Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The Typographic Medium

The Typographic Medium

Brideau, Kate

Hardcover

Series: History and Foundations of Information Science

General SociologyTypography & Calligraphy

Publisher Price: $45.00

ISBN10: 0262045850
ISBN13: 9780262045858
Publisher: MIT Press
Published: Oct 12 2021
Pages: 304
Weight: 1.50
Height: 1.00 Width: 6.30 Depth: 9.10
Language: English
An innovative examination of typography as a medium of communication rather than part of print or digital media.

Typography is everywhere and yet widely unnoticed. When we read type, we fail to see type. In this book, Kate Brideau considers typography not as part of print media or digital media but as a medium of communication itself, able to transcend the life and death of particular technologies. Examining the contradiction between typographic form (often overlooked) and function (often overpowering), Brideau argues that typography is made up not of letters but of shapes, and that shape is existentially and technologically central to the typographic medium.

After considering what constitutes typographic form, Brideau turns to typographic function and how it relates to form. Examining typography's role in both the neurological and psychological aspects of reading, she argues that typography's functions exceed reading; typographic forms communicate, but that communication is not limited to the content they carry. To understand to what extent the design and operations of the typographic medium affect the way we perceive information, Brideau warns, we must understand the medium's own operational logic, embodied in the full diversity of typographic forms.

Brideau discusses a range of topics--from intellectual property protection for typefaces to Renaissance and Enlightenment ideal letterforms--and draws on a wide variety of theoretical work, including phenomenological ideas about comprehension, German media archaeology, and the media and communication theories of Vilém Flusser and others. Hand-drawn illustrations of typographic forms accompany the text.

Also in

Typography & Calligraphy

View All