news and press | we graphic design.

NEWS / PRESS

The best friendships are maintained through a steady process of communication and 'tab' keeping.
Stay up to date with your BFFs at WORK! We promise to keep it interesting.

The World Of Typography PART 1
- Share |
Posted on March 11th, 2010 by Roxy
Typefaces are a fairly essential part of any designer’s arsenal, so, in order to make your job easier, we’ve decided to compile a “getting to know you” on the best part of design…you guessed it: TYPOGRAPHY!
Please try to contain your excitement, so that we can move on swiftly and gracefully.

In this first part of our type overview, we’ll look at Humanist Typefaces. Prepare to delve into a world of wonder.

OVERVIEW – Humanist Typefaces

“Humanist” is a classification of type. That’s it!

Loosely speaking, there are six basic type classifications. They are:

Humanist • Old Style • Transitional • Modern • Slab Serif (Egyptian) • Sans Serif

Humanist typefaces are like the great grandparents of type. Old and wise, they set the precedent for all following typefaces. They first came about soon after Gutenberg’s printing press. They were based on the handwriting of the medieval scribes of Italy, and generally heavily relied on handwriting for their design.

Because of their dark/heavy nature and small x-height (see humanist characteristics), Humanist types have been pushed aside in favor of sans-serifs and other modern typefaces. They are seldom used, but their appearance is sure to turn heads. No designer should be discouraged from using a Humanist typeface if it is appropriate for the project.

From personal experience, typefaces of the Humanist persuasion work best with projects that require an “old school” refinement and class. A lofty book, for example, makes the perfect candidate. Also, these faces can be used to show off your typographic prowess. They take a lot of care and attention to pull off, but if set well on a page, they will look beautiful in any project that requires them.

HUMANIST CHARACTERISTICS
- sloping cross-bar on the lowercase “e”
- relatively small x-height (the distance between the baseline and the mean line, or the height of one “x” in the font)
- low contrast between “thick” and “thin” strokes (little variation in the stroke width)
- dark colour (not a reference to colour in the traditional sense, but the overall lightness or darkness of the page). To get a better impression of a page’s “colour” look at it through half-closed eyes.
- heavy weight to the font
- a wide set in the capitals
- oblique, steeply sloped, heavy serifs, and oblique stress
- long descenders
SOME HUMANIST TYPEFACES

Jenson, Kennerly, Centaur, Stempel Schneidler, Verona, Lutetia, Jersey, Lynton, Adobe Jenson

FUN FACTS

Humanist is the first font style developed after Blackletter (below).

Due to lack of knowledge and experience with readability, Humanist fonts are not as readable as Old Style faces for example, which were developed shortly after the Humanist faces.

At the risk of inviting confusion, there is a new brand of “Humanist” typefaces called Humanist Sans, which includes any sans-serif with character variations that seem familiar. Humanist Sans faces adopt the root and attitude of Humanist serif fonts.