What really stuck out to me while doing this weeks reading was Wim Crouwel’s “new alphabet”. Crouwel was inspired by the increase in the use of electronic communication devices. The main idea behind his “new alphabet” is that there are no diagonal lines or curves. The reason for this is because on video screens curves and angles are rendered with horizontal scan lines. Horizontal scan lines are alternating colored and black lines that were seen on older televisions etc. but now are seen when used for styling computer graphics.

Crouwel’s “new alphabet” is especially interesting because he created it in 1967. His insight into the future use of electronics, interest in making communication better and intuition for a programmed typography for these new electronics was truly impressive. Although the concept is unique and forward thinking the “new alphabet” itself is not very practical as several of the letters look nothing like they traditionally do.

Romain Du Roi is a type created in the late 17th century commision by the king LouisXIV, the name literaly means Roman of the king. Unlike the previous roman type faces, this was the first typeface created from rational thinking, where the measurements and proportions where well thought out. As you can see from the image, a grid was use to created the typeface.

Fette Futura is another typedface created using geometry. Unlike the previous typeface this one was made in Germany in the early 1900s. Futura is one of the most used san serif typefaces in the world. There are used for many important materials,he Boston Celtics championship banners has futura letters, the game Elder scrolls also uses Futura. This goes to show how popular this typeface is.

Did you know that Italic letters were introduced in the fifteenth-century? Venetian printer Aldus Manutius and his type designer, Francesco Griffo are credited with creating the first italic typeface. Italic is simply a more casual style of handwriting.

This typeface was used in the cheaper writing shops. Using this style produced faster results because it did not need the carefully formed lettering like its rival lettera antica. The huge pro for Italic type during this time was its cost. It was inexpensive to print, saved time and space. The con was its connotation of a cheaper quality.

Romain Du Roi

Well the typeface was made in 1692 by King Louis XIV to be used as a Royal Typeface. I think this image pretty much sums what I just said.
It is used by Impremiere Royale and was first used in 1702. It was created by Philippe Grandjean. I think for the most part the typeface was supposed to be different than non-royal beings. It was used during the Age of Enlightenment and for the most part the designer had creative liberty to create what he wanted. The letters really reflect the time and elegance of his reign.

In 1919, the Bauhaus manifest was not in geometric sans serifs but it was in an art nouveau form. Later Herbert Bayer and Joost Schmidt re constructed the type to a geometric type feel.

Herbert Bayer created the design for Bauhaus typeface in 1925. Bauhaus took place during the reform revolution in the 1920’s. The typeface is based on geometric shapes and sizes. Bauhaus is a san serif font meaning it does not have any lines tailing from the edges of the letters.  Bauhaus is designed round by the edges not like Helvetica, which is straight giving it a modern abstract feel to the typeface.

Romain du Roi is literally a style of type that means “King’s Roman”. While this style of type may look like any old stuffy font at first glance the typestyle created upon Louis XIV request in 1692 actually differs from the type before it. The request can be seen as part of the transition from older styles of type, usually known as “Old style”, to a newer more “transitional” style. The difference between oldstyle and transitional type fonts is often unnoticed by many because of the fact that both type styles are serif type-styles(serifs being the little decorative bits attached to letters as seen on the M above). One of the major differences between transitional type styles and the oldstyle fonts is that they have less natural “stress”. Stress being the angle that a font naturally rests at un-italicized( that funky little I you may see in Microsoft word).

One of the most unique features of this type-style as opposed to the ones before it is how it is created. The artists used a very mathematical systematic approach to creating this type-style. Each letter was carefully crafted on a grid piece by piece, as opposed to the older styles not being not nearly as specific. Something to note when considering that this type style wasn’t as inspired by older hand written type and more by science is that King Louis XIV had a scientific committee design the style and the style was developed during the ‘Age of Enlightenment’, which had a pretty strong aversion to tradition. So of course instead of creating a new handwritten type it was much edgier to use 48 by 48 grids on each letter of the alphabet.