The History of Typography - Animated Short
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 เม.ย. 2013
- A paper-letter animation about the history of fonts and typography.
291 Paper Letters.
2,454 Photographs.
140 hours of work.
Created by Ben Barrett-Forrest
© Forrest Media - 2013
www.benbf.ca
Information Sources:
Thinking in Type by Ellen Lupton
Just My Type by Simon Garfield
If this video sparks any ideas, I would love to hear about them!
Script:
Type is power. The power to express words and ideas visually. It’s timeless, but always changing, and that’s what we’re going to explore.
Most people agree that the creator of typography was a German man named Johannes Gutenberg. (And yes he wore a hat like that).
Before Gutenberg came along and revolutionized the world of communication, books needed to be scribed by hand, usually by monks, which was very time-consuming and expensive.
So Gutenberg created Blackletter, the first ever typeface, modeled after the writing of the scribes. Blackletter has thick vertical lines and thin horizontal connectors which made it great for scribing but it looked very dense and squished together when printed. Things needed to change.
Enter Roman Type.
Now this typeface is Cambria, which you're probably used to seeing on your word processor, but the first ever Roman typeface was created in the 15th century by Nicolas Jenson.
Jenson worked mainly in Venice, Italy, and was inspired by the lettering found on Ancient Roman Buildings.
His letterforms were based on straight lines and regular curves, which made it much more legible compared to the dense darkenss of Blackletter.
This typeface was an instant success and quickly spread across Europe, riding on the coat tails of the renaissance.
The next major innovation in typography after roman letters was italics, which are like slanted and stylized versions of roman type. They were created in the late 15th century by Aldus Manutius from Italy as a way of fitting more letters onto the page and saving money. Now we use italics interspersed in roman type for emphasis. Aldus Manutius also created the modern comma and semicolon, but that’s another story.
Type development stayed fairly stagnant until the 18th century in England, when William Caslon created a typeface that set a new standard for legibility. While it wasn’t anything radical, it was just what the world was looking for. The style of Caslon’s typeface is now referred to as Old Style. A few decades later, another Brit named John Baskerville created a new variety of typeface, which we call Transitional. Later still a Frenchman named Didot, and an Italian Named Bodoni created typefaces that we have classified as modern.
Most serif typefaces fit into one of these three categories, but what does each one mean?
An old style typeface has letters that have thick serifs, and low contrast between thick and thin strokes.
A transitional typeface has letters with thinner serifs and a higher contrast between thick and thin strokes.
And a modern typeface has letters with very thin serifs and an extreme contrast between thick and thin strokes .
Next, William Caslon’s great Grandson, named William Caslon IV, got sick of all of these serifs, so he decided to remove them entirely and made a new kind of typeface called a sans-serif. It didn't catch on immediately, but would eventually get really big.
During the second industrial revolution, advertising created a need for new typefaces. Letters were made taller, and wider, mainly used in large sizes on posters and billboards. Things got pretty weird, but one happy result of all this experimentation is Egyptian, or slab serif. It has really thick serifs and is usually used for titles.
As a backlash to the complexity found in typefaces of the 19th century, the early 20th century brought something simple. Paul Renner from Germany created a typeface called Futura and it was based on simple geometric shapes.
This is called a geometric sans. Around the same time a British man named Eric Gill created a typeface called Gill Sans that was similar to a geometric sans but with gentler, more natural curves, and this is called a Humanist sans.
The next major step in the world of sans serifs happened in Switzerland in 1957 with the introduction of Helvetica. It has simple curves and is available in many different weights, and some would call it the world’s favourite typeface.
The world of typography changed forever with the introduction of the computer. There were a difficult few years of crude pixel type due to the primitive screen technology. But then technology evolved and computers began to allow for the creation of thousands of beautiful typefaces. And the odd, ahem, dud. But now anyone has the freedom to create their own unique typeface.
And that is the history of typography. - ภาพยนตร์และแอนิเมชัน
Your stop motion skills have left me speechless.
"I like big fonts, of that I cannot lie. When see a skinny font it tends to hurt my eye" by Sir Write A Lot
The animation is so smooth for a stop motion film! It's probably due to the smooth sound effects that match the video nicely, giving the illusion of smoothness. What an excellent piece!
I teach typography and this video is straight to the point and very useful. I spend two weeks talking about History of Type and then I show your 5 minute video to my students and they say "Oh, I get it now." Thanks.
This was so amazing! My university class is using this as a reference to one of our lessons :) thanks so much for such a fun and informative piece!
even our college uses it for in-class teaching and references
@@aashita224 Ben should be getting paid for it, that's a bit frustrating to hand off the information to a screen whilst the teacher is actively just letting someone else inform the class. hm. My college teachers did this and i'd complain. The video itself is great, but give it as background research for personal time outside of class to look up - but teach the class don't chuck a video on and sit down.
@@nataliabennett8157 That's true, they should teach rather than someone else doing it for them. But also I would say we get a break from the normal teaching. But maybe they can use video examples rather than just someone doing to explaining. We can't really complain anywhere so stuck with what we get. lol
same
@@aashita224 he does also get payed by youtube
Wow!! That's stunning!! Great video & great story!!! and damn 140 hours!!! Amazing!! How much would you charge for a project like this?
Very useful, finally I can pass my exam today.
I am in awe of detail you kept in cutting out all those letters! What a great video! Thank you for all your hard work!
this was amazing, the amount of effort that went into this!
This is AWESOME, thanks for making this, I'm going to share the crap out of it!
This is one of the most beautiful TH-cam videos that I've ever seen. It all looks so effortless and it flows so well and I can't imagine the effort that went into the production of this video.
this was amazing and so damn helpful for my quiz later today :) Thank you! I appreciate the obvious hard work that went into this video. And I will be recommending it to fellow students and my instructors.
This stop frame actually captures my students attention. And...they get it! Great work. Typography comes to life!
Excellent video on typography - best Ive seen fun and interesting to watch - thanks
Thanks a lot, Ben. Your effort truly shows and this is wonderfully informative.
That was absolutely phenomenal! Awesome job!
Absolutely amazing
One of the most beautiful videos I've ever seen! Thank you so much.
Ah, the amount of effort poured into it truly shows how lovely the final product is. Simple, effective and very attention keeping. Awesome job!
thank you for making this video, it's fun to watch!
it could really tells how much time and effort you have put on it, by all those preparation. nice work
that was beautiful
Thanks for the video! Really educational and entertaining.
Thank you so much to create this ! It's really interesting and the motion format is really great.
Great job man! All the info i needed to know and nothing more or les. AWESOME
Thanks! This really helped with my graphics homework :)
Wow! That video must have taken YEARS to make! Its amazing!
That was fabulous, Ben - really well done and informative. Kudos!
I'm in awe of all the hard work that you must've put into this one. It was excellent!
Dang dude that's a lot of hours! What editing software did you use to put it all together?
I used Final Cut Pro X, and yep, it sure was a lot of hours!
Nice! I need to learn that program.
Well your video looks great!
Ben Barrett-Forrest It's an stop motion video.
+Ben Barrett-Forrest TOTALLY WOTH IT. and thank you!
+Ben Barrett-Forrest OMG that is amazing!!!
Hmm. Roman seems to be to typography what skeuomorphism is to user interface.
In the same way, Futura seems to be to typography what "Metro", "Flat", and "Material Design" is to user interface.
Futura and Helvetica are (Early) Flat.
Century Gothic is (Late) Flat.
Roboto is Metro.
Product Sans is Material.
That is amazing! You put a lot of work into, i can tell. And it looks awesome. Very factual as well. Great job!
Years after years, this is still my favourite video on youtube
days of reading books condensed in to 5.0 minutes
the exacto work in this tho.
Everything from design, cutouts, to the voice over is perfect.
Splendid!
Wow! Probably the best stop motion I never seen! You are a Boss and the subject you talk about is very interesting and very helpful to understand what typo means. Thank you!
My personal favourite is Agency FB. No reason. I just like it. That's it.
I also enjoy Agency, I feel its letters being closer really adds to it. My favorite is a font called "Dark Ages" that I found while surfing dafont.com
HatchetHaro ok bye now
My favourite is Andalus. It has this elegant, fantasy-ish appearance while still being very well legible.
This is great... but you left out the era of typewriters, and also typesetting metal type, and then photo type. Everyone knows metal type and linotype, but many don't know about photo typesetting and how it was a precursor to both laser printing and desktop publishing. The first computerized typesetting wasn't done on graphics terminals. It was done by computer-controlled photo-typesetters that would use fonts that were on rolls of film.
this is great
+John Kawakami Hi Jhon, I am so in love by the depth of your comment. Could you please tell me about books of the history of computerized typesetting in the first years? Thanks. This subject causes me SO MUCH curiosity!
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAT_%28phototypesetter%29
John Kawakami he worked hard in this he probs didn't have enough time
The hard work done for this amazing stop-motion is really visible to the audience. Really brilliant job.
Ben, this is one of the best videos I have seen about the history of type. Great! job. Very entertaining.
4:43 *Do you wanna have a bad time?
Wow. thanks for your hard work cutting down these letters, it really is inspiring!
Amazing video!! Super informative, beautifully created and entertaining - fabulous job - thank you!!
Creative/smooth transitions. Easy-to-digest narrative and definitions of typographic styles. Thank you!
Dude, this is completely awesome... Kudos for your work !!!
AWESOME!Thank you for this great work!
Thanks for putting your efforts into this. Really amazing, easy to follow and informative. You did an amazing job!
Ben, you did an amazing job with this video!
Beautiful stop-frame. Thanks for taking the time to do this sir!
that was an amazingly edited, well-presented video, I really appreciate the hours and weeks spent in making this informative piece. It is completely worth it. Watching it once felt like disrespecting it. Watched it thrice already.
But still this guy has only 4k subs .. 😒
This is incredible--concise, informative, and entertaining! I learned so much about the nuances of typography. You are incredibly talented!
Please make more videos! This is so good.
You may have put lots of work into that, but it was 100% worth it.
This video will still be played in decades to come to give people a good overview about the classic typefaces.
Thank you!
Thanks so much, Johanna. Much appreciated!
best video about fonts so far!! Thank you!
Liked, Shared and most of all, enjoyed this video a lot! Big thanks goes out to the makers.
man. this is awesome! I love it! Thank you so much: for the video, the explanations, the art behind it!
this was beautiful and really well made! your voice is very calming too! thank you very much!
I love typography, I love stop motion and I love things that are properly explained so,
*I LOVE THIS* (:
this is AMAZING! it just concludes everything i've learnt from my course and seriously it's much better than just plain theory! Thanks for doing this!
Well done, Ben! I appreciate how much time this must have taken you. Thanks!
Thanks for taking the time to create this video, very helpful and informative :)
i'm watching this in 2021 for online classes and it feels weird looking at these old comments.
Absolutely loved the video - the animation, the storytelling. Love learning about history alwaysss
Great job! I appreciate the time and effort you put into making this video.
AWESOME WORK BEN!
CONGRATS!
love it! Great typography video!
This is truly awesome!
Woah loved the whole animation. Thank you so much.
I love the way you present so much! thanks for your hard work ;)
That is a lot of letters you got there. Much respect for cutting those out.
Cleverly executed and informative. Thanks Ben Barrett-Forrest for this.
Incredible! thank you for making
Very nice! I was a typesetter at the beginning of my career. Now I run into folks who can't imagine what that is! Thanks for passing on the history, and the reasons that each style gets designed and used. So often I see graphic design with so many fonts it looks like a ransom note. It's good to remember "type is meant to be read", and that good design is invisible, because it doesn't get in the way of the message. Really fun presentation!
Literally the exact vid I was hoping someone made. Thank you!
That stop-motion was beautiful. :') I love typography and the history behind it is really interesting. :D
Gorgeous Animation! Thank you so much for that.
Extremely well done. I'm a teacher and have been looking for a video to help explain the importance of font. This video has somehow eluded me until now. I'm so glad to have found it. Great work!
And finally, Beth Mickley created Emotifont, where emotions are incorporated into the fonts giving a clear visual of the intent behind the message! It is revolutionizing the texting industry!
Thank you so much, you're helping me working on my typography assignment. This animation, really simple, informative, and very well made especially in this pandemic era...
I respect you, sir, a lot.
Thank you so much!!
This is such a beautiful and informative video Ben! Thank you for this :D
So simple explanation, yet so great and amazing at the same!
Loved it :)
Awesome, good work! I love the details of the animations, so much better when you did it by hand (the different elements) compared to it being a digital one!
Fantastic work, man. Congrats.
Damn. Fantastic. You've been working so hard to make it look smooth and coool and it does! Congratulations! Very interesting vid! 'd love to see more! :D
This was amazing! Great work; it looked fantastic and was fluid the whole way through!
I love this! Thanks for the great
explanation of the differences in typographic fonts and their origins.
Incredible! ! Well explained and great illustration! Awesomeness :)
I love learning geeky things like this lol and you presented it beautifully :D Well done!
This is one of the greatest videos I've ever seen.
Loved this! Thanks for the good work!
Wow, so creative and so detailed and so professionally done. Hats off to you!
This animation is magic!!!
Wow that's a really impressive video, great content and great form. All the information i wanted, shown in a fun and clear way!
Still awe inspiring after 8 years!
omg, the best video i'v ever seen! Awesome Work!
That is just beautiful. Thank you.
Thank you for creating a great history of typography!
Wow I love they way you explain such an complex and huge concept in an easy way. Great
Ben! You are So Awesome!! Excellent Work!
Thank you for this amazing video!