Talk:Typography

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This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Typography article.
This is not a forum for general discussion about the article's subject.
Article policies

Uncivil talk, cranks, trolls & disruptive behaviour on this talk page will be removed on-sight..
Arbo talk 09:30, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

  • material added must be citable and verifiable
  • this article uses advanced text typography and large pictures to illustrate its visual subject. Contributors are asked to preserve these features to keep Wikipedia's typography and related articles at the cutting edge of wikitypography. Devices like ampersands and emdashes are used—where appropriate and effective. Please do not over-use them. See: Wikipedia:Ignore all rules and Wikipedia:Use common sense.
  • Please do not add any more material to the History section. It's a short section with a link to the main type history article. It is complete and does not need expansion. Thanks!

Arbo talk 09:30, 19 November 2006 (UTC)


Contents

[edit] Archives

If it isn't on this talk page it's in one of the archives.


Arbo talk 18:08, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merge history section of Typography into >> Typeface

(moved from below)

I'd say that this article should be split now, as most of it is about type or type-founding, and only a very little is about typography. It's not that I don't like the content, but it doesn't go with the article title. —Thomas Phinney 08:56, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Hi Thomas. I've posted a merge proposition on the Typeface#Talk page supporting this, if you would like to weigh in.
Arbo 16:34, 30 August 2006 (UTC) @
A better option suggested by Bb3cxv is to break out the history section into a stand-alone article: History of Typography. I'm going ahead with that now. The merge with Font proposal has been up for 4 weeks and attracted no comments.
Arbo talk 14:37, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
Done! See new article:>> History of Typography
Arbo talk 15:19, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
Arbo, have you cleaned up what's left behind here of the history?-- I just found it by accident.DGG 04:09, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
Unless you mean the short History section, or POV-aligning that to the History of type page, I can't see any historical material in this article, apart from the reference to Beatrice Ward's Crystal Goblet essay, which is a contemporary topic.
Arbo talk 05:28, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
Ah, I guess you meant why is the History section still in this article. I wrote that as a short summary just for Typography, for readers who want a basic idea of where typography came from without having to read the full history article.
Arbo talk 09:55, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Call for typography samples

If you're a graphic designer, artist, typesetter et al, please feel free to submit typography samples and typographic art.

Article needs:

  • text typography
  • title work
  • display typography
  • logos, headings, posters etc
  • abstract pieces

Please save your image as a PNG file. JPG is not suitable for quality graphic artwork.

Please only use fonts you have a legit license to use. Images must not violate copyright, ie: it must be your design/artwork or you must have permission from the originator to reproduce it on Wikipedia. If you do not posess a license to use a particular font, please do not submit any artwork made with it. Artwork made from fonts supplied with software you purchased is fine.

This page tells you how to upload an image.

James talk 17:23, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Archive of legal talk on font samples

[edit] How to write this article

Good writing is simple and easy to understand.

You don't need to say any more. Don't turn it into meta-twaddle.

[edit] Avoid

  • wordiness & writerliness
  • clumsy & complex orthography, la de da expressions eg: 'typographical' is better off as 'typographic', 'cojoined' is a la de da form of 'joined'
  • Meta-twaddle, ie: raves about the profound nature of digital type in terms of 'paradigm shift' and the 'Gutenburgian' nature of it all.
  • cliched words, phrases and trendy neologisms

James 17:47, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Display Typography

Letters as art

[edit] Graphic Design

[edit] Packaging

[edit] Signage & architectural lettering

[edit] Kinetic typography

[edit] Digital typography

[edit] Text on the web

Low resolution challenge, grid-fitted fonts and bitmaps,

James 19:01, 22 December 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Structure

This article is getting quite long, and the structure seems to still be off. The history section is dominating the entire article, without enough general discussion of the field early on. Separation into a new article "History of typography" of the existing history tree would be a very good idea, with a short summary left on the Typography page, and a link Main article: History of typography. The history also fails to account for any typography outside of the western (roman script) world. For example, typographic design is probably the most important visual art of the Islamic world, with spectacular examples ranging from the cover of the Qur'an to the Hezbollah flag.

What I would strongly suggest is a discussion of the techniques of typography/typesetting. From talk of font selection, let's expand a little bit about the pros and cons of sans/serif/script/display faces. Let's talk about leading and tracking with regard to readability. Let's mention important concepts such as typographic colour (and spell colour with a U till the Americans turn up), widows and rivers. What about alignment? The pluses and minuses of flush vs justified? Tidying up a ragged edge? All these should go in early on, because these are (to my knowledge) some of the fundamentals of typography.

Then carrying on with whole sections like typographic logos (some Paul Rand examples would be accessible and look cool), and type metaphors A section on poster layouts (anything that is predominantly type..), a study if you will of how type interacts with the space around it.

These are the sorts of things I'd like to see in the article; the day-to-day activities of a typographer.

In terms of a section on digital typography, I think that's an article on it's own, and we shouldn't explain Apple MacIntoshes, ASCII, and Unicode on this page. A separate article would allow better discussions on the technologies, rather than the artform, which this page should be focused on. Imagesetters, laserwriters, PostScript, TTF & OTF... it's all important to digital typography, but not something for this article. Such a page is something I would consider making a large contribution to.

Three more things: One, typography is a visual art, so lets also visually tidy up the page, yes? It's bloody ugly. Secondly, Usher_building.png. This is cited as an example of "Text typeset using digital page layout software". MS Word shouldn't be used for examples in the article "typography". Look at those kerns, especially with regard to the i's and l's when they sit between two uprights... awful. I know that it isn't an example of kerning, but still, regenerating the image in indesign with optical kerning would be a nice idea. Finally, the greek origin of the word typography should be contracted to take up less space. It destroys the readablity of the first sentence of the article. Not a good start.

--Bb3cxv 15:57, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi Bb3cxv. Many thanks for your suggestions and observations. Input like yours is much valued. I hope you don't mind me tackling things point-by-point. It's only for accuracy.

This article is getting quite long, and the structure seems to still be off.

The structure is off mainly because it isn't finished yet. I wrote the bulk of the text, made some of the samples, then quit working on it because of the absurd things that happen at WP. Happily I'm back working on this one again. Nonetheless completing it will be a lengthy drawn-out process. Outside my full-time job most of my spare time is spent making fonts, leaving little time to work on WP. Some would say if that's the case I should not work on the article at all. Good point, but if had I not made the contributions I have made typography would still be the stub it was when I found it. To see what I mean, examine the article's edit history back to before my first edit.
Long ago I posted a template request for contributions from type industry professionals, but there hasn't been much response, probably because most of them have the same constraints on their time. The paradox: typographers and type designers are well-qualified on this subject, but barely have time to write about it.

Separation into a new article "History of typography" of the existing history tree would be a very good idea, with a short summary left on the Typography page, and a link Main article: History of typography.

Ooh, umm, I dunno. Maybe it's a very good idea, maybe not. Separating the history from discussion of typography as practiced could make the main article more palatable for some readers. Give me a week to think about it and I'll get back to you on that.
I've thought about it and posted a merge proposition on the merge proposition on the Typeface talk page supporting a cut & paste of the History section into Typeface, if you would like to comment.
Arbo 16:41, 30 August 2006 (UTC) @

The history also fails to account for any typography outside of the western (roman script) world. For example, typographic design is probably the most important visual art of the Islamic world, with spectacular examples ranging from the cover of the Qur'an to the Hezbollah flag.

If you can help recruit a writer with expert knowledge of Islamic typography, please do. I only know the history of western typography (by roman script you mean Latin alphabet).

What I would strongly suggest is a discussion of the techniques of typography/typesetting. From talk of font selection, let's expand a little bit about the pros and cons of sans/serif/script/display faces. Let's talk about leading and tracking with regard to readability. Let's mention important concepts such as typographic colour (and spell colour with a U till the Americans turn up), widows and rivers. What about alignment? The pluses and minuses of flush vs justified? Tidying up a ragged edge? All these should go in early on, because these are (to my knowledge) some of the fundamentals of typography.

You've been reading my mind ;^) Over the past week I've been roughing out just the kind of text you describe. Can't make any promises for a delivery date. BTW: no point quibbling about Oxford versus Webster spellings. "colour" would simply get edited over and over "color" > "colour" > "color" > "colour" > "color"...on and on. At Wikipedia, the mob rules.

Then carrying on with whole sections like typographic logos (some Paul Rand examples would be accessible and look cool), and type metaphors A section on poster layouts (anything that is predominantly type..), a study if you will of how type interacts with the space around it.

A section on display type, and another on editorial/book cover design are in there, with some text, altho they need much more delineation and detail, and samples. You could help by getting hold of some Paul Rand samples (non-copyvio) uploading them and putting them into the relevant sections. If I devote time to chasing up samples like that myself the delay in writing the rest of the text will be even longer. The only way of speeding up the completion is to have more people working on the article—much like NASA did with the Apollo moon landing program.
Duh! (I could have looked, couldn't I?) Now that I've looked at the Paul Rand article I see we already have some samples of his logos and other designs. They can go into Tpography any time. Thanks for the lead.

These are the sorts of things I'd like to see in the article; the day-to-day activities of a typographer.

If you really want to see that, visit Typophile.com, register as a user and post a thread imploring typographers to pitch in on this project. So far I'm one of only two type professionals who have taken the time out and put in some effort.

In terms of a section on digital typography, I think that's an article on it's own, and we shouldn't explain Apple MacIntoshes, ASCII, and Unicode on this page. A separate article would allow better discussions on the technologies, rather than the artform, which this page should be focused on. Imagesetters, laserwriters, PostScript, TTF & OTF... it's all important to digital typography, but not something for this article. Such a page is something I would consider making a large contribution to.

Desktop publishing >> exists. If you would like to write more material for it—yes please! It needs help.

Typography is a visual art, so lets also visually tidy up the page, yes? It's bloody ugly.'

It's tough to make this ideal stick. WP's page layout engine does certain things automatically that result in less-than-ideal layouts. I originally aligned all the pics on the right, as this is the general pattern of WP. To be completely consistent typographically the pics would be left-aligned in tune with the text setting. That's the ideal a typographer might strive for.
I originally set the image sizes and positions in the Typography article for a satisfying and harmonious page layout, then almost straight away an editor removed the size specs from the image tags, causing the layout to collapse. He reasoned that if an image is coded with the "thumb" parameter it shouldn't have a pixel size spec because that overrides users' default thumbnail settings. Possibly he was concerned solely with technical matters, not realizing that some editors size images for aesthetic effect or layout purposes where required, and without the "thumb" parameter images are rendered frameless and text cannot be inserted into the frame.
This kind of thing goes on constantly, and after a while you learn what folly it is trying to combat it. I've sized most of the pics so that the page looks okay again (1st September 2006). We'll wait and see what happens. Think I'll put a notice at the top of this talk page asking users not to alter the pic sizes, with reasons why. The type samples need to be large to show the typography in sufficient detail.

...Usher_building.png. This is cited as an example of "Text typeset using digital page layout software". MS Word shouldn't be used for examples in the article "typography". Look at those kerns, especially with regard to the i's and l's when they sit between two uprights... awful. I know that it isn't an example of kerning, but still, regenerating the image in indesign with optical kerning would be a nice idea.

The best way to address a quality issue with a Wikipedia image is to leave a message on the talk page of the Wikipedian who made it.
version 3 of Usher sample, improved rendering
version 3 of Usher sample, improved rendering
I just found out I made a mistake with that Usher sample—it was rendered in Word, not Acrobat. I've replaced it with a new version, rendered in Acrobat which handles sub-pixel positioning on-screen much better than Word.
Detailed discussion on the Usher sample is archived here:Talk:Typography\discussions_on_readability

Finally, the greek origin of the word typography should be contracted to take up less space. It destroys the readablity of the first sentence of the article. Not a good start.

Rather than removing the etymology I've moved it down to the Typography#Etymology & Scope section.
Once again, thanks for your many constructive suggestions. It's rare that I get anything like it on this article.
Arbo 12:03, 31 August 2006 (UTC) @

[edit] Editorial design & book covers

Display typography: a book cover
Display typography: a book cover

On this science fiction book cover, the type outlines of the Roslyn font juxtapose with negative space and pictorial elements. Words are treated as compound objects made up of tightly spaced letters; the composition is as concerned with modulation of negative space—carving the background into satisfying shapes—as much as positive elements—the typeface outlines.

-

[edit] Edit to Display typography

It seems incorrect to say that "color and size are more prevalent". I think you mean size variations or large sizes are more prevalent. It doesn't make sense to say that "size" alone is more prevalent. What kind of size? Large size,average size, great size? Size is always present, you need to give it value. It works to say that color is more prevalent, but not in the same way for size.

I tried to make the smallest change possible that clears up the intended meaning of that sentence. I agree that my revision needed some work, but counterproductive? I'm not so sure.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Lingchop (talk • contribs) .Please always sign your posts on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~). This will automatically produce your name and the date so that others will know who left which comments.

Hi Lingchop. 1st thing, thanks for correcting my bad grammar, converting "is" to "are". Normally I'm a much better wordsmith and I like to be corrected.
The very next sentence in that section explained what the first one omitted (for clarity):
"Color and size of type elements are much more prevalent than in text typography. Display typography exploits type at larger sizes, where the details of letter design are magnified."
It seemed comprehensible enough in the first place. The focus of the sentence isn't on variations in size and color; it's about the use of type at large sizes, in color (as opposed to the black ink of text typography). Variations of size seems implicit in "size". I think you misunderstood the paragraph.
Sorry I said "counterproductive" in my edit summary. I mainly meant the vandal 124.176.172.38 who showed up before you.
Arbo talk 15:23, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Non-standard letters" in see also section

Clubmarx, what do you mean "non-standard letters"? [1]. It's an article about typography and the origin of each letter is relevant, surely. I assume you took them out on good faith, but I disagree with the edit.
Arbo talk 09:26, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Inscriptional and architectural lettering

There is a good deal of advertising in this section, I ask Arbo and others whether there is a more specific term for this topic, or a better place--what is here seems out of proportion.DGG 03:05, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Whichever bits you think are spam, remove or refactor them.
There is no more specific term for the topic "Inscriptional and architectural lettering", other than "Epigraphy". One editor recently tried to include that term in the section header but I took it out on the grounds it's not the most commonly used term. WP style guide recommends we use the most common names and terms.
"Out of proportion" You mean off-topic? To the layman it may seem that way. To typographers and type designers inscriptional lettering is very much a current part of the study of typography, and intimately connected with the design of letters in typefaces. We regard all forms of lettering, including signage, as one or another form of typography. If you're sceptical of that view ask at http:\\www.typophile.com\
If it still seems out of place, you're free to break the section out into an article on its own. I don't mind.
Arbo talk 07:59, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
If I can think of a good place I will but epigraphy is the term 'I would recognize as specific. DGG 06:26, 8 December 2006 (UTC)


GlooGun

[edit] Link to Serif / Sans Serif Pages

Just a quick comment for those of you that are more savvy than I. In the Readability and Legibility section, there's a great deal of talk regarding serifs vs sans serifs, before finally a quick explanation of what they are. This isn't the wikipedia way. Link to them instead so people can look them up if needed. It's fairly common knowledge, I think...

I'd do it, but I don't really have the know how, and I'm in a rush at the moment, so I leave it to you..or not.

Thanks for the comment. Links now provided. When I've a little more time, too, I'll look for more links to make. (Thesimpleton 17:25, 1 April 2007 (UTC))

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