Swiss graphic design — A communication tool
This is the story of how Swiss graphic design, throughout the 20th century, branched out into the world, became a recognised standard and then found its way back to its homeland
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Shavian (3/3): typographic implementation
Kingsley Read, ‘Androcles and the Lion’ and the final results of the G.B. Shaw’s campaign to replace Latin with a new alphabet
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Tupigrafia: the Brazilian type catalyst
Since 2000 this somewhat irregular publication based in São Paulo has been hitting its readers with a storm of letterforms. Here’s an interview with Claudio Rocha, one of its masterminds
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Letter-hunting in Italy / 2
Historical inscriptions and more recent signs from all over the country
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Notes on the rotunda types of the Renaissance
They were the stock type for theological, legal and scholastic texts all over Europe, including Germany. Until the reformation marked their decline
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‘The digital wave’ by Robin Kinross
Perondi re-reads Kinross’s 1992 article and recalls what happened during the decades that followed
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Early ‘non-Jensonian’ Venetian romans
A carefully illustrated review of 1470s types based on humanistic hands but differing a great deal from Jenson
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Lussu file #5: Other river, lake and rich champaign
In which the Author quotes Ariosto and talks about Galileo and his depictions of the Moon and the Medicean planets
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Letter-hunting in Italy / 1
Historical inscriptions and more recent signs from all over the country
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Ewan Clayton, a calligrapher at PARC (2/2)
The interview turns on writing and the digital: ‘We have missed an opportunity so far. But I remain hopeful’
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Ewan Clayton, a calligrapher at PARC (1/2)
An interview with the author of ‘The golden thread’ on this mythological research centre in the 1990s
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Shavian (2/3): the development
How Kingsley Read built a writing system to match George Bernard Shaw’s alphabetic utopia
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Lussu file #4: The form of languages
Those who are concerned with the form of letters should be conscious that writing is not a simple transcription of speech
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The influence of Jenson on the design of romans
Evidence tells us that all the roman lowercase letters to this day have been designed on the same framework as Jenson’s
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Bodoni and his roman and italic types
A discussion on their origins and development and a detailed look at their features
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Lussu file #3: Morison and Tschichold in gaols
Their lives and work stimulate reflection on the designer’s role in today’s world
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The final act at Nebiolo: the quest for a ‘universal’ typeface (2/2). Dattilo & Modulo
The idea was to start a dialogue between typography and design. All conditions were met except that it just did not happen
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The final act at Nebiolo: the quest for a ‘universal’ typeface (1/2). Forma
In 1965 Milan’s design elite was invited to team up with the Studio Artistico in a quest for new typefaces of quality
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Lussu file #2: Wines and goblets
Should Beatrice Warde’s ‘Crystal goblet’ be seen, at best, as a harmless promotion of Monotype?
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Print readability and dyslexia
Is there a typeface that helps dyslexics to read?
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The Venetian origins of roman type
Why Jenson’s and Spira’s model has to be found in the ‘Paduan style’ rather than in the script of Poggio or other Florentine humanists
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Lussu file #1: And what about Gutenberg?
Giovanni Lussu questions whether movable types were strictly necessary for the spread of books
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Behind Simoncini’s Glasses
Francesco Simoncini was a type designer and an innovator. An exhibition and a catalogue mark his re-discovery
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Shavian (1/3): origin
The background of the alphabetic utopia theorised by G.B. Shaw, between spelling and phonetic reform of the English language
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The inner consistency of Gerard Unger
An interview with the Dutch type designer whose well-defined style has marked recent decades
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Punctuation (1): the linguistic side
The role punctuation marks play within the discussion of writing and speech according to Bredel’s approach. Clarifying their functions puts them into a fresh light
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Nicolas Jenson and the success of his roman type
A close look at the earliest types cut in Venice shows that Jenson is one of the most important characters in the history of typography
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Veltro, the greyhound’s chase
In this article, adapted from «TipoItalia» 3, De Franceschi deals with the popular Italian script face and shows more samples of its use
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Novarese and Butti, a story to be (re)written
Colizzi and Olocco dig under the surface of hagiography taking a cue from «TipoItalia» 3 and Kupferschmid’s article on Novarese
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What if type were a car
Luciano Perondi, who knows about type and about cars too, kicks off with an intriguing discussion on the similarities between the world of typefaces and the world of cars
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Font è maschile o femminile? Font, type e typeface sono sinonimi?
L’Accademia della Crusca ne ha parlato in un post. Il nostro commento e gli interventi di James Mosley, John L. Walters, James Clough, Alessandro Corubolo, Silvia Sfligiotti
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