Lecture 4: Production & Distribution of Type History 2

It has become clear that over time graphic designers have no set approach to the publication of typography as many rules and ideas have been created, but the most interesting and noticeable work is that that has broken the rules and expectations of design. Our role as graphic designers is the take the knowledge from the past and redesign the future.

Once only an oral tradition, language has now developed into being a lot more visual focused and the physical representation of objects and emotions has developed over the years. 

“typography is a communication method that utilises a gathering or related subjects and methodologies that includes sociology, linguistics, psychology, aesthetics" - Shelley Gruendler 

As designers, the Bauhaus still impacts the work we produce today because the purpose of why we are designing things has to be the main focus. The clarity in which something communicates an idea would need to be designed with the focus on form following function. We have the power to publish work that can heavily impact the way that others respond to a particular topic.  

The modernist approach to design would be the consideration of rules, but to manipulate them in ways that would advance the world of design. The breaking of these rules leads to the production of work that will grab people's attention because it will force them to think in a new way. 


A brief timeline of important design events:

• 1957 Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffmann created the fit Helvetica which is important because the typeface became commonly used due to the neutrality of the typeface. Overtime, it bean to be associated with specific characteristics that have now impacted the use of it today. As graphic designers, the messages that could be portrayed by the use of this typeface would need to be considered.
• 25 years later Microsoft created Arial which was nearly an exact replica of Helvetica, but it meant that copyright rules could be ignored and less money would be spent on having the font on the system. 
• 1977 Jamie Reid introduced the visual culture of punk, going back to the time of Bauhaus system, but going against the grid systems and rules of typography. This represented the punk culture which was known to rebel against the ideals. 
• 1979 - Barbara Kruger's work pushed the boundaries of communication in modern art
• 1989 Tim Berners-Lee created the world wide web which enabled the ability to publish type to a large audience of people for free.
• 1990 October 15th, apple mac classic was released and because it was under $1000, designers were able to afford to have them in the studios. This allowed a much larger number of people to create typefaces and effects were applied to digitalise traditional printing methods.
• 1992 David Carson looked at the ways to represent information in the most appropriate way and what that information would communicate and the differences depending on the different layouts.
• 1994 Vincent Connare created comic sans, a sans-serif font. This font is known to be one of the worse fonts. 
• 1995 Bill Gates wanted to make money from it by introducing internet explorer which restricted the distribution of things because it only allowed for the use of 8 fonts and very few templates. 

Technology has had a positive impact on design and the distribution of ideas, but it has also negatively impacted the way in which we engage with long intellectual passages. The web does not allow for long documents to be easily formatted and published, so shortened and precise versions are uploaded in replace. This has effected how we read and process information, proving it to be a struggle when engaging with long passages of text. 

"...but all those short documents we’re reading instead are poisoning our ability to read long documents. " - John Clark

Technology changed the importance of the spoken word and calls to other countries became less and less common. Letters have been replaced with emojis which have become a global language as everyone can recognise the mean of each symbol. 

The role of a designer is to shape visual culture and consider the political, social and cultural impacts the work could have. We have the ability to shape the world and what people see. The visual materials we publish can impact the thoughts of many and we should use this in a positive way.