Chapter One Reflection - Lopez

My first reaction to chapter one in Typographic Design: Form and Communication, was that I was surprised to see more images than words. This made it less intimidating and more enjoyable for me because I am a visual learner. What also made reading this chapter more pleasing, was that it was on a timeline format as well and had each picture and description labeled correspondingly. Next to these descriptions, they added access information from the past which also helped with understanding the text. 

What really caught my eye was on how much typography has developed and excelled over many, many years. Typography has gone from clay impressions in 3150 BCE to now, being computerized. I am intrigued by how well different alphabets are drawn out free-handedly just by using a flat pen or carved out on a stone. I cannot even imagine on how long it would take to carve into wood, stone or with any other media. It was very interesting for me to see the different typefaces invented in different areas, it made me wonder on how they thought of their ideas. 



One of my favorite typefaces is Giambattista Bodoni’s Modern Style typeface with hairline serifs in 1791. Soon after that, inventors started to experiment with detailing typefaces which made them more visually appealing. Then, in 1886, the first keyboard typesetting machine was created, which lead to better advertisements, title pages, posters and more. This chapter gave me a better understanding to when and where typography originated from. I really enjoyed reading this chapter.