The following is information on typography taken from wikipedia:
History
For the origins and evolution of typography, see the main articles
History of western typography,
History of typography in East Asia, and
Movable type.
Look up
typography in
Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
Etymology: Typography (from the
Greek words τύπος typos = "to strike" "That by which something is symbolized or figured …" and γραφία
graphia = to write).
Typography traces its origins to the first
punches and
dies used to make
seals and
currency in
ancient times. The first known movable type printing artifact is probably the
Phaistos Disc, though its real purpose remains disputed. The item dates between 1850 BC and 1600 BC, back to
Minoan age and is now on display at the archaeological museum of
Herakleion in
Crete,
Greece.
Typography with
movable type was separately invented in 11th-century
China, and
modular movable metal type began in 13th-century
China, was developed again in mid-15th century
Europe with the development of specialised techniques for casting and combining cheap copies of
letterpunches in the vast quantities required to print multiple copies of texts.
[
edit] Scope
In contemporary use, the practice and study of typography is very broad, covering all aspects of letter design and application. These include:
typesetting and
type design;
handwriting and
calligraphy;
graffiti;
inscriptional and
architectural lettering;
poster design and other large scale lettering such as
signage and
billboards;
business communications and promotional collateral;
advertising;
wordmarks and typographic logos (logotypes);
apparel (clothing);
labels on maps;
vehicle instrument panels;
kinetic typography in
motion picture films and
television;
as a component of
industrial design—type on household appliances,
pens and
wristwatches, for example.
and as a component in modern poetry (see, for example, the poetry of
e. e. cummings)
Since digitization, typography has spread to a wider ranger of applications, appearing on
web pages,
LCD mobile phone screens, and hand-held
video games. The
ubiquity of type has led typographers to coin the phrase "Type is everywhere".
Traditional typography follows four principles:
repetition,
contrast,
proximity, and
alignment.
[
edit] Text typography
Text typeset in Iowan Old Style roman, italics and small caps, optimized at approximately 10 words per line, typeface sized at 14
points on 1.4 x
leading, with 0.2 points extra
tracking. Extract of an essay by
Oscar Wilde The English Renaissance of Art ca. 1882.
Text typeset using
LaTeX digital typesetting software
In traditional typography, text is composed to create a readable, coherent, and visually satisfying whole that works invisibly, without the awareness of the reader. Even distribution with a minimum of distractions and anomalies are aimed at producing clarity and transparency.
Choice of font(s) is perhaps the primary aspect of text typography—
prose fiction,
non-fiction, editorial, educational, religious, scientific, spiritual and commercial writing all have differing characteristics and requirements. For historic material, established text typefaces are frequently chosen according to a scheme of historical genre acquired by a long process of accretion, with considerable overlap between historical periods.
Contemporary books are more likely to be set with state-of-the-art
seriffed "text romans" or "book romans" with design values echoing present-day design arts, which are closely based on traditional models such as those of
Nicolas Jenson,
Francesco Griffo (a punchcutter who created the model for Aldine typefaces), and
Claude Garamond. With their more specialized requirements, newspapers and magazines rely on compact, tightly-fitted text romans specially designed for the task, which offer maximum flexibility, readability and efficient use of page space. Sans serif text fonts are often used for introductory paragraphs, incidental text and whole short articles. A current fashion is to pair
sans serif type for headings with a high-performance seriffed font of matching style for the text of an article.
The text layout, tone or color of set matter, and the interplay of text with
white space of the page and other graphic elements combine to impart a "feel" or "resonance" to the subject matter. With
printed media typographers are also concerned with binding margins, paper selection and printing methods.
Typography is modulated by
orthography and
linguistics, word structures, word frequencies,
morphology,
phonetic constructs and linguistic
syntax. Typography also is subject to specific cultural conventions. For example, in
French it is customary to insert a
non-breaking space before a
colon (:) or
semicolon (;) in a sentence, while in
English it is not.