Monday, July 23, 2012

Syeda N Ali - Chapter 2 Reading Response


The chapter starts off by letting the readers know how typography basically came into play, through its history and description as well. I found it particularly interesting how the utensils used in typography since the beginning were designed to make some sort of a font come to life. It is amazing to learn the fact that letters were evolved thousands of years ago, yet are still used and understood all over the world. Even when there were no official institutions, people were so much into the writing styles, that they separated the letters into parts, which I think was another interesting thing.
Another thing that caught my attention was the fact that is so common, yet unnoticed almost every time. I got to know that all the letters of a particular font have to be similar to each other, and when I read this, I realized that how imbalanced a typing would look if this was not true. I feel the reading also helped me understand the anatomy assignment better. Also, in the chapter, proper descriptions of the different kinds of styles are given, such as Italics, and what and why they exits and how they were used etc. I tried to link it to today’s world, and I feel that not much has changed in their usage, although a whole new era has arrived, the fonts still play an essential role in almost all places.

What is ironic is that alphabets are measured in geometrical aspects, such as how wide and tall each alphabet should be of a particular font etc. I feel there is a lot of mathematics involved in it and that is what makes the fonts look not only balanced, but also much aligned with each other. The picture below gives me an idea how balance between letters can make a difference for the reader!


No comments:

Post a Comment