more greek alphabet pictures

The Greek Alphabet

Modern Hebrew and Arabic scripts come from the basis of the early Greek alphabet. The Greeks choose to use characters from the Phoenician system.  The Phoenician system uses characters such as aleph (a) and beth (b).  Originally the Greek language was read from right to left, this is called boustrophedon.  This style of writing is directly translated into the Arabic script.  When punctuation was developed the Greeks choose to write from left to right.  After the language was changed to read from left to right the Greeks rotated many of their symbols to make it easier to write.  

In modern western language many greek words have carried on such as 'alpha male,' 'omega male,' 'alpha, gamma and beta rays' and 'beta testing.'  In math we use the symbol of pi to express the number 3.14.  At universities societies of men and women chose to use words from the greek alphabet to represent their sororities and fraternities.  The greek letters used to name these chapters symbolize the house's motto.  For instance Alpha Delta Pi represents (Alpha) first, (Delta)change, (Pi)believe or faith.  Overall the Greek alphabet is as effective when it was first created as it is now.

Question- Which two Greek letters make up the word Alphabet?

vocaburary

Absolute measurement are measurements of fixed values. For example, a millimetre is a precisely defined increment of a centimetre.

In typography, many measurements, such as character spacing, are linked to type size, which means that their relationships are defined by a series of relative measurements.

The point is the unit of measurement used to measure the type size of a font. A pica is a unit of measurement equal to 12 points that is commonly used for measuring lines of type.

The x-height of a typeface is the height of the lowercase 'x'.

The em is a relative unit of measurement used in typesetting to define basic spacing functions, and therefore it is linked to the size of the type.  An en is a unit of relative measurement equal to half of one em.

Both the em and en are used in punctuation to provide a measurement for dashes.

The space between letters can be increased by letterspacing or reduced by kerning to give a text book a more balanced feel.

Tracking is adjusting the tracking affects the amount of spacing between characters.

Word spacing adjusts the amount of space between words.  

Horizontal alignment in a text can be range left, range right, centered or justified.  Flush left is the alignment follows the principle of handwriting, with text tight and aligned to the left margin and ending ragged on the right.  Flush right is the right aligning text is less common as it is more difficult to read.  It is sometimes used for picture captions and other accompanying texts as it is clearly distinct from body copy.

A widow is a lone word at the end of a paragraph.

An orphan is the final one or two lines of a paragraph separated from the main paragraph to form a new column, and should be avoided at all costs

Leading is a hot-metal printing term that refers to the strips of lead that were inserted between text measures in order to space them accurately.

Indentation provides the reader with an easily accessible entry point to a paragraph.  In a first-line indent, the text is intended from the left margin in the first line of the second and subsequent paragraphs.  A hanging indent is an indentation from the left or right margin, which effects several text lines.

Adrian Frutiger

Adrian Frutiger was born in Unterlaken, Switzerland in 1928 and is still alive today.  He is most widely known for his typefaces.  Frutiger moved around often during his educational years between Unterlaken, Switzerland to Zurich, Switzerland and finally to Paris, France.  Paris is where Frutiger got his first job at Deberny and Peignot typefoundary.  While working there Adrian created typefaces of his own and found the time to write many books on the subject.  At his job Frutiger helped design and create many letterforms and typefaces such as, Phoebus, Ondine, Meridien, Apollo, Egyptienne and many others.  The typeface he is most commonly known for is Univers.

Univers was completely designed by Adrian Frutiger.  The typeface includes many various weights and set-widths within the family.  Univers is a neo-grotesque sans serif; it features optically even stroke weights and a large x-height to improve the legibility of the typeface.  There are twenty-seven different variations of Univers which makes it extremely diverse.  Overall it works very well at large display sizes such as headlines as well as small sizes for body copy.

The Univers grid shows the family of all the various Univers typefaces.  The darkest and boldest within the family is situated in the bottom left hand corner of the grid, while the lightest and thinest typeface is in the top left hand corner.  By reading the grid left to right the viewer sees the various thickness of the lettering and by reading from top to bottom the it goes from lightness to boldness with the lettering.

  http://typophile.com/node/12118

John Baskerville

John Baskerville is known today for his artistic skill of typefaces.  He grew up in Birmingham, England and was a member of the Royal Society of the Arts.  Besides creating typefaces Baskerville was also known for his expertise in papier-mache and japanning.  

Many of Baskerville's typefaces are used in today's world of typography but were not as popular in his time.  The majority of Baskerville's colleagues became jealous of excellent work and criticized it until it no longer was popular.  John Baskerville's typefaces were mostly used for government paperwork and were adopted into the United States by Benjamin Franklin.  Today the fonts have been released by companies called Linotype, Monotype and type foundries.  When a typographer uses his typeface it is most commonly referred to as "Baskerville."

Baskervile's typeface is unique because it is used for important documents, books and other long texts in the 20th century.  John had been a "writing master", but at the time his typeface was more closely related to the work of engravers instead of the popular humanist model.  His type was often referred to as "transitional" type, because they bridge the gap between "old style" (with its oblique stress and relatively low contrast) and "modern" type, with its vertical stress, high contrast, and sharp finish.

http://typophile.com/node/12622

 

Grids

One of the best tools every designer has to help create better layouts is a grid.  The use of a grid breaks apart a daunting space into units to help organize the picture.  Controlling a particular space for an artist gives him or her the ability to take over the space the way they want it to look.  The grids helps the designer organize accordingly with the text and or image with the page given.  Thus by using a grid the designer has both organization and flexibility.

There are many different functions involving the grid, which applied correctly will greatly enhance a designers art.  Specifically a grid keeps words from running off the page.  While using a grid, the designer knows where to stop a word because it will be cut off by the border or window of the design.  In my personal experience while using a grid I was able to move words around to see where they looked the best.  The function of a grid is to enhance your work and not limit it, simply because of the parameters the grid sets.  Knowing where type can and should be placed helps the artist better design the page according to the function.

http://geology.isu.edu/geostac/Field_Excercise/topomaps/grid_sys.htm