Old forms; new ideas:Typographic revival and the uses of history

Old forms; new ideas: Typographic revival and the uses of history

First published in Font: The sourcebook (Black Dog 2008) this essay draws
substantially upon my MA dissertation Historical Reference and Revival
in Twentieth-Century Type Design.

Through the course of the 20th century, successive phases of type production technology have prompted the review and redesign of existing typefaces and the demand for new ones. Mechanised typecasting using Linotypeand Monotype systems, the development of increasingly sophisticated phototypesetting technology, and finally the advent of digital type, have created the need to adapt existing faces to new media and the opportunity to review, adapt and modify classic forms to meet changing user needs. As the technology of type production has developed from device-dependent industrial processes to the increasingly democratized world of digital typography, so critical and creative perspectives upon type design have developed in diversity and sophistication. The revival of historic type forms has developed from a practical imperative into a complex medium of enquiry, through which type design examines its relationship to its history. The digital revolution has had a threefold impact upon type design, prompting change in the methods of type production, the media of type storage and distribution, and the patterns of type consumption.
Peter Bilak has observed that:
“within a few years, designers had created the same number of new typefaces as they had done in the whole 500-year history of typography”
Relationships between reader, type user, publisher and designer have been reconfigured, repositioning the typeface as a mass cultural product. Like other aspects of popular culture, such as fashion or music, type evokes the zeitgeist through a continuous cycle of change and redundancy, and requires multiplicity of form and style in order to fulfil public appetites. As type design technology has become more personalised, and the technology of storage and distribution has become more accessible, these conditions have made possible the emerging idea of type design as a medium of enquiry and discourse. This process is at times irreverent, playful or ironic, reflecting a pluralistic view of historical authenticity.
Typographic revivals in the first half of the twentieth century were generally driven by defined values and measurable goals. These included the preservation of established forms through their adaptation to new technologies, the restoration of types overlooked by recent history, and the use of historical example to inform the design of new types. These initiatives share a modernist ideal of progressive improvement. By contrast, type revivals in the post-modern era have been divergent and speculative, expressing pluralistic approaches through mutable forms. Type design and typographic revival have emerged as a medium of critical debate, argument and subversion.
The concept of typographic revival can be traced to the types designed by William Morris for the Kelmscott Press. These mark a significant cultural development in that, for the first time, we see developments in type design, proposed as the deliberate expression of an ideology, related not only to a distinct design aesthetic but to a coherent and integrated social and political outlook. Based upon the types cast by Nicholas Jenson in the 15th century, Morris’s Golden Type is not simply the expression of his aesthetic or functional preference. Like the term ‘Pre-Raphaelite’, it identifies a historical ideal in opposition to the conditions of Morris’s own times.
Some revivals are driven by market demand, some are undertaken as a medium of typographic research, while others explore hypotheses or personal perspectives upon type history. In the broadest sense all typefaces have a dimension of revival. All types are related to a continuity of recognizable letterforms, and the design of a new typeface unavoidably references past designs. The process involves complex decisions on the way in which the new design reflects its historic models. Any attempt to ‘reconstruct’ a historic typeface quickly encounters questions of individual selection and the need forsynthesis. It is best understood as an act of interpretation rather than a wholly unique creative activity.
In considering the wide range of faces described as ‘revivals’ it becomes clear that they reflect variations of design philosophy. A number of analogies have been used to describe the relationship between revival typefaces and their source material. Matthew Carter has described his Galliard as an ‘anthology’of key characteristics of Robert Granjon’s types, a personal synthesis rather than a specific revival of one face. Frederic Warde described Bruce Rogers’ Centaur as a ‘paraphrase’ of Jenson, while John Downer compares type revival to the process of portraiture. Robert Bringhurst comments upon synthesis and interpretation in Giovanni Marderstieg’s Dante:
‘Mardersteig was the greatest modern scholar of Francesco Griffo’s work, and his Dante, though not in fact a copy of any of Griffo’s types – has more of Griffo’s spirit than any other face now commercially available’”’
Approaches to typographic revival range from literal reconstruction at one extreme to increasingly interpretative or synthetic approaches at the other. The English Monotype offices in the 1920’s and 30s made a distinction between ‘rough’ and ‘smooth’ revivals, and these distinctions remain applicable to current digital design. The late Justin Howes described his Founder’s Caslon typeface family as ‘no-holds barred’ revivals. A highly accurate and un-moderated set of types transcribed from the original punches, they represent an extreme of literal reconstruction. Each size of Caslon’s types is recreated as a distinct font, reinstating those variations which characterized the art of the hand punchcutter.
Jonathan Hoefler’s HTF Historicals series was the outcome of direct digital transcription of key historic faces (including Granjon’s Civilité, and the Fell types) scanned from original printed specimens. Originating as an experiment to demonstrate the limitations of such a literal method, this project critiques the idea of the revival face as a simple replica of the original, examining the ambiguities of ‘authenticity’ and fidelity to historic sources. Even the literal and accurate reconstruction of a historic model will nevertheless present the designer with a large number of interpretative decisions. If a text type is to meet present day user expectations, it will be necessary to include features which have no equivalent in the original source of the revival . For example, in the case of a revival based upon a fifteenth or early sixteenth-century source or model, the original will not have a ‘companion’ italic form, since the earliest italic types were conceived as free-standing text faces. A suitable companion italic may be sourced on the basis of chronology and origin; based upon an italic typeface face designed by the same hand or in the same period and region. Alternatively, designing a new italic may provide opportunities for the creative interpretation of a historic form. Similar questions occur over the design of bold and bold italic fonts. A type dating from before the nineteenth century will not have a definitive bold companion, and the manner in which a designer extrapolates a bold version from the roman presents a range of defining decisions, including the increase in contrast, and the interval of weight between the bold and the regular weight. If the face has already been the subject of revival in the 20th century (either for metal or photosetting), earlier revivals may provide possible solutions to these dilemmas. The extent and manner with which these intermediate sources are absorbed into a new revival, will vary widely according to the designer’s methodology and the philosophy which informs the face. The designer may opt to incorporate aspects of earlier revivals alongside original sources, as the most recent stage in a cumulative process. In other instances (such as recent Adobe revivals of Caslon or Garamond) a new design may return to original sources in order to reform faces that have been compromised by successive re-cuts for different technologies.The literal reconstruction of any typeface originated through hand-cut punches, presents the designer with critical choices over the size of punch from which the revival face is made. (The punches cut for different sizes of a typeface will show noticeable differences of stroke weight and contrast). The designer may refer to a range of punch sizes, and produce from this a synthesis of common features. The resulting face will be less accurate as a transcription, but may serve better to evoke the spirit of the original. Romantic notions of the ‘antique’ recur through typographic history; in the use of stylistic categories such as ‘Antiqua’(Antika) or ‘Old Style’, or attaching the terminology of antiquity to new designs through the terms ‘Egyptian’ or ‘Gothic’.
Postmodern perspectives on history are typically enquiring or subversive, and postmodern type designs have reflected critical examination of the ideas we bring to history itself. This tendency is reflected in Jonathan Hoefler’s Fetish 338, a deliberately eclectic display face which parodies historical style.
Hoefler comments:
“HTF Fetish No. 338 comments on the mythopoetic notion of ‘classicism’ which figures so prominently in all levels of graphic design in America. It parodies the notions of ‘fanciness’ in which not only designers but the lay public participate; its forms are as welcome in the pages of Rolling Stone as in the menu of Ye Olde Coffee Shoppe. While it quotes freely from a formal vocabulary of disparate historical styles (such as the Gothic, Victorian, Byzantine, Celtic and Moorish), it is ultimately an invention, one which is endemic only to a vague, romantic heritage to which no American truly belongs, but to which many aspire.”
The architectural critic Charles Jencks’s described the postmodern buildings of Ralph Erskine and Robert Venturi as being ‘double-coded’, combining contemporary building materials with elements from earlier traditional and vernacular architectures. “This introduced a playfulness, a parodic dialogue, into the fabric of their constructions.”‘Parodic dialogue’ can be seen in Hoefler’s Fetish, and recent type design reveals a shift of focus away from the paradox of‘authenticity’ and towards diversity in the contradictory use of historical models. These approaches explore the possibility that type design can propose alternative readings of history, revisiting historic sources and developing them in different directions, questioning the basis of many orthodox narratives. Zuzana Licko’s Mrs Eaves is a Baskerville revival, notable for the introduction of a colourful family of unique ligatures that have no historical precedent. The revival is a distinctively post-modern one. In creating a new set of forms without a basis in Baskerville’s era, Licko’s design queries the notion of historical ‘authenticity’, and proposes instead a typographic bricolage designed over the structure of a historical model. These examples reveal typographic revival as a relative concept involving multiple levels of interpretation, selectivity and intervention. These are determined both by commercial circumstance and individual sensibility, and reflect differing theoretical perspectives and cultural conditions. The diversity of approach and philosophy expressed through typeface design, serves to demonstrate the complexity and depth of type as a cultural artefact.