Typography and Post-Digital Print

Notes and thoughts on Jost Hochuli's, "Detail in typography" and Alessandro Ludovico's second chapter of, "Post-Digital Print".

I like to think that typography is just as important as the words it’s used for — that just as much thought should go into the type-face chosen for your work as the words you choose to use. Though, I also think this is where print beats out online work.

In Jost Hochuli’s short book, “Detail in typography” we’re able to catch a quick glimpse into every small detail that makes text and text-types readable for the human eye. The saccades, which “represent 5-10 letters, or about 1-2 words in English” (p.8) — how our eyes follow a line of words, where they stop and where they graze. Or how there is more to italics than a slant in letters, horizontal lines naturally appear heavier than vertical, and the smaller the text the wider the letters must be. Little alterations that creators have found and adjusted over years of work.

How important are your words if they’re unreadable? How important are the words that a reader skips? And how important are the words you choose to capitalize — forcing the eyes to LINGER longer?

Hochuli’s work pairs almost oddly well with the ideas in the second chapter of Alessandro Ludovico’s “Post-Digital Print”. While mostly focusing on the hay-day of print and the pace it picked up during the 60’s through 80’s after the creation of the Xerox, it also puts into question what is the worth and thought that we put into printed materials.

Just as Hochuli is expanding on type-face choices, Ludovico is speaking on the copy of designs of major publications to trick readers; using the example of the activist duo The Yes Men who created and distributed thousands of New York Times newspapers. Skillfully copying the classic typography and look of the NYT’s to fool people into "good” news stories. As Ludovico states on our current perception of the news, “We trust it — because it is printed, and because of the way it is printed,” (p.53)

It continues to become clearer to me how both digital and print can simultaneously work together especially when it comes to design (even if I believe print can be more creatively liberal than digital media). For both can be used to share ideas, news, creations, etc. but also play with our perceptions of the media itself.

“This work can be understood as a reflection on our faith in paper, as well as a representation of the instability of electrons — and it certainly sheds a light on the uncertain future of publishing in both paper and electronic media, while predicting how the two are destined to become increasingly intertwined.” Ludovico (p.50)