Thinking with Type_ A Critical Guide for Designers, Writers, Editors, & Students - PDF Room

Use modes of alignment (flush left, flush

right, justified, and centered) to actively

interpret a passage of text. The passage

here, from Walter Ong’s book Orality and

Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word,

explains how the invention of printing

with movable type imposed a new spatial

order on the written word, in contrast

with the more organic pages of the

manu script era. The solutions shown

here comment on the conflicts between

hard and soft, industrial and natural,

planning and chance, that underlie all

typographic composition.

    

   

 . writing moves words from

    

   . 

                    

    .                

-,   .

in handwriting, control of space

  

    

               :        

 ,  

   , 

   , 

     

   

  .   

   , -

, .

tends to be ornamental,

ornate, as in calligraphy.

the sound world

to a world of visual space,

Randomly spaced words break free from a rigidly justified column.

Lu Zhang

Passages of flush left and flush right text hinge from a central axis.
Johnschen Kudos

Long, centered lines are bridges between narrow, ragged columns.

Benjamin Lutz

situates words in space more relentlessly

than writing ever did. Control of position

is everything in print. Printed texts look

machine-made, as they are. Typographic

control typically impresses most by its

tidiness and invisibility: the lines perfectly

regular, all justified on the right side,

everything coming out even visually, and

without the aid of guidelines or ruled

borders that often occur in manuscripts.

This is an insistent world of cold,

non-human, facts.



moves words from the sound world

to a world of visual space,

but print locks words

into position in this space.

In handwriting, control of space

tends to be ornamental, ornate,

as in calligraphy.

 Print situates words

in space more

relentlessly than

writing ever did.

but print locks

words into position

in this space.

Control of position

is everything in

print. Printed texts

look machine-made,

as they are.

Typographic control

typically impresses

most by its tidiness

and invisibility: the

lines perfectly regular,

all justified on the

right side, everything

coming out even

visually, and without

the aid of guidelines

or ruled borders that

often occur in

manuscripts.

Writing moves words from the sound world to a world of visual space,

In handwriting, control of space tends to be ornamental, ornate.

This is an insistent

world of cold,

non-human, facts.

exercise: alignment

118 | thinking with type

Examples of student work from

Maryland Institute College of Art