Intellect, 2002, pp.158, ISBN: 1841500496

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David Carson: 2nd Sight

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Grafik Design After the End of Print

There is a product which food companies use to make their products thicker. It’s the gum agent you can read about on an ordinary bottle of syrup or a jar of not-so-authentic salsa. The thickener doesn’t really have a flavor, it’s just there to add content when all other things fail to blend or aren’t full enough to make that product enticing. No one likes to have thin and runny syrup on their waffles or salsa that doesn’t stick to their chips. David Carson: 2nd Sight: Grafik Design After the End of Print is a mouthful and more of what you’d expect from a graphic designer on a quest to clarify his methods and intentions, though it seemed spicier the first time around.

David Carson: 2nd SightThere’s a sea of graphic designers who either love Carson’s methods or dislike them. For those who love his methods, you have another book to smile about. Another book to discuss with your fellow designers, another book to justify your methods. In fact, you now have another book that tells you why you do the things that you do. For those who dislike his methods, this is another book to mock. Another book to further your own theories on design.

Intuition played a key roll in the development of the second book by Carson and Blackwell. Those four syllables seem to be the reason behind a lot of what David Carson does in life. Unlike The End of Print, 2nd Sight is more about text than it is about pretty images (although there are plenty of images). There are no popups, but there are a few quotes which serve as some sort of artistic justification or reasoning behind what he and others in the decontructionalist movement supposedly feels deep within.

2nd Sight isn’t trying to intellectualize anything – well it is, but it doesn’t succeed. It’s kind of like a second course in an eight course meal. It’s handing out a little bit of insight into the designers’ creative explorations and it’s putting David Carson’s life into yet another round of syndication. How many times do we need to read about the fact that he was a surfer and has no classical training in graphic design or typography?

In fact, if I had to make a guess, I’d say that by the end of this book Carson was a little bored. The popularity of this subject has dwindled and much of the content of 2nd Sight should have been said in Carson’s first book, The End of Print.

But laying all of that aside, the book hits upon an important point – that intuition plays a crucial role in what any good designer or artist does. You can be classically trained, but if you haven’t got the intuition to go along with that training, then you’ve got nothing. To put it bluntly, you’ve got skills in desktop publishing rather than skills in graphic design.

Visually, 2nd Sight is appealing. There are vistas from hotel rooms at sunset, Carson expounding at workshops, chic and trendy warehouse gigs, and yet more over-populated lectures. The book hangs together well. Unfortunately, the text is not as fully baked. Carson, the pied piper of intuition, fails to realize that not all intuition is good, nor is it enough. In 2nd Sight there is plenty of scenery but no roadmap.

Nonetheless, I’m glad I read this book and am pleased to see its spine on my bookshelf. Anything bearing Carson’s name, whether chunky or smooth, thick or runny, is likely to stimulate your own creative juices. On that basis, I can recommend 2nd Sight to any designer or typographer.

© Tracy Pickle 2000

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Lewis Blackwell and David Carson, Carson, David: 2nd Sight: Grafik Design After the End of Print, Universe Publishing, 1997, pp.176, ISBN: 0789301288

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Design Writing Research

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illustrated essays on design, graphics, and typography

Design Writing Research is the name given to the combined work of Ellen Lupton and Abbott Miller, who are curator at Cooper-Hewitt design museum and director of a New York design agency. This elegant compilation brings together their writings on a wide variety of design-related topics – from the graphic presentation of numbers; contemporary hieroglyphs; the choice of body text in printed books; advertising; racial presentations in journalism; the seductiveness of commercial advertising; and newspaper layout and design – to a brief history of graphic design in America. This splendid variety in content is also matched by the design of the book itself.

Design Writing ResearchThey start with an essay on Deconstruction in design history – tracing the influence of French critical theory in the US and eventually settling on notions of typographical presentation. There’s also an essay on the history of punctuation and spacing which is wittily illustrated with a visual paraphrase of punctuation styles – from Latin monumental inscriptions to email emoticons in one short essay. This is a perfect use of the print medium, and an excellent fusion of form and content.

Some of the essays are no more than a sketch over a double page spread, but all of them are interesting – even one on the representation of numbers in print which inexplicably comes to an abrupt stop after the abacus.

They ambitiously tackle structuralist typography – an attempt to apply cultural theory to the realm of type design. Whilst this is not altogether convincing, it’s consistently thought-provoking and like all the other essays in the compilation, skillfully illustrated in a manner which is reminiscent of the work of Edward Tufte.

There are some indications of old-fashioned political correctness. They use the term ‘progressive’ as a blanket marker of approval reminiscent of the Old Left. When this is combined with an essay extolling the technical skills of Andy Warhol, the effect seems naive and rather whimsical. And yet the essay itself, a study of the relationship between advertising and graphic design, is essentially quite interesting. It looks at the work of illustrators such as Ben Shan, Paul Glaser, and David Stone Martin – pointing out that many of their works ‘were sold in galleries soon after they were published’.

The essays in the centre of the book are longer, detailed, and well researched, looking at the practice of graphic design in the context of twentieth century art. A study of McLuhan’s The Medium is the Message argues the case for the groundbreaking contribution of his co-author, Quentin Fiore. This is followed by an in-depth study of the relationship between race and advertising; then the use of stock photographic archive materials in journalism; and subliminal messages in advertising.

The book ends with a synoptic account of graphic design in the USA between 1829 and 1993 – which just stops short of the Internet explosion. If they ever get round to analysing Web pages in the way they treat their material here, it will be truly something to look out for.

This is a beautifully designed and exquisitely illustrated book which is a Must for anyone interested in graphics, information design, typography, or media studies – and it’s amazingly cheap. I bought my copy at full price, just in case the bookshop had made a mistake.

© Roy Johnson 2000

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Ellen Lupton and Abbott Miller, Design Writing Research: Writing on Graphic Design, London: Phaidon, 1996, pp.211, ISBN: 0714838519

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