Swift typeface - I will grow to love it

2. 3. Gerard Unger was born in Arnhem, Netherlands, 1942 and is still alive today. He designed Swift in 1985. He even has a web site: http://www.gerardunger.com/

4. Swift is categorized as a transitional serif font.

5. (below)




















In the last decade of the 17th century, the first conscious revision of old style occurred in France, with the creation of the font for the Imprimerie Royale. This departure from old style greatly influenced designers of printing types during the 18th century, the best known of these was John Baskerville. Baskerville was an English amateur printer and typefounder, who is credited with the creation of one of the earliest transitional types…..

Advances in ink and paper-making and printing technology, all made by Baskerville himself, enabled hi to rationalize the design of his typeface whilst subtly retaining distinctive aspects of hand-written form. ……..

“About Face: Reviving the Rules of Typography” by David Jury


6. Baskerville, Julek, and Antiqua are also transitional serif fonts

7. At the beginning of the eighties there were only a handful of types that were suitable for newsprint, and most newspapers were using either Times or Excelsior “ both of which dated way back to 1932. At the same time, papers were less carefully produced than now. This is why Swift has such a robust appearance, large serifs and pronounced character: it is designed to be a survivor. Today, Swift is used more outside newspapers than in them, especially for corporate identities and as a text type for periodicals.

8. Unger also designed Swift Amerigo BT (1986), Oranda (1987), Argo (1991), Gulliver (1993), Capitolium (1998), Paradox (1999), Coranto (1999), and Vesta (2001).

9. Gerard Unger is a graphic designer, typographer and type designer. He studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam. He has been freelance since 1972. Board member of the Association Typographique Internationale and member of the Alliance Graphique Internationale. Part time professor at the Department of Typography and Graphic Communication of The University of Reading, UK, and part time teacher at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam.Since 1974 he has been involved in digital type design. Some of his type designs are: (1984), Swift (1996), Amerigo BT (1986), Oranda (1987), Argo (1991), Gulliver (1993), Capitolium (1998), Paradox (1999), Coranto (1999), and Vesta (2001). Of these, both Swift and Gulliver are used internationally in newspapers, magazines and other printed matter. He has designed the typeface for the new Dutch roads signs, commissioned by the anwb and in cooperation with npk industrial design, Leiden.He has also designed corporate identities, magazines, newspapers and books. He writes regularly about his profession and has often lectured abroad. In 1997 his book about reading Terwijl je leest has been published (in Dutch). In 1998 he designed, heading a group of six designers, and again in cooperation with npk industrial design, Leiden, the orientation and information system for Rome in 2000, with at its core the type design Capitolium. This type design continues the 2000 year old and unique Roman tradition of public lettering.He was awarded the Dutch national H.N. Werkmanprize in 1984 for the way he reconciled type design and technological changes, and in 1991 the Maurits Enschedé-Prize for all his type designs.

http://www.identifont.com/show?13N

“Many of my type designs have been the result of my own initiative,* particularly my newsfaces. The first of these was Swift, later produced by the Hell company. At the beginning of the eighties there were only a handful of types that were suitable for newsprint, and most newspapers were using either Times or Excelsior “ both of which dated way back to 1932. At the same time, papers were less carefully produced than now. This is why Swift has such a robust appearance, large serifs and pronounced character: it is designed to be a survivor. Today, Swift is used more outside newspapers than in them, especially for corporate identities and as a text type for periodicals.•

http://typedia.com/explore/typeface/swift/

Swift (1985) has proved its worth in corporate identities, magazines and newspapers and occasionally in books — it is a versatile type and can be used in a wide range of circumstances. It is a striking type, with large serifs, large counters and letters that produce a particularly strong horizontal impression. This means that words and lines in Swift are easily distinguished, even where there are large spaces between words, as can occur in newsprint. Swift’s large, robust counters were designed to improve legibility particularly in newspapers. It was designed in the early eighties, when papers were less well printed than they are today, and its special features help it survive on grey, rough paper printed on fast rotary presses. Today it is used more often outside newspapers than in. The current Swift (1995) is an improved version with technical and aesthetic enhancements, and has been expanded into a family of twenty-four variants.

http://www.gerardunger.com/fontstore/store-swift.html


Gerard Unger developed this newspaper font between 1984 and 1987 for Dr.-Ing. Rudolf Hell GmbH, Kiel. He was mainly influenced by William A. Dwiggins (1880-1956), the typographic consultant of Mergenthaler Linotype, who started to develop more legible, alternative fonts for newspaper printing as early as 1930. More…

Swift was named after the fast flying bird. Austere and concise, firm and original, Swift is suited for almost any purpose. Swift has been specially developed to sustain a maximum of quality and readability when used in unfavorable print and display processes, e.g. newspapers, laser printing and low resolution screens. Its robust, yet elegant serifs and its large x-height provide an undeniable distinction to the typeface, making it suitable for corporate ID and advertising purposes as well.

Swift 2.0 family was designed in 1995. It’s an improved version with technical and aesthetic enhancements and new family members. The Cyrillic version was developed for ParaType in 2003 by Tagir Safayev.

http://new.myfonts.com/fonts/paratype/swift/


10. “Swift (1985) has proved its worth in corporate identities, magazines and newspapers and occasionally in books.”

“Its robust, yet elegant serifs and its large x-height provide an undeniable distinction to the typeface, making it suitable for corporate ID and advertising purposes as well.”

Font Classifications

Old style- a style of font developed by Renaissance typographers to replace the Blackletter style of type. Based on ancient Roman inscriptions, these fonts are generally characterized by low contrast between thick and thin strokes, bracketed serifs, and a left-leaning axis or stress. There are two groups of Old Style typefaces: Venetian (Renaissance) and Garalde (Baroque).
Examples: Garamond, Centaur, Goudy Oldstyle, Century Oldstyle, Palatino, Sabon

Transitional- the Old Style of type of the 16th and 17th centuries evolved into a style known as Transitional. The primary characteristics of Transitional type are medium contrast between thick and thin strokes, less left-inclined stress than earlier Old Style faces, and a triangular or flat tip where diagonal strokes meet (such the base of a W).
Examples: Baskerville, Times New Roman, Bell, Perpetua

Modern- a style of typeface developed in the late 18th century that continued through much of the 19th century. Characterized by high contrast between thick and thin strokes and flat serifs, Modern fonts are harder to read than previous and later typestyles.
Examples: Bodoni, Didot, Bernhard Modern Roman

Slab Serif- A Slab Serif is a type of serif font that evolved from the Modern style. The serifs are square and larger, bolder than serifs of previous typestyles. Considered a sub-classification of Modern
Examples: Clarendon, American Typewriter, Rockwell

Sans Serif- type which does not have serifs. Within sans serif there are five main classifications: Grotesque, Neo-Grotesque, Geometric, Humanist, and Informal. Typefaces within each classification usually share similarities in stroke thickness, weight, and the shapes of certain letterforms.
Examples: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, Futura, Univers, and Franklin Gothic

Serif - a font with the little extra stroke found at the end of main vertical and horizontal strokes of some letterforms. In some cases serifs may aid in the readability of a typeface. Serif refers, in general, to any style of type that has serifs.

Visual Concepts - Post 3

Well, my tiger project was going pretty well... until I got strep throat. So this morning I went to Watkins with a 102 degree fever and thinking I was going to die. But now I've got antibiotics.

So after a nap - it's back to work on my tigers! I think I have most of them nailed down, although some still need some refinements. I'm going to send them to Jeremy to see what he thinks, since I don't get to go to the critique today because I'm contagious :(

Here's my new favorite one:

Typography - Post 3 - John Baskerville & Adrian Frutiger

John Baskerville

John Baskerville was a printer and a business man, but most notibly a typographer. Baskervillle was born on January 28, 1706 in the village of Wolverley and was a printer in Birmingham, England. He was a member of the Royal Society of Arts. He directed John Handy, in the design of many typefaces.

Baskerville printed works for the University of Cambridge in 1758 and although he was an atheist, he printed a folio Bible in 1763. His typefaces were greatly admired by Benjamin Franklin, a printer and fellow member of the Royal Society of Arts. His fonts were adopted for most federal government publishing.

Baskerville also was responsible for huge innovations in printing, paper and ink production. He developed a technique which produced a smoother whiter paper which showcased his strong black type.

He created the Baskerville typeface in 1757. It is considered to be a transitional serif typeface. Baskerville is positioned between the old style typefaces of William Caslon, and the modern styles of Giambattista Bodoni and Firmin Didot.

The fonts of John Baskerville were composed of more contrasting elements than any print characters at that time. People needed finer paper and printing ink in order to display and highlight their details. Baskerville can often still be found in use in books and magazines.

Baskerville died January 8, 1775.

http://www.linotype.com/1882/baskerville.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Baskerville


Adrian Frutiger

Adrian Frutiger was born May 24, 1928. Frutiger is best known for creating the typefaces Univers and Frutiger. He is considered to be one of the prominent typeface designers of the 20th century. He is unique because he has also continued to influence type of the 21st century.

Frutiger studied type and graphics at the Zurich School of Arts and Crafts from 1949 to 1951. He then went to Paris in 1952 and worked as typeface designer and artistic manager at Deberny & Peignot. His first typeface creations were Phoebus (1953), Ondine (1954) and Meridien (1955).

He established his international position as a typeface designer with his Univers sans-serif font, that was produced for metal and film in 1957. He was also Professor for ten years at the Ecole Estienne and eight years at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs, Paris.

Frutiger released Univers in 1957. It is a neo-grotesque sans serif; that features even stroke weights and a large x-height to improve legibility. It’s become known for the variety of weights and set-widths included in the family. At the time it was designed it included 21 variations, and was the first type family to implement a numbering system as opposed to using names. Today there are over 27 different variations of Univers available. Univers is an extremely diverse typeface that has the ability to work very well at large display sizes for applications such as headlines and mastheads as well as in small sizes for body copy.


http://typophile.com/node/13516?
http://www.linotype.com/720/adrianfrutiger.html

Vis Com - Post 2

So, the first project is going alright so far. I'm not a very good drawer, so I've been having a little trouble with my craft. I picked a tiger- which is kind of a hard animal to get in proportion. Making the first 75 drawings was a struggle, but I made myself push through them.

I think today is going a lot better. I have a few of my drawings into Illustrator and I think they look pretty good :) The next set of drawings #6-10 should be more challenging, but fun also.

Vis Comm - Post 1

It is interesting to think about how symbols are transmitted. Do people all receive the same message? Or do some people get a different message from the symbol?

In Shannon Weaver's communication model, it says that communication that does not work as intended, has failed. So then, is there no room for interpretation? What if the artist wants the viewer to take from the symbol whatever they want? I guess in visual communication, we are trying to get the viewer to see and understand what we make. It is less about feeling and more about correctness.