Research into Design through Design: A Visual History of the Latin Alphabet
Visualising the temporal and formal relationships of scripts and typefaces throughout the centuries
Design is a transformative discipline. As designers, we usually work with experts from other domains like science, business, engineering, or culture. Our task is to transform specific domain knowledge into something that is accessible, understandable, beautiful, useful, informative, and enjoyable.
It is surprising that we rarely collaborate with a domain expert from design. We seem to be reluctant to reflect on our own practice, our own theory, and our own history. I don’t want to speculate about the reasons for this — I merely want to point out a certain dearth of design projects about design.
To be clear: I am not talking about tutorials or coffee table books — there are plenty of them. I am talking about an in-depth reflection on design-specific domain knowledge. And I am not saying they don’t exist. They do — I just wish there would be more.
In 1994, Christopher Frayling introduced a simple framework for design research: research into art and design, research through art and design, research for art and design. For me, these are not separate approaches but rather three different perspectives full of intersections and synergy. Research into design, research through design and research for design are not mutually exclusive. Quite the contrary — they should complement and support each other.
My first degree was in Communication Design. I studied typography in the class of Eckhard Jung at the Hochschule für Künste Bremen. The history of writing systems has always fascinated me — not only from a cultural or technical point of view but also from a purely aesthetic one. Why do letters look the way they do? How did the visual appearance of letters in the Latin Alphabet change over the centuries? Why did certain formal styles have a long continuity but others just existed for a few decades? How did this richness of different forms and shapes evolve? Why can we still read 2000-year -old inscriptions — but have difficulties with letters from 150 years ago? And how can we visualise and communicate the evolution and relationship of letterforms? These are all questions that address research into design, research through design and research for design.
This rather elaborate introduction describes one of the many considerations that went into the research project ARETE that we have been working on in the last few months and that I want to describe in this essay. We wanted to work on a research project that was about design and that was conducted through design.
ARETE — A Visual History of the Latin Alphabet
ARETE is a project of the UCLAB at the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam. The central result of the project is the interactive visualisation of the history of the Latin Alphabet. In particular, the visualisation shows the temporal and formal relationships of the different scripts and typefaces to each other.
The starting point of the project was the simple observation that the Latin Alphabet exists in thousands of aesthetic variations. Some of them are highly formal — like the Roman Capitalis — while others are rather informal — like modern handwriting. Over the last two thousand years, the Latin Alphabet constantly changed its appearance. The reasons for the alterations are both technical and cultural. Throughout the centuries, new technologies and changing societies called for new aesthetic expressions.
An interesting fact about the letter forms of the Latin Alphabet is that they are indeed ‘platonic’. If you grew up in a language that uses the Latin Alphabet, you have a very clear idea what an ‘A’ is and how to recognise it. At the same time, there is no original, accurate ‘A’. There are innumerable variations of each letter — but we are still able to recognise them. (Most of the time.) So we have a platonic idea of each letter and we can identify distinct characteristics. But there is no definite form of an ‘A’.
So our main concern was to show the diversity and variance of the Latin alphabet over the centuries. It is often suggested that the Latin Alphabet developed in a linear way. From the Roman Capitalis to the Antiqua typefaces and then to today’s Sans Serifs.
We believe that this is only one possible view among many. Like any cultural development, the history of type and script is at its core an organic network. The aesthetics of the alphabet always reflected styles, fashions and manners. And the individual scribes, artists and type designers learned both from history and from other scribes, artists and type designers.
The form of a letter can express many things. The aesthetic of an alphabet conveys social and professional distinctions and reflect cultural shifts. It can represent the state (Roman Capitalis), it can create social cohesion (Caroligan Minuscle), it can represent ideas and ideals (Romain du Roi, Futura), it can demonstrate technical innovations (Bodoni), it can create social distinctions (Chancery, Court Scripts), or it can simply be a sweeping expression of craftsmanship (English Round Hand).
Before the invention of moveable type, all letterforms existed in innumerable variations. And even as the printing press enforced some kind of standardisation, the shape of letterforms continuously changed, morphed and adapted. There are many reasons for this proliferation of aesthetic variants. Cultural differentiation, societal distinction and technical possibilities certainly played a role. But so did playfulness, style and the drive for aesthetic innovation.
Over the centuries, designers have learned from each other, referred to existing designs, and developed variants. There were times of greater standardisation and then again times of great variance. We wanted to show and clarify this diversity and these different design lines.
Most importantly, we were not only interested in the history of typography, but also the history of calligraphy and handwriting. Even after the invention of printing, a lot of text production occurred by hand. In the 17th and 18th centuries, various social, economic and cultural developments even caused handwriting to flourish.
ARETE — the Visualisation
The central element of the project is a timeline that displays a network of temporal and formal relationships of the different scripts and typefaces, covering more than 2000 years.
In order to be able to structure and convey the historical development, we have used classifications. These ‘classes’ stand for distinct, historically describable expressions of the Latin Alphabet. The development of this class system is based on existing literature. In particular, the books ‘Die schöne Schrift’ by František Muzika, ‘Schriftkunst’ by Albert Kapr and ‘Bruckmann’s Handbuch der Schrift’ by Erhardt D. Stiebner and Walter Leonhard were decisive for this.
Each class is assigned a number of representative examples. The selection of examples is intended to show the most important characteristics of the respective script or typeface. Here, too, it becomes clear that some classes exhibit an high degree of variance, while others have a high degree of similarity among themselves.
There are a number of fantastic sources for historical text, documents and letterforms on the web! So for each example in the timeline, a description and a reference is available. In addition to a short characterisation, we also provide the readers with a reference to the original source.
In order to better classify the different scripts and typefaces, a timeline with events from society, technology and culture is located on the left side of the visualisation. These events offer orientation and provide a general historical framework. The visualisation offers a visual, non-linear and explorative approach to the history of the Latin alphabet.
We would like to emphasise that the project in this form is not (yet) complete. Rather, it is a first attempt to bring the history of the Latin alphabet into a visual, interconnected structure and to present the major historical developments in a clear and evocative way.
Design Research / Traditions and Distinctions
It is surprising that the history of writing and printing plays only a minor role in academic discourse. Compared to the fact that writing and reading is a fundamental cultural technique, relatively little research and publications exists on the culture and history of writing and printing.
The ARETE project is an attempt to describe the formal development of the Latin alphabet throughout the centuries. This is not meant to exclude other writing systems — there were intense discussions within the project as to whether, for example, archaic Greek should be included in the visualisation. Ultimately, however, our aim is to show the evolution and the wealth of forms of an apparently standardised system.
Evidently, both typography and calligraphy have an understanding of their historic roots. At the same time, both historical perspectives are quite distinct and not necessarily compatible. Typography treats all letter-form developments before Gutenberg as a direct progression towards typesetting. The Roman Capitalis evolves into our modern capital letters, the Carolingian Minuscule into our lowercase letters. This typographically influenced view often suggests a linear development from protosinaitic script to Latin capital letters. The glyph for ‘ox’ becomes a printed A.
Calligraphy, on the other hand, tries to distinguish itself from both typography and simple handwriting, emphasising in particular the line of tradition of the medieval illuminated codex. Obviously, both disciplines have their specific historical lines and points of view, emphasising the differences rather than the similarities. There are hardly any approaches that attempt to synthesise the historic developments of typography, calligraphy, and handwriting in one system.
František Muzika, a Czech artist and graphic designer, comes closest to showing the connections and historical lines between different letter forms. His book ‘Die Schöne Schrift’ contains a large collection of historical examples and developments. He clearly shows that there were parallel developments in both typography and calligraphy. Furthermore, he establishes that certain forms of type production were in use far longer than is often assumed. Even after the invention of printing, books were still written and illuminated by hand for centuries.
In recent years, the use of script and type has changed significantly through digital technology. Individual text production is no longer limited to handwriting, but takes place primarily in a digital context with the help of various software systems and a multitude of typefaces. Since many historical letterforms have also found their way into digital systems, it makes sense to provide the general public with a better understanding of the history of type and script. At the same time, the cultivation of handwriting and calligraphy is currently experiencing a renaissance — presumably also as a countermovement to digital type production. In this context, it is important to point out the historical relationships and connections between calligraphy and typography.
To sum up: our aim was to develop a context-rich, non-linear understanding of the history of letterforms of the Latin Alphabet. We believe the ARETE project is a compelling and insightful contribution to design practice, design research and to design history.
Team & Workshop
Team FHP: Prof. Boris Müller (project lead), Jonas Pelzer (design and technical implementation), Ayse Nacak (research und design), Elsa Woelk (research)
Experts: Sybille van Zuylen, Erik Spiekermann, Lucas de Groot, Stefanie Weigele
On June 17, 2022, an all-day expert workshop was held at the Fachhochschule Potsdam, where the overall concept and the visualisation was discussed and developed with the aforementioned experts. The results of the workshop are the basis for the structure of the visualisation.
References
- Bertram, Axel. Das wohltemperierte Alphabet: eine Kulturgeschichte. Leipzig: Faber & Faber, 2005.
- Bringhurst, Robert. The Elements of Typographic Style: Point Roberts: Hartley & Marks, Publishers, 1997.
- Catich, Edward M.. The Origin of the Serif: Brush Writing & Roman Letters. Davenport: Catich Gallery, St. Ambrose University, 1991.
- Clayton, Ewan. The Golden Thread: The Story of Writing. London: Atlantic Books Ltd, 2013.
- Haarmann, Harald. Universalgeschichte der Schrift: Frankfurt am Main: Zweitausendeins, 2004.
- Harris, David. Die Kunst des Schreibens: eine Anleitung zur Kalligraphie. München: Coventgarden, 2008.
- Kapr, Albert. Schriftkunst: Geschichte, Anatomie und Schönheit der lateinischen Buchstaben. München: K.G. Saur, 1981.
- Kupferschmid, Indra. Buchstaben kommen selten allein: ein typografisches Handbuch. Sulgen: Niggli, 2003.
- Lovett, Patricia. The Art and History of Calligraphy: . London: British Library, 2020.
- Morison, Stanley. Stanley Morison : Selected Essays on the History of Letter-forms in Manuscript and Print: . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981.
- Morison, Stanley. Typenformen der Vergangenheit und Neuzeit: . Hellerau: Demeter Verlag, 1928.
- Muzika, František. Die schöne Schrift in der Entwicklung des lateinischen Alphabets: Prag: Artia, 1965.
- Nerdinger, Eugen. Buchstabenbuch: Schriftentwicklung, Formbedingungen, Schrifttechnik, Schriftsammlung. München: Callwey, 1954.
- Noordzij, Gerrit. The Stroke: Theory of Writing. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2006.
- Shaw, Paul. The Eternal Letter: Two Millennia of the Classical Roman Capital. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2015.
- Spiekermann, Erik. Typography: history & technology, blog posting, retrieved 10. September 2024
- Stiebner, Erhardt D., Leonhard, Walter. Bruckmann’s Handbuch der Schrift: . München: Bruckmann, 1977.
An important resource for 20th century typefaces was Prof. Michael Wörgötter’s digitised Typeface Index, which he made available via the Letterform Archive.
