History of Typography in the West (Cal RBS) August 8–12, 2022

I have been teaching The History of Type for California Rare Book School since 2014. The five-day class has taken place every two years, either in Los Angeles or the Bay Area. With the exception of 2020, when the class was conducted via Zoom due to the pandemic, it has been a hands-on class. This year the class will return to the Bay Area where it will be based at the Letterform Archive.

Grendl Löfkvist, Education Director at the Letterform Archive, will be assisting me in the class. She has over twenty years of experience as an offset press operator and currently runs a letterpress studio.

A description of the class and an outline of the planned schedule is below. For more details about the class email me at paulshaw@nyc.rr.com. To register contact Sam Regal at calrbs@gseis.ucla.edu. For more information on California Rare Book School visit calrbs.org.

History of Typography in the West: An Overview from Gutenberg to Adobe

Description
This course will provide a general overview of both the history of typography and of type design in the West—with an emphasis on Latin (roman) type—from the birth of printing with movable type in the mid-15th century through the first decades of digital fonts at the end of the 20th century. It will explore the influence of scribal styles of writing on early typographic forms; the development of the “modern” typographic book in the 16th century and changes and challenges to that format in the 19th and 20th centuries; the impact of technology on the form and use of typefaces since 1800; the shift from the book as the locus of typographic development to posters and ephemera from the 19th century to the present; and the effect of digital type on democratizing the profession.

The class will consist of lectures and class discussions combined with field trips to Bay Area institutions such as the Bancroft Library at the University of California at Berkeley, the California Historical Society, and the Gleeson Library at the University of San Francisco to see books, type specimens, posters, and other items relevant to the history of typography. We will be based at the Letterform Archive which will allow us access to its remarkable resources throughout the week.

Requirements
This course is intended for those with little or no formal instruction in the history of typography. But it will also be invaluable for those who have had only a brief brush with the history of type as part of a class on printing history, book history, or material culture history.

Course objectives
1. to provide students with the tools and vocabulary to identify and describe typefaces; 2. to establish a basic understanding of the major stylistic trends, technological changes, and key figures in type design from Gutenberg to the 21st century; and 3. to explain the source of many of the typographic features used in most book designs.

Learning outcomes
1. to gain both a broader and deeper awareness of the history of Latin type that goes beyond metal type, letterpress printing, and the book. This means embracing type made of wood, imaged photographically, and composed of pixels; considering type designed for newspapers, signage, screens, and other specialized functions; and accepting type intended for social printing, advertising, and display purposes.
2. to understand that the appearance of type has been shaped by a combination of factors: writing systems, the aesthetics of the type maker, the materials and tools of production, the functional needs of types, as well as contemporary trends.
3. to realize that the history of type is more than a litany of famous typefaces and their creators. That is also about the evolution from a craft to an industry and back to a craft; and that, consequentially, type design has been both an individual and a collective effort. And that the importance of a typeface is not always linked to its aesthetic properties.
4. to be aware that the history of type is about its use (typography) as much as it is about its creation.
5. to be able to analyze and compare typefaces and thus be able to recognize the small but significant differences among them. This is a skill that will help librarians, book dealers, book historians, and literary scholars in identifying different editions of books, dating documents, identifying the printer of a book through the typeface used, etc. With this skill students will also become more aware of the subtleties of typefaces as well as the differences among those with similar or identical names.

Monday August 8
Defining the Field; Preparing the Foundation
9 am–10:30 am | Introduction

10:30 am–11 am | morning break

11 am–12:30 pm | Terminology and Type Basics

12:30 pm–1:30 pm | lunch break

1:30 pm–3 pm | The Influence of the Scribal Tradition

3 pm–3:30 pm | afternoon break

3:30 pm–5 pm | Making and Setting Type by Hand

Tuesday August 9
Type for Books 1450–1800: from Gutenberg to Bodoni
9 am–10:30 am | Incunabula: from Manuscripts to Printed Books

10:30 am–11 am | morning break

11 am–12:30 pm | Germany, the French Renaissance and Trends in the Low Countries

12:30 pm–1:30 pm | lunch break

1:30 pm–3 pm | Type in Transition
Type Design Becomes Conceptual

3 pm–3:30 pm | afternoon break

3:30 pm–5 pm | Neoclassical Type on the Continent and in Great Britain

Wednesday August 10
A Century of Upheaval: the 19th Century from Fat Faces to William Morris
9 am–10:30 am | The Impact of Advertising on Type

10:30 am–11 am | morning break

11 am–12:30 pm | Type Goes Big

12:30 pm–1:30 pm | lunch break

1:30 pm–3 pm | Mechanization of Typemaking and Typesetting: Speed and Price vs. Tradition

3 pm–3:30 pm | afternoon break

3:30 pm–5 pm | Looking Forward vs. Looking Back
The Response to Lithography
Artists Make Type
The Response to Neoclassical Type

Thursday August 11
Type Dissolves in the 20th Century: from Metal Type to Phototype
9 am–10:30 am | The Impact of Arts & Crafts on Commercial Typefounding: Revivals vs. Originals

10:30 am–11 am | morning break

11 am–12:30 pm | The Rise of the Type Designer
The Artist as Type Designer
The Director of Type Design / Staff Type Designer
The Independent Type Designer

12:30 pm–1:30 pm | lunch break

1:30 pm–3 pm | Competing Modernisms and Type
Type Should Be Seen: Art Deco
Type Should Be Objective: The New Typography

3 pm–3:30 pm | afternoon break

3:30 pm–5 pm | Objectivity and Clarity vs. Expressionism and Play in Typography
The International Typographic Style
Typographic Expressionism
Phototype
Transfer type

Friday August 12
Type Blown to Bits: Digital Type and Its Impact on the Profession
9 am–10:30 am | Overview of Digital Type 1965–1980: from Hell to Adobe

10:30 am–11 am | morning break

11 am–12:30 pm | Type as a Battleground: Two Sides of the Bay Area
Gaining Respect for Digital Type
Challenging the Establishment

12:30 pm–1:30 pm | lunch break

1:30 pm–3 pm | Type Design Becomes a Democratic Art Form
Women in Type Design