#Stanley Morison

[uwmspeccoll]

Typography Tuesday

GIOVANNI BAPTISTA VERINI

Sometime between 1526 and 1527, Italian calligrapher and writer Giovanni Baptista Verini published his noted 4-part handwriting manual, Liber Elementorum Litterarum, probably at Toscolano on Lake Garda. This very rare book stands between the great manuals of Albrecht Dürer's Four Books on Measurement (1525) and Geoffroy Tory's Champfleury (1529).

The images shown here are from a 1947 printing of the third part of Varini's manual, published as Luminario or the Third Chapter of the Liber Elementorum Litterarum on the Construction of Roman Capitals, with an English translation by English librarian and typography expert Alfred F. Johnson (1884-1972) and an introduction by the master type historian and designer Stanley Morison (1889-1967). It was published in Cambridge by Harvard College Library and in Chicago by the Newberry Library, and printed in London by the Office of The Times in an edition of 510 copies.

Next to nothing is known about Verini himself. In his introduction, Morison writes:

The meagre details concerning the career of Giovanni Baptista Verini provide material for few positive statements. He was young, he was a citizen of Florence, . . . and a bookseller there. . . . If Verini's "Luminario" . . . was not reprinted, if was a disappointment he was prepared for, as witness the text he chose to place on the title page of part three, here reprinted after four hundred and score years: OMNIA LABUNTUR SED VIRTUS SOLA VIRESCIT [Everything slips away, but only virtue remains verdant].

View a post on Albrecht Dürer's manual.

View a post on Geoffroy Tory's Champfleury.

View more Typography Tuesday posts.

[duardius]

peculiar ornament[s] of john bell

peter quennell’s words [small caps are mine] from his Baudelaire and the Symbolists [chatto & windus, london,1929, p14]. set in monotype bell—vide ‹the letters of john bell›. the finisher was described by morison as a «small nondescript ornament» & so far as he knew «peculiar» to john bell’s edition of perdita’s poems*—vide ‹perdita 2 [the english sappho]›. on close inspection, not a single ornament but composition of two each of two ornaments: lozenge pair flanked by flower. * stanley morison, John Bell, printed for the author at the university press, cambridge, 1930, p113.

[rbolick]

Books On Books Collection - Tabula Rasa Press

[rtrevisan]

A história da Times [tipografia]

Times, Stanley Morison, 1932 Aquilo que chamamos de “tipo” no mundo ocidental, ou seja, o desenho das letras que usamos numa palavra ou texto (como estas que você lê agora) tem uma origem romana. Asiáticos e outros povos têm isso muito claro por não usarem corriqueiramente essa família de caracteres: eles se referem ao “alfabeto romano” quando precisam utilizar essa família de caracteres tão…

[runawaymarbles]

Hi! In your My Immortal fanbinding, what fonts are used for chapter 21? and if you don't know, is there a way for me to contact ve and ask?

I asked ve, who said "it's IM Fell English regular/italics https://fonts.google.com/specimen/IM+Fell+English and small caps https://fonts.google.com/specimen/IM+Fell+English+SC"

[harry--vincent]

The physical is becoming lost, only tokens of what was remain. Devices conjured from the scraps of now, display a relic. A shadow. An etched effigy of the past. Like a snow globe, the encapsulated is being unto itself.

𝘈𝘮𝘣𝘦𝘳 DiSC “ST. MARY’S CHURCH” on AMBER STASIS DEVICE 01.

[DIGITAL ARTWORK, 2023]

TRANSCRIPT:

[device clicks] Location: 51 degrees, 32 minutes 55.9 seconds North. 0 degrees, 42 minutes, 20.9 seconds East. Thread: biological parents’ wedding consummation. Documentation Date: 9, 7, 1994. A path begins here in the destruction of two others. One lineage continued. One lost. Will this hybrid usurp the existing? Or is it doomed to continue the thread? Signals suggest the former. Life, however, has other plans, we- [radio static] [device unclicks]

‘Bespoke Acrylic info-coded disc-like sheet render inserted into a composite of existing imagery, forming an AMBER STASIS DEVICE.’

IMAGE SOURCES: Device Body: iStock 92019028. Grill: iStock 527515345. Button and Ridge: iStock 452100979. Lights: iStock 185858156. Acrylic Sheet Mock-up: by Harry Vincent.

TYPEFACES: [Disc Logo] ‘Times New Roman’ by Stanley Morison. ‘Arial’ by Robin Nicholas and Patricia Saunders. [Information] ‘Arial’ (Various weights) by Robin Nicholas and Patricia Saunders. [MacroHard Logo] ‘Helvetica Black Oblique’ by Max Miedinger.

REFERENCES: “I’m in.” Opening sequence from ’The Matrix Reloaded’ (2003), by The Wachowskis. SAMSUNG SPH-N270. Acrylic Business Card, by Dan Barkle. Microsoft Windows 95 Software 3.5" Floppy Disk.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A portrait image of a Red and Orange Acrylic arched window-shaped sheet with engravings on it, plugged into a Blue-ish Grey device, with small buttons on. The device glows when connected together, and all on a Black background.

[subjectnamemissing]

I like the story around how Times New Roman came around. Stanley Morison criticizes The Times for terrible typeface. Gets hired to design the new typeface. Inspirational.

[retrocompmx]

Un día como hoy (11 de octubre) en el diseño

El 11 de octubre de 1967, fallece Stanley Arthur Morison, tipógrafo, ejecutivo de impresión e historiador de la imprenta británico. Gracias a él, existen los estándares de impresión actuales y asesor de Monotype Corp. Co-creador de las fuentes Times New Roman, Gill Sans, Perpetua, Bembo, Ehrhardt y Bell, nació en 1889 #retrocomputingmx #stanleymorison #timesnewroman

[suhani2628]

Motion typographic poster

Assignment brief: Create motion typographic poster on the assigned typeface. Highlight the counters, special anatomical features, and also any specific glyph that you like in that typeface

My typeface is Times new roman

Designed by Stanley Morison in 1931

Reflections: I learned about Times new roman typeface, like where it is use the most. I also learned a lot about how to create motion poster.

[paulrennie]

The Poster and Design Reform • Gordon Russell Design Museum • 2023

I recently gave a talk, online, to the Gordon Russell Trust. The Trust runs the Gordon Russell Museum and celebrates the achievements of Russell as a key figure in 20C design reform.

The story of design reform in the Uk usually begins with William Morris and John Ruskin and is mostly described in relation to furniture design, architecture and various handicrafts. For Morris, and for his typographer colleague, Emery Walker, printing became part of this cultural phenomenon through letterpress printing and the private press editions of the Kelmscott Press.

The process of lithography is a kind pf magic that allows for a print to be taken from a flat surface, and without the enormous downward pressures required by the letterpress process.

Lithography was developed at the very end of the 18C and became, in the course of 19C, the technology that allowed for the industrialisation of the print economy. In addition to evident scaling effects of quantity and speed, lithography also allowed for much larger areas to be printed, without excessive pressure, and for the progressive integration of image and type into a single coherent form. The large-sized poster became, during the 1870s, the first form of image made to be seen, from a distance, and whilst moving… 

In the 20C, the Design and Industries Association tried to extend the reach of design reform with mass production, so as to reach a wider audience. It is in this story that Gordon Russell, Ambrose Heal, Frank Pick, Allen Lane, Herbert Read and Kenneth Clark play a part. In printing, this began to make serious books available for a wider public and the role of Allen Lane in setting up Penguin is crucial, Various other personalities, Francis Meynell, Gerard Meynell, Stanley Morison, Eric Gill and Frank Pick, transformed the visual presentation of news, and technical information and advertising. Beatrice Warde and Nicolete Grey also played important roles in making the cultural significance of print culture more widely known. The transformation of visual print culture in Britain was transformed during the 1930s and during WW2. At the same time, developments in printing technology made the production of colour posters, prints and books more widely available.

A number of artists and publishers worked together to make original coloured prints available to a wider public, sometimes in poster form. The names of Paul Nash, John Piper, Harold Curwen and Frank Pick played crucial roles in promoting this effort. London Transport and Shell Posters were complemented by print editions from Contemporary Lithographs, Lyons Teashop Posters, and School Prints. By the time of the Festival of Britain, the integration of art, architecture, design and experience had become much more coherent, and for many more people.

I love this alignment between art and life.

The recording of my talk will be placed on the talks archive of the Gordon Russell Museum website.

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"TWO TAKEN TO HOTEL DIEU IN SERIOUS STATE," Kingston Whig-Standard. June 27, 1933. Page 3. ---- Stanley Kehoe May Have Suffered Fracture of Skull ---- AUTOMOBILE ACCIDENT ---- When the car in which they were riding left the roadway and ran into a ditch and then crashed through a fence, Stanley Kehoe, of 86 Clarence Street, and Alberric Lanos, of 111 Lower Union Street, were injured and removed to the Hotel Dieu Hospital. The accident occurred about ten o'clock on Monday night on Division Street, just north of the city limits.

At the Hotel Dieu today it was stated that Kehoe had received more serious injuries than his companion. It was feared that he had suffered a fractured skull and it was stated he would undergo an X-ray examination. In addition to head injuries, he suffered injuries to his knee and chest. Lanos only suffered minor injuries. The car was badly damaged. Lanos, who was driving, is the owner of the car.

The accident was investigated by Constables Timmerman and Hickey. The report of the police officers shows that the car, which figured in the accident was a 1929 Chevrolet sedan. The car was travelling south on Division Street towards Kingston, when it left the roadway and ran into a ditch on the west side of the road, a few hundred yards north of the city limits. The auto toppled over on a rough piece of roadway and crashed through a fence, landing on a very rocky piece of land. In the crash the top of the car, the right side of the car, the windshield and fender suffered serious damage. Dr. M. J. Morison and Dr. F. X. O'Connor attended the injured men at the scene of the accident and afterwards had them taken to the Hotel Dieu Hospital in R. J. Reid's ambulance.

[uwmspeccoll]

Typography Tuesday

This week we present some specimens from one of British type designer, printing historian, and printing executive Stanley Morison's (1889-1967) earliest works, On Type Faces, printed by the Riccardi Press in a limited edition of 750 copies for the Medici Society and The Fleuron in 1923. Morison, the long-time typographic consultant for the Monotype Corporation (1923-1967) and the principal designer of Times New Roman, was primarily interested in clean, crisp design:

The letters simply must not come between the writer and his reader, The whole duty of typography . . . is to communicate to the imagination without loss by the way of the thought of image intended to be communicated by the author. All changes, improvements, and modifications in letter form need, therefore, to be so carefully and subtly wrought as to be almost invisible.

The titling specimens from On Type Faces presented here offer examples of Morison's design principles.

View other posts with work by Stanley Morison.

View other type specimen books.

View more Typography Tuesday posts.

[duardius]

happy 135th, stanley

stanley morison, most eminent typographical scholar of the twentieth century, was born 6 May 1889. post hoc ergo proper hoc: 6 may is the feast of st john ante portam latinam, & st john is patron saint of printers & engravers.

image: frontispiece (bumped up a bit) from Stanley Morison | 1889—1967 | A Radio Portrait [w.s. cowell, ipswich, 1969; photo by janet stone]. caption set times new roman italic; times new roman is the typeface family designed by morison for his 1932 redesign of The Times—for more information vide ‹chiasmus›.

[rbolick]

Books On Books Collections - Chris Van Allsburg

Books On Books Collections – Chris Van Allsburg

The Z was Zapped (1987) The Z was Zapped: A Play in Twenty-six Acts, Performed by the Caslon Players (1987)Chris Van AllsburgCasebound, red doublures. H310 x W235 mm. 56 pages. Acquired from Books of the Ages, 26 August 2022.Photos: Books On Books Collection. With Bodoni celebrated in A Bodoni Charade (1995) and Bembo at Bembo’s Zoo (2000), the typefounder William Caslon might have been feeling…

[grad603gracielladelrosario]

Visual Identity

Below are the common visual themes of the Green Party, exploring colour patterns and typefaces. I have noticed the use of bright green throughout their campaigns, and although I could not find an exact copy of their typeface, I found that the fonts Helvetica and Times New Roman were close enough. I plan to incorporate these fonts and colours in the visual language of my animation. 

Helvetica Typeface

Helvetica or Neue Haas Grotesk is a widely used sans-serif typeface developed in 1957 by Swiss typeface designer Max Miedinger with input from Eduard Hoffmann. Helvetica brings unusually tight spacing between letters that give the typeface a dense, solid appearance, making it perfect for capturing headlines. Notable features of Helvetica as originally designed include a high x-height, the termination of strokes on horizontal or vertical lines and an unusually tight spacing between letters, which combine to give it a dense, solid appearance.

Times New Roman Typeface

Times New Roman is a serif typeface commissioned by the British newspaper The Times in 1931 and conceived by Stanley Morison. Being a default font on most computers, Times New Roman is a classic typeface that everyone is familiar with. Being used in olden day newspapers, I feel like this font would be great to use as the theme of my audio speech relates to politics and the news.

[itsideh]

Reading 2

critical Media #522

In the early 1980s, there was a debate in the academic design journal Visible Language between Stanford Professor Donald Knuth, who wrote about his software MetaFont, and mathematician Douglas Hofstadter, who challenged Knuth's view that the shape of a letterform is mathematically containable. Hofstadter argued that the shape of a letterform cannot be contained and that type design should allow for change and adaptation. Geoffrey Sampson, a linguistics professor, later weighed in, saying letterforms can be both closed systems (Knuth's A-shape) and open systems (Hofstadter's A-ness).

The history of typography has been marked by a desire for rationalization, starting with the invention of movable type in the 15th century. In the 17th century, Louis XIV commissioned the "King's Roman" in Paris to apply Enlightenment rationality to technical ends. It was a mathematically rigorous structure imposed on organic forms. With Herbert Bayer's Universal Alphabet, a pared-down sans-serif made up of lower-case characters, the Bauhaus revived this approach. TheBauhaus Stencil Alphabet by Josef Albers was also created using similar principles. Futura, a commercially successful typeface, toned down the hard geometry of the Bauhaus fonts. The letterform of the age cannot be created by one person alone, according to Tschichold, a prominent figure in the "New Typography."

Stanley Morison was a British type designer who was asked by The Times, London's newspaper, to publish a 1,000-page ad in the 1930s. The paper's typography had to be redesigned by Morison. The result was Times New Roman, a typeface that was amalgamated from various historical typefacesHis role was similar to that of a producer, editor,or or arranger. The foundry Deberny & Peignot released Adrian Frutiger's Univers in 1957 as an extended family of fonts, with 21 fonts at any given size. Frutiger later added more variants, bringing the total to 63. Univers was charted in a two-dimensional matrix, with the potential to expand in any direction, and Frutiger has kept the project open since its inception.

Donald Knuth created MetaFont, a font generation system, as a companion to his typesetting system TeX. He aimed to enhance the appearance of text by adjusting the details of a font based on the output device and to meet the need for variety in typefaces. However, he emphasized that typefaces should be a medium rather than a message and that they should have a clear appearance while being subliminal in their effect. Knuth did not expect the widespread use of novelty as an end in itself.

Walter Benjamin, a German cultural critic, wrote about the relationship between technology and writing in his 1928 book "One Way Street" and his 1936 essay "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction." He believed that the increasing intimacy between the writer and technology would result in the writer composing work with a typewriter rather than a pen, leading to a closer connection between content and form and a new evolution of writing. Benjamin was a Marxist who believed that the means of production should be owned by the people who operate them. In "The Author as Producer," he demanded that artists transform the root-level means by which their work is produced and distributed, rather than just adopting political content. He offered Sergei Tretiakov and Bertolt Brecht as examples of artists who implicated themselves in their work and transformed the functional relationships between their work and production.

The essay "A Noton Type"e" discusses the relationship between writing and production in the arts. The author argues that artists, including writers, should not be limited by norms, job descriptions, and expectations, but instead should freely explore different mediums and methods of expression. The author uses the thMeta-The-Difference-Between-The-Two-Fontsnt (MTDBT2F) project, which is a revised version of Donald Knuth's MetaFont project. In the author's view, the difference between MetaFont and MTDBT2F is not easily discernible, but is related to time and intellectual backstory. MTDBT2F is not only a tool for generating PostScript fonts, but also a tool for thinking around and about MetaFont. Boris Groys argues that the new is not just a difference, but a difference without a difference, or a difference not recognizable because of the lack of preexisting structural code.

The concept of "letter vs. spirit" can be traced back to the "Visible Language" debate and was keenly foreseen by Douglas Hofstadter, who believed that typefaces could inspire readers to reflect on the intelligence of alphabets. The idea is also related to Walter Benjamin's "The Author as Producer," where he called for writers to reflect on their role in the production process. Several design critics have updated this notion to reflect the digital age, when code has replaced heavy machinery and hand tools as "tools of production." To reflect the influence of digital technology on religious practices, Boris Groys also updates Benjamin's title in his essay "Religion in the Age of Digital Reproduction." He argues that contemporary fundamentalism is grounded in the repetition of a fixed "letter" rather than a free "spirit," and this antinomy informs all Western discourse on religion.

This passage is discussing the evolution of media and how it affects the distribution of religious and philosophical ideas. The author argues that with the advent of digital media and the internet, the spread of idiosyncratic views has become easier. However, the author also argues that this has led to a lack of trust in the form of images and that meaning is no longer tethered to definite surfaces. The author proposes the creation of a shapeshifting typeface, called MTDBT2F4D, which would constantly move and change. Through cross-domain thinking, this would enable a more dynamic representation of ideas. An example of the "Hello World" script in a new programming language is used to illustrate the distinction between instructions and instances.