Project 1: Weather/Modular Grid

Behance: Project 1

This is the link to our lovely first project, which I actually had a lot of fun doing.  Hope you all enjoy!

TACO!

This is pretty old, but I forgot to upload our awesome taco type!  We used colored pencils from the shop in the design building.  The colors represent the different colors in a taco.

Living and Dead Typographers.

Well now that I actually did the right assignment, here are the bios on my selected living and dead typographers.

Living Typographers

Ed Benguiat (1927-)

After working for Esquire magazine and running his own Sudio, Benguiat joined Photo-Lettering Inc. in 1962 becoming head of its publishing department and designing literally hundreds of display typefaces.  He was part of the rise of the International Typeface Corporation in 1970 and helped Herb Lubalin launch its marketing publication.  He is credited with more than 600 typefaces, among them ITC Souvenir, ITC Tiffany, and ITC Bauhaus.

Christian Schwartz (1977-)

Schwartz’s first typeface was released by FontHaus when he was only 14 years old.  After receiving his degree from Carnegie Mellon University, he worked at MetaDesign and Font Bureau and then left to start freelancing.  He loved to collaborate with other designers and he also liked to work on his own fonts.  In 2006, he established Schwartzco, Inc. that focuses on speed and the detail that he puts into his typefaces.

Zuzana Licko (1961-)

Without any real training in typeface design, Licko used her knowledge from her Graphic Design degree to create multiple successful typefaces.  Most of her fonts emerged with the introduction to the Macintosh.  Licko tried to create modern typefaces of what previous designers have done.  Overall, Licko has about 30 different typefaces that include a wide variety.

Matthew Carter (1937-)

Carter had a yearlong internship punch-cutting at the printing house Ensechede in Haarlem, Netherlands and after that he freelanced for six years in London as a typemaker and then a type designer.  After making several typefaces, Carter and three of his friends established Bitstream.  After Bitstream’s time was gone, he co-founded Carter & Cone Type Inc, where he created multiple typefaces including Verdana for Microsoft. 

Hermann Zapf (1918-)

Zapf designed his first typeface, a Fraktur black letter called Gilgengart, for D. Stempel AG type foundry and Linotype GmbH in 1938.  He served in the Cartographic Unit of the German army during the World War II.  Zapf designed Palatino and Optima for D. Stempel AG.  Zapf has been one of the few type designers to produce designs in metal, phototypesetting, and computer.

Dead Typographers

Claude Garamond (1480-1561)

Claude Garamond was one of the first punch cutters to work independently and sell his fonts to printers.  His first Roman appeared in 1530 in Paraphrasis in Elegantiarum Libros Laurentii Vallae by Erasmus.

Erhard Ratdolt (1447-1528

Erhard Ratdolt moved from Germany to Venice in 1475, where he established a printing business.  He designed and printed perhaps the first recorded type specimen sheet in 1486, showcasing his black letter, Roman and Green typeface designs.

John Baskerville (1706-1775)

John Baskerville established a printing business and type foundry in 1750.  With John Handy as his punch cutter, Baskerville designed various original Romans.  As a printer, he experimented with custom inks, producing rich blacks, and with paper, achieving highly glossy surfaces. 

Firmin Didot (1764-1836)

Firmin Didot is a representative of the third generation of the Didot family, with roots in printing and publishing as far back as the mid eighteenth century.  He designed the first Modern Roman in 1784, with thin serifs and high contrast in its strokes – all contemporary Didot typefaces are based on his work.

Giambattista Bodini (1740-1813)

Giambattista Bodini was director of the Stamperia Reale, the official press of Ferdinand, Duke of Parma for 45 years.  Taking cues from the Baskerville’s Romans with high contrast and Didot’s flat serifs, Bodoni designed his own Modern typeface in the late 1790s.  After his death in 1813, his widow Paola Margherita finished Bodoni’s Manuale Tipographico, an exemplary, exhaustive type specimen of Bodoni’s collection and own designs.



Gomez-Palacio, Bryony, and Armin Vit. Graphic Design, Referenced: a Visual Guide to the Language, Applications, and History of Graphic Design. Beverly, MA: Rockport, 2009. Print.

Past Designers

Alvin Lustig (1915-1955)

Alvin Lustig began his career with his love of magic.  His love for magic and his posters that advertised his talent is what brought attention to the fact that he was indeed a good designer.  He then began school at the Los Angeles Community College and the City’s Art Center School.  A couple years after, he began a business that was slow getting of the ground, but his work showcased a new beginning.  The rest of his career revolved mainly around designing book covers.  His life ended due to diabetes in the year of 1955, at the age of 40.

Cipe Pineles (1908-1991)

Originally from Vienna, Cipe Pineles enrolled in Brocklyn’s Pratt Institute, in which she developed an impressive portfolio.  She maintained plenty of job interviews from her work, but since she was a woman, she did not maintain any jobs.  This was until she joined a small firm called Contempora.  She made her way at this firm and began her main career as art director for magazine companies like Vanity Fair, House and Garden, and Seventeen.  During her career, Pineles made her way through a male-dominated industry and turned out to be very successful until her death in New York in 1991.

Bradbury Thompson (1911-1995)

Bradbury Thompson received a degree from Washburn College in Topeka, Kansas, which is where he had become the editor and designer of the college yearbook.  Right out of college, Thompson began working for magazines as the art director and made a name for himself.  He then became editor and designer of Westvaco Inspirations for Printers.   He demonstrated typography for 61 issues, until the production ceased.  After the production ceased, Thompson maintained jobs as art director for multiple magazines and overall designed up to 30 layouts for magazines.  He also created a typeface due to his curiosity of typography.  His font was called Alphabet 26.  He passed away in New York in 1995.

Erik Nitsche (1908-1998)

Erik Nitsche was originally from Switzerland, however, to jumpstart his career, he moved to Germany to work with his professor and worked at Pressa. He then moved to Paris to work for a printing house and during his stay in Paris, he had earned money for multiple magazine illustrations.  He then moved to Los Angeles and New York to become editor of illustrations for magazines.  He then became art director for Saks Fifth Avenue and at the same time he continued to complete freelance work.  He then started to work for General Dynamics and did some print ads that got the attention of the CEO.  The CEO let Nitsche be in charge of the identity of the company.  Towards the end of his career, Nitsche moved back to Switzerland and established his own company but then moved back to the states to work on children’s books.  He then moved to Germany to work on designing stamps and then moved back to the states where he died in 1998.

Ladislav Sutnar (1897-1976)

Ladislav Sutnar went to three different schools in Prague in which he learned everything he needed to become successful in multiple things like making puppets to designing magazine covers.  He was then asked to design an exhibit at the New York World Fair, which was cancelled, but ended up staying in New York.  He then became art director of Sweet’s Catalog Service, in which he stayed for two decades.  He then published New Patterns in Product Information in which he started what is now known as information design.  The rest of his career consisted of working for multiple magazines.

Adrian Frutiger and Univers

Adrian Frutiger was one of the great designers that made typeface what it is today.  He started off his designer years in his home country, Siwtzerland, and attended a Swiss school of design.  Right out of school, Frutiger acquired a job in France at a typefoundry in which he would work with various typefaces and typesetting.   From his knowledge that he gained from school and his first job, he has impacted the typeface world.  He is known for creating the typefaces of Universe and Frutiger.  Of course, those are not the only typefaces that hold his name as the creater.  Herculaneum and Glypha are also on the long list of typefaces he created.  During his time as a designer, he would create different fonts and then spend a lot of time refining them to make a complete series of a particular font.  This was the case when it came to Univers, Frutiger and Avenir.  On top of creating multiple popular fonts, he has published many books as well.  The amount of knowledge and gifts he has given to the world of typography seems like too much to list, but all of the typefaces and knowledge we use everyday had to come from somewhere and we just have to be grateful and admire their outstanding work.

The Univers typeface is unique in many ways, but the most unique thing is how every member of the font is named.  Instead of names, like all the other fonts, they are named by numbers.  The Universe grid is very different as well.  The grid organizes the different members of the font by stroke weight and kerning.