Typophile - Stone on Type vs Writing - Comments

>to insist on the autonomy

William Berkson — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 14:48:47 -0700

>to insist on the autonomy of type in relation to writing.

I certainly haven’t said and don’t think that type is autonomous of earlier writing. I don’t think that Stone says that anywhere, either. What he says is that punch cutting added a *new* element, different from writing, to the design process, and that I find convincing.

I would agree that Stone goes too far when he writes “Letterforms could no longer be viewed, even mentally, as a series of strokes with an edged tool.” I think that an “underlying force” of writing, to use van Krimpen’s phrase, remains there. Even though Stone’s statement is strictly speaking probably right—for real pens—I follow Noordzij in thinking that it is a very useful exercise to visualize what an edged tool would do, and then consider how what you want to do departs from it.

But if Stone goes a little farther than I am comfortable with, in my view Noordzij sometimes goes flying over the right balance in the other direction. I can’t find the quotes at the moment, but if I run across them I’ll add them to the thread.

Nicely put!

Eben Sorkin — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 13:06:27 -0700

Nicely put!

Perhaps what I’m getting

enne_son — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 11:33:51 -0700

Perhaps what I’m getting to is that remarks about what occupies the dominating position must be taken with a grain of salt.

The story might be a good deal more complex. Noordzij’s scheme raises the possibility that retroactive admiration for the Roman inscriptional capital as well as, or simultaneous with a lateral (in time) application of aspects of a well-understood textura construction of exit strokes (at least) to the recently revived carolinian minuscule are both at work in the Florentine and Paduan writing after Bracciolini: the one offering a new solution to the writing of the carolinian minuscule and the other pressing for further exploration in the writing of the majuscule. I’m curious to know what the “more complex” (Sumner Stone) stroke patterns used in the Florentine and Paduan manuscripts (especially for the caps) were. New initiatives and existing admirations work in tandem.

In a recent lengthy essay by Kay Amert evaluating Stanley Morison’s “Aldine hypothesis” about influences on French roman types of the early sixteenth century (“Stanley Morison’s Aldine Hypothesis Revisited,” Design Issues: Volume 24, Number 2, Spring 2008), Kay Amert states: “The connoisseurship that led Stanley Morison to grasp the importance of the Aldine roman for later punchcutters is misplaced when imputed in a literal sense to the punchcutters themselves. Rather than suggesting the close copying that is the method of modern revivals, the approach to the romans produced by these punchcutters suggests, instead, the application of a synthesizing intelligence, the exercise of a keen critical sensibility cultivated in the practice of the craft, and a desire for originality in its pursuit.” [my emphasis]

I think “synthesizing intelligence” is apt, both in relation to the Florentine and Paduan writing and the Jenson type. Noordzij’s importance is to not let real developments in writing drop out of the equation in the hunger to insist on the autonomy of type in relation to writing.

Bill, I thnk the sequence

enne_son — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 10:32:07 -0700

Bill, I thnk the sequence Noordzij’s scheme suggests is first, the ‘phase-one’ adaption of the Imperial capitals to the Carolinian minuscules in manuscript writing that Stone associates with Poggio Bracciolini. The majuscules here “relied on thea stroke pattern derived from the pen-written minuscule.” Then there is an assimilation of a “late-gothic” textura construction into the humanistic lower-case domain. The key here is the figure 9 on Letterletter page 101. The serif here is not fully symmetrical per force of the tool, much like the terminals in figure 3 from page 103 and the serifs in Jenson’s type.

I don’t know the date of the textura Noordzij shows in figure 2 of page 103, or figure 3 of the same page. I assume figure 3 is from the same pool of evidence Stone uses for his claim s about the the minuscules in the second phase of Imperial capitals to the Carolinian minuscules, where Stone says something closer to the Imperial caps takes the lead. I doubt Noordzij is playing with chronology here. Perhaps I’ll try to find out.

More likely the change to a retracting serif in the Carolinian-derived minuscule, based on an assimilation of construction principle drawn from textura, set up a dynamic in the development of the lower case which could then branch out, once the transition to type was made, into a more literal assimilation of the formal features of the Imperial Roman (than in Bracciolini’s case) and a subsequent feedback of those assimilations into a more formalized lower case such as occurs perhaps in Griffo.

Stone says that the construction of the Imperial Capital became more complex. It could well be that the innovation of using a textura-based construction to write the minuscule, carried over to the writing of Imperial Capital, led to the discovery that one could also come to a closer approximation of the formal features of the inscriptional Imperial Capital.

Peter, a key issue here is

William Berkson — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 07:40:36 -0700

Peter, a key issue here is chronology.

If, as the Stone article says, first came the introduction of Imperial caps with lower case, and later came more symmetrical serifs, then Noordzij’s story doesn’t hold. If the symmetrical serifs were introduced earlier for different reasons, then he would have a case—though there are a lot of other reasons why I think his story misses out on important non-writing influences.

Noordzij doesn’t give any dates on the “Burgundian” style of serif, so I can’t really evaluate his argument.

I recommend reading that GN

Eben Sorkin — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 20:36:54 -0700

I recommend reading that GN passage. And re-reading that. He isn’t at his most accessible in that text. But he does make some compelling points that have the virtue of being much less mystical than the usual explanations.

In his “Het primaat van de

enne_son — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 15:40:44 -0700

In his “Het primaat van de pen” (The primacy of the pen) Gerrit Noordzij formulates in a single sentence what he tries to maintain in Letterletter #11 (pages 96 to 105 of the Letterletter book) as follows: “Jenson’s roman follows the construction of the late-gothic textura.” [my translation] The section on page 104 and 105, along with the four-part illustration on page 103 — that in the original Letterletter edition went with it — makes a compelling case for this point of view.

The argument is mainly about the serifs.

Manuscript evidence Stone interperts as showing efforts to put Imperial capital-style serifs on the humanistic lower case, Noordzj interprets as showing assimilation of the construction principles of a late-gothic textura into the humanistic lower-case domain.

Jenson’s roman paraphrases. But what what his roman paraphrases represents is the issue.

This could make Jenson’s innovation seem progressive, not grudging, and remove the plebian stigma Stone places on the presumably now subdominant lower case. Progressive, because for centuries innovations leading to the late-gothic textura had made the medieval script-letter the training-ground for the consolidation of the word.

I meant to say “in

Eben Sorkin — Wed, 4 Jun 2008 23:18:28 -0700

I meant to say “in itself”. Sorry.

I got the article today. The next article by Rod McDonald is pretty interesting too.

I may chime in after I have a chance to re-read it all.

And yet he provided the

Eben Sorkin — Mon, 2 Jun 2008 16:51:28 -0700

And yet he provided the definitive model, in the winnowing of history.

Exactly. Which is why it’s so tempting/exciting to be able to say something new about it - if it’s accurate or not.

Leaving the scribal aspects behind for now, I want to point out that there may be problem with Bill (& maybe Stone’s?) approach which is that it may rely on too few samples. When I look at Aldine & Jenson books I find that the forms vary from book to book. And sometime maybe in the book as well. In order to be convincing I think you would have to see if the idea holds true over multiple editions and show how it develops over time. It might be that this is not relevant because the essential aspect persists. But it might not too. Also, the impression they offer is soft because the paper is rough.

None of this means that Bill is mistaken it itself but it does legitimately throw some details/fuzz up that has to be dealt with.

printing was the first mass

Nick Shinn — Mon, 2 Jun 2008 14:09:01 -0700

printing was the first mass production method

In Venice, boat building preceded it.
The Arsenal was a production line.

what, in the case of type,

Nick Shinn — Mon, 2 Jun 2008 14:05:44 -0700

what, in the case of type, would you say the “heirarchy of retrieval” was?

I couldn’t say.
I’ve seen work by Incunabula type designers other than Jenson, and it’s all over the place.
And yet he provided the definitive model, in the winnowing of history.
Obviously, there was a huge scene in Venice, where new media people from all over Europe congregated and threw their stuff in the stew.
In discussing typography and calligraphy, bear in mind that the Roman letter was in a decided minority of the books being published.

Interesting post, Nick. I

William Berkson — Mon, 2 Jun 2008 14:02:48 -0700

Interesting post, Nick.

I didn’t mean that cutting punches was the whole story, but it was the foundation of the rest. And those cutting the punches knew the rest of the process and designed in accord with that.

Your post makes me think: as printing was the first mass production method, so Jenson and Griffo and some of their colleagues were perhaps the first designers. By that I mean they were not crafting individual items, but consciously producing templates for reproduction of identical items. The strict imitation of black letter makes that not quite design, as there was not conscious innovation for the purpose of reproduction, as there seems to be with Jenson and Griffo.

Nick, what, in the case of

enne_son — Mon, 2 Jun 2008 13:26:08 -0700

Nick, what, in the case of type, would you say the “heirarchy of retrieval” was?

Yes, the answers to both

enne_son — Mon, 2 Jun 2008 13:18:53 -0700

Yes, the answers to both questions are part of the story.

the medium was single

Nick Shinn — Mon, 2 Jun 2008 13:17:40 -0700

the medium was single letters carved of metal,

That line of thinking leads to over-simplification, in directly comparing pen with counterpunch.
The new medium was a stretched-out industrial process involving more than one person— matrix-making, casting, composing, inking, making the impression, and re-using type.
As with all mechanization, craft becomes production work, and artistry becomes design/management.
It is this distancing of the decision-maker from the mark-maker which engenders abstraction, emphasizing the role of design.
At this point, McLuhan’s laws of media become apparent, in particular #4 Retrieval: the content of any medium is an older medium.

But not necessarily any one medium; and so Incunabula type design was free to synthesize elements of pen, brush, and chisel media, as well as address issues specific to the new process. Retrieval was a traditional practice of page making, ensconced in the hierarchy of styles on the introductory page of manuscripts, starting with oldest (Roman capitals), below that Uncials, and then the most recent, Carolignian body text.

Stone on Type vs Writing

William Berkson — Sun, 25 May 2008 09:22:30 -0700

The latest “Letterspace” newsletter of the TDC (Type Directors Club) has a fascinating piece on type history called “The Conceptual Basis of Type Design.”

In it Sumner Stone argues that the Jenson and Griffo made a fundamental break with scribal tradition, to letter designs that were critically dependent on the sculpting of metal, rather than on purely pen-written shapes. As this is what I was arguing in the lengthy “rule or law” thread, I was delighted to see strong support for this view.

The TDC is putting up past issues of Letterspace on its web site, so I suppose this essay will eventually be up.

Meanwhile here is the argument in brief. In the early 15th century, scribe Poggio Bracciolini revived the Carolingian Miniscule (the basis of our lower case letters) and married it for the first time with Roman Capitals, rather than with Uncial or Rustic majuscules. However, Bracciolini did not do the Roman Capital style of serifs, following instead a style more natural to the pen, such as we see in the Lydian and Beorcana typefaces.

Later in the century, other scribes tried to emulate the much admired Roman Capitals more closely, building the serifs with many strokes of the pen. They also sometimes put symmetrical serifs on the lower case letters, which had not been done previously.

Now comes Stone’s new insight into the history. These later efforts were not really successful; they in fact were rather awkward. The reason is that the Roman Capitals, as Edward Catich showed, were originally painted—built up with a broad brush, not a pen—and then the painted part was carved out of the stone. Because the Capitals were really a painters’ and carvers’ style they couldn’t adapt very well to the fixed width pen.

This situation changed drastically with the introduction of printing and punch cut letters. Here the sculpting of letters in metal could emulate the fine, symmetric serifs of Roman Capitals, and put fine, tapering serifs on the lower case, to match the caps. Jenson started this and then Griffo completed the story with more fully symmetric serifs on the lower case. These styles more fully and successfully married upper and lower case letters.

Stone explains: “[The structure of the lower case] remained closely related to the pen-written letter, but thin, symmetric foot serifs replaced the thicker asymmetric pen versions and there was an increase in the overall formality of the miniscules.

“Thus, unlike Gutenberg and other early printers who used blackletter forms, the designers of the first roman types did not directly imitate contemporary scribal models. They used the freedom inherent in the new process of engraving punches to construct a new design in which the forms of the Roman capitals were more closely based on Roman inscriptional models and the lower case, perhaps a bit grudgingly, was made to adopt some of the features of the new/old capitals.”

In that earlier thread, I was more concerned with modifications of writing for the sake of even color in type. However, in any case Stone’s argument here indicates that the influence of “The Stroke” of the pen, while still very important in the development of type, is somewhat less so than what G. Noordzij indicates in his book of that name, and painting and carving have had a larger influence on the evolution of type design.