Edited By Brandon SinghPublished by Roski Design Press, 2015

CHAPTER ONE

Typographersand

Designers

Jessica Hische is a Pennsylvania-born, award-winning letterer, illustrator, and

graphic designer. Known for her ‘Daily Drop Cap’ project, ‘Should I Work for

Free’ flowchart, and beautiful type design and lettering skills, Hische is current-

ly based in San Francisco and works alongside friend and designer Erik Mari-

novich. While she’s not in her studio space creating and working on designs, she

can be found traveling the world attending and speaking at conferences, finding

ways to help others do what they love.

Having worked for wonderful clients such as Wes Anderson, American Express,

and Penguin Books, Hische continues to work independently from her studio,

designing for advertising, books, weddings, branding, and companies, while still

finding time to work on fun side projects for herself. One of her biggest proj-

ects included designing book covers for a 26-book classics series with Penguin

Books; each with an elegantly-designed letter that pertained to a classic author,

and another working with Wes Anderson to create film titles for Moonrise King-

dom. Hische is also greatly acclaimed, having been listed in Forbes’ Top 30 Un-

der 30 in art and design twice, nominated as GDUSA’s person to watch in 2011,

and featured in many major design and illustration publications. She is greatly

admired and respected by those in her industry and lettering-aficionados.

Her hand-lettering skills have been carefully practiced and refined for years,

mainly using the pen tool in Adobe Illustrator to develop a general skeleton and

adding decorations and ornamentations later on. While Hische’s work for her

clients is incredibly expansive and ample, her style is a common element in all of

her lettering and illustrations; her work can be described as both whimsical and

sophisticated, as she finds inspiration everywhere she goes and through all the

wonderful people she meets around the world. “Just when you think you figured

it out, you find some better way of doing things. The key is to always keep trying

Jessica HischeWRITTEN BY WINNIE QUAN

to be better.”

In accordance, because of the twentieth century metal type inspiration and the

diverse references to popular cultural imagery, invariably, “retro” is always

brought up when discussing House’s work. Regardless of the indifferent cate-

gorization of House aesthetics being “retro,” as the term is thoughtlessly used to

describe anything that from the past few decades, House designers focus solely

in the craft of everything they do. House Industries finds creating artwork by

traditional means to be more direct and efficient so ultimately, the hands-on ap-

proach preserves the characteristic production techniques while drawing from

personal interests, which gives a unique flavor of making the House Aesthetic

one of a kind.

Herman Zapf is a German type designer who was born in 1918 in Nuremberg

during the German revolution and is still alive today at age 96! He is married to a

fellow typeface designer, Gudrun Zapf von Hesse. Zapf grew up with an interest

in technical subjects; as a kid he experimented with electricity and even built

an alarm set for his house. At a young age, Zapf was already getting involved

with type, inventing cipher-text alphabets to exchange secret messages with his

brother.

He left school in 1933 with the ambition to pursue a career in electrical engi-

neering. However, Zapf was not able to attend the Ohm Technical Institute in

Nuremberg due to the new political regime in Germany at the time, so he took

up an apprenticeship position in lithography where he worked for four years.

During this time, Zapf attended an exhibition in Nuremberg in honor of the late

typographer Rudolf Koch. This exhibition gave him his first interest in lettering

and he began to teach himself calligraphy. In 1938, he designed his first printed

typeface, a fraktur type called Gilgengart.

One year later, Zapf was conscripted into World War II and sent to help reinforce

the defensive line against France. Not used to the hard labor, he developed heart

trouble in a few weeks and was given a desk job, writing camp records and sports

certificates. Due to his heart trouble, Zapf was dismissed early from his unit and

shortly thereafter began training as a cartographer. After his training, he traveled

to Bordeaux and became a staff member in the cartography unit where he drew

maps of Spain. Zapf enjoyed working in the cartography unit. His eyesight was

so excellent that he could write letters 1 millimeter in size without using a mag-

nifying glass – this skill probably prevented him from being commissioned back

into the army.

Herman ZapfWRITTEN BY KEELY VEDANAYAGAM

After the war had ended, Zapf was held by the French as a prisoner of war. He

was treated with respect because of his artwork and, due to his poor health, was

sent home only four weeks after the end of the war. Post-war, Zapf taught callig-

raphy in Nuremberg before taking up a position as artistic head of a print shop.

Later in his career, he spent time developing two famous typefaces, Palatino

and Optima. He then worked for a while in developing computer typography

programs before taking up professorship at the Rochester Institute of Technology

from 1977 to 1987. Today he is known as the artist of several famous typefaces

such as Palatino, Optima, Aldus, Venture, and of course, Zapfino – his most re-

cent typeface which was released in 1998.

Bruce Rogers was an American typographer and type designer that primarily

focused on book designers. Some claim that he was among the greatest book

designers of the twentieth century. He started his career as a political cartoonist

after graduating from Purdue in 1890. Later on, he worked as an artist for the

Indianapolis news which sparked his passion for book design. After falling in

love with Kelmscott Press edition books, Rogers moved to Boston, the center of

publishing at the time, and began his passion by producing fine books.

Rogers created his first typeface in 1901 when he worked for the Riverside Press

in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He started designing advertisements, and created

ornate designs, printed on handmade damped paper. He created the font “Mon-

taigne” which was a Venetian style type face, which was used in the book The

Essays of Montaigne. Rogers had a very clear style, and when the moderdism

trend began to spread across the art world, he continued to focus on his “classi-

cal” designs and avoided modern or sans serif fonts.

In 1912, Rogers then moved to New York City where he began his career as an

independent designer and house designer for the Metorpolitan Museum of Art.

Rogers was asked to design a limited edition of Mauric de Geurin’s The Centaur,

and he created his most popular font “Centaur” at this time. His new typeface

was recognized among the community and admired for its maturity and classic

design. From that point forward, Rogers specifically used Centaur for the rest of

his career.

Rogers became infatuated with book design. Whether he was overseeing other

designs or taking on his own special projects, he was always influencing the pub-

lishing world with his designs. One of his passion projects included a renovation

of the Odyssey. Rogers reprinted the book in Centaur type on gray handmade

Bruce RogersWRITTEN BY RALEIGH WARD

paper and bound it with black Niger leather. He became obsessed with turning

iconic books into not only literary works of art, but design works of art as well.

Soon after, he spend six years producing the Oxford Lectern Bible. However,

this led to Rogers pairing up with Frederic Warde to develop an italic form of

his Centaur font.

Along with his typography and type design, Rogers spent a focus on his ca-

reer designing bookplate designs that showcased his type designs. His designs

usually included small images with ornate borders and his own types. Today,

his bookplates and books designed throughout his career auction at a very high

value. Overall, Roger’s impacted the book design world while finding a current

way to integrate serif and classic designs into the everyday world.

Paul Renner was a world famous German type designer. Renner can be seen as a

bridge between the traditional 19th century and the modern 20th century design.

He attempted to fuse the gothic and the roman typefaces. While he was never di-

rectly affiliated with the Bauhaus movement, he became an advocate of its aims

and principles and became a leading proponent of the “New Typography”. Ren-

ner sought to influence culture by designing, writing and teaching and he spent

most of his life in applied art, trying to bring high cultural standards to material

objects for use – typefaces and books. Although Renner was not associated with

the Bauhaus, he shared many of its idioms and believed that a modern typeface

should express modern models, rather than be a revival of a previous design.

Renner’s design rejected the approach of previous sans-serif designs, which were

based on the model of traditional serif typefaces and condensed lettering, in fa-

vor of simple geometric forms: near-perfect circles, triangles and squares. It is

based on strokes of near-even weight, which are low in contrast. In relation to

typography, many people know Renner as the creator of Futura, one of the most

successful and most-used typefaces of the 20th century. In some respects, Futura

can be seen to reflect his views on the appropriate style for letterforms designed

in Germany – an alternative solution to the choice of gothic or roman. When cre-

ated in 1927, Futura was based on geometric shapes that became representative

of visual elements of the Bauhaus design style of 1919–33. In designing Futura,

Renner avoided the decorative, eliminating nonessential elements, but used his

knowledge of how people perceive lines and shapes to make subtle departures

from pure geometric designs that allow the letterforms to seem balanced. His

creation of the sans serif typeface Futura marked a revolutionary change in ty-

pography. Futura is still used today because it is so bold and distinctive to ty-

pographers and graphic designers. Paul Renner’s work is a good example of how

Paul RennerWRITTEN BY RAJIV RAMAKABIR

form follows function. Every mark Renner made, he had a reason for making it,

not making any arbitrary marks or decisions just because of the style during the

19th and 20th century. Renner, as one of the most influential type designers of

the 20th century has successfully created a bridge from traditional typography

to modern.

If asked about the functional purpose of this soft covered book you are currently

reading, what would you say is its main advantage compared to a hardcover?

Similarly, reflecting on a time you bought a paperback, what was it that drove

you towards this purchase? If the affordability and portability attracted you, then

you have Aldus Manutius to thank. What he called libelli portatiles, or portable

little books, had soft covers, were small in size and of great use to travelling

scholars at the time, and for the masses today.

Aldus Manutius was born 1449 in Bassiano, Papal States (Italy), and passed

away in Venice, 1515. During this time, typographical art was in its very early

stages of development. Designs and text were crudely etched into wood.

Growing up, literary texts were scarce, and many elementary books were pain-

fully dry and unintelligible. “Doctrinale Alexadri de Villa-Dei,” was a grammar

study that Manutius was said to have despised reading. His future works may

have been influenced by just this.

Manutius became a printer and publisher, whose printing press changed the di-

rection of book formatting and typography at the time. His focused was on print-

ing inexpensive editions of classic texts, Aristotle, Dante, and Homer to name a

few, with the hopes that all may have access to literary works.

The italic type was first used by Manutius to print an edition of Virgil in 1501.

This slanted design was critical for the production of his pocket sized books;

the format allowed letterforms to fit in narrow and compact spaces. Whereas

italics are more contemporarily used to emphasize and/or bring attention to a

certain word and/or phrase, Manuthius had a much more economic intention. By

using italics, smaller pages could hold more words, meaning fewer pages and

decreased production costs.

Aldus ManutiusWRITTEN BY SHIRLEY SUN

This smaller format in book production revolutionized the availability of knowl-

edge, similar to how laptops and smartphones have influenced lives in the twen-

tieth-twenty first century. Aldus Manutius helped mobilize information.

Often when we think if new technology, we automatically think that it will make

our lives better. Sometimes this is true, but in the world of typography new tech-

nologies actually made print quality worse. Typesetting was traditionally per-

formed on printing presses where metal stamps were meticulously and pains-

takingly arranged to achieve the best product. Because the printing press was

labor intensive and required extensive training, publishers were excited about a

new technology, phototypesetting, which drastically reduced the time and skill

required to typeset books.

While the technology was initially limited to low quality publications like news-

papers and magazines, the price eventually forced the new technology into more

premium products like text books. Donald Knuth, a professor of computer sci-

ence at Stanford University, in 1978 received a gallery print of his second edition

textbook. Compared to the original version, he lamented, “The quality of type-

setting was abominable. It was a pain to read. You couldn’t look at this because

they had changed printing technology.” In retaliation, Mr. Knuth decided to cre-

ate a computer program to typeset his new book instead of using the phototype-

setting method he loathed.

Just like any self-respecting typography student would, Mr. Knuth began his

research by tracing out the letters from existing typefaces onto paper. After many

hours of studying the shapes he came to the conclusion that the phototypesetting

system failed because, whereas letters were designed by human beings which

something in mind for them, the typesetting process had no way to capture the

intelligence or intentions of the type designer. Mr. Knuth decided that in order

for a computerized system to produce beautiful text, it must preserve the past tra-

ditions of typesetters instead of throwing them out like current technology had.

Donald KnuthWRITTEN BY JACOB ROTH

The systems Mr. Knuth developed changed typesetting from a problem with met-

allurgy to a problem of mathematics. In contrast to previous methods, his sys-

tem does not rely on static characters but instead digitally creates each character

based on the parameters given such as point size and weight. The advantage of

using digitally created characters is that each character is a perfect reproduction

of the designer’s intentions whether printed on paper or displayed on a computer

screen. Additionally, because text was represented in an abstract way inside a

computer, Mr. Knuth applied complex algorithms, such as automatic river reduc-

tion, that where time and labor prohibitive on traditional presses.

The typesetting systems that Mr. Knuth developed made great progress towards

digital publishing but the systems were not perfect. Specifically, the system re-

quired many different commands to achieve the desired results. While many ac-

ademics were able to effectively use the system, graphic artist publishers found

the system difficult because they had little computer experience. In the end, Mr.

Knuth’s digital publish system never gained much acceptance outside universi-

ties. All of his work in not in vein, however, because many of the algorithms and

principals he pioneered are now integral parts of the most widely used software

packages.

Erik Spiekermann is a German typographer and designer who started his educa-

tion at Berlin’s Free University studying art history. During his stay at the uni-

versity, he funded himself by running a letterpress printing press in the basement

of his house. He later went on to establish FontShop, in 1988, the first mail-order

distributor for digital fonts, with his wife Joan. This later evolved into many oth-

er companies that strived to publish and distribute fonts to artists and designers

all over the world. During this time, he worked at MetaDesign, a global design

consultancy. He currently holds an honorary professorship at the Academy of

Arts in Bremen as a board member of German Design Council.

As an established designer, he has written many books such as Stop Stealing

Sheep & Find Out How Type Works and redesigned the magazine The Econo-

mist, a publication based in London. Through out his career, he has created many

commercial typefaces such as Berliner Grotest, Lo-Type, ITC Officina Sans, FF

Govan, and FF Meta Serif.

Spiekermann had achieved many milestones in his career, one of them being

a Honorary Doctorship for his contribution to design in April of 2006 from

Art Center College of Design. He later collaborated with designer Christian

Schwartz where they successfully designed the Deutsche Bahn family typeface.

This won them the Gold Medal at the German Federal Design Prize in 2006. The

following year, he was elected into the European Design Awards Hall of Fame.

Erik Spiekermann has the opportunity to participate in First Things First 2000

Manifesto, a collaboration of a group of international graphic designers in 1999

that followed the publication of First Things First Manifesto in 1964. The goal

was to generate discussion about the education and press exposure in the design

profession. Erik Spiekermann was one of the thirty-three designers to sign the

Erik SpiekermannWRITTEN BY SARAH ANNE NAKAMURA

manifesto with the concerns of “free design” and the right to take a stand on who

and what they are designing for.

Spiekermann is currently residing in Germany and runs his own company called

edenspiekermann_.

Fun Facts:

His first love when it comes to typefaces is Reklameschrift Block

He believes FF Info Office is underrated

One of his proudest projects is making the buses and trams in Berlin as well as

designing the German Railways corporate design.

He believes Arial is the most overrated font in the world

Recognized for his unique contributions to the world of design, Herb Lubalin is

one of the most successful and foremost American graphic designers and typog-

raphers of the twentieth century. Although he is colorblind and started working

back in the day when designers utilized drawing boards and workstations, Lub-

alin’s design is still perceived as futuristic and innovative. As the creative mind

behind the culture-shocking magazines of the 20th century, including Eros, Fact,

Avant Garde, and U&IC, the designer introduced a fresh and groundbreaking

style to his audience. In fact, his logotype for Avant Garde magazine was so high

in demand that he later released the complete set of the font called, “ITC Avant

Garde.”

The expressive typography of “ITC Avant Garde” is reflective of Herb Lubalin’s

vision in his design. The form of the tight, all-majuscule, and sans-serif typog-

raphy is slanted to the right, as if headed towards the future and embracing the

futuristic context of its existence. By giving the letterforms the shape and voice

of the meaning of the word “Avant Garde” itself, Lubalin manipulated the form

into an inseparable part of the word’s meaning.

Herb Lubalin was a designer who constantly sought for ways to create typo-

graphic innovations. His wildly illustrative typography is a result of his imagi-

nation and insight, combined with his talent. His inventive typographic designs

go beyond the twenty-six alphabet characters; by bringing a new aesthetic that

emphasizes the shock of meaning to the world of design, publishing and adver-

tisement, Lubalin has changed the course and constraints of design for those who

were to follow. Lubalin’s typography is significant because it is a representation

of how an idea is conveyed from one to another—how meaning is communicated

through its form. The designer’s ability to incorporate sensitivity and meaning

into his typography has profoundly influenced young designers and continues to

Herb Lubalin: Meaning MattersWRITTEN BY DAWN LEE

inspire those who desire to push the boundaries of contemporary design.

Ed Fella was born in 1938. He grew up in Detroit Michigan and studied at Cass

Technical High School where he studied hand lettering, illustration, and com-

mercial art. After that he went into the graphic design industry where he did a lot

of work for automobiles. He then went back to school and studied at Cranbrook

Academy of Art where he was able to experiment and explore art and design

together.

Today, he is an extremely well recognized graphic designer, artist, illustrator and

educator. His work is very different from what we usually expect from graph-

ic design in our time, which is expected to be clean and structural. His work

breaks the rules. He deconstructs and distorts letterforms, using various different

shapes, forms, spaces, and thicknesses. His hand lettering is an outburst of fun

movement and combinations of aspects belonging to different categories. Al-

though at first glance his work may look disorganized or too free, each part of it

is done extremely skillfully.

He combines serifs with san serifs, dingbats, scripts and much more. Since he

pushes so many boundaries of people’s common perceptions of design, he is

known as a controversial designer. Nevertheless, his design has a great influence

in the industry, is extremely well received, and is followed by many people.

His way of mixing and matching, creating work that looks perhaps crazy, very

quirky, and extremely eccentric really changed how the current generation of

designers think and work today. In a world where the definition, methods, and

role of design are continuously changing with the transformation of society and

culture; his work helps us to once again question what exactly defines good de-

sign by pushing the boundaries of innovation and creativity, yet still creating

work which communicates and gives purpose.

Ed FellaWRITTEN BY VICTORIA HORNG

Neville Brody is perhaps one of the most popular graphic designers of his gen-

eration. He studied graphic design at the London College of Printing and first

worked on record cover and magazine designs, establishing his reputation as one

of the world’s leading graphic designers. In particular, his innovative artistic con-

tribution to The Face brought his artistry to another level. Brody also won much

public acclaim through his ideas on incorporating and combining typefaces into

design. Later on he took this a step further and began designing his own typefac-

es, thus opening the way for the advent of digital type design.

He was one of the founding members of FontShop in London and over time has

designed 24 font families. A distinctly notable font is the updated font Times

Modern for the Times newspaper. In addition to pouring himself into design, he

was also partly responsible for starting the FUSE project, holding conferences

to bring together speakers from design, architecture, sound, film and interactive

design, and web.

What resonated with me more than his multiple decades of provoking design and

typographic work are his views on creativity and the future of innovation. Brody

believes that designers should take more risks and help draw attention to social

issues. He advises that with regards to politics, young designers have to find

their own platform. The point he makes is that it’s more about being a conscious

designer than anything else. Some designers don’t think about the consequence

of their work, they are just motivated by money and making things look ‘nice’.

Then there’re others who are only interested in designing for other designers. He

hopes to teach by giving context and getting students to engage with the idea that

everything they do will somehow affect the society that they live in.

He admits that for a time graphic design had lost its relevance with many design-

Neville BrodyWRITTEN BY KATHERINE VUONG

DesignerMayhem

CHAPTER FIVE

The Story Behind the Typeface You Probably Hate The Most

Comic Sans MS is one of the most polarizing typefaces in the design commu-

nity. Even people who aren’t designers have learned to dislike the typeface. It’s

almost a force of habit for most to despise Comic Sans. While the typeface itself

is relatively known by many, neither the man behind the it nor the story of Comic

Sans have been brought to light. The history behind Comic Sans and its designer

provides interesting insight about the typeface and can perhaps enlighten many

on a typeface that they have grown to dislike.

Vincent Connare designed Comic Sans when he was working for Microsoft in

1995. Connare is also the designer behind Trebuchet MS as well as one of the

designers behind Webdings. He began working on Comic Sans in 1994 after see-

ing a beta version of Microsoft Bob, a personal assistant software being devel-

oped by Microsoft in the ‘90s to appeal to younger users. The software featured

cartoon characters with word balloons and messages set in Times New Roman.

Connare found the typeface to be inappropriate for the given context of the soft-

ware, so he started to design Comic Sans. As implied in the name, the typeface

was based on the lettering style in comic books that Connare had in his office,

namely The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen. He was careful not to copy

the lettering used, but instead pay close attention to the shapes the letters made

considering that comic letterforms were usually manually written at the time.

Comic Sans wasn’t actually completed in time for the launch of Microsoft Bob.

A rough copy was made when Microsoft Bob was finished, but the typeface

was larger than Times New Roman, so it interfered with the metrics of the pro-

gram. While it was too late for Microsoft Bob, the programmers of Microsoft 3D

Movie Maker--which also used cartoon characters and speech bubbles--began

Vincent ConnareWRITTEN BY BRANDON SINGH

to use the font in their software. Comic Sans was later included in the Windows

95 Plus! Pack and then became a standard font for Windows 95. The typeface

eventually became one of the default fonts for Microsoft Publisher and Microsoft

Internet Explorer.

Interestingly enough, such inclusion of the typeface in other programs was not

what Connare had intended. Connare designed Comic Sans for applications that

were primarily targeted toward children, which was what Microsoft Bob was at

the time. It was the widespread inclusion of the typeface in so many programs

that allowed it to gain popularity among people of all ages. Connare believes that

people liked the font because it was fun and simple. Apple even used Comic Sans

as the default font for Apple iCards when they were first released. Ironically,

this lead to wider use of the typeface, perhaps overuse of it in appropriate situa-

tions, similar to the situation that lead to Comic Sans being created. According to

Connare, the main designer of Twitter said that the most server space is used by

complaints about airlines, Comic Sans, and Justin Bieber--in that order.

And sometimes we designers just hate popular things, especially design related

stuff that are mindlessly used by “the average people”. When some fonts are

used too much, they are perceived emotionally different in the social context.

Comic Sans would imply “bad taste” and everyone knows immediately that you

are not are well-trained designer. Helvetica, on the other hand, means “tasteless”

‘’boring” and “playing safe”. Partially due to these implications, Comic Sans and

Helvetica are generally not favored as much by contemporary designers.

Interestly, there is a revival of Comic Sans going on right now. The Comic Sans

Project includes some very impressive examples to use Comic Sans the “right”

way, which really emphasize its playfulness and try to avoid some technical is-

sues it may have. Overall, the conversation around type showcases the awareness

not only from within the design community but also the general public, which is

an achievement by itself.

“Like oratory, music, dance, calligraphy - like anything that lends its grace to language - typography is an art that can be deliberately misused. It is a craft by which the meanings of a text, or its absence or meaning, can be clarified, honored and shared, or knowingly disguised. This book exists to honor clarity”- Robert Bringhurst

“A classic in its field” - Library Journal

DESIGN THEORYRoski Design PressISBN 0-38105-332-3

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