Salvador Dali was a skilled draftsman, best known for the striking and bizarre images in his surrealist work. His painterly skills are often attributed to the influence of Renaissance masters. His best-known work, The Persistence of Memory, was completed in 1931. Dalí's expansive artistic repertoire includes film, sculpture, and photography, in collaboration with a range of artists in a variety of media. Dalí attributed his "love of everything that is gilded and excessive, my passion for luxury and my love of oriental clothes" to a self-styled "Arab lineage," claiming that his ancestors were descended from the Moors. Dalí was highly imaginative, and also had an affinity for partaking in unusual and grandiose behavior, in order to draw attention to himself. This sometimes irked those who loved his art as much as it annoyed his critics, since his eccentric manner sometimes drew more public attention than his artwork.
Paul Jackson Pollock, January 28, 1912 – August 11, 1956, was an influential American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. During his lifetime, Pollock enjoyed considerable fame and notoriety. He was regarded as a mostly reclusive artist. He had a volatile personality, sometimes struggling with alcoholism. In 1945, he married the artist Lee Krasner, who became an important influence on his career and on his legacy. Pollock died at the age of 44 in an alcohol-related car accident."My painting does not come from the easel. I prefer to tack the unstretched canvas to the hard wall or the floor. I need the resistance of a hard surface. On the floor I am more at ease. I feel nearer, more part of the painting, since this way I can walk around it, work from the four sides and literally be in the painting." "I continue to get further away from the usual painter's tools such as easel, palette, brushes, etc. I prefer sticks, trowels, knives and dripping fluid paint or a heavy impasto with sand, broken glass or other foreign matter added."
Frank Shepard Fairey, born February 15, 1970, is an American contemporary artist, graphic designer, and illustrator who emerged from the skateboarding scene. He first became known for his "Andre the Giant Has a Posse" (…OBEY…) sticker campaign,in which he appropriated images from the comedic super market tabloid Weekly World News His work became more widely known in the 2008 US presidential election, specifically his Barack Obama “HOPE” poster. The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston calls him one of today's best known and most influential street atists. His work is included in the collections at The Smithsonian, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.Fairey became involved with art in 1984, when he started to place his drawings on skateboards and T-shirts. In 1988, he graduated from Idyllwild Arts Academy, and in 1992, Fairey graduated from Rhode Island School of Design with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Illustration.
Book: Obey: Supply and Demand, The Art of Shepard Fairey
Salvador Dali
Shepard Fairey
Daim
Banksy
Leonardo Da Vinci
Jackson Polluck
Daniel Ochoa
jonas gerard
An illuminated letter is a letter in manuscript that is decorated and is the first letter of the sentence for those who are reading it to identify the beginning of the script. Usually these letters were decorated in gold are silver to give the impression of illumination (the letters do not literally light up, its more of a metaphor). Besides being embellished in gold or silver the letters were decorated with elaborate designs, imagery and color.
Examples of Illuminated Letters
A drop cap is the first letter of a paragraph that is enlarged to "drop" down two or more lines, as in the next paragraph.
Examples of Drop Caps
History of the Font
Kabel is a geometric sans-serif typeface designed by German typeface designer Rudolf Koch, and released by the Klingspor foundry in 1927. The face was named to honor the newly completed trans-Atlantic telephone cable. Today the typeface is licensed by the Elsner+Flake GbR foundry.
Like its contemporary Futura it bears influence of two earlier geometric sans-serif typefaces; the 1919 Feder Schrift, drawn by Jakob Erbar, and more so his 1922 design called Erbar. Still, Kabel comes less out of the influences of German modernism, but more German expressionism. Stroke weights are more varied than most geometric sans-serifs, and the terminus of vertical strokes are cut to a near eight-degree angle. This has the effect of not quite sitting on the baseline and making for a more animated, less static feeling than Futura. Uppercase characters are broad and show influence of monumental roman capitals. The capital W is splayed and the G has no terminal. Lowercase characters a, e, and g show a link with Carolingian script.
There was a revival of the typeface by Victor Caruso's in 1975 , licensed by D Stempel AG, for the International Typeface Corporation follows the formulary ITC approach of a dramatically increased x-height accompanied by multiple weights from Book to Ultra.
There has been some prominent usage of the font and these uses are:
▪ NBC’s logo typefaces are in Kabel font.
▪ Kabel is used in the logo of the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey club.
▪ A shadowed bold weight version of Kabel was used for many years on MTV as the typeface in the opening/closing Lower third credits of music videos.
▪ The same heavy weight Kabel was also used for NBC Sports’ on screen graphics from 1985-8.
▪ A lower-case Kabel font is used as the typeface in the logo and other promotional materials for supermarket chain Piggly Wiggly.
▪ The typeface was used in the titling of the Sofia Coppola film Lost in Translation. The typeface was used in its heavy weight.
▪ The typeface was used in the titling of the Joey (TV Series). The typeface was used in its book weight.
▪ The typeface was also used extensively in the credits and on-screen lyrics for the movie, Yellow Submarine.
▪ Kabel is used in the popular board game Monopoly.
▪ The K Desktop Environment uses Kabel in its logo and related artwork.
▪ A modified use of Kabel is used for the L'eggs Pantyhose logo.
▪ Kabel is used for the cast aluminum lettering on most buildings around Cornell University's Ithaca, New York campus.
▪ ITC Kabel Medium is the font used for the Georgia Times logo.
▪ Kabel is used in the opening and closing credits of Saved By The Bell.
▪ Kabel is used in the O RLY? Internet meme image.
There is an 8 degree of separation on the base line of the Uppercase characters A, Y, X and on the legs of the K and R. This degree of separation is one of the distinctive differences of the Kabel font and futura font. Also the distinctive two story lowercase g.
Kabel is in the Sans Serif font classification and to be more specific the Geometric Sans Serif. In the typographic equivalent of circumcision, sans serif are stripped to the bare minimum by losing the serif appendages. They first appeared broadly in the mid-nineteenth century with the introduction of typefaces carved from wood. The increased production of sans serif in all widths and sizes remains today, as sans serifs prove to be quite malleable.
While it wasn’t the very first sans serif, Akzidenz Grotesk, represents the mechanic structure of the Neo-Grotesques, which featured nearly even widths, as opposed to the Grotesques, which retained some chacteristics of pen-drawn typefaces through slight contrast of thicks and thins. Geometric sans serif, like futura, and Kabel from the 1920s, represent even more logic-driven letterforms peeled of any possible decoration. Humanist sans serif were rooted in the calligraphic traits of fifteenth-century serifs rather than the evolution of woodtypes.
Geometric Sans Serif was a direct result, n the 1920’s of the typography of the modern art movements in Europe and the Bauhaus in Germany, an austere, functional style of sans-serif emerged. These monoline types, which were simply constructed from straight lines, the circle, and the rectangle, stormed onto the typographical scene in the late 1920s.
Rudolf Koch was born on November 11, 1876 in Nuremberg, Germany. He died on April 9, 1934. Typefaces that he designed:
Deutsche Schrift (1910)
Maximillian Antiqua (1914)
Koch Antiqua/Locano (1922)
Neuland (1923)
Klingspor Schrift (1924 - 26)
Wallou (1925 - 30)
Wilhelm (1925)
Kabel (1927 - 29)
Prisma & Zeppelin (1929)
Jessen (1924 - 30)
Marathon (1931)
Holla (1932)
Neufraktur (1933 - 34)
One of the most respected designers and teachers of his day, Rudolf Koch was the first and foremost a calligrapher and all the types he designed, except one, were developed from the calligraphy. Later in his life he would say, “ Lettering gives me the purest and greatest pleasure, and on countless occasions it has been to me what a song is to a singer.” Koch designed more than a score of faces for Klingspor and towards the end of his career he cut three himself.
Koch was born to the son of sculptor and experienced early misfortune when. In 1886, his father died, and as a result he was soon apprenticed in a metal foundry in Hanau. He attended evening classes at the Art School and left the foundry before completing his apprenticeship. Returning to Nuremberg he tried to train as a teacher and to sit examinations in art but the incompatibility of the Prussian and Bavarian education systems prevented this and in 1898 he found work as a designer in Leipzig.
It was the high time of Jungendstil – art nouveau – an exciting and confusing time for any artist of Koch’s generation, and Koch became a devotee. At about this time he began experimenting with a broad-nibbed pen and found that he was able to master many calligraphic styles, and at last he felt that he was beginning to find his forte.
At the age of 30 he saw an advertisement in a trade magazine for the post of designer in a small firm of typefounders at Offenbach. The company was Rudhardsche Giesserei, Later known as the Klingspor tyefoundry. Koch broadly experienced but with little else to his credit, applied for the job and was accepted. The relationship was to prove a long and fruitful one for Koch, the company and the future of type design in Germany.
Shortly after joining Klingspor, Koch designed his first typeface, Deutsche Schrift, a bold blackletter that occupied him until 1910. As with all his types, his method was to experiment with hand-drawn letter using a broad pen. The same letters would be drawn again and again until every letter was complete and perfect, and the type ready to be cut.
During World War 1 Koch was enlisted and sent to battlefronts in Serbia and France. Discharged in 1918, he was a changed man. As a result he became even more deeply engrossed in his work, and the post-war years were to see the beginning of his most creative and productive period. First came Neuland then Wilhelm Klingspor Schrift, the summit of achievement in a purely blackletter with romanised capitals, created originally for the great edition of the Four Gospels printed by the Klingspor press in 1926.
With Kabel, Koch overcame his personal resistance to the sans serif letter. Designed at the same time as Paul Renner’s more popular Futura, Kabel retains traditional roman forms for a, g, and t, and a venetian e.
By the mid 1920s Koch had founded the Offenbach Werkstatt, a small class of dedicated students consisting of Friedl Heinrichsen, Carl Vollmer, Fritz Kredel, Berthold Wolpe and Richard Bender, many of whom were to have an important role themselves in later years. Despite the fact that circumstances had deprived him of a fine education it was a subject that he took very seriously. “I am nothing but an educator,” he is reported to have said on one occasion.
History of the World
The Nuremberg Rally was an annual rally of the Nazi Party held in Nuremberg. From 1927 on, they ran exclusively in Nuremberg. The primary aspect of the Nuremberg Rallies was to strengthen the personality cult of Adolf Hitler, portraying Hitler as Germany's savior, chosen by providence. The gathered masses listened to the Führer's speeches, swore loyalty and marched before him. Representing the Volksgemeinschaft as a whole, the rallies served to demonstrate the might of the German people. The visitors of the rallies by their own free will were subordinate to the discipline and order in which they should be reborn as a new people.
Nuremberg was selected for pragmatic reasons: It was situated in the center of the German Reich and the local Luitpoldhain was well suited as a venue. The rallies were held under the label of Reichsparteitage des deutschen Volkes ("National Congress of the Party of the German People"), which was meant to symbolize the solidarity between the German people and the Nazi Party. This point was further emphasized by the yearly growing number of participants, which finally reached over half a million from all sections of the party, the army and the state. Propaganda movies were made for the rallies and official films for the rallies began in 1927, with the establishment of the NSDAP film office.
Although this was what was happening in Nuremberg during the time the font was made, the font actually reflects the art movement during the time known as German Expressionism. This refers to a number of related creative movements beginning in Germany before the First World War that reached a peak in Berlin, during the 1920s. These developments in Germany were part of a larger Expressionist movement in north and central European culture. Kabel also has been believed to be made to compete with the existing font, Futura, both being Geometric Sans Serif and released during the same year.
San Serif
Name of designer: Rudolf Koch
Released in 1927 by Klingspor
Classification: Geometric Sans Serif
Family members:
Light
Book
Heavy
Black
ITC Kabel Family:
Medium
Demi
Bold
Ultra
Old Style - also call Gerald is generally considered “warm” or friendly, thanks to its origins in Renaissance humanism.
-low contrast with diagonal stress
-cove or “bracketed” serifs
-based on handwriting
Bembo, Caslon, Garamond, Jenson, Palatino
Transitional - this style forms the transition between Renaissance Old Style and Modern typefaces. With the change from the woodcut to copperplate engravings in the 17th Century, the lines of the letters became more fine and rich in contrast.
-bracketed serifs
-contrast between thick and thin strokes is more pronounced
-tall x-height
Times New Roman, Baskerville, Caslon, Perpetua, Bell
Modern - also called Didone, Modern typefaces arose with the distribution of copper and steel engraving techniques in the 17th and 18th Century. The appearance is technical exact.
-mathematical construction /measurements
-extreme contrast between thick and thin strokes
-hairline serifs
Bodoni, Bauer Bodoni, Walbaum, Aster, Didot, Ellington
Slab Serif - At the beginning of the 19th Century typefaces were used for attracting attention and were in demand for advertising, posters, flyers, business and private printed matters. Egyptian and Grotesque typefaces arose from Modern typefaces.
-square ended serifs
-mono weight
-geometric impact
Serifa, Rockwell, Memphis, Clarendon, New Century Schoolbook
Sans Serif - Sans-serif typefaces influenced by the Bauhaus movement and featuring circular or geometric letters, with little variation in stroke thickness. There are three types Geometric, Humanist and Grotesque. Geometric is built around geometric forms, Humanist have oval shapes and variations in stroke thickness to create a more graceful, human appearance, and Grotesque has an upright character makes it similar to transitional serif letters.
-no serif
-mono weight
-no stress
Kabel, Futura, Frutiger, Helvetica, Gill Sans
Script - is based upon the varied and often fluid stroke created by handwriting. They are organized into highly regular formal types similar to cursive writing and looser, more casual scripts. Two types formal and casual.
-based on handwriting
-high stress
-sans serif
Kuenstler Script, Snell Roundhand, Brush Script, Kaufmann, Mistral
Blackletter - based on early written forms, blackletter is a style of typeface that features elaborate thick to thin strokes and serifs.
-elobarate strokes
-based on hand written forms
-thick/thin strokes
Old English, Gothic, Textura, Schwabacher, Fraktur
Grunge - a “dirty” font with irregular, sometimes even ugly and crooked visual elements.
-texture element to each letter
-can be serif or sans serif
-parts of letters may be missing
Turbo Ripped, Dirty Ames, Sidewalk, Neoprint M319, Trashed
Monospaced - typefaces in which every glyph is the same width.
-characters share the same width
-slab serif
-mono stroke width
Courier, Prestige Elite, Fixedsys, Monaco, Lucida typewriter
Undeclared - Typefaces that contain sans serif structures attached to flared serifs.
-thick stroke widths
-wide horizantal axis
-small glyphic serifs
Optima, Copperplate Gothic, Aviano serif, Imperium, Copperplate
Adrain Frutiger is Swiss typeface designer and is one of the most important designers of the time. He was born in Interlaken, Switzerland on May 24, 1928. When he was a child he experimented with invented scripts and stylized handwriting in disapproving response to formal writing because Swiss schools then required cursive penmanship. He wanted to study sculpture but his father and schoolteachers were unenthusiastic about it and wanted him to work in printing. His passion for sculpture has influenced him in his type work. At 16 he was the apprentice of the printer Otto Schaerffli, for 4 years, as a compositor. He began to work at Deberny and Peignot foundry, at which he invented a few typefaces that got him recognized and Peignot gave him the job to convert the extant typeface for the new phototypesetting. In 1957 he invented, the most notable, type face Univers. This typeface changed how fonts were organized and titled by using a two number system in which the first set defines weight, while the second defines width and position. He has created several other typefaces that have gained him world recognition; his fonts are the most widely known and used, however Univers is the most notable.
Reference:
"Adrian Frutiger." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 07 Sept. 2010.
What makes Univers “unique” is the classification system that removes naming and specification confusion. There is a two number system and the first set defines weight, while the second defines width and position.
Univers Grid:
The grid is an interrelated typeface system. It shows how each variation differs slightly to get to the next. It consists of 21 typefaces.
Grid - consists of a distinct set of alignment-based relationships that serves as a guide for distributing elements across a format.
Using a grid permits a designer to lay out enormous amounts of information in substantially less time because many of the design considerations have been addressed in building grid structure. The grid also allows many individuals to collaborate on the same project or on series of related projects over time, without compromising established visual qualities from one project to the next.
Modular Grid - a grid with four columns and four rows.
Margins - the negative spaces between the format edge and the content, which surround and define the live area where type and images will be arranged.
Columns - vertical alignments of a type that create horizontal divisions between the margins.
Modules - individual units of space separated by regular intervals that, when repeated across the page format, create columns and rows.
Flowlines - alignments that break the space into horizontal bands.
Gutter - the blank space between adjacent columns.
An example of a grid - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Grid1aib.svg
Hierarchy – order that allows the viewer to enter the typography space and navigate it, the order is based on the level of importance the designer assigns to each part of the text.
Typographic Color – it is the changes in lightness and darkness, or value, not hue. Also it describes the changes in rhythm and texture. It allows the eye to perceive the text as occupying different in locations in illusionary space.
One way to achieve clear hierarchy is through is using typographic color. Manipulating the spaces around and between text, the designer creates levels of importance. By shifting a specific item out of alignment, attention is called to it and it alerts the viewer of its importance. The use of scale change also indicates the level of importance.
