Feb 19 History of GD response

During class today, we reviewed the importance of Tory and other important inventors such as Jenson, Caslon, Bodoni, Baskerville, and didot. After style fonts like Romain du Roi and Rococo were discovered, typography did not spread quickly throughout England. Some of the reasons that it did not spread include the civil war, censorship, religious reasoning, and most importantly government control. The government could control how much knowledge was spread throughout England. It is interesting to see how much the government could control in that time period. We also discussed the differences between old style, traditional, and modern typography. When distinguishing between these styles, its important to remember that old style resembles hand written type and includes Caslon font. Traditional type characteristics include a difference between thin and thick lines while modern type includes very thin and thick lines, sharp 90 degree angles, and unbracketed serifs.

One thing learned today is how to distinguish between these different types (old style, traditional, and modern). It is hard to sometimes place a type font within these characteristics. Distinguishing between traditional and modern type fonts are difficult since they have some of the same characteristics.

One question I pose after the discussion in class today is after Blake began incorporating imagery in text, how did the culture respond to that? Did the style grow quickly or did people think it was weird at first?