Output details
34 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
Anglia Ruskin University
'Old Forms, New Ideas: Typographic Revival and the Uses of History'
This essay, published in Font: the Sourcebook considers the idea of typographic revival as an interpretative and interrogatory critical medium in the context of post-modern perspectives on design practice. The research imperatives concerned the need to re-examine the concept of historical revival within a broader cultural context than is commonly applied to type design, and to identify significant patterns of change prompted not only by developments in technology but also wider cultural and philosophical. Research processes involved both the study of typefaces seen to reflect different methodologies of historical revival and referencing, and the critical vocabularies used to define and describe relationships to a historical model.
It examines the material practices of punch-cutting in relation to the ‘revival’ of historical forms and the ‘dualistic’ strategies of re-interpretation involved in digital type design.It considers the manner in which successive phases of type production technology have prompted designers to review, adapt and modify ‘classic’ forms to meet changing user needs. Reviewing the critical and creative dimensions of type design during the digital era, the essay observes the emergence of type design and typographic revival as a medium of critical debate, argument and subversion.These qualities can be seen to reflect the key postmodern values of ‘complexity and contradiction’ coined by Venturi (1977) and a scepticism toward the dominance of large canonical narratives.
The essay maps the confluence of post-modern thought and digital technology, and its dissemination through ‘democratised’ type design tools and type distribution. The essay identifies in contemporary typeface design the common post-modern characteristics of an interrogatory relationship to history and a pluralistic, relative approach to the formation of values.
Black Dog publishing is a specialist art publisher. The book has been widely distributed and reviewed in the UK and USA.
