WSC 2024 - Reimagining the Present -
All Terms
Printing Press - Answer- A device used to quickly produce copies of texts invented
by Johannes Gutenburg in 1440. It involved arranging the stamps of letters to be
stamped onto a page, which could take an entire day, but then be used as many
times as necessary to create many copies of the same text. The letter forms were
based on Blackletter calligraphy, which was used at the time to write manuscripts.
Johannes Gutenburg - Answer- A goldsmith and inventor of the printing press in
1440.
Blackletter - Answer- A typeface commonly used to write manuscripts and the first to
be implemented onto a printing press. Although it mimicked the handwriting style of
the time, it took up a lot of space on a page, meaning more paper had to be used to
convey the same information.
Nicolas Jenson - Answer- Created the first Roman typeface in 1470, based on
Blackletter and Italian Humanist lettering. [ ] was the first to use typographic
principles rather than manuscript models to create a typeface.
Roman - Answer- A typeface that was used as a successor of the Blackletter
typeface as the standard for texts. The first was invented by Nicolas Jenson in 1470,
and it was invented to look simpler and be more efficient at using the page space
than blackletter.
Italic - Answer- A text style that makes text appear slanted. It was originally used to
save space, but is now used for emphasis. It was developed by Aldus Manutius and
Francesco Griffo in 1501. Its downside was it was less legible than later typefaces.
Aldus Manutius - Answer- An Italian printer who, along with Francesco Griffo,
developed Italic text
Francesco Griffo - Answer- An Italian punchcutter who, along with Aldus Manutius,
developed Italic text.
Old Style - Answer- A typeface developed in 1734 by William Caslon which was
created to be as legible as possible, making each letterform distinguishable at a
glance.
William Caslon - Answer- An English typefounder who created Old Style in 1734,
which was the first typeface whose primary focus was readability.
Transitional Typeface - Answer- A typeface developed in 1757 by John Baskerville
that had more distinct letterforms. Baskerville's ink was much blacker than that of his
contemporaries, and the typeface was criticized for having its strokes extremely think
and dark. Commercially, it was a failure.
,John Baskerville - Answer- An English printer to developed the first transitional
typefaces and made improvements to type, ink, and printing presses to the point that
his ink was considerably darker and criticized as such. Revived in the 20th century,
his typeface earned him the title of "greatest printer England ever produced"
Firmin Didot - Answer- A French type designer who in the 1780s created the Didot
font.
Giambattista Bodoni - Answer- An Italian type designer who in the 1780s created the
Bodoni font.
Didot - Answer- A font developed in the 1780s by Firmin Didot. It was one of the first
fonts to use modern serifs with extreme stroke thickness differences. It is similar to
Bodoni, though some differences exist, such as how the J sits on the baseline, and
how only the upper stroke is terminated with a ball. It is not the most readable font at
smaller sizes due to the high stroke thickness contrast, and is mostly reserved for
headings
Bodoni - Answer- A font developed in the 1780s by Giambattista Bodoni. It was one
of the first fonts to use modern serifs with extreme stroke thickness differences. It is
similar to Didot, though some differences exist, such as how the J extends below the
baseline, and how both the upper and lower strokes are terminated with a ball. It is
not the most readable font at smaller sizes due to the high stroke thickness contrast,
and is mostly reserved for headings
Slab Serif Font - Answer- A typeface whose letterforms contain serifs characterized
by being block-like. These are sometimes referred to as Egyptian fonts. These
became extremely popular around the 19th century, particularly in printed advertising
due to them being eye-catching. Some were developed specifically to be used at
larger scales, which was a departure from earlier designs, which adapted existing
forms of book type
Serif Font - Answer- A typeface whose letterforms contain flourishes that terminate
strokes
Antique - Answer- A font developed by Vincent Figgins in 1815, it was the first
commercially available slab serif typeface
Vincent Figgins - Answer- A British typefounder who developed the first
commercially available slab serif typeface, known as antique, in 1815
Sans serif font - Answer- A typeface whose letterforms do not contain flourishes that
terminate strokes. It was influenced heavily by the block lettering present in classical
antiquity, which saw serifs either minimal or omitted.
Two Lines English Egyptian - Answer- A font developed in 1816 by William Caslon
IV. It was much more legible at a distance and it caught on quickly after its
availability
,William Caslon IV - Answer- An English typeface designer who in 1816 created the
first sans serif font, Two Lines English Egyptian.
Egyptomania - Answer- A fascination of ancient Egypt by the Western world
Edward Johnston - Answer- A British craftsman who is known for designing Johnston
in 1916, a sans-serif font used throughout the London Underground.
Frederic Goudy - Answer- An American type designer who began making typefaces
in the 1920s. [ ] was the first full-time type designer, and created fonts like
Copperplate Gothic and Goudy Old Style.
Max Miedinger - Answer- A Swiss type designer best known for developing Helvetica
in 1957
Helvetica - Answer- A minimalist sans serif typeface designed in 1957 by Max
Miedinger. It is often seen as the most iconic typeface of the 20th century.
Futura - Answer- A minimalist sans serif typeface designed in 1927 by Paul Renner.
Paul Renner - Answer- A German typeface designer who designed Futura in 1927.
Optima - Answer- A minimalist sans serif typeface designed in 1958 by Hermann
Zapf.
Hermann Zapf - Answer- A German type designer who designed Optima in 1958
Humanist font - Answer- A font that takes inspiration from traditional letterforms,
such as Roman square capitals, calligraphy, or traditional serif typefaces.
Digi Grotesk - Answer- A typeface designed in 1968 by Rudolf Hell. It was the first
digital typeface. It, along with other early digital typefaces, were bitmaps, which were
very illegible at small scales and had comparably high file sizes.
Rudolf Hell - Answer- A German inventor and engineer who designed Digi Grotesk,
the first digital typeface, in 1968.
TrueType font - Answer- A file format used by typefaces to allow for better displaying
on computers and on output devices. It was developed in the late 1980s
OpenType font - Answer- A file format developed in 1997 used by typefaces that
allowed both Mac and PC platforms to use a single font file in displaying typefaces.
Font styling rules - Answer- In 1997, [ ] were incorporated into CSS
Internet Explorer 4 - Answer- The first support for web fonts was added to [ ] in 1998
Web Open Font Format (WOFF) - Answer- A file format for typefaces developed in
2009 that was added to the W3C open web standard and is still completely in use
today.
, Outline font - Answer- A font in which each character is stored as a vector instead of
a font format. This is to avoid failing to print a text with an unsupported font.
Big typography - Answer- A trend in web typography where fonts are enlarged even
for body text, which are seen as more eye-catching and attention-grabbing.
Variable font - Answer- A font that has multiple forms differentiated often by stroke
thickness. These came about in 2016 within the OpenType standard
Modern digital type design - Answer- In [ ]'s current state, there is still room for new
trends and technologies to emerge in the future, like global language coverage in
including other language character sets like Greek or Cyrillic. One emerging
development is the development of colour fonts, which use the SVG format, allowing
designers to use multiple colours on a single glyph
Calibri - Answer- A font that was used by Microsoft as the default font for its
productivity applications up until 2021. It was created by Lucas de Groot. It is now
also being used by the U.S. State Department since 2023, after switching from
Times New Roman.
Aptos - Answer- Formerly known as Bierstadt, it is the new Microsoft productivity
application default font introduced in 2021. It was designed in 2019 by Steve
Matteson, and was dubbed Grotesque No.2, then codenamed Koyuk, and then
named by Matteson "Bierstadt" which was the name of a mountain in Colorado,
meaning "beer city". Due to the name not being taken seriously, Matteson found its
current name, which was an unincorporated town in California.
Microsoft - Answer- Changed their default font for their productivity applications from
Calibri to Aptos in 2021. They placed great care in choosing their new font, as Office
products account for almost a quarter of their revenue. One drive for the change is
the change in CEO from Steve Ballmer to Satya Nadella, which gave a much more
friendly aura to [ ], which they may have felt is not reflected in a font as long used as
Calibri.
Satya Nadella - Answer- Current CEO of Microsoft, [ ] may be a large factor in the
change from Calibri to Aptos.
Grotesque font - Answer- A font that was sans serif and solid, often bold for
headlines and adverts. They tend to have no variation in stroke thickness, and their
descenders are short.
Steve Matteson - Answer- An American typeface designer who was asked by
Microsoft in 2019 to design a font to replace Calibri as their default. At the time, [ ]
was working for Monotype. [ ] has designed many fonts for Windows prior like the
Segoe font, Curlz. [ ] has stated that he understands why Microsoft wanted to make
the change, but still gives great respect for Calibri and sees nothing wrong with the
font.
