Everything Ecstatic, unfolded.

Unfolded again, but rotated.

Here is the David Carson Nine Inch Nails art for comparison:

Here is the front and back together:

Both albums have some interesting and strange cropping with photos and images. Four Tet’s has so much congestion though, it’s pretty easy to find yourself more attracted to the Nine Inch Nail’s cover.

I think Four Tet perfected their image cropping, arrangement and off-beat typography in Everything Ecstatic’s second version. The design style is the same, but much more mature—All the extra and unnecessary elements have been removed:

Going to the absolute extreme, here is an MIA cover. It’s definitely anti-design. Unlike Four Tet and NIN, the design has no visual appeal or interest. It just looks like something crapped together by a secretary. Breaking the rules of design is great, but what have you really accomplished when your piece is painful to look at?

Notice there are 6 columns here, 3 per page. The outside columns are left blank to serve as the margins. The gutter between the two pages is thin, as the 2 text blocks on either side are pushed together in the middle. What you start to see is that there are 3 designs occuring here: Each page has 2 text columns that are perfectly balanced on the page. Not only that, looking at everything together you see that the entire 2 page spread is harmoniously arranged.

The spread is not crammed full of information: at least half of the surface is untouched by ink. This allows the design to “breathe.” It makes the content on the page more important and eye catching. Even though you probably can’t read this language, you want to sit and look at it. That is perfect design: It needs no improvement.

Our books today traditionally have a single wide text column on each page. I wouldn’t mind seeing some of those broken in two like this. Of course, magazines make use of this extensively, using 2 and 3 columns per page. But magazines also tend to over-crowd.

These typefaces, the paper, the density, the uneven quality of the ink: All these elements come together to give us an example of lush typography from the 16th century.

Look how the margin notes wrap into the text column (especially apparent in the second image). We could apply this to current design projects just as you see it, or in other ways too. What other secondary or tertiary design elements could be allowed to “impede” on the territory of the top-level heirarchy?

Click each image to view a large version.

Source: Fromoldbooks.org.

]]> http://www.designartculture.com/2009/06/24/16th-century-typography-the-geneva-bible-london-1581/feed/ 1 http://www.designartculture.com/2008/10/21/18th-century-typography-illustration-divers-proverbs-by-nathan-bailey/ http://www.designartculture.com/2008/10/21/18th-century-typography-illustration-divers-proverbs-by-nathan-bailey/#comments Tue, 21 Oct 2008 07:42:37 +0000 Jesse N. http://www.designartculture.com/?p=220

Here is another gem from fromoldbooks.org, Nathan Bailey’s 1721 printing of Diver’s Proverbs. For those of you who aren’t well versed in 18th century culture, this is a collection of cliche’s and other moral or commen sense one-liners. The book lists them and explains their meanings and origins.

The typography in this edition is a bit economical in its construction: you can tell the project was made on a budget, as the page size is small and the type seems somewhat hurried. Despite this, it is well done. The type is clear and almost magical, it is formal in construction yet somehow retains some playfulness. Also notice the mixture of blackletter fonts (used to set the actual proverb) with a standard serif. For a typographer working in the 1700′s, use of this blackletter, which had stopped being common in printed materials in the 1500s, probably seemed a bit retro-chic. We experience the same thing today when we see concert posters set in waving, curly disco fonts. Or, when we see motorcycle and/or LA indie fashion company logos set in-you guessed it!-blackletter.

Adding to this is the use of 2 ink colors: black and red. The typographer does something that isn’t very common today: accenting the first letter of each capitalized word (notice the first image) in a different color than the rest of the body text. I’m not a huge fan of that usage, although I think it works great setting the drop capitals in the following pages in red. On the title page, it seems that the typographer was just trying to use the red as much as possible, and the letters begin to stand out, creating bullet holes in the composition. Despite this, I see his or her personality showing through again: that sense of whimsy and playfulness which seems to be a theme in the composition and typesetting of this book. Sure, the unneccesary red undermines a harmonious composition, but the surprising introduction of personality redeems the piece.

Not only that, but these illustrations are absolutely delicious. A man reads solemnly whilst riding on the shell of a snail, a portly man with a sausage on a fork drinks aggressively from a mug. In the beer drinking illustration, the movement and other visual elements continually push the eye to the upturned mug: you can look at a different detail, but the eye is then pushed back; then you look at something else, and the eye is pushed back to the mug again. The mug becomes a hub, allowing the eye to move back and forth around the picture, yet always returning.

Two more antique typographic conventions to note: the use of the long s symbol, which looks like a lowercase f, and the convention of ending a page by putting the first word of the following page in the right margin, just below the text block.

Edit (2/28/2009):

Here is an example of an 18th century typographic work in a fanciful or whimsical style (as it is sometimes considered “the first children’s book”), presented for comparison with the above pieces:

I was thrilled the other day while in my Schleich-trance at an amusement park to find a little slot on the display with copies of Schleich’s complete catalogue. I was immediately stricken: the design of the catalogue was just as subtle, detailed, and enticing as the design of the toys. In fact, I had never seen a toy catalogue quite like it. The ones I’m used to seeing are bright, oversaturated and bursting at the seams with round fonts, glowing colors, and dancing figures.

One of my favorite things about the catalogue is the use of a strong geometric grid, but there are several points in the design that I like to refer to as design syncopation. Syncopation, as used to describe graphic design, is similar to the word’s use in music: you are taking a structured system and manipulating, or doing the unexpected, at certain points to add interest and rhythm. Some of these items are pointed out on the image notes.

Click the images below to see the full-sized versions.

Wow. Just look at this find. This is classical typography at its best. In the above spread, you can see a variety of typographic approaches, all of which are harmonizing perfectly. The titling area (detail below) goes from bold upper and lower case to roman caps, then small caps with a smaller point size. The Drop capital (the large, illustrated C that begins the text) adds just a pinch of ornamentation to the page: just enough, not too much.

Additionally, the italic section dividers with small cap roman numerals look outstanding.

There could probably be a bit more leading as the lines look slightly crowded. However, this was probably a page count issue, and in the 16th century manipulating the point sizes and leading of the font wasn’t just a couple clicks with InDesign. Look at the letterspacing though: even though the text columns are justified, there are almost no spacing issues (when you have big clumps of empty space after periods and between words).

In this last example, observe the use of a foot note in the left margin. Obviously, this will interefere some with the perfect composition of the text blocks on these pages, however, it works, and it isn’t occuring on every page. Also notice here the use of a sub-title in the body, set in small caps with a large capital at the beginning. There are some word spacing issues on this example related to the justified column, but regardless, the type looks excellent.