Episode 12: Ways with Words

Following on from Episode 11, this time taking a quick look at the development of writing, printing and electronic communication: how they relate to signage and how they all affect our quality of life.

Transcript

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Hello and welcome to another episode in this podcast series. Make Life Better by Design With Me, your host, kevin Drayton. Now, today I'm continuing with the subject. Um, I started in the previous episode, which is to do with signage. In contrast with other uses of lettering, signage, particularly building names, are either one-offs or only required a few times, in which case, using carved letter forms straight into masonry of some sort or using solid cast name plates makes some sort of sense because it's not needed for a long, repetitive business. I mean, if you think about no one's gonna leave a note for the milkman, you using either of those two forms of writing, are they? So the other three main methods of creating letter forms are writing, or we may refer to it as calligraphy, printing, and inevitably electronically. Now, the first, that's to say writing or calligraphy has been with us for centuries.

Kevin: 1:46

The second arrived with a major revolution in the mass distribution of text. And electronic printing

1:57

rapidly took over much of the heavy lifting of hot type with the inevitable turbulence that involved, uh, when it first started. Yeah. There are other offshoots of interest, such as sign writing and the continued popularity of letter press printing amongst enthusiasts. I think it's fair to say that letter cutting, calligraphy, print and computers between them handle the majority of the visual representation of words, and of course, computer generated Typography has taken off at an exponential, exponential, I'm sorry, rate. One thought that occurred to me is what will people in years to come make of the present day limitations of word recognition software? That seems to be capable of turning the most innocuous sentence into a, a written travesty of the spoken word. I mean, the most boring television programs can be tremendously enhanced by turning on subtitles if they are generated through voice recognition. However, let's turn back a bit. When calligraphy was the principle method for recording words, the sheer amount of practice involved let alone any desire to be good at it. Led to some work of absolutely exquisite beauty. Different pens and nibs or quills, whatever, naturally lent themselves to different, making different types of marks. That and the inevitable influences of changing times, produced variations such as italics, unes, copper plate, black letter, and so on.

Kevin: 4:27

Notwithstanding the limitations imposed by having to reproduce or produce a book, say by handwriting it, the revolution of printing did not kill calligraphy. No more than did photography kill painting. However, we cannot, and we should not underestimate the seismic upheaval caused by the arrival of the printing press. It didn't impinge directly on the world of building signage, except in much that the printing press opened up a wonderland of new type faces that could be cast in metal, which was then assembled into full pages of text, which in turn through the application of ink paper and pressure could turn out. Innumerable copies of that type type design actually is a real world of its own. Um, although it is fascinating, people like me anyway, it's not really what this podcast is about, but before I leave type. Couple of things you may not realize. When nowadays we talk about upper case letters, that means capitals. That was because metal type capital letters were kept in a separate case or box from. The others, uh, they were kept above them. So the other letters were known as lowercase letters. Similarly, the time letting, which you may have come across when it's used and discussing the spacing of, uh, one letter from another. That's because shallow pieces of metal lead were used to achieve that spacing when the compositor, the guy, or mainly guys, but sometimes women who were combining the. Type, the hot type into letters and words and sentences. They used them to achieve that spacing. It was very skilled work, mainly done by I, uh, I informed by experience. And a feeling for the flow of how type looked on a page. Okay. Enough of that creating type that would read clearly and without tiring the eye on page after page of print. Became quite a crowded arena. Names such as Caslon, Garamond Baskerville and so on emerged during this period, and they lived on with infinite twists and variations on their original creations being created nowadays. Funnily enough, I finished reading a book the other evening and saw an end note that went into quite a bit of detail about the typeface that it used, uh, and its origins. It was actually a Caslon face. Designed centuries ago. Uh, but the particular type that was being used was a variation, uh, designed for electronic reproduction. Uh, and that had been really quite recent. So, although it's not directly in the, what I would call the path of this podcast series, I would imagine anyone who has an interest in this sort of subject take a long, leisurely detour to examine the story or stories of type design. Inevitably, you'll quickly find how computer generated faces emerged blinking into the light from the shells of these earlier classic forms. Now to be successful, a type, face or font must achieve that perfect connection between legibility and giving pleasure to the eye. Hundreds of typefaces have been created in recent years that are incredibly contrived and really rather grotesque that what I would call showcase fonts for, for short titles that could never sustain a full page of body text, let alone a book. But they find a home in some of the more amrut areas of book or print design, uh, that have emerged again in recent years. So you are a bibliophile. Just spare a moment to examine the pages, uh, before and after the book proper. It'll often tell you what font or typeface the book has been set in, and I think it'll help you avoid underestimating the effect that a typeface can have on the reading experience. All of which brings us back to signage. In an earlier episode, uh, of the podcast I mentioned scenarios of road and street signage, as well as building identification, signage and directional signage in large buildings. Each of these situations has different requirements in terms of typefaces, letter and word spacing, which I may get back to in more detail in another part of the episode. I also intend at some point to make an episode that examines how ignoring one of my pet sayings. The saying being just because you can do something is not sufficient reason on its own for doing it. How ignoring that can have disastrous results for building signage. I appreciate that a video would probably make more sense, uh, with a lot of this than a, but Rome wasn't built in a day and I've had to start somewhere!. I mean, in truth, all of this might seem rather obtrusion of minority interest in the great scheme of making things better by design. But if it helps, think of it as looking after the design pennies. Exercise of which prepares us to address some bigger issues. So again, thank you very much for joining me and I hope we shall meet again soon. Uh, the next episode is looking perilously, like being a live interviewer again, uh, which is always more enjoyable than just listening to me. However, in the meantime, please take those opportunities to make your and others lives better by design. Bye for now.