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| North vs South! |
So I've been putting the finishing touches on my draft for today's paper (okay it's definitely a draft!) and I have some thoughts that I am excited to use and others that I'm not so sure about, so I could use some feedback. I'll give you a brief road map of my thoughts and then the themes that I am wondering about using.
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| Gothic Text Example |
I decided to base my paper on the connections between the culture of a people and how that is reflected in the popular typesettings used in that region. For example, right after the Incunabula, Aldus Manutius devloped Italics, a typesetting that allows you to fit more on a page as well as being a smooth curvy text that matched well with the humanist's cursive style of the time. Contrast this with Fraktur and Gothic, both heavy thick texts with lots of lines and displaying lots of authority in each word. To me the differences match well with the locations. Italians tend to talk a lot and generally put less emphasis on any single word while the Northern European countries with harsher tones and slightly less 'ergonomic' flow of words per se, seem to put more emphasis on each word as it takes slightly more effort to pronounce. These countries tend to lean slightly on the authoritarian side as well. Even today, Germany is a very bureaucratic countriside, organized well (or lets say much better than Italy). So this is my angle, that Gothic texts remind you of authority and meaning to each word (like the big bible in the monastary) while Italic ones favor a more wordy let's talk it out for hours bunch.
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| Example Italics from Manutius |
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| Bembo - Also developed by Aldus Manutius |
The problem I'm having is how far I want to take this. I could start arguing about why Germans and Northerners are the way they are and why Italians are the way they are. Northern diets (I'm stereotyping here so forgive me) consist of meat and potatoes while the southerners prefer pasta and fruit. Northern countries are colder generally while the South is a Mediterranean climate.
I could also mention the influence of power - how the Catholic church may have played a part.
A Question I'm having is whether there are other typesettings besides Italics and Gothic that represent their geographical upbringing. Are there any counterexamples?
I thought the Gothic, German fonts were the way they were because Gutenberg was imitating the hand-written Bible fonts? (Not because Germans are German lol)
ReplyDeleteI would stay away from stereotyping or generalizing too much. 3-4 pages isn't really that much to work with.
This is a fascinating topic! Keep up the good work!
What did the English do with fonts? Maybe that could be worked into a counterexample?
Good point, I'll look into that. However German culture did continue to use Gothic fonts in everyday formats well into the 20th Century. I'm still not sure what the English did with fonts but it would need to be something contrived in England because the English printing presses came much later in time than Italy and Germany.
ReplyDeleteI say you really fill out the reasons why your current two countries have those fonts, and maybe, if you need more in your paper, examine how those fonts changed over time. I would say those you make sure that you are looking at what occurred as a result of printing and stay within that area. Branching out too much won't help your paper.
ReplyDeleteTip: read it aloud to yourself. I know it's weird and uncomfortable, but it will help you catch mistakes and find areas were you need more support.
Well I suppose this comment will be more useful to you as you prepare your final product, but I always love it when papers draw parallels. While I think the bulk of your paper should focus on typography and the topics already discussed it would be interesting to include even a small section that draws parallels between the fonts and the people that used them and how they relate. Oh! Here's another great tip for everyone as far as catching grammar and spelling mistakes. Read your paper backwards. Start with the last sentence and go to the beginning. Doing this takes the content of your paper out of context and prevents your brain from filling in mistakes or fixing them as you read along.
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