The History of Typography
I found this really great video that skims the surface of the history of typography and gives some interesting facts to think about. For example, Gutenburg created the first font, Blackletter and italics was created to fit more letters on a page and save money. I won’t spoil anymore facts though. Just click the video below!
I also found this helpful image through a Google images search that describes the categories of fonts.
This then got me thinking about a question we discussed a few classes ago, “Do fonts have feelings?” Obviously, the fonts themselves don’t have feelings, but surely they provoke some kind of feeling in those that see them so I decided to Google “psychology of fonts” and I found an article called Font Psychology: How Typefaces Hack Our Brains. The article talks about the importance of familiarity and personality in fonts and it even gets to a video that explains how fonts smell. Yes, smell. I know, it’s crazy but I encourage you to watch it.
I then decided I had enough knowlege to try my amateur hand at creating a font so I went to Google and I typed in “easy font making” and I clicked the first link that popped up. It took me to fontstruct.com, a free and easy to use font constructing site. All I needed was to create an account to get started.
The site was incredibly easy to use. It was just a matter of picking a shape and placing it where I wanted it to go. I started with the intentions of trying to make the whole alphabet but making the letter “A” took long enough and making and my “B” and “C” were horrible. I have to give those who make font props because you really have to have an eye for this sort of thing.
Below is a screenshot of the site and the “A” I made. It might already exist in the font world. I don’t know. Like I said, you have to have an eye for this and I definitely don’t have that eye.
