LUPTON: Letter (Starter Post)

Type bombards your everyday life. Every waking moment you are surrounded by messages expressed in typographic form, whether it is the box of your favorite morning cereal to your school textbooks. Designers take a lot of time and consideration to select the most appropriate typeface to convey that message to you.

In the first section of your reading entitled "Letter" from Ellen Lupton's Thinking with Type, she discusses how typography derived from handwriting and evolved over the years.

Through the evolution of type during the Renaissance, Baroque, and the Enlightenment periods up to present day, the preservation of type heritage became very important in the classification and identification of typefaces.

As a graphic designer, it is through these classifications (humanist, transitional, modern, etc.) that you will be able to express certain moods and emotions by selecting an appropriate typeface(s) to accomplish the message you are trying to send to your audience.

From page 30 of Thinking with Type:

There is no playbook that assigns a fixed meaning or function to every typeface; each designer must confront the library of possibilities in light of a project's unique circumstances.

Now take time to explore the use of type in your everyday life. Find, post, and discuss examples of type in design used appropriately, or even inappropriately, and the message the designer is trying to send to his/her audience. Keep in mind the discussions we've had in class including the lectures on gestalt and typography.