News
Designing information before designers
22 February - 15 April 2010
Department of Typography & Graphic Communication, University of Reading
The exhibition shows and explains a 19th-century version of information design (which is a late 20th-century idea and practice) and something of people's encounters with printed documents for the transactions of everyday life: calendars, almanacs, tax and insurance forms, trade catalogues, maps, timetables, distance charts. These everyday documents were planned and produced by writers, both amateur and professional, by businessmen and traders, by publishers, and by printers. Not much is known about the process of designing for print in an age before designers. What today would be called design decisions about layout, configuration, the relative prominence given to different parts of a text, the printed objects' look and feel would, for most of the century, have been made by the printer's client, or the publisher, or the master printer, and then implemented in detail by compositors, the skilled artisans who set and assembled type.
The exhibition arises from the AHRC-funded project which we are working on at Reading, called: Designing information for everyday life, 1815-1914.
Paul Dobraszczyk, Mike Esbester, Paul Stiff
Non-Latin typefaces booklet available
A Booklet accompanying the two-day conference at St Bride Library and the University of Reading in September 2007 is now obtainable from the St Bride Library online shop (and profits from the sale of booklets will go to St Bride Library).
Fiona Ross and Rob Banham (eds). London: St Bride Library and Reading: University of Reading, 2007. 64 pages, illustrated, soft cover.
This was reviewed in Printing History (New Series no. 6, July 2009):
"This booklet ... does include two valuable essays by James Mosley (formerly librarian of St Bride's) and Fiona Ross (type-designer and part-time lecturer at Reading) who explain how their respective institutions managed to accumulate such outstanding holdings of non-Latin types - as well as some illustrations that seem both exotic and hauntingly beautiful."
A recently published book from our 'Optimism of modernity' project breaks new ground in contemporary design history
http://www.optimism-modernity.org.uk./
Modern typography in Britain: graphic design, politics, and society (Typography papers 8)
This remarkable volume is a collection of eleven essays and shorter articles which for the first time provide rich contexts - social, cultural, and political - for the emergence of modern graphic design in Britain. Reaching from the Second World War to the early 1970s, they fizz with provocative interconnections: between print culture, photojournalism and publishing, the London of émigrés, political meetings and demonstrations, cultural cafés and art schools. From these disparate milieux emerged new ideas about designing: configuring and picturing the world of facts and processes, shaping them for understanding, learning, and action. Presented here are documents of the nation's life in war, its reconstruction through the passages from scarcity to plenty, affluence, and the seeds of later fragmentation - these texts always fertile with multiple intersections between biography and history.
published September 2009
250 pictures, 89 in colour; index; 216pp
Hyphen Press, London
for images, see:
http://www.hyphenpress.co.uk/books/978-0-907259-39-8
contents
Paul Stiff Austerity, optimism: modern typography in Britain after the war
Stuart Hall The social eye of Picture Post
Robin Kinross Design in central-European London: interactions between émigrés and natives in the 1940s
David Lambert Wolfgang Foges and the new illustrated book in Britain: Adprint, Rathbone Books, and Aldus Books
Matthew Eve Isotype in trouble, 1946-1948
Robin Fior Recollections of designing and politics in London, 1957-1970
Call to action: political posters of the 1960s by Robin Fior, Ken Garland, and Ian McLaren
Ian McLaren Designing for CND
Paul Stiff & Petra Cerne Oven Ernest Hoch and reasoning in typography
Robin Fior Working with Edward Wright
Sally Jeffery Desmond Jeffery the printer
Index
Neurath/Isotype symposium
The Department welcomed scholars from around Europe for a two-day symposium on Otto Neurath and Isotype. The symposium took place on 24 and 25 September 2009 as part of the AHRC-funded project 'Isotype revisited'. The aims of the symposium were to present new research by individuals and within institutions, and to consider opportunities for cooperation and networks of sharing and exchange. read more ...
'Isotype revisited' website
The website for the AHRC-funded projet 'Isotype revisited' is now public. Its launch was coordinated with a new Wikipedia entry for Isotype: picture language written by Christopher Burke.
The impact of forms of authority
The official form, site of mediated dialogue between interrogator and respondent, intricate in its linguistic and graphic representations of rulers and ruled, state and subjects, authority and readers, remains a void in design history. There exists no account of the development of this neglected genre of information artefact.
This month at 'Writing design', the Design History Society's annual conference, Paul Stiff convened a panel on 'Designing and reading forms of discourse' at which he and his colleagues Paul Dobraszczyk and Mike Esbester gave a sequence of three talks on this novel area of research in design history, arising from their work on the AHRC-funded project, 'Designing information for everyday life, 1815-1914' (www.designinginformation.org )
They suggested what can be discovered by analysing those printed forms - here in the literal senses of 'a set order of words', 'a formal procedure', and 'a document designed to elicit information' - which served the expanding British state in the 19th century; and how such documents can be read by design historians, drawing upon commentary in the periodical press and from written responses within the objects themselves, for people's interactions with these sometimes intrusive and often unwelcome proxies for dialogue. Paul Stiff's paper 'Designing official discourse: modern forms of questioning' introduced some of the project's research questions, Paul Dobraszczyk (' "Give in your account": designing and using Victorian census forms' (and Mike Esbester (' "So much incomprehensible impertinence": the design and use of nineteenth-century tax forms') developed them empirically.
Why is this work of interest to design historians, information designers, and people working in applied language studies? Because forms instantiate the earliest type of what came in the late 20th century to be called interaction design. They give concrete shape and particularity to the abstractions of 'discourse'. They offer the prospect of insight into modes of (anonymous) designing before designers. And they promise the possibility of richer conceptions than are currently usual of historic users of design, readers who were required to respond with acts of compliance but who misunderstood, committed errors, stubbornly made refusals, and routinely transgressed the boundaries of the question field inscribed by the official mind.
MA Typeface Design in the news
Fonts.com, Monotype Imaging's website for the font industry, featured our MA Typeface Design programme on its Learn about type section.
Programme Director, Gerry Leonidas, summed up the course thus: "The MA programme at Reading is based on the idea of immersing a small group of highly motivated students in a very intensive environment that brings them in intimate contact with the totality of typeface design: the history and material sources, the thinking and discourse in the field, and the demands of designing complete text typefaces for a range of scripts. It is difficult and challenging, but students are rewarded with a depth of knowledge and range of skills that are impossible to develop through self-study, let alone within just one year."
If you could see inside: children's books produced by the Isotype Institute in the 1940s
An exhibit in the department running from 12 January to 20 March 2009 as part of theAHRC-funded Isotype re-visited project.
Otto and Marie Neurath began working on Isotype books for children in the 1940s. Between 1947 and the late 1960s the Isotype Institute produced books in series including the Visual History of Mankind, Wonders of the Modern World, Visual Science, The Wonder World of Nature, and They Lived Like This. Many were translated into languages other than English, including German, Japanese, French, Danish, and Italian.
Sue Walker will be speaking about this aspect of the Isotype Institute's work at the Information Design Association conference in Greenwhich, 2-3 April 2009.
Designing information for everyday life: website launched
The website for the project 'Designing information for everyday life, 1815–1914' is now online. Paul Dobraszczyk, Mike Esbester and Paul Stiff will update the website monthly, with images of and commentaries on everyday documents of the period, often outside the usual notice of designers and historians. An important feature of the site is interactivity: your views are very welcome.
See it at www.designinginformation.org
RAE 2008
RAE 2008 has rated 45 per cent of Typography's research as world-leading (4*), and a further 35 per cent as internationally excellent (3*). This superb result means that Typography at Reading is ranked second overall in Art and Design in the UK.
Research in Typography at Reading is concerned with 'design for reading', and covers history, theory, and practice in information and editorial design, typeface design, and printing and design history.
Printing and Book Production in Bengal
The Department of Typography & Graphic Communication is loaning items to an exhibition to be held in February 2009 at Jadavpur University, West Bengal, in collaboration with the British Council and the Indian Council for Cultural Relations. The exhibition will be accompanied by a workshop on Bengali typography and book production, at which Fiona Ross (Reading) and Graham Shaw (British Library) will also be speaking. Jadavpur Universityis also facilitating a new updated edition of Fiona Ross's history of Bengali typography, to be published by Sahitya Samsad, Kolkata.
Progress for 'Designing information for everyday life'
Following successful seminars earlier this year at which Paul Dobraszczyk, Mike Esbester and Paul Stiff presented some of their research, Mike presented a paper at the recent 'Reading the Evidence, Evidence of Reading' conference at the University of London. His paper, '"B is the Bradshaw that leads you to swear." (Mis)Reading and (ab)using nineteenth century transport timetables', explored how timetables were read and used in the nineteenth century, and – despite the conference's ambitious title – was one of only a handful from 100+ papers that actually investigated how items other than books or newspapers might have been read.
The project's first publication has recently made it to press: Paul Dobraszczyk's article 'Useful Reading? Designing Information for London's Victorian Cab Passengers' appeared in the Summer 2008 issue of the Journal of Design History. The article explores the range of information produced for London's cab users, including maps and fare guides. Meanwhile, Paul, Mike and Paul have co-authored a piece for The Ephemerist, the journal of the Ephemera Society, which has attracted more interest in their work.
The project website will be launched in October 2008. It will take the form of a blog, featuring images of the types of documents which the project team is exploring, discussing the design and use of the items. Full details to come when the website goes live.
Staff presentations at ATypI & Networks of Design
Paul Luna, Gerry Leonidas and Gerard Unger are speaking at this year's ATypI (Association Typographique Internationale) conference in St Petersburg, Russia (17 to 21 September). The conference theme is 'The Old, The New'.
Chris Burke and Katherine Gillieson will be speaking on a panel on Isotype at Networks of Design, a Design History Society conference in Cornwall (3 to 5 September).
Adobe website features Fiona Ross
See Fiona Ross' Designer page.
Reading acts in everyday life: a Material Text seminar
A seminar on the AHRC-funded project 'Designing information for everyday life, 1815-1914' will be held on Wednesday 18 June, from 1.30 to 3.30 in Room 107, Palmer Building. This seminar investigates what counts as evidence for past acts of reading, usually unwitnessed. It offers an overview and two explorations of specific kinds of reading that engage with the business of everyday life. Speakers include Paul Stiff, Mike Esbester and Paul Dobraszczyk. Please note the change of date from the previous posting.
Pictures and Words
The Information Design Association is hosting its next talk on 28 June: 'Pictures and Words: towards a visually-led information narrative', by Bryn Walls of Dorling Kindersley. All welcome!
Isotype workshop in Vienna: 11 April 2008
Christopher Burke and Eric Kindel were in Vienna on 11 April at the Universitaet Wien for an Isotype workshop convened by the Institute Vienna Circle. The gathering was led by Otto Neurath scholars Elisabeth Nemeth and Friedrich Stadler, with a further ten scholars and practitioners attending from institutions in Vienna and in Germany, the Netherlands, the United States and the UK. The aim of the workshop was to gather together reports on current research initiatives relating to Otto Neurath and Isotype, and to consider forms of co-operation among individuals and institutions with Isotype-related archives and research interests. It was agreed that a workshop should be re-convened annually.
Simplification Centre launched
This new multidisciplinary research centre will aim to improve the clarity of information we receive about vital issues such as tax, benefits, pensions, insurance, and health. It will focus on ways to simplify complicated information based on sound theory and evidence and drawing on expertise in information design, typography, psychology, linguistics, and economics, to help public bodies and major companies through training and research.
The Centre will create links between different sources of theory, practice and inspiration, leading new research and existing knowledge. As well as research, it will offer a range of knowledge transfer activities such as raising standards through benchmarking, Continuing Professional Development (CPD) and training for those who write the documents we read. Big organisations and government bodies are being invited to become members of the centre and their contributions will fund the research.
Rob Waller, Professor of Information Design and head of the new centre, said: "A large proportion of the population struggles with functional literacy, and that is very often because things are unnecessarily complicated. Our new centre will undertake research that aims to find out what makes complex information easy to understand."
French 'moderne': graphic arts in France 1920 to 1939
Currently showing in the Department foyer is the exhibition French 'moderne', curated by Ann Pillar. This exhibition is concerned with the urban world of Paris between the wars, from 1920 to 1939. It is the first to focus on the work of some of the key personalities and firms at the centre of the drive to modernize the French graphics arts industries, examining the context in which the French led the way in the move from 'commercial art' to 'graphic design'. Work on display will appeal to a broad range of interests within the visual and graphic communication fields, and to those engaged with aspects of early European Modernism.
On from 11 February to 30 May, 2008: open Monday to Friday, 9am to 4pm, with free access. Groups are welcome by arrangement, email a.pillar@btinternet.com
'The Global Polis' exhibition in The Hague
A major loan of artefacts and publications from the Otto and Marie Neurath Isotype Collection has been made to 'The Global Polis' exhibition at the Stroom Den Haag gallery in The Hague (10 Feburary to 6 April 2008). The exhibition addresses the several ways Vienna Circle philosopher and Isotype founder Otto Neurath promoted participatory forms of democratic exchange and the notion of a 'global polis' through innovations in architecture, urbanism, graphic design and planning. The exhibition coincides with the publication of the book 'Otto Neurath: the language of the global polis' for which the Isotype Collection supplied numerous images. The exhibition opening, on 9 February, was attended by Eric Kindel, Principal Investigator of the three-year AHRC-funded 'Isotype revisited' project.
Reading colour comes to Lyon
A party from the Department visited the Musée de l'imprimerie in Lyon to celebrate a historical exhibition and plan future collaborations. 'Colours', a visually stunning exhibition of the development and hey-day of the chromolithographic printing process, was curated for the Musée by emeritus professor Michael Twyman, and includes loan items from the University Library as well as the Department's own collections.
A new Knowledge Transfer Partnership
The Department of Typography & Graphic Communication and Monotype Imaging Ltd, a leading supplier of fonts and digital imaging technologies to a global customer base, have been awarded KTP funding to develop a strategy for bringing to market fonts based on the company's archive of historic drawings for legacy typemaking technologies.
Typography & Graphic Communication and Monotype Imaging Ltd, a leading supplier of fonts and digital imaging technologies to a global customer base, have been awarded KTP funding to develop a strategy for bringing to market fonts based on the company's archive of historic drawings for legacy typemaking technologies.
The project aims to capitalise on academic expertise to recapture know-how embedded in Monotype's library drawings for legacy technologies, and formulate a testing and development process to generate new, extended character set typefaces. Although the drawings in the collection corresponded to technologies used for type manufacture even as late as the 1980s, the switch to digital, device-independant fonts transformed the industry and its processes fundamentally. As a result, the skill and research represented in the drawings cannot be directly transferred to contemporary typemaking processes.
In addition, the Department's world-class expertise in non-Latin typeface development will enable the project to deliver multi-script fonts for worldwide markets. Non-Latin scripts are heavily represented in the library of drawings, but lack of documentation and a the radically different business model for digital fonts in relation to legacy technologies have rendered this part of the library relatively 'opaque' to contemporary eyes.
The project will last two years, and produce a range of academic and commercial outputs.
Typography Papers 7
The latest issue includes articles by Sue Walker, Linda Reynolds and others. Edited by Paul Stiff. Order your copy today.
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