I'm a book historian so my knowledge centers mainly on the printing press era. You managed to tell a giant story in a cohesive and thrilling way! Great job.
I don't have anything to give you, but I will say, now, I wish I had popcorn! I adore all of this stuff (Loves: Final Marks and Outlander Season 3 episode 5 left me week in it's pornography- Sam knew what he was doing!) anyhow, this and other reactions, I have to watch the rest, but have been a bit too anticipatory, now I'm just happy I scheduled my shower in a few. I'll be sharing this with my socials, me thinks.
As I used to put it: "Typefaces (aka 'fonts') are clothes for words." From the 'business casual' of Garamond to the 'board shorts' of Mistral to the clownish eccentricity of Jokerman, they are our first impression of the written word. Always dress your words appropriately for the meaning you wish to convey.
Its stupid how taboo it is to quote yourself. Like. This is really good. I'm going to use this the next time I think about it. BUT I NEVER WOULD HAVE KNOWN ABOUT THIS PHRASE IF YOU. WHO THOUGHT OF IT. DIDNT SAY IT HERE.
@@paullees6687 One of my favorite examples is the word "peace" in Ammo Stencil - about as warlike/militaristic as typefaces get. One word, one typeface, but SUCH a huge impact from the inherent conflict.
This is great, I agree. At the same time, go wild if you know what you're doing. Like combining clothing that goes outside the norm, a nice font that sticks out can be a nice addition to your design.
Paul Rand was my professor at Yale school of design in Switzerland. He called me the wild one. It was an honor to be his student. So happy to hear you talk about him. I took 4 semesters of typography back in the day. Great video.
I’m always going to trust someone who starts my attention with, “I swear this gets interesting”. The mundane is always the coolest thing, because we’ve ignored the things right in front of us.
@@mrshinebox1803 I’m married for 8 years now. He’s not interesting. I’m not interesting. But we love each other, and we find things to keep us interested. I don’t think your partnership needs to be entertaining, i think you just gotta find someone who’s sht matches your sht .
@@jennifer7685 Don't get me wrong. I love my partner and our relationship. I'm just lucky they haven't yet realised I have a lacklustre personality and I'm a dud root. 🤣
I absolutely love the soft landing at the end. “The next time you feel like humanity 's doomed, we're all isolated and everything is going downhill-just uh; I dono, man-stare a little longer at something you've overlooked-because that desire to connect and the depth of that desire: you can see it in everything, fonts and all.”
That was a respectable finish. I love finding docs like this, particularly that the ending pointed out that the results of all this surround us and have deeper meaning than implied. 👍🏽
A good friend that I lost to depression several years ago was a font nut and I know he would have loved the care you put into this. I have a phrase in his custom font tattooed on my ribs. Great work brother!
I don't know for certain, but my hypothesis about why Font was chosen for the computer menu instead of Typeface is simply because Font is half as long. On those early Mac computers with painfully tiny screens, that additional space mattered. They tried to keep those menu names short: File, Edit, View, Font, Tools, etc., so they could fit them all in. They even saved space by making Help an icon of a question mark instead of the written word.
Oh my god I never thought about that but I reckon your hypothesis is 100% correct! It's like how the information icon you would see at tourist kiosks ⓘ is so ubiquitous in web and mobile apps as an indicator that tapping/clicking it will give you some info about that specific function. I first saw that symbol in Windows 3.11 back in 1993 and instantly understood the meaning.
It's also why we have such words as hiway and thruway because the highway administration was trying to fit words on signs and make english more phonetic
I'm retired from more than 25 years as a typographer & type shop owner. Thank you SO much for making this topic accessible. I could go on for hours and watch most of my listeners' eyes glaze over. You did a fabulous job and have made my communication about this amazing, subtle & eternal effort much easier. And I am beyond thrilled that you included the most important part: that the text typeface is not there to get attention. It is there to facilitate the smooth -- as close as possible to effortless -- flow of your eye, and consciousness, across the page and thru the entire work. Serifs, those little tics at the ends of a pen or brush stroke, help keep your eye on the same line across the page! They are tiny, simple and effective. Every type shop I worked in, coast-to-coast, had the poster "Type is meant to be read." Except in the cases where art is more important than legibility, the fact that textbooks still get printed in san serif typefaces shows not everyone has gotten the message. Oops! Way too long. Blessed Holidays and New Year to all. 🐍💃
I really appreciate your comments. I’m also retired from the biz (graphic design and publishing). As a young apprentice to a freelance designer, I worked with typographers and typesetters such as yourself; they were kind enuf to teach me a lot about type and how to use it effectively. I was so fortunate to have that foundation, before even art school and soon after the Mac, Thankyou to you and all the typography gurus out there , you rock 👏👏👏
“A typeface is not there to get attention”. I remember I was still at primary school I think - one of the text books was set in a typeface without serifs, not even the curls at the bottom of the j’s etc. I noticed - that typeface did demand my attention. Years later when working as a graphic artist I found out that it was the Futura font. About Typeface and Font: I always called it Typeface. Never heard the word Font until I started using a photo typesetter where the interchangeable discs were called fonts (so I thought it was the discs that were named that - not the typefaces!). Basically you swapped out fonts to get a different typeface…
My dad was a printer at a newspaper throughout my childhood. I remember visiting the new press and seeing how newspapers were printed. His job was to build ads. He literally cut and pasted sections of a page before it went to press. I graduated high school in 1987 and about the same time he was forced into retirement because his job was replaced by a computer. The paper got digital (still a printed paper, but much of my dad's job became obsolete) This was interesting to me and gave me a warm feeling. Unfortunately my dad passed away shortly after he retired. I'm sure he would have been interested in this.
Thank you for sharing your perspective as one who has had a career in the business. This video took me back to a page of typefaces my Dad no doubt brought home - perhaps with scrap paper. I was introduced to sans serif and streamline type along with two dozen others - and my fascination with fonts continues to this day.
My graphic art teacher loved to say "there are NO bad fonts, just BAD USES of fonts. Every font has its place and proper use. Sadly fonts are improperly used too often.
the guy who invented comic sans, Vincent Connaire, when questioned said; "if you really love comic sans, youre really not much of a designer, and if you really hate it, then im sorry to say you're really not much of a designer"
@@olldomu5790 Yeah, exactly. It's a very poor reability font, but for display purposes it can be just right (depending on what you're trying to convey). It probably gets over used, but it's playful and easy to slip into wanting to be used for many things. I'll most likely be using it as basis for a logo very soon.
@@olldomu5790Excellent philosophy in general. Both of those mindsets lead to thoughtless decisions: something is always bad or always good. True in fonts, and dangerous in things like politics as well. *Thinking* is good.
I started having cataracts about the time I began to use a word processor, and vision has to get pretty bad before the insurance companies will cover the surgery. While my vision was impaired, I found that Comic Sans was the easiest font to read. It deserves a lot of respect.
You really did your homework there. A diverse amount of information, too: explaining font classes, its relation to history-history, and of course more than plenty of comprehensive graphics and explanations and humor for morons like us on the internet to understand. There's only so much quality content with artistic and historical integrity out there, and you really nailed it in the sweet spot. I'm subbing.
Surprised you didn't mention the way that Comic Sans was resiliant to the pixelation of aliasing and quite legible at very small scales, which is part of why its letters have some of their weirder shapes. Honestly I think pixelated is Comic Sans's best look.
Also, Comic Sans and similar fonts with strange weighting really help dyslexics distinguish letters and read easier, which is part of why comics use them, because more of their readers are still learning those words.
I really like comic sans because of their lowercase a. It’s how an a is taught to be written in most American schools. I really dislike how 95% of other fonts have that repulsive arched extension coming off the top.
As a working signmaker that learned this in school i'm really happy you put this alltogether in such a wellmade video. Definitely gonna show this to my trainees! Thanks for your work ✌️💚
I'm surprised you didn't also mention the thing about Comic Sans (a font that used to make me roll my eyes because of it's over-use) - it's one of the very few typefaces where the lower case A is represented in the same way that we commonly write it. I only realized this once I had children - and it gave me newfound respect for Comic Sans.
From what I remember, Comic Sans looks the way it does to make it easily readable for people with dyslexia, as each character looks different enough that they don't get mixed up
This is the exact kind of thing I’d spend days hyper fixating on. You do all the work and wrap it up in a creative, funny 30 minutes! This channel has saved me days in adhd rabbit holes. Thanks for tugging those strings and giving us the best cliff notes ever!
sadly this man wasn’t here early enough for me 😂 I fell in tryna understand why times new roman and not courier new bold for mla and apa edit: since someone else asked, what rabbit holes have you gone down?
@@EpicManaphyDude bummer man! But the video was super interesting, so you have that to add to your trivia knowledge, and that sir is winning! All kinds of rabbit holes! I’ve accepted and wear proudly I’m a life long learner! Orrrr have terrible undiagnosed ADHD and now my brain is like the internet…an inch deep and a mile wide 😂😎🤩 What about you???
As a “graphic designer” most of my career (almost 20 years) I thoroughly enjoyed this. So well put together & communicated. Should be required viewing at design schools :)
@@struthless i agree with Jonathan, I taught a couple of fundamental GD courses at University last year, and it'd make a great pre type section hw. I'm definitely passing it along to my colleagues that are still teaching 😄 As a quirky character with a professional streak, I loved and geeked out through the whole video!
I was very thankful to see that fonts (typefaces) were discussed in a RUclips video. I was a Graphic Designer! I knew who Paul Rand was (he designed the original UPS logo and the logo of CBS!) he was a great designer! I loved hearing the history (for example-I never knew the origin of ‘Roman’) In the seventies, I subscribed to U&lc (Upper and lower case). It was a company organ created by Herb Lubalin (he designed Friz Quadrata). At the time I worked with the designers who worked at Dayton’s (the department store that started Target). My favorite typeface is Optima which is a sans-serif face that mimics having serifs. Thank You so much!
I've learned about 20% more in this 29 minute video than I did in the entire semester of History of Graphic Design class. Amazing video and even better research.
Yea more than half of these stuff i already seen in my 2D design, Drawing and Multimedia classes. And the funny thing is that i learned about the printing history and the first printed bible in my photography class only lol.
I agree! I may be a bit late to the party here, but if you're interested in more content like this, I host a podcast on history's most influential type designers. It's called "Titans of Type".
I'm praying lowkey neither my professor nor you see this but, I'm studying visual communications at uni and we've been recently introduced to typography and all the anatomy of letters and shit but even though i usually hate typography he introduced us to the entire concept with this video. And my good god is this video both fun and informative! I was so immersed while watching it and even the lecture that followed ended up not as dreadful as i thought it would be initially. So you've done amazing, with being so concise, well-informed and entertaining to listen to my guy, as well as obviously being of such good quality a lecturer used it for his lesson.
It's not that simple. Sure, this shitty video may be amazeballs for realz. The other possibility could be: your 'uni' sucks BIG TIME and so do you. Guess, what's the case here.
@Marc Schweitzer Now you good sir, frankly, sound like a prick. But would you mind giving your reasoning as to why this video is so shitty for an introduction to typography
I’m a graphic design student… how did you make the very lengthy topic of typography more interesting than my professor’s did while still keeping the lecture/story reasonably condensed?! There are whole classes on the subject!
He followed the typographic changes and their reasons. He made callbacks to multiple concepts, used animation as visual expression to flourish his commentary. He did shy from most of geometric distinctions. There was less precise connection, such as that of the rumored romance between Mrs. Eaves and Jon Baskerville-alluding to the likeness of their respective typefaces.
Because your professor knows what he is talking about, while this guy just sits there and invents things out of the blue. Three minutes into the video, he claims that hieroglyphs were derived from cuneiform (what??) and the Phoenicians were ancient Greeks (whaat?). Here is your youtube education, lol
Four minutes in and both my word nerddom and my funny bone are equally enthralled. The palindromes quip got me big time! And it’s an Aussie channel! Instant subscribe. 😁
I love these niche documentary style videos you guys make. They combine individualism and professionalism in a perfect little half hour soup of history. :)
@@struthless no problem mate. :) Long side tangent if you have time; but your wellness and self help videos have genuinely made a massive impact on my life. I learnt about Journalling from your channel and it's really been helping my anxiety. I never thought that simply verbalizing how I feel would be so effective! Your approach to mental health is so chill and actually makes me feel like I have time to sort things out, rather than rushing. I've been far more productive and creative since learning how to manage my thoughts and emotions first. You're one of the most real people I've seen online. The quality and structure of your videos is amazing and fits my learning style perfectly. It's clear you care about your art. Keep it up man, love your stuff. :)
I'm a preschool teacher and Comic Sans is the only font available on my work tablet that has lower case A:s (a:s) that look like the way we teach kids to write them. So it is pretty much exclusively used. For name signs and worksheets and posters and such.
wow! quite a rabbit hole you got to explore! this was really welldone! you hit the outer edges of the universe and still got us back down to earth without losing the way! i enjoyed this immensely! my turn to swan dive down the rabbit hole and explore your channel.... thank you for making something so underlooked fascinating! all the best to you & yours! ♥️🙏♥️
Only 3 minutes in but wanted to share… I recently learned (and found it interesting) that the sign language used by native Americans (which was basically universal from tribe to tribe even though they spoke different languages) was derived from the way they drew the corresponding symbols / hieroglyphs. :)
@@struthless and I also wound up at this video… ruclips.net/video/7mn1TkX0kXo/видео.html I always notice how the way we speak can be just as artistic as visual art, so I have a bit of an obsessions with words, etymology, language, etc…
Amazing video! 1 Year of typography at my design school, summed up in 30 minutes. What a masterfully written and well research script! It's fascinating to see that the Swiss style actually had such an impact on the world's typography. Well now I feel kind of proud to learn design in a country with such a rich design history! Greetings from Bern & keep up the amazing content!
I was a teenager in the mid-90s, when the internet was exploding in popularity & everyone wanted a personal website. I loved the graphic design element, and played around with hundreds of fonts…it is SO cool to hear the backstory of all these fonts, where their names came from & who designed them. I haven’t dabbled in graphic design in a couple decades now, but the names are still so familiar, like old friends. This really was as interesting as promised!
that was such a well produced documentary . I loved the how the editing style changed with narration and the use of different typefaces throughout . Props to everyone esp the editor .
Fun thing about Trajan: It was based on the design of a very specific set of ancient Roman letters etched into the base of a commemorative column recounting Emperor Trajan's military victory over Dacia. The Trajan font/typeface, as a design, is almost 2000 years old. I also think it's a pretty good looking font, personally. If you look at the images of the original characters, they're dang gorgeous. I'm kind of a fan.
As a calligrapher, I'm also a fan of Trajan. I have to admit that I like Papyrus too. I prefer typefaces that are based on actual pen/brush/chisel forms that were created by hand with tools, not by manipulating pixels.
Something interesting to add. One of the big factors that influenced early letter design was the type of tools used for writing. When you think of western style type with its thin horizontal lines and thick vertical lines, like in Blackletter, that's an artifact of writing with reeds and then quill pens. Whereas in the east people used brushes to write, which let them create much rounder smoother line shapes.
And there's things like Tamil, which gained a bunch of loops in its characters for a couple centuries due to the main writing surface at the time being easily-punctured-by-a-pen palm leaves - while they're mostly gone now, they still had an impact on the shape of the characters
Don't forget cuneiform, which was written by pressing a squared-off wooden stick into clay which explains the very limited vocabulary of shapes they had to work with.
I'm an historian who still uses fountain pens and picked Garamond back when we first had the choice to set it as the default. Imagine my surprise to discover it hails from 15th Century Italy. Fascinating story, thank you!
@@anniestumpy9918 I use it for all my job application stuff. It is a bit playful without looking inappropriate for formal content. And it's not the same font everyone else uses, which is something that makes me happy :)
Garamond is my default, too. I prefer serifed typefaces both aesthetically and for practical readability (far too many typefaces are hard to differentiate a capital "I" from a lowercase "L," for example; I mean here: lIIllI, which is which?!). Garamond is a great, not super common, easily legible, serifed font. I love it.
Jokes and irony aside, I do appreciate the small segment on Comic Sans. When I was in school, discovering that font was special and was kind of my own lightbulb moment with fonts. To me, I could suddenly write like the Bone books I was reading at the time, and it personalized my document beyond the mundane. I still kinda love its charm, but have also kind of grown out of it, and that segment does a good job of perhaps explaining why. I write a ton recreationally, but for the chance of presenting things right, I can't possibly imagine that font that has this rounded half-bold look to it as a large basis of paragraphs and paragraphs in deep, discussing draconian lore or the lost soul of a loved family member. It just doesn't work, but its still a font I'm grateful for, and turned my brain onto engaging with fonts to begin with.
Not Comic Sans specifically, but I used to use a modified comics font when teaching so that students could see and ready what people write like. We never taught them that words appeared differently depending on the typeface used, and they'd get hit with printed typefaces all while being drilled on hand writing. I wanted to at least show them some content that more closely matched how they were writing.
Every designer or typographer watching this video: this does NOT sound like too much to derive from Jokerman. Edit: just finished the video!! This was amazing, you summarized so much stuff in 29 minutes! I wish I had this when I learned typography. I think I'm going to submit translation subtitles and send this to my old college teachers. This should be MANDATORY to watch!
Damn u mean I didn't have to spend 4 years in college for a Graphic Design degree and I coulda just watched this and gotten the same amount of information?? Love the vid man 👌
I’m on year 2 of an associates of applied science in Graphic Design & I was impressed too! My instructor for my Typography & Layout class (which was still pretty intro level) only got so far into the topic in a semester WITH a dedicated textbook because there’s so much info to get through! Boiling everything down in an easy to absorb way (especially in just a few hours) is hard!
I used to teach English in Japan and Comic Sans is a LIFEsaver for ESL because it looks really similar to actual handwriting, and also differentiates between lowercase L and capital i.
I listen to hundreds of hours of RUclips videos every month. I apologize to all the hard work that goes into the graphic design teams, but I can't watch them while I work. I watched this one the whole way through and it was absolutely fascinating. The message could not get across without seeing it. And I think that really proves the point you made so beautifully. Graphic design is a beautiful form of expression to unite, explain, and persuade the viewer. And this video did that so well. This is my favorite video of the month, and I did watch plenty of others too! Bravo mate. Subscription well earned.
So wonderful a piece of storytelling! Had to return to this video after a failed attempt to watch till the end a few days back. I shared it to dozens of my acquaintances who are graphic designers. Thank you for this video!
This was F'in epic... Literally just spent 4 hours today mindless scrolling through 100's of fonts for a design project I'm working on and this video just brought so much context to something that most of us take literally no notice of.. Good work mate, Love from Tassie
Any time I make a project that involves text of any kind, I'm not just scrolling through the fonts on my computer, I'm usually going on a font website and searching various words to find the perfect font to capture a tone or feeling or setting or theme. Its incredible to have such a broad and granular variety of fonts to play with. You want a font that evokes a log cabin? What season? We have dozens for each. I need a creepy font, but, like, spider webs and dust, not blood and gore. Here are ten. I'm not just thinking "this project is more serious, better use a serif font". I'm thinking "this project is a wall art for a lawyer. I want a font that evokes classic roman typeface with a bit of extra medieval flair". Its a great time to be an artist of any kind.
I’ve been really enjoying his history videos. I loved the tattoo ones too, I love his mental stuff series, but learning new things about stuff most don’t think about is so interesting.
Loved this! A vast overview of 2 millennia of type in 30 minutes in an accessible and entertaining way! I wish I was this articulate when trying to explain to people why I find type so fascinating. Should be required viewing for anyone interested in graphic design.
I'm in my 50s and I've been nerding out on typography since the 70s when my parents (designers) would come home with Letraset catalogues - and I still learnt something. Great vid. 👍
@@kiramccain6310 I missed this comment, sorry! I'm an accountant nowadays. I did initially think I'd go into graphic design, but I realised very quickly I was vastly outranked in talent by others! (And no, I don't do 'creative accounting', because that's a bit naughty 😅)
Same! Not the type of engaging content ya find at design school. I'm on a mission to make this content more engaging and accessible too with my podcast, Titans of Type :) Would love to have you check it out, Paula!
@@gifzilla1818 I never realized this before, but I'm not sure if Comic Sans should be categorized as a Sans Serif typeface. There are a few characters that have serif-like features: capital I, capital C, numeral 1, lower-case r and lower case s.
This popped up on my homepage and I never would’ve guessed that the history of fonts would be so interesting. I subscribed to your channel and I’m looking forward to checking out more of your content!
i appreciate the time you've taken to make this comprehensive video so much - covering a topic that i'm super passionate about, in an organized manner, and with a great message, freaking love this, never stop making these videos
I was a journalist in the early 80s, and an editor by the late 80s. About the same time, we progressed to digital layout and publishing on new Apple computers. Having all those new fonts was irresistible, and turned the newspaper design into a circus sideshow / train wreck. We produced some absolutely horrifying pieces of garbage simply because we could. Fortunately, we got over the initial thrill of having so many typefaces and settled back into Times New Roman for all text, Helvetica for headlines. The Sunday Magazine remained allowed to be creative. Too many options is not always good. Nice video, well done.
the way you describe this reminds me of my mindset toward creating powerpoints in elementary school when we first got to go to the computer lab and learn such fascinating new technology. i know there was one powerpoint i made in which on one slide i changed the font of each individual letter to something different. i'm sure it was completely illegible. but the sheer JOY i felt at 8 years old with this unlimited creative freedom may never be matched, two decades and part of a design degree later
This reminds me of a quote I've seen attributed to Orson Welles, among others, "the enemy of art is the absence of limitations". I grew up in a household where we waited eager for each new issue of U&lc; (I still have our collection)...a delightful documentary, excellent!
This was a really good presentation of a subject I thought would be boring. This dudes personality and delivery kept me focused, and kept it interesting. One of the best short docs that I've seen a long time. Thanks!
As someone who went to school for Art & Design, I've gotta hand it to you...excellent, well researched video, friend! Typography is such an interesting art form.
way before the age of computer fonts i remember poring over Letraset catalogues as a kid. Fascinated by the endless variations of depicting the same thing, retaining a coherent design across a set of 26 different letters and yet still having them easily readable.
So true! There have been several architects throughout history who were also type designers. One of which is Bertram Goodhue, who designed the Cheltenham typeface! I will be doing an episode on him for my podcast here in the near future :)
Having worked as a graphic designer and because I'm curious, I already knew quite a bit about what you talk about in this video but you made it so entertaining and fun, I watched all of it without skipping a second! This reminded me of a teacher I had when I was in school. He used to bring magazines all the time and say _"Look at this crap! Can you read this?! Nobody can read this! These typefaces should all be banned!!!"_ ... I wish he would watch this video! 🙂
As someone who does a lot of lettering…this video scratches an itch in my brain I didn’t know I even had. Your videos just keep getting better. Thank you for making this!
I'm so impressed! Love how you told a story of how all these events and art movements intersected. I studied art & graphic design history for years at university while earning a graphic design degree, and you've just wrapped most of that into a 30 minute video.
The ending gave me goosebumps, I hope to see more design related content from you in the future. Partly because RUclips has a severe lack of it, and partly because you do a great job. From the corporate artstyle video to this one, I was mesmerized each time. Keep up the great work.
Trebuchet MS remains my favorite typeface for legibility. I greatly appreciate that the glyphs for one, uppercase aye, and lowercase ell are all visually distinct with no contextual ambiguity.
That is important for communicating passwords and codes used in computer access! The Courier New font used as the default in Microsoft Notepad is a good example also. Many times when I’m not sure of the exact spelling of a link code, I will open up a blank Notepad window and paste it into that window. Another advantage is that it is a MONOTYPE font, so that words and figures line up vertically just by counting them (this is the was traditional computer displays and printers operated, as well as all typewriters before the IBM Typeamatic).
When I saw this was half an hour long, I didn't think I'd stay for the whole thing, but I never found a good time to go. Really interesting, and I love your delivery style. And the way you ended it, it was just... perfect. Very uplifting. Thank you 🙏
I started work as a typesetter 50+ years ago and retired as a graphic designer. Love your work! You told me history I’d had no idea about and presented as fun and interesting! Please keep it up.
If you could, please add closed captioning/subtitles to this video! I have so many people I would love to share this with, but some of them are older and need subtitles to follow along. I myself have a hard time processing audio sometimes without extended effort, and this was lots of information I loved but had to put that extra effort into when watching. I'm currently taking a class on publication, and we watched that documentary about Helvetica, but your video went so deep into the different movements and trends that this is something that piqued my interest right away! Thank you so much for this! (Also, if you add subtitles, RUclips lets the viewer choose the typeface, which is just perfect for this video.)
@@pmbrig Automatic transcriptions tend to not be the most accurate. Honestly for me, what more annoying is the scrolling, lack of punctuation, and horizontal alignment. Manual subtitles are generally centered vertically and have logical and hard cutoff points between blocks, which make them much more readable.
@@TheFakeyCakeMaker What angeldude101 wrote has nothing to do with fonts. And they’re right; while auto-generated closed captions have become amazingly well, there are still errors in them that might make reading them actually worse than not reading them.
There is cc closed captioning/subtitles, but you can't choose the typeface, just the general style; monospace, sans-serif, casual or small caps, then some formatting choices. No Comic Sans. Also there is a transcript found in "more" or 3 dots in every video.
I’ve always loved fonts, but I never imagined I’d ever be watching a 30 min video about the history of fonts and really enjoying it, enjoying it enough that I wished the video was longer!!
@@neygmg00 I guess I'm not even sure. I'm kind of fascinated by the idea that font/typeface/whatever is something people get into. So I wonder if some of those font nerds out there think some metal logos are particularly interesting or if others are hacky garbage. Obviously it's subjective, but IDK, maybe there are opinions out there about there being a "wrong" way to do it. Personal investment: I've gotten into promoting metal shows in the woods and I've been having friends do the posters for them. One of the posters used a old-englishy typeface with a blood-drippy effect on it and I wasn't into it. So I've been doing a bit of research on better options.
You came through with your promise. I loved this little documentary. Very informative and such a good little break from the world to focus on something small but impactful. Also as a photographer I can't get over the photo of Susan Kare, how it captures both the artistic carefree nature breaking norms while also being timeless in a iconic computer geek. I just love that picture.
fantastic video! i love how you showcased the history and cultural context for all of these typefaces. as a designer who used to teach some undergrad typography classes, this is a perfect introductory resource for typography students. i could go on forever - i love fonts - but i think you did a great job showcasing how much tone and meaning typography can convey.
This is the most beautiful video on the entire internet. I’m in literal tears. I love fonts so much. When I’m bored I look through font websites. That’s how much I love them. Thank you for this amazing experience
This is the first episode of yours that I have watched, and I wanted to tell you that you made my day. I love the positively-poignant ending you created for this episode. You have my gratitude.
As a retired lithographer, I really appreciated you presenting this novel topic about the history of fonts. When I broadened my skills with some graphic design, I was astonished at the complexity involved in the computer language involving the fonts. In those early days, if attempting to jump from (Microsoft) to the printing industry standard (Apple) was a nightmare. But visually, having the correct font for purpose is extremely important. Simple is certainly best for quicker language processing in the brain. Absolutely fascinating topic.
Fantastic - impressive work! When I was taught how to set metal type - one letter at a time - in grade 7 print shop in 1972, I was hooked on printing and type! I worked my way through college as an early setter of “cold type” (ie on a computer!) for my university newspaper in 1978, and I couldn’t believe the magic of the “fonts” on the first Macintosh in 1984, when I worked as a graphic artist and typesetter at a medical center. I now feel like a fossil as I talk about how cutting edge I was, lol. But I have spent decades fascinated by the world of typefaces and how the subtle use of fonts can dramatically alter a graphic experience. Your channel is witty, smart and bold [font joke] - keep up the great work!
I just started teaching undergrad design and typography. Not only does this touch on everything from my Type 1 introduction lecture, it talks about so much more in a shorter amount of time. And it’s entertaining. I am seething with jealousy and presentation inspiration.
I'd love to see you cover the typology of Hangul, the Korean writing system. Every time I look at it I'm amazed people could pull this off, and just the sheer amount of labor that goes into it since you have to design every possible combination of how individual letters can be arranged in a syllable! The programming that goes behind it is also mindblowing genius. The whole CJK fonts with Han characters are also fascinating on the sheer inventiveness of new design too. But great video overall!
One REALLY controversial font, at least among the American roadgeek community, is Clearview. It was originally intended to be a more readable alternative to the standard FHWA Highway Gothic. Some states adopted it, some didn't. My home state of Michigan was one that did. Interestingly, during the 1960's Michigan had its own font for highway signs which the Federal Highway Administration made them discontinue in favor of Highway Gothic. Clearview basically came in as an experiment. However, when tests showed that Clearview was not more legible than Highway Gothic, the feds rescinded their approval of Clearview, and thus we are back to Highway Gothic. My personal opinion is that most drivers aren't going to notice or care as long as they can read the signs at highway speeds, but if you want to start a fight in the roadgeek community, all you have to do is say Clearview is superior to Highway Gothic and then duck for cover.
I learned more from this video than I did from 3 years at University, and it was free! Thanks Struth, you’re consistently killing it. I love these new doccos.
I was taught calligraphy at school and later went on to do studio art pottery. The techniques I had learnt in creating thick and thin lines in calligraphy proved invaluable in decorative brush work in pottery. I suspect calligraphy and sign writing were invaluable skills in creating new fonts for the computer. The lesson to be learnt here is no matter how esoteric or antiquated a skill is it still has merit and often proves essential in innovative invention. Thanks so much for the video it was so well researched and presented.
Does any one remember the days of CHARTPAC lettering? As an oldster I started my career in the seventies, using that scratch-on lettering for headlines/display. For the body, we worked with a “typesetter” who used a huge typewriter like machine and a photographic process to print the text in columns to our specs, which we then pasted onto a board (with rubber cement or if lucky had a wax machine). Then delivered to the print vendor to make the plates for printing. Did I mention that we created a separate board for each color? ( indicated by a PMS #) in the 80s, Someone dropped a Mac on my desk, showed me how to use the mouse. It was life changing. Thank you Steve Jobs. And Thank you guys for creating this wonderful video! ❤😊
I love hearing the history of things that are familiar. I don't know if I have ever wondered about the terms "cut and paste." I did wonder about computer bugs, I learned the history that one out from my computer geek husband. And I recently learned about clip art. I will have to do a bit of research on CHARTPAC lettering. My grandfather worked with punch card computers and taught me how to format my first floppy disk. A big one that was actually floppy. I used the smaller, hard "floppy" disks in college.
I still have a box full of chartpacs, stencils, rub ons, calligraphy pens, dried out repidiographs, and blueline guides all in good condition and basically unused from those 70's when we did logos by hand. When making fonts on the computer now I still prefer the direct sylus to surface approach just as the direct paint to paper back then.
This is really top notch content, Cam I love these deep dives you've been doing lately. Super informative, and with a great moral to boot. Thank you for all your hard work 🙏❣️
As a self-taught lettering nerd and artist my whole life - I'm impressed how you condensed and presented the important bits in a way most of my books on the topic couldn't do quite as successfully. This topic is a fascinating one. +1 new sub 😊
O:50 and i'm in! The passion, the fascination, the intensity & drive in the music and producer's voice ... got me, i'm in! ... plus i've been fascinated by fonts for years. After all, they're only a basic building block of writing, language, knowledge, design, many things digital ... and contemporary civilization. Brilliant choice of topic. Now, ¡diving in!
Wow!!! I have no interest in typography and yet you managed to keep me engaged for 29.35mins! I love it!! I learnt so much. Your content is gold!! Engaging, inspiring, informative and thought-provoking. More power to you 🌻🌞
Admit it, the hardest, most time consuming part of making this video was choosing which fonts to use throughout.
all of them
he wont admit it!
lol
😅🤣😂
I only do lyrics videos and choosing what font to use at which times and for which song is AGONIZING!
I'm a book historian so my knowledge centers mainly on the printing press era. You managed to tell a giant story in a cohesive and thrilling way! Great job.
I don't have anything to give you, but I will say, now, I wish I had popcorn! I adore all of this stuff (Loves: Final Marks and Outlander Season 3 episode 5 left me week in it's pornography- Sam knew what he was doing!) anyhow, this and other reactions, I have to watch the rest, but have been a bit too anticipatory, now I'm just happy I scheduled my shower in a few. I'll be sharing this with my socials, me thinks.
As a graduating Library & Information Science student, this brings me back to the comfy book history classes I had many semesters ago :')
I'm in your window.
TOTALY agree
Kelli! You're a genius! Great point!
As I used to put it: "Typefaces (aka 'fonts') are clothes for words." From the 'business casual' of Garamond to the 'board shorts' of Mistral to the clownish eccentricity of Jokerman, they are our first impression of the written word. Always dress your words appropriately for the meaning you wish to convey.
Its stupid how taboo it is to quote yourself. Like. This is really good. I'm going to use this the next time I think about it. BUT I NEVER WOULD HAVE KNOWN ABOUT THIS PHRASE IF YOU. WHO THOUGHT OF IT. DIDNT SAY IT HERE.
@@paullees6687 One of my favorite examples is the word "peace" in Ammo Stencil - about as warlike/militaristic as typefaces get. One word, one typeface, but SUCH a huge impact from the inherent conflict.
Geezuz! I never thought of it that way. Brilliant. 🤘
This is great, I agree. At the same time, go wild if you know what you're doing.
Like combining clothing that goes outside the norm, a nice font that sticks out can be a nice addition to your design.
Much like actual clothes, I have the damndest time finding something to match my real style. 😊 I love your comment btw.
Paul Rand was my professor at Yale school of design in Switzerland. He called me the wild one. It was an honor to be his student. So happy to hear you talk about him. I took 4 semesters of typography back in the day. Great video.
Legend
Fuente: Comic Sans Ms
I’m always going to trust someone who starts my attention with, “I swear this gets interesting”. The mundane is always the coolest thing, because we’ve ignored the things right in front of us.
check out the 99% invisible podcast i think you’d like it
That's what I told my partner when we first met... 5 years of mundanity later and they're still waiting for me to be interesting.
@@mrshinebox1803 I’m married for 8 years now. He’s not interesting. I’m not interesting. But we love each other, and we find things to keep us interested. I don’t think your partnership needs to be entertaining, i think you just gotta find someone who’s sht matches your sht .
@@jennifer7685 Don't get me wrong. I love my partner and our relationship. I'm just lucky they haven't yet realised I have a lacklustre personality and I'm a dud root. 🤣
Beautifully said!
I absolutely love the soft landing at the end. “The next time you feel like humanity 's doomed, we're all isolated and everything is going downhill-just uh; I dono, man-stare a little longer at something you've overlooked-because that desire to connect and the depth of that desire: you can see it in everything, fonts and all.”
Absolutely! That little message is inspiring and movitating. Thanks for mentioning it! (Yup. I missed it the first time.)
That was a respectable finish. I love finding docs like this, particularly that the ending pointed out that the results of all this surround us and have deeper meaning than implied. 👍🏽
Good writing
just beautiful!
A good friend that I lost to depression several years ago was a font nut and I know he would have loved the care you put into this. I have a phrase in his custom font tattooed on my ribs. Great work brother!
On your ribs?! Oof!
I bet it looks awesome. That's a really cool way to remember a friend 😊
Love this ❤
What was his custom font?and the phrase if you want to share?
@@jessicajae7777 Yes Please! Would love to see and possibly use your mates custom font!
I don't know for certain, but my hypothesis about why Font was chosen for the computer menu instead of Typeface is simply because Font is half as long. On those early Mac computers with painfully tiny screens, that additional space mattered. They tried to keep those menu names short: File, Edit, View, Font, Tools, etc., so they could fit them all in. They even saved space by making Help an icon of a question mark instead of the written word.
I was literally gonna comment this. It seems extremely likely of a reason
Oh my god I never thought about that but I reckon your hypothesis is 100% correct! It's like how the information icon you would see at tourist kiosks ⓘ is so ubiquitous in web and mobile apps as an indicator that tapping/clicking it will give you some info about that specific function. I first saw that symbol in Windows 3.11 back in 1993 and instantly understood the meaning.
General Motors was also guilty of lancing "u" from GAUGES so the word would fit in the space constraint and be more legible to the older drivers.
It's also why we have such words as hiway and thruway because the highway administration was trying to fit words on signs and make english more phonetic
I'm retired from more than 25 years as a typographer & type shop owner. Thank you SO much for making this topic accessible. I could go on for hours and watch most of my listeners' eyes glaze over. You did a fabulous job and have made my communication about this amazing, subtle & eternal effort much easier. And I am beyond thrilled that you included the most important part: that the text typeface is not there to get attention. It is there to facilitate the smooth -- as close as possible to effortless -- flow of your eye, and consciousness, across the page and thru the entire work. Serifs, those little tics at the ends of a pen or brush stroke, help keep your eye on the same line across the page! They are tiny, simple and effective. Every type shop I worked in, coast-to-coast, had the poster "Type is meant to be read." Except in the cases where art is more important than legibility, the fact that textbooks still get printed in san serif typefaces shows not everyone has gotten the message.
Oops! Way too long.
Blessed Holidays and New Year to all.
🐍💃
I really appreciate your comments. I’m also retired from the biz (graphic design and publishing). As a young apprentice to a freelance designer, I worked with typographers and typesetters such as yourself; they were kind enuf to teach me a lot about type and how to use it effectively. I was so fortunate to have that foundation, before even art school and soon after the Mac, Thankyou to you and all the typography gurus out there , you rock 👏👏👏
“A typeface is not there to get attention”. I remember I was still at primary school I think - one of the text books was set in a typeface without serifs, not even the curls at the bottom of the j’s etc. I noticed - that typeface did demand my attention. Years later when working as a graphic artist I found out that it was the Futura font.
About Typeface and Font: I always called it Typeface. Never heard the word Font until I started using a photo typesetter where the interchangeable discs were called fonts (so I thought it was the discs that were named that - not the typefaces!). Basically you swapped out fonts to get a different typeface…
My dad was a printer at a newspaper throughout my childhood. I remember visiting the new press and seeing how newspapers were printed.
His job was to build ads. He literally cut and pasted sections of a page before it went to press.
I graduated high school in 1987 and about the same time he was forced into retirement because his job was replaced by a computer. The paper got digital (still a printed paper, but much of my dad's job became obsolete)
This was interesting to me and gave me a warm feeling. Unfortunately my dad passed away shortly after he retired. I'm sure he would have been interested in this.
Thank you for sharing your perspective as one who has had a career in the business. This video took me back to a page of typefaces my Dad no doubt brought home - perhaps with scrap paper. I was introduced to sans serif and streamline type along with two dozen others - and my fascination with fonts continues to this day.
hahaha i'm sure all you have to share on the topic is quite interesting.
My graphic art teacher loved to say "there are NO bad fonts, just BAD USES of fonts.
Every font has its place and proper use. Sadly fonts are improperly used too often.
Except for Calibri.
the guy who invented comic sans, Vincent Connaire, when questioned said; "if you really love comic sans, youre really not much of a designer, and if you really hate it, then im sorry to say you're really not much of a designer"
@@olldomu5790 Yeah, exactly. It's a very poor reability font, but for display purposes it can be just right (depending on what you're trying to convey). It probably gets over used, but it's playful and easy to slip into wanting to be used for many things. I'll most likely be using it as basis for a logo very soon.
@@olldomu5790Excellent philosophy in general. Both of those mindsets lead to thoughtless decisions: something is always bad or always good. True in fonts, and dangerous in things like politics as well. *Thinking* is good.
CERN scientists inexplicably present Higgs boson findings in Comic Sans
www.theverge.com/2012/7/4/3136652/cern-scientists-comic-sans-higgs-boson
I started having cataracts about the time I began to use a word processor, and vision has to get pretty bad before the insurance companies will cover the surgery. While my vision was impaired, I found that Comic Sans was the easiest font to read. It deserves a lot of respect.
@@AAJ.1 how is that relevant to the topic?
@@haithamali3228 Uh-oh! I missed the sign that said NO OFF TOPIC COMMENTS, printed in Helvetica, of course ;o)
@@63artemisia63 If you felt better that’s all that matters 👍
I like Comic Sans. It gets a bad rap.
@@MisterItchy If by “a bad rap” you mean it’s uses are limited ;o)
You really did your homework there. A diverse amount of information, too: explaining font classes, its relation to history-history, and of course more than plenty of comprehensive graphics and explanations and humor for morons like us on the internet to understand. There's only so much quality content with artistic and historical integrity out there, and you really nailed it in the sweet spot. I'm subbing.
Surprised you didn't mention the way that Comic Sans was resiliant to the pixelation of aliasing and quite legible at very small scales, which is part of why its letters have some of their weirder shapes. Honestly I think pixelated is Comic Sans's best look.
Also, Comic Sans and similar fonts with strange weighting really help dyslexics distinguish letters and read easier, which is part of why comics use them, because more of their readers are still learning those words.
i really appreciate fonts where capital "i" and lowercase "L" look different, because i hate it when i can't tell I and l apart
I really like comic sans because of their lowercase a. It’s how an a is taught to be written in most American schools. I really dislike how 95% of other fonts have that repulsive arched extension coming off the top.
@@digitaldritten So with you!
@@terranovarubacha5473 nice name
As a working signmaker that learned this in school i'm really happy you put this alltogether in such a wellmade video. Definitely gonna show this to my trainees! Thanks for your work ✌️💚
Yesss same here i’m at university doing graphic design & typography, and i learned about this last year! Cool stuff
What about the Phoenician alphabet?
Do you have book recommendations or sources where we can learn more?
Jesus Christ loves you
@@simma264 Jesus Christ loves you
I love this line from the end: "They all knew that words could only ever say so much, and so they morphed the glyphs to say even more."
True.
I am a manly man and all. But it made my eyes tear up a bit.
it truly goes so hard
This has immediately shot to the top of my favourite YT videos of all time - I NEVER thought I would cry in a video about fonts, but here we are!
Same ❤
I'm surprised you didn't also mention the thing about Comic Sans (a font that used to make me roll my eyes because of it's over-use) - it's one of the very few typefaces where the lower case A is represented in the same way that we commonly write it. I only realized this once I had children - and it gave me newfound respect for Comic Sans.
Great for accessibility too, for the same reason I would imagine.
Yes, the font my friend uses for her kindergarten class👍🏼.
@@SusanBryantInsomniacBookwormyep comic sans is one of the best fonts for dyslexia
i use comic sans all the time, even as my phone font. it's great to read fast
From what I remember, Comic Sans looks the way it does to make it easily readable for people with dyslexia, as each character looks different enough that they don't get mixed up
This is the exact kind of thing I’d spend days hyper fixating on. You do all the work and wrap it up in a creative, funny 30 minutes! This channel has saved me days in adhd rabbit holes. Thanks for tugging those strings and giving us the best cliff notes ever!
Jesus Christ loves you
sadly this man wasn’t here early enough for me 😂 I fell in tryna understand why times new roman and not courier new bold for mla and apa
edit: since someone else asked, what rabbit holes have you gone down?
@@ben2808 I hope so! 🥰
@Périades depending on the day. Right now Amy Winehouse documentaries.
@@EpicManaphyDude bummer man! But the video was super interesting, so you have that to add to your trivia knowledge, and that sir is winning! All kinds of rabbit holes! I’ve accepted and wear proudly I’m a life long learner! Orrrr have terrible undiagnosed ADHD and now my brain is like the internet…an inch deep and a mile wide 😂😎🤩
What about you???
As a “graphic designer” most of my career (almost 20 years) I thoroughly enjoyed this. So well put together & communicated. Should be required viewing at design schools :)
that would be a serious bucket list tick if this got shown as required viewing :)
Yes!! I would have preferred this to the hour long Helvetic documentary we had to watch!!
Agreed way more interesting than my graphic design Typography class
@@struthless i agree with Jonathan, I taught a couple of fundamental GD courses at University last year, and it'd make a great pre type section hw. I'm definitely passing it along to my colleagues that are still teaching 😄
As a quirky character with a professional streak, I loved and geeked out through the whole video!
I was very thankful to see that fonts (typefaces) were discussed in a RUclips video. I was a Graphic Designer! I knew who Paul Rand was (he designed the original UPS logo and the logo of CBS!) he was a great designer! I loved hearing the history (for example-I never knew the origin of ‘Roman’)
In the seventies, I subscribed to U&lc (Upper and lower case). It was a company organ created by Herb Lubalin (he designed Friz Quadrata). At the time I worked with the designers who worked at Dayton’s (the department store that started Target). My favorite typeface is Optima which is a sans-serif face that mimics having serifs. Thank You so much!
I've learned about 20% more in this 29 minute video than I did in the entire semester of History of Graphic Design class. Amazing video and even better research.
Yea more than half of these stuff i already seen in my 2D design, Drawing and Multimedia classes. And the funny thing is that i learned about the printing history and the first printed bible in my photography class only lol.
I guess you had shitty professors then...
I agree! I may be a bit late to the party here, but if you're interested in more content like this, I host a podcast on history's most influential type designers. It's called "Titans of Type".
I'm praying lowkey neither my professor nor you see this but, I'm studying visual communications at uni and we've been recently introduced to typography and all the anatomy of letters and shit but even though i usually hate typography he introduced us to the entire concept with this video. And my good god is this video both fun and informative! I was so immersed while watching it and even the lecture that followed ended up not as dreadful as i thought it would be initially. So you've done amazing, with being so concise, well-informed and entertaining to listen to my guy, as well as obviously being of such good quality a lecturer used it for his lesson.
What's wrong with you? 😁 Typography is AMAZING.
@@diogeneslantern18 lol this is the same energy as a pianist talking to a percussionist about a music theory course 😂
It's not that simple. Sure, this shitty video may be amazeballs for realz.
The other possibility could be: your 'uni' sucks BIG TIME and so do you.
Guess, what's the case here.
@Marc Schweitzer Now you good sir, frankly, sound like a prick. But would you mind giving your reasoning as to why this video is so shitty for an introduction to typography
I’m a graphic design student… how did you make the very lengthy topic of typography more interesting than my professor’s did while still keeping the lecture/story reasonably condensed?! There are whole classes on the subject!
I was just thinking that: who cares, who married who in what year? This is a history class I never knew I wanted! :D
Put the end quote through Google translate.
Yes - I’m sending this to old college graphic instructors to use as a an instructional tool
He followed the typographic changes and their reasons. He made callbacks to multiple concepts, used animation as visual expression to flourish his commentary. He did shy from most of geometric distinctions. There was less precise connection, such as that of the rumored romance between Mrs. Eaves and Jon Baskerville-alluding to the likeness of their respective typefaces.
Because your professor knows what he is talking about, while this guy just sits there and invents things out of the blue. Three minutes into the video, he claims that hieroglyphs were derived from cuneiform (what??) and the Phoenicians were ancient Greeks (whaat?). Here is your youtube education, lol
Four minutes in and both my word nerddom and my funny bone are equally enthralled. The palindromes quip got me big time!
And it’s an Aussie channel! Instant subscribe. 😁
Surprised nothing was said about Arial, which seems to be usurping Helvetica as the ubiquitous font everything uses by default
I’m naming my children Roman and Arial
@@redgreen2453 Name your youngest child Garamond
Naming mine Webdings
Arial is the typeface i’ve seen (I think rightfully) get more hate than ComicSans.
It’s the Dollar Tree brand chinese knockoff Helvetica.
Name your third child Friz Quadrata
I love these niche documentary style videos you guys make. They combine individualism and professionalism in a perfect little half hour soup of history. :)
tysm!!!
@@struthless no problem mate. :)
Long side tangent if you have time; but your wellness and self help videos have genuinely made a massive impact on my life. I learnt about Journalling from your channel and it's really been helping my anxiety.
I never thought that simply verbalizing how I feel would be so effective! Your approach to mental health is so chill and actually makes me feel like I have time to sort things out, rather than rushing. I've been far more productive and creative since learning how to manage my thoughts and emotions first.
You're one of the most real people I've seen online. The quality and structure of your videos is amazing and fits my learning style perfectly. It's clear you care about your art.
Keep it up man, love your stuff. :)
@@yinyangedits5846 +++
Jesus Christ loves you
@@KalebPeters99 Jesus Christ loves you
I'm a preschool teacher and Comic Sans is the only font available on my work tablet that has lower case A:s (a:s) that look like the way we teach kids to write them. So it is pretty much exclusively used. For name signs and worksheets and posters and such.
You might want to check out Lexend for a school environment.
How well does each font match intended writing styles for all the other characters? Such as G, g, 1, l, or k?
@@coopergates9680 very well! Just like we teach them to write each letter
Comics sans is also great for text in … comic books.
@@damc8415Ya don't say?
wow! quite a rabbit hole you got to explore! this was really welldone! you hit the outer edges of the universe and still got us back down to earth without losing the way!
i enjoyed this immensely!
my turn to swan dive down the rabbit hole and explore your channel....
thank you for making something so underlooked fascinating!
all the best to you & yours!
♥️🙏♥️
Only 3 minutes in but wanted to share… I recently learned (and found it interesting) that the sign language used by native Americans (which was basically universal from tribe to tribe even though they spoke different languages) was derived from the way they drew the corresponding symbols / hieroglyphs. :)
that is so so cool!!! i didn't know that - do you know if those alphabets/signs are still preserved today? that is so fascinating
@@struthless ruclips.net/video/s1-StAlw3aE/видео.html that’s probably the video that sent me down a rabbit hole lol 😂
@@struthless and I also wound up at this video… ruclips.net/video/7mn1TkX0kXo/видео.html I always notice how the way we speak can be just as artistic as visual art, so I have a bit of an obsessions with words, etymology, language, etc…
you want to really have your mind blown... sign language has regional accents just like spoken language
@@oem42 No way! That's so cool!!
Amazing video! 1 Year of typography at my design school, summed up in 30 minutes. What a masterfully written and well research script!
It's fascinating to see that the Swiss style actually had such an impact on the world's typography. Well now I feel kind of proud to learn design in a country with such a rich design history!
Greetings from Bern & keep up the amazing content!
I was a teenager in the mid-90s, when the internet was exploding in popularity & everyone wanted a personal website. I loved the graphic design element, and played around with hundreds of fonts…it is SO cool to hear the backstory of all these fonts, where their names came from & who designed them. I haven’t dabbled in graphic design in a couple decades now, but the names are still so familiar, like old friends. This really was as interesting as promised!
that was such a well produced documentary . I loved the how the editing style changed with narration and the use of different typefaces throughout . Props to everyone esp the editor .
Fun thing about Trajan: It was based on the design of a very specific set of ancient Roman letters etched into the base of a commemorative column recounting Emperor Trajan's military victory over Dacia. The Trajan font/typeface, as a design, is almost 2000 years old.
I also think it's a pretty good looking font, personally. If you look at the images of the original characters, they're dang gorgeous.
I'm kind of a fan.
As a calligrapher, I'm also a fan of Trajan. I have to admit that I like Papyrus too. I prefer typefaces that are based on actual pen/brush/chisel forms that were created by hand with tools, not by manipulating pixels.
Agreed. Probably the best-looking serif typeface.
I just finished a paper on fonts. This was better than my course and that was at a literal University. Thank you for making content like this.
"Literal" university. I saw what you did there.
Something interesting to add. One of the big factors that influenced early letter design was the type of tools used for writing. When you think of western style type with its thin horizontal lines and thick vertical lines, like in Blackletter, that's an artifact of writing with reeds and then quill pens. Whereas in the east people used brushes to write, which let them create much rounder smoother line shapes.
And there's things like Tamil, which gained a bunch of loops in its characters for a couple centuries due to the main writing surface at the time being easily-punctured-by-a-pen palm leaves - while they're mostly gone now, they still had an impact on the shape of the characters
Don't forget cuneiform, which was written by pressing a squared-off wooden stick into clay which explains the very limited vocabulary of shapes they had to work with.
Amazing editing job and so appreciate all the work it took to make this video!
I'm an historian who still uses fountain pens and picked Garamond back when we first had the choice to set it as the default. Imagine my surprise to discover it hails from 15th Century Italy. Fascinating story, thank you!
Garamond is my default font too. I find it just perfectly balanced, it's more elegant than Times and it's even a bit more space efficient..
didn't think anyone else used garamond before this video. it's been my favorite ever since i found it, i genuinely think it's a perfect font
@@anniestumpy9918 I use it for all my job application stuff. It is a bit playful without looking inappropriate for formal content. And it's not the same font everyone else uses, which is something that makes me happy :)
I just realized that the old Google logo was just Garamond with different colors. I mean, it *is* a nice font
Garamond is my default, too. I prefer serifed typefaces both aesthetically and for practical readability (far too many typefaces are hard to differentiate a capital "I" from a lowercase "L," for example; I mean here: lIIllI, which is which?!).
Garamond is a great, not super common, easily legible, serifed font. I love it.
Jokes and irony aside, I do appreciate the small segment on Comic Sans. When I was in school, discovering that font was special and was kind of my own lightbulb moment with fonts. To me, I could suddenly write like the Bone books I was reading at the time, and it personalized my document beyond the mundane. I still kinda love its charm, but have also kind of grown out of it, and that segment does a good job of perhaps explaining why. I write a ton recreationally, but for the chance of presenting things right, I can't possibly imagine that font that has this rounded half-bold look to it as a large basis of paragraphs and paragraphs in deep, discussing draconian lore or the lost soul of a loved family member. It just doesn't work, but its still a font I'm grateful for, and turned my brain onto engaging with fonts to begin with.
Not Comic Sans specifically, but I used to use a modified comics font when teaching so that students could see and ready what people write like. We never taught them that words appeared differently depending on the typeface used, and they'd get hit with printed typefaces all while being drilled on hand writing. I wanted to at least show them some content that more closely matched how they were writing.
i did graphic design at uni 20 years ago and this pretty much covers everything we learnt in one entertaining 30 min video, well done!
Your videos are so well put together man good shit
Every designer or typographer watching this video: this does NOT sound like too much to derive from Jokerman. Edit: just finished the video!! This was amazing, you summarized so much stuff in 29 minutes! I wish I had this when I learned typography. I think I'm going to submit translation subtitles and send this to my old college teachers. This should be MANDATORY to watch!
Se for em PT-BR pode contar com minha ajuda :)
Damn u mean I didn't have to spend 4 years in college for a Graphic Design degree and I coulda just watched this and gotten the same amount of information??
Love the vid man 👌
Not to mention the hours poured into note taking for “Meggs: History of Graphic Design”
I’m on year 2 of an associates of applied science in Graphic Design & I was impressed too! My instructor for my Typography & Layout class (which was still pretty intro level) only got so far into the topic in a semester WITH a dedicated textbook because there’s so much info to get through! Boiling everything down in an easy to absorb way (especially in just a few hours) is hard!
Put the end quote through Google translate.
I used to teach English in Japan and Comic Sans is a LIFEsaver for ESL because it looks really similar to actual handwriting, and also differentiates between lowercase L and capital i.
Yes so important!
Brother, I love that you made this. On a creativity and educational level, I applaud you.
The production quality of this video is insane. I thoroughly enjoyed watching this video
The Cambrian explosion of fonts is such a wonderful and celebratory way to think about this! 💖 Never thought I'd be so moved by a video about fonts.
I used to love “Cambria”, should use it again..😅
I hope we never get the Permian Extinction 😅
I listen to hundreds of hours of RUclips videos every month. I apologize to all the hard work that goes into the graphic design teams, but I can't watch them while I work. I watched this one the whole way through and it was absolutely fascinating. The message could not get across without seeing it. And I think that really proves the point you made so beautifully. Graphic design is a beautiful form of expression to unite, explain, and persuade the viewer. And this video did that so well. This is my favorite video of the month, and I did watch plenty of others too! Bravo mate. Subscription well earned.
I agree! If you're ever looking for content to listen to while working, I host a podcast on history's most influential type designers :)
So wonderful a piece of storytelling! Had to return to this video after a failed attempt to watch till the end a few days back. I shared it to dozens of my acquaintances who are graphic designers. Thank you for this video!
This was F'in epic... Literally just spent 4 hours today mindless scrolling through 100's of fonts for a design project I'm working on and this video just brought so much context to something that most of us take literally no notice of.. Good work mate, Love from Tassie
"mindless scrolling through 100's of fonts" is my new job description hahaha - and ty!!!
Any time I make a project that involves text of any kind, I'm not just scrolling through the fonts on my computer, I'm usually going on a font website and searching various words to find the perfect font to capture a tone or feeling or setting or theme. Its incredible to have such a broad and granular variety of fonts to play with. You want a font that evokes a log cabin? What season? We have dozens for each. I need a creepy font, but, like, spider webs and dust, not blood and gore. Here are ten. I'm not just thinking "this project is more serious, better use a serif font". I'm thinking "this project is a wall art for a lawyer. I want a font that evokes classic roman typeface with a bit of extra medieval flair".
Its a great time to be an artist of any kind.
i concUr! 😊
What website is that? Sounds way more helpful than the folders with fonts I have
@@jakobvanklinken dafont is a good one
@@jakobvanklinkenFontBase is exceptional for that!
This was a great video, really well researched, and surprisingly bloody interesting!
I was skeptical at first, but -
Congrats on another banger!
I’ve been really enjoying his history videos. I loved the tattoo ones too, I love his mental stuff series, but learning new things about stuff most don’t think about is so interesting.
Loved this! A vast overview of 2 millennia of type in 30 minutes in an accessible and entertaining way! I wish I was this articulate when trying to explain to people why I find type so fascinating. Should be required viewing for anyone interested in graphic design.
I'm in my 50s and I've been nerding out on typography since the 70s when my parents (designers) would come home with Letraset catalogues - and I still learnt something. Great vid. 👍
That sounds so fun! Did you also grow up to be a designer?
Letraset?…. Letraset…. Letraset! I played around with them too as a kid… what a flashback
@@kiramccain6310 I missed this comment, sorry! I'm an accountant nowadays. I did initially think I'd go into graphic design, but I realised very quickly I was vastly outranked in talent by others! (And no, I don't do 'creative accounting', because that's a bit naughty 😅)
@@Virtualnoaidi such fun, but so labour intensive...
Studied graphic design for 4 years. This is the best typography class I’ve had.
Same! Not the type of engaging content ya find at design school. I'm on a mission to make this content more engaging and accessible too with my podcast, Titans of Type :) Would love to have you check it out, Paula!
Now that I know Comic Sans was created for the sole purpose of appropriately personifying dog speech, my world has shifted for the better
I always thought the most surprising thing about Comic Sans was that sans was short for sans serif or without serif
@@gifzilla1818 I never realized this before, but I'm not sure if Comic Sans should be categorized as a Sans Serif typeface. There are a few characters that have serif-like features: capital I, capital C, numeral 1, lower-case r and lower case s.
This popped up on my homepage and I never would’ve guessed that the history of fonts would be so interesting. I subscribed to your channel and I’m looking forward to checking out more of your content!
i appreciate the time you've taken to make this comprehensive video so much - covering a topic that i'm super passionate about, in an organized manner, and with a great message, freaking love this, never stop making these videos
thank you SO much!!!
I'm a graphic designer and advertiser by trade. Typography is everything. And I'm nerding out with this video.
If you know, you know
So am I
Me too
Haha! Yes! I'd love to have you come nerd out with me too on my podcast, Titans of Type :)
I was a journalist in the early 80s, and an editor by the late 80s. About the same time, we progressed to digital layout and publishing on new Apple computers. Having all those new fonts was irresistible, and turned the newspaper design into a circus sideshow / train wreck. We produced some absolutely horrifying pieces of garbage simply because we could. Fortunately, we got over the initial thrill of having so many typefaces and settled back into Times New Roman for all text, Helvetica for headlines. The Sunday Magazine remained allowed to be creative. Too many options is not always good.
Nice video, well done.
the way you describe this reminds me of my mindset toward creating powerpoints in elementary school when we first got to go to the computer lab and learn such fascinating new technology. i know there was one powerpoint i made in which on one slide i changed the font of each individual letter to something different. i'm sure it was completely illegible. but the sheer JOY i felt at 8 years old with this unlimited creative freedom may never be matched, two decades and part of a design degree later
When you are 8 years old and you accidentally put a ransom note in your slide deck@@pancake2700
This reminds me of a quote I've seen attributed to Orson Welles, among others, "the enemy of art is the absence of limitations".
I grew up in a household where we waited eager for each new issue of U&lc; (I still have our collection)...a delightful documentary, excellent!
This was a really good presentation of a subject
I thought would be boring.
This dudes personality and delivery kept me focused,
and kept it interesting.
One of the best short docs that I've seen a long time. Thanks!
As someone who went to school for Art & Design, I've gotta hand it to you...excellent, well researched video, friend! Typography is such an interesting art form.
way before the age of computer fonts i remember poring over Letraset catalogues as a kid.
Fascinated by the endless variations of depicting the same thing, retaining a coherent design across a set of 26 different letters and yet still having them easily readable.
It's clear how difficult this video was to research and create. It is truly incredible. You are truly incredible. 🙂
All this info can be found in a single book 😂
What a great story. Thank you for doing this topic absolute justice.
I’m currently studying history of modern architecture and is crazy how much history of fonts is connected with architecture
So true! There have been several architects throughout history who were also type designers. One of which is Bertram Goodhue, who designed the Cheltenham typeface! I will be doing an episode on him for my podcast here in the near future :)
Having worked as a graphic designer and because I'm curious, I already knew quite a bit about what you talk about in this video but you made it so entertaining and fun, I watched all of it without skipping a second!
This reminded me of a teacher I had when I was in school. He used to bring magazines all the time and say _"Look at this crap! Can you read this?! Nobody can read this! These typefaces should all be banned!!!"_ ... I wish he would watch this video! 🙂
I'm surprisingly impressed, you made fonts emotional. Good job and good video bro.
As someone who does a lot of lettering…this video scratches an itch in my brain I didn’t know I even had. Your videos just keep getting better. Thank you for making this!
I'm so impressed! Love how you told a story of how all these events and art movements intersected. I studied art & graphic design history for years at university while earning a graphic design degree, and you've just wrapped most of that into a 30 minute video.
The ending gave me goosebumps, I hope to see more design related content from you in the future. Partly because RUclips has a severe lack of it, and partly because you do a great job. From the corporate artstyle video to this one, I was mesmerized each time. Keep up the great work.
Thanks!
Trebuchet MS remains my favorite typeface for legibility. I greatly appreciate that the glyphs for one, uppercase aye, and lowercase ell are all visually distinct with no contextual ambiguity.
Thank you for appreciating fonts that make l and I look different! Them looking the same is the biggest shame of modern fonts.
I like Verdana too.
Agreed 1000%!!!
@@healthyminds9279 Yeah that always drove me crazy as well!
That is important for communicating passwords and codes used in computer access! The Courier New font used as the default in Microsoft Notepad is a good example also. Many times when I’m not sure of the exact spelling of a link code, I will open up a blank Notepad window and paste it into that window. Another advantage is that it is a MONOTYPE font, so that words and figures line up vertically just by counting them (this is the was traditional computer displays and printers operated, as well as all typewriters before the IBM Typeamatic).
I use that copy-and-paste-into-Notepad++ trick myself, @@allanrichardson1468 - it makes using a random password generator much less onerous.
The only sin of this video is that it isn't 8 hours long
Also that they misspelled Caslon lol
And the pronunciation of Monaco
Plus the misspelling of "in(n)appropriate."
Haha! Well if you're looking for a little something more, I host a podcast on history's most influential type designers (Titans of Type). :)
When I saw this was half an hour long, I didn't think I'd stay for the whole thing, but I never found a good time to go. Really interesting, and I love your delivery style. And the way you ended it, it was just... perfect. Very uplifting. Thank you 🙏
I started work as a typesetter 50+ years ago and retired as a graphic designer. Love your work! You told me history I’d had no idea about and presented as fun and interesting! Please keep it up.
This documentary is really good....one of the best I've seen this whole year. I feel it deserves a little award or something.
Seconded
Agreed. Also, if you enjoy this, you should check out the movie documentary "Helvetica".
💯
How about a Webby?!
If you could, please add closed captioning/subtitles to this video! I have so many people I would love to share this with, but some of them are older and need subtitles to follow along. I myself have a hard time processing audio sometimes without extended effort, and this was lots of information I loved but had to put that extra effort into when watching. I'm currently taking a class on publication, and we watched that documentary about Helvetica, but your video went so deep into the different movements and trends that this is something that piqued my interest right away! Thank you so much for this!
(Also, if you add subtitles, RUclips lets the viewer choose the typeface, which is just perfect for this video.)
Just turn on "closed captioning" at the bottom of the screen. It's labeled "CC" with a box around it.
@@pmbrig Automatic transcriptions tend to not be the most accurate. Honestly for me, what more annoying is the scrolling, lack of punctuation, and horizontal alignment. Manual subtitles are generally centered vertically and have logical and hard cutoff points between blocks, which make them much more readable.
@@angeldude101 the irony that the typeface and font is what is putting you off using the subs for this show..
@@TheFakeyCakeMaker What angeldude101 wrote has nothing to do with fonts. And they’re right; while auto-generated closed captions have become amazingly well, there are still errors in them that might make reading them actually worse than not reading them.
There is cc closed captioning/subtitles, but you can't choose the typeface, just the general style; monospace, sans-serif, casual or small caps, then some formatting choices. No Comic Sans. Also there is a transcript found in "more" or 3 dots in every video.
You were right, this was incredibly interesting. Just learning what dingbats and serifs are was eye opening.
I’ve always loved fonts, but I never imagined I’d ever be watching a 30 min video about the history of fonts and really enjoying it, enjoying it enough that I wished the video was longer!!
I'd love to hear some design nerd talk about their thoughts on illegible black and death metal logos.
what about em?
@@neygmg00 I guess I'm not even sure. I'm kind of fascinated by the idea that font/typeface/whatever is something people get into.
So I wonder if some of those font nerds out there think some metal logos are particularly interesting or if others are hacky garbage. Obviously it's subjective, but IDK, maybe there are opinions out there about there being a "wrong" way to do it.
Personal investment: I've gotten into promoting metal shows in the woods and I've been having friends do the posters for them. One of the posters used a old-englishy typeface with a blood-drippy effect on it and I wasn't into it. So I've been doing a bit of research on better options.
You came through with your promise. I loved this little documentary. Very informative and such a good little break from the world to focus on something small but impactful. Also as a photographer I can't get over the photo of Susan Kare, how it captures both the artistic carefree nature breaking norms while also being timeless in a iconic computer geek. I just love that picture.
I have been waiting for this documentary for years. Please turn this into a series!
fantastic video! i love how you showcased the history and cultural context for all of these typefaces. as a designer who used to teach some undergrad typography classes, this is a perfect introductory resource for typography students. i could go on forever - i love fonts - but i think you did a great job showcasing how much tone and meaning typography can convey.
This is the most beautiful video on the entire internet. I’m in literal tears. I love fonts so much. When I’m bored I look through font websites. That’s how much I love them. Thank you for this amazing experience
Bro, I think you might have autism
Not my thing but happy that I gives you joy which we all need more of!
I'm right there with you! This video makes me so happy and will do the same for fam + work/designer friends. Goosebumps. Thank you SO much!
Zimri Mayfield has some graphic design videos on his channel where he creates fonts for logos, you might like to check them out.
This is the first episode of yours that I have watched, and I wanted to tell you that you made my day. I love the positively-poignant ending you created for this episode. You have my gratitude.
As a retired lithographer, I really appreciated you presenting this novel topic about the history of fonts. When I broadened my skills with some graphic design, I was astonished at the complexity involved in the computer language involving the fonts. In those early days, if attempting to jump from (Microsoft) to the printing industry standard (Apple) was a nightmare. But visually, having the correct font for purpose is extremely important. Simple is certainly best for quicker language processing in the brain. Absolutely fascinating topic.
This was great, can tell a lot of hard work went into making it. Really enjoyed watching
Fantastic - impressive work! When I was taught how to set metal type - one letter at a time - in grade 7 print shop in 1972, I was hooked on printing and type! I worked my way through college as an early setter of “cold type” (ie on a computer!) for my university newspaper in 1978, and I couldn’t believe the magic of the “fonts” on the first Macintosh in 1984, when I worked as a graphic artist and typesetter at a medical center. I now feel like a fossil as I talk about how cutting edge I was, lol. But I have spent decades fascinated by the world of typefaces and how the subtle use of fonts can dramatically alter a graphic experience. Your channel is witty, smart and bold [font joke] - keep up the great work!
I just started teaching undergrad design and typography. Not only does this touch on everything from my Type 1 introduction lecture, it talks about so much more in a shorter amount of time. And it’s entertaining. I am seething with jealousy and presentation inspiration.
Suggestion: use flipped classroom for this particular topic.
This was a really beautiful outlook into one of the most subtle yet strong aspect of our culture as human beings.
This video is really a masterpiece! Watched for the second time, and have shared it with others. Informative and really beautifully made. Thank you!!
I'd love to see you cover the typology of Hangul, the Korean writing system. Every time I look at it I'm amazed people could pull this off, and just the sheer amount of labor that goes into it since you have to design every possible combination of how individual letters can be arranged in a syllable! The programming that goes behind it is also mindblowing genius. The whole CJK fonts with Han characters are also fascinating on the sheer inventiveness of new design too. But great video overall!
I’m going to learn about this. Thanks for the spark!❤
What's especially interesting is bitmap CJK (and by extension Pan-Unicode fonts like UnifontEX) fonts, particularly when you're limited to 16px.
One REALLY controversial font, at least among the American roadgeek community, is Clearview. It was originally intended to be a more readable alternative to the standard FHWA Highway Gothic. Some states adopted it, some didn't. My home state of Michigan was one that did. Interestingly, during the 1960's Michigan had its own font for highway signs which the Federal Highway Administration made them discontinue in favor of Highway Gothic. Clearview basically came in as an experiment. However, when tests showed that Clearview was not more legible than Highway Gothic, the feds rescinded their approval of Clearview, and thus we are back to Highway Gothic. My personal opinion is that most drivers aren't going to notice or care as long as they can read the signs at highway speeds, but if you want to start a fight in the roadgeek community, all you have to do is say Clearview is superior to Highway Gothic and then duck for cover.
Roadgeek 2000 stans know that Type C is where it's at
I learned more from this video than I did from 3 years at University, and it was free!
Thanks Struth, you’re consistently killing it. I love these new doccos.
I was taught calligraphy at school and later went on to do studio art pottery. The techniques I had learnt in creating thick and thin lines in calligraphy proved invaluable in decorative brush work in pottery. I suspect calligraphy and sign writing were invaluable skills in creating new fonts for the computer. The lesson to be learnt here is no matter how esoteric or antiquated a skill is it still has merit and often proves essential in innovative invention. Thanks so much for the video it was so well researched and presented.
Does any one remember the days of CHARTPAC lettering? As an oldster I started my career in the seventies, using that scratch-on lettering for headlines/display. For the body, we worked with a “typesetter” who used a huge typewriter like machine and a photographic process to print the text in columns to our specs, which we then pasted onto a board (with rubber cement or if lucky had a wax machine). Then delivered to the print vendor to make the plates for printing. Did I mention that we created a separate board for each color? ( indicated by a PMS #) in the 80s, Someone dropped a Mac on my desk, showed me how to use the mouse. It was life changing. Thank you Steve Jobs. And Thank you guys for creating this wonderful video! ❤😊
I too recall when "cut and paste" was done literally!
Yeah, me too. I remember running gallies through a waxer then aligning everything with a parallel bar. God time.@@user-wz4nt3qi6d
I love hearing the history of things that are familiar. I don't know if I have ever wondered about the terms "cut and paste." I did wonder about computer bugs, I learned the history that one out from my computer geek husband. And I recently learned about clip art. I will have to do a bit of research on CHARTPAC lettering. My grandfather worked with punch card computers and taught me how to format my first floppy disk. A big one that was actually floppy. I used the smaller, hard "floppy" disks in college.
I still have a box full of chartpacs, stencils, rub ons, calligraphy pens, dried out repidiographs, and blueline guides all in good condition and basically unused from those 70's when we did logos by hand. When making fonts on the computer now I still prefer the direct sylus to surface approach just as the direct paint to paper back then.
This is really top notch content, Cam
I love these deep dives you've been doing lately. Super informative, and with a great moral to boot.
Thank you for all your hard work 🙏❣️
As a self-taught lettering nerd and artist my whole life - I'm impressed how you condensed and presented the important bits in a way most of my books on the topic couldn't do quite as successfully. This topic is a fascinating one. +1 new sub 😊
O:50 and i'm in! The passion, the fascination, the intensity & drive in the music and producer's voice ... got me, i'm in!
... plus i've been fascinated by fonts for years. After all, they're only a basic building block of writing, language, knowledge, design, many things digital ... and contemporary civilization.
Brilliant choice of topic. Now, ¡diving in!
Wow!!! I have no interest in typography and yet you managed to keep me engaged for 29.35mins! I love it!! I learnt so much.
Your content is gold!! Engaging, inspiring, informative and thought-provoking. More power to you 🌻🌞