Script

Question 1

script

Answer 1

a repertoire of defined symbols whose meaning is based on agreements forged over the centuries. recognizing/identifying signs is essential if the reading process is to function.

Question 2

reading

Answer 2

conscious perception and recognition of meaning and also subconscious perception of the script that conveys the meaning. when reading, our eyes either stand still for a moment, fixed on a particular point and its surroundings, or they make short, jumping movements (saccades), lasting 20-35 milliseconds (about 7-9 letters)

Question 3

legibility

Answer 3

depends largely on how it designed formally and aesthetically, and how the script is handled in terms of design/typography

Question 4

body/continuous text

Answer 4

long, coherent text. the content / general context can be grasped rapidly and without difficulty.

Question 5

level of response to typeface

Answer 5

(influenced by dimensions, organization, accentuation) determined by typographer’s intention, but mostly text’s purpose and function.

Question 6

text typeface

Answer 6

(text type, basic type, body type)

Question 7

characteristic style (ductus)

Answer 7

determines the image of a typeface, its character. reflected in its lines (originally determined by way the writer handled pen)

Question 8

headline typeface

Answer 8

(display face, title face) usually large, specific function is to demonstrate presence. legibility decreases, pictorial quality increases.

Question 9

cuneiform

Answer 9

(3,000 BC) first script. originally developed to write the Sumerian language of southern Mesopotamia (modern Iraq). contains laws, contracts, social communications.

Question 10

Phoenician alphabet

Answer 10

(1200 BC) first recorded alphabet, development triggered by the Egyptian system of hieroglyphs. the 22 phonetic consonants were adopted by the Greeks, who added vowels.

Question 11

Capitalis Monumentalis (Capitalis Quadrata)

Answer 11

the basis for modern capital letters in our Latin alphabet

Question 12

Caroline Miniscule

Answer 12

(800 AD) origin of lower case letters in our Latin alphabet. became a reliable script for correspondence that could be read quickly under Charlemagne.

Question 13

Gothic Miniscule

Answer 13

developed from Caroline Miniscule, narrow script that could be written quickly, consisting of letters that were very close together with broken lines and grid-like structure.

Question 14

Johannes Gutenberg

Answer 14

1440, invented the casting of movable type: the process of putting individual letters together to compose and reproduce printable pages. forged path from written to set script (hot metal setting).

Question 15

Textura

Answer 15

font Gutenberg used to print his Bible (1456)

Question 16

Roman typeface

Answer 16

developed as a new font in Venice, basis for out printed Latin alphabet. brought upper/lowercase together for the first time (Roman capitals for upper, Caroline Miniscule for lower).

Question 17

Arabic numerals

Answer 17

added to our present alphabet during Renaissance, replaced Roman numerals when decimal system introduced.

Question 18

Garamond

Answer 18

Roman typeface by typecutter Claude Garamond. small degree of contrast between hairline and main stroke, the soft line, and the left leaning axis of the rounded forms.

Question 19

transitionals

Answer 19

greater contrasts between hairlines and main strokes, the axes of the rounded letters are less diagonal, and the serifs finer. bridge the gap between old and modern typefaces.

Question 20

modern typefaces

Answer 20

show the influence of copperplate engraving, which made the extremely marked contrast between hairline and main stroke possible. vertical type axis, handwriting line disappears. Didot, Bodoni.

Question 21

slab-serif faces (Egyptian faces)

Answer 21

brought on by industrialization in early 19th century England. contain no or very small differences between hairlines and main stroke, and emphasized/monumental-looking serifs.

Question 22

sans-serif

Answer 22

technical appearance, even-looking line weight without serifs. called “grotesque” by contemporaries (Akzidenz Grotesk). initially intended exclusively for setting titles/headlines in posters/ads.

Question 23

optomechanical typesetting system (photosetting)

Answer 23

1970s. a method of setting type that uses a photographic process to generate columns of type on a scroll of photographic paper. offered numerous advantages over metal type, including the lack of need to keep heavy metal type and matrices in stock, the ability to use a much wider range of fonts and graphics and print them at any desired size, as well as faster page layout setting.

Question 24

desktop publishing (DTP)

Answer 24

the creation of documents using page layout software on a personal (“desktop”) computer. technological innovation that revolutionized the medium of type.

Question 25

letter

Answer 25

a graphic sign that used to represent linguistic sounds. also called glyphs (in modern desktop publishing)

Question 26

glyph

Answer 26

in typography, graphic depiction of a letter

Question 27

uppercase letters

Answer 27

based on 3 shapes: triangle, circle, square.

Question 28

counter (letter)

Answer 28

interior of a letter (e.g. space in an “e”)

Question 29

em dash

Answer 29

space that is as wide as it is high (12pt by 12pt in a 12pt typeface). area between words

Question 30

character set (character stock)

Answer 30

consists of various types of characters such as letters (sound characters), figures (quantity characters), and an imprecisely defined number of characters for controlling the writing (e.g. full stops, brackets, inverted commas)

Question 31

punctuation

Answer 31

impose structure, order, value. break the sentence up into semantic units.

Question 32

numeral

Answer 32

the individual character for expressing quantity. a number is produced by combining different numerals. distinction made between lower/upper

Question 33

ligature

Answer 33

combination of several letters fused together (ex. ampersand)

Question 34

type family

Answer 34

the full set of type styles available for a typeface

Question 35

type style

Answer 35

the whole range of characters belonging to a font (ex. New Helvetica 23 Light Extended)

Question 36

type widths

Answer 36

condensed, regular, expanded

Question 37

type weights

Answer 37

ultralight, thin, light, regular, semibold, bold, heavy, black

Question 38

type lie

Answer 38

regular, italic

Question 39

type clans/systems

Answer 39

expanded, or collected, type families (differentiated not only by thickness, letter breadth, slant, but other features as well (serifs))

Question 40

monospace fonts (fixed-pitch fonts)

Answer 40

non-proportional typefaces in which all the characters and space between words are the same

Question 41

PANOSE system

Answer 41

approach to classifying Roman typefaces. each font given a 10-digit number, every figure stands for a particular quality (stroke width, serif length, etc.) of the font. when PANOSE number differs least, resembles most.