Chapter 7
Renaissance of Graphic Design
Terms
undefined, object
copy deck
- Type specimen sheet
- publicized Ratdolt's return, which showed his range of typographic sizes and styles.
- Johannes de Spira
- a Mainz goldsmith who was given a five-year monopoly on printing in Venice, publishing his first book, Epistolae and familiars (Letters to Families).
- Johannes Nicolai de Verona
- a printer who printed a manual on warfare entitle De Re Militari (About Warfare) by Roberto Valturio in 1472.
- Cancelleresca
- a slanted handwriting style that found favored among scholars.
- Aldus Manutius
- an important humanist and scholar of the Italian Renaissance who established a press in Venice at age 45 to realize his vision of publishing the major works of the greatest thinkers of Greek and Roman worlds.
- Pocket book
- a book to address the need for smaller, more economical books by Manutius in 1501.
- Simon de Colines
- Estienne's foreman who ran the family business until his stepson, Robert Estienne, was able to take over in 1526.
- Imagines Mortis (The Dance of the Death)
- a procession in which skeletons or corpses escort the living to their graves. A major theme in the visual arts as well as in music, drama, and poetry.
- Fleurons (printer's flowers)
- decorative elements cast like type and believed to be first used by an edition of the Ars Moriendi from the Italian printers Giovanni and Alberto Alvis in Verona.
- Henri Estienne
- one of the early French scholar-printers who became enthusiastic about Ablu's Poliphilus.
- Hans Holbein the Younger
- a 23-year old printer who received as a master in the Zum Himmel guild and was engaged by Froben to illustrate books.
- Tailpiece
- same as "Headpiece"
- Reversed designs
- white forms on a solid background, sometimes printed in red ink.
- Jean de Tournes
- opened a firm in Lyons and began to use Garamond types with initials and ornaments designed by Troy.
- Stephen Daye
- a British locksmith contracted with a wealthy clergyman, Reverend Jesse Glover, to sail with him to the New world and establish a printing press.
- Oronce Fine
- a mathematic professor and author whose abilities as a graphic artist complemented his scientific publications.
- Trademarks
- designed by many early printers, including Jenson, to identify their books.
- Nicholas Jenson
- one of history's greatest typeface designers and punch cutters (see Evangelical Prep.). Master of the Royal Mint of Toures, France, was highly skilled cutter of dies used for striking coins.
- Francesco da Bologona, surnamed Giffo
- a most important member of Aldine staff who researched pre-Caroline scripts to produce a Roman type that was more authetic than Jenson's designs.
- Robert Granjon
- a Parisian type designer working Lyons who married Salomon's daughter Antionette. Also, created delicate italic fonts featuring beautiful italic capitals with swashes.
- Geoffroy Tory
- a brilliant graphic artist, and a Renaissance man.
- Humanism
- a philosophy of human dignity and worth that defined man as capable of using reason and scientific inquiry to achieve both an understanding of the world and self-meaning.
- Johann Oporinus
- became Basel's leading printer after Froben's death whose masterpiece was the enormous 667-page folio Construction of the Human Body.
- Johann Froben
- came to the sophiscated college town of Basel to attend the University, then began to print there in 1491 where he became Basel's leading printer and attracted the outstanding humanist scholar of the North Renaissance to the city.
- Chistophe Plantin
- a serious arm injury in the early 1550s ended his bookbinding career. Thus, he changed his career to printing in midlife.
- Claude Garamond
- a typeface designer and punch cutter who created visual forms that were embraced for 200 years.
- Bracketing
- the connecting curves that unify the serif with the main stroke of the letter.
- Renaissance Man
- often used to identify a unique individual of genius whose wide-ranging activities in various philosophic, literary, artistic, or scientific disciplines result in important contributions to more than one field.
- Headpiece
- one of the medium that Hans Hobein used for his prolific designs ranging from the humorous genre to a morbid series of initials depicting the Dance of the Death.
- Arabesque
- insisted to be design by de Tourne's fellow townsman.
- Christoffel van Dyck
- the great Dutch designer and punch cutter whose his types had stubby serifs with heavy bracketing and fairly stout hairline elements.
- Robert Estienne
- a brilliant printer of scholarly works in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew who his growing reputation as a publisher of great books enabled young Estienne to join his stepfather as one of the leading figures.
- Erhard Ratdolt
- a master printer from Augsburg, Germany who took significant steps toward the totally printed book. Created the first complete title page to identify a book (see Calendarium).
- Ludovico Arighi
- Italian master calligrapher, printer, and typeface designer who his small volume of 1522, entitled "The first writing Manual of the Chancery Hand) was a brief course using excellent examples to teach the Cancellaresca script.
- Renaissance
- ("revival" or "rebirth) used to encompass the period marking the transition from medieval to the modern world. Originally, this term was used to denote the period that began in the 14th & 15th centuries in Italy, when the classical literature of ancient Greece and Rome was revived and read anew.