Job No:01077 Title:The fundamentals og Graphic Design
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Job No:01077 Title:The fundamentals og Graphic Design
1ST
Proof Page:32
Technology
Graphic design, like many other disciplines,
is linked to technology at many different levels.
Technology affects how designs are produced and it
also influences developments in style, art and society
as a whole, which in turn are reflected in the form a
design takes. Technology also offers designers a
variety of media outlets for their projects.
32 The Fundamentals of Graphic Design Influences and creative elements
Advancements in technology open up new
avenues of creativity by putting new tools into the
hands of the designer or allowing designers to
produce work more rapidly. This in turn provides more
time for experimentation and can provoke profound
changes in the design process. This is evident in how
the Apple Macintosh (1984) allowed designers to
escape the limitations of the paste-up board.
Newspapers have been pioneers in the
application of new design technology, such as four-
colour printing and the use of the Internet.
Consumption culture readily adapts to the benefits
of technology, this means that traditional media also
face a threat from technological developments such
as digital media.
Whether technology is a threat or an
opportunity depends upon one’s perspective and
ability to adapt and change. For example, newspaper
print subscriptions may be falling, but online
subscribers are increasing, allowing newspapers
to provide other services to readers.
Graphic design and technology
It would be easy to think of graphic design as a
discipline that is solely influenced by artistic or
academic concerns. However, it is also shaped by
advances in technology, which bring new
considerations and processes for a designer to
utilise and manipulate. Design principles are highly
transportable and transferrable through different
technological epochs, which are modified and
refined along the way.
Technology has democratised design by
simplifying production processes and extending
access to the tools used to generate designs.
Digitisation has revolutionised design so that it can
be mass reproduced utilising ever more diverse
delivery systems, such as wireless hand-held devices
and diverse online mechanisms, as information
delivery migrates away from print media.
Technology not only affects the delivery
mechanism, but also the design. Images and text
can be subject to far greater manipulation and
intervention at quicker speeds than in the past.
This poses the threat that design may become a
form of urban noise where the message is lost and
diluted among the plethora of other messages that
bombard society.
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Bacardi Limón (above)
New York agency, Vault 49, designed this poster by utilising the capabilities of digital
technology. The design evokes a sense of fun and retains a simplicity that is
reminiscent of illustrated advertising art from the early twentieth century. Although
its creation was made possible by technology, the imagery is not technology-led.
Vault 49 could have produced a similar job by using a different method, such as
hand illustration.
Kunstenplan Vergezichten (above)
Faydherbe / De Vringer’s pixelated digital
image shows what is possible due to
technology and the digital revolution.
Technological development continues to
provide designers with new tools and
techniques for creation, but the need to
harness the tools available to good effect
remains constant.
Industrialisation < Te c h n o l o g y > Typogr aphy 33
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MOD
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17ARTISTIC PRINTING!52
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34 The Fundamentals of Graphic Design Influences and creative elements
Fuse
These posters are from digital
typography magazine Fuse. ‘Lush us’,
created by Jeffery Keedy for Fuse 04
(Exuberance) and F Trojan, created
by Simon Staines for Fuse 12
(Propaganda), are examples of the
creative possibilities that the
digitisation of typefaces has unlocked.
Open Type
Open Type – a scalable format for computer fonts
developed by Microsoft and joined by Adobe in the
1990s – is now the dominant standard for digital font
production. It can support up to 65,536 glyphs in a font
and has advanced typographic features. Digitisation
has reduced the cost of type to the extent that it has
changed from being an expensive specialist tool to a
commodity product, which now poses a stern
challenge to type foundries.
It is estimated that there are now over 100,000
digital fonts available – there may be a lot of
choice but as a result, decision-making is made
more difficult.
Subsequent improvements in technology have
increased the speed and power of personal
computers, reducing the time needed to create new
fonts, many of which have been showcased in the
typography magazine Fuse – launched in 1991 by
Jon Wozencroft and Neville Brody.
Digitisation of typefaces
The use of photocomposition in the 1970s accelerated
the type production process as characters could be
projected from the screen of a cathode ray tube on to
light-sensitive paper or film, which could then be
stored in a magnetic memory, overwritten and edited.
This period also saw the introduction of dot matrix
and digital typography.
The introduction of personal computers in the
1980s broadened font development opportunities,
allowing for characters to be drawn and amended
quickly, while type shapes could be easily copied to
form the basis of different letters. The acceptance
and use of digital type was assisted by the
development of PostScript – the standard used for
digital typesetting in the late 1980s. However, this is
now being superceded by the Portable Document
Format (PDF).
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a b c d e
Industrialisation < Te c h n o l o g y > Typogr aphy 35
Typefaces and fonts
The words ‘typeface’ and ‘font’ are commonly
used synonymously although they possess distinct
meanings. There is usually no harm in this as the
substitution is quite universal.
The distinction between typefaces and fonts is
arguably more important now that the two seem to
occupy the same space.
A typeface is a combination of characters,
letters, numbers, symbols, punctuation and other
marks that share a similar design. A font was
traditionally something physical, such as lithographic
film or metal type characters (pictured above).
Digital type foundries
Digital technology has led to the development of
digital type foundries, organisations and companies
that use computer software to produce type in
electronic format rather than the cast metal symbols
that characterised printing from the Industrial
Revolution until the 1980s. Digital type foundries,
such as Emigre, FontFont and Jeremy Tankard,
harness the benefits of digital technology to produce
a wide range of fonts, exploring and developing the
form of text characters. Digital production has seen
an explosion of the number of typefaces available due
to the relative ease, speed and low cost of producing
and storing them compared to traditional type
creation techniques.
Sample font
Sample typeface
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36 The Fundamentals of Graphic Design Influences and creative elements
Tracking and leading
Type spacing can be altered on both the horizontal
and vertical planes by manipulating tracking and
leading – two processes that have become more
flexible with digital typefaces.
Tracking works on the horizontal plane; it is the
amount of space that exists between the letters of
words, which can be adjusted to bring characters
closer together or take them farther apart. Tracking
can be reduced to condense space between letters
or removed completely with negative tracking. On the
other hand, increased tracking adds space, which can
prevent characters from touching each other. More
specific adjustments can be made in the space
between two letters by kerning (removal of space)
or letterspacing (addition of space).
Leading works on the vertical plane and refers
to the space between the lines in a text block.
The term originates from the strips of lead placed
between the rows of metal type letters to keep
constant space alignment – a function digital leading
still serves. However, digital type also allows for
negative leading, resulting in overlapping or the
absence of space between text lines.
The impact of digital typefaces
In the digital age, fonts are no longer just physical
objects. This means that a designer has more options
available regarding font usage, which offer more
opportunities for control and manipulation, for
example, in terms of leading and spacing.
The image above shows a block of numerals in
metal type, which were used for printing text before
the advent of digitised type. As these are physical
items, it was not possible to overlap type or have
negative leading, something that is now taken for
granted in the use of computer-generated type.
Negative tracking (above)
Negative leading (above)
the quick brown fox jumped over
the lazy dog
the quick brown fox
jumped over the lazy dog
A number set from a font of metal type characters. The examples above show the effects of negative tracking and
negative leading, both made possible by digital typography.
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