Today we had our first lecture on Context of Practice. I learnt some things about history of the three fonts Times New Roman, Herbert Bayer, and Fraktur.
We're immersed in type without even knowing it, and there are politics behind type and all design.
Times New Roman was designed by Stanley Morison in 1932. It was designed for the newspaper The Times. In making the font, the hope was to represent the identity of Britain and equate the greatness of the nation. The feel it has is cultural and national superiority, coming from a nationalist point of view.
Fraktur is alike in this, as it is very nationalist, representing Germany's superiority and dominance of all cultures and people around the world. It was used by Nazis in the early 20th century for all their propaganda etc. It was originally used by goths in the middle ages and is a germanic font. It has a dark and evil feel to it, the detail is exquisite and complex.
Bayer was created by Herbert Bayer in 1935, who was an Austrian designer who was part of the Bauhaus movement. It is a sans serif font and it is very modern looking. It represents modern Europe, and progressive left wing modernists, who were coming up with solutions for the modern world. It has no connotations attached to it, its not national specific. It's a font for all countries - it should be internationalist as modern design; it is very plain and neutral. It represents equality in the world. The upper case letters were removed from the font completely, which was quite controversial around this time; again, this reflects the modernism.
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