Tuesday, February 23, 2010

After Class, Chapter 8

The class discussion today was very proactive, in which I really enjoyed. I especially enjoyed hearing that we don't have a test on Wednesday! I think the graphic notes that we are making instead of taking tests are an awesome idea and we will all benefit from them way more than we would tests.

Today, we talked about the Renaissance period. We briefly went over Radolt, Tory, and Manutius once more and from there we went into more detail about typographic geniuses. This era was called the Rococo Era.

There are four people that are very important in the typographic world. William Caslon is the first on the timeline. He produced Oldstyle. George Bickham is the second on the timeline in which he produced Script style. Baskerville is the third on the timeline where he produced Transitional style. Giambattista Bodoni is the fourth on the timeline where he produced Modern style. Personally, my favorite of these guys is Baskerville just because I have actually used his fonts in the past for papers and such.

We also talked about the different variations in typeface. In Oldstyle, you can see that the letters had wedge, angled and cupped serifs, splayed stems, less thick-thin contrast, and a small transition from thick to thin. Then we get to Modern style and we see horizontal serifs that look like they want to jab your eye out. Modern style also has a bigger transition from thick to thin, straight stem sides, vertical-horizontal stress, and unbracketed serifs. I understood all of this much more by visually seeing the differences in which we saw in class.

One thing I learned from the class discussion today was not only the difference between the types, but Caslon type was used in our Declaration of Independence. Also, one thing I found very interesting was that the new type face Roman du Roi's Transitional roman was designed for the King and only the King. If anyone else used it, then you suffer the serious consequence of death! The days were rough and tough back in the Renaissance period!

One question I have is concerning the Rococo Era. I still really don't know the specifics of this era that makes it note worthy. For example, what designs were made during this time that makes up the Rococo Era? Was it just the different type being produced or the illustrations? Or both? I guess what I'm trying to say is I don't really understand what specific style fits into this Rococo Era.

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