Reading Response: Thinking with Type

I found the sections on text extremely interesting. I have never formally studied text and font, and I was surprised to learn that many of the fonts that I know by name are named after calligraphers and printers from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries--the "humanist" fonts. I never considered fonts to be a form of art, especially relatively simple fonts like Times New Roman. I am beginning to look at text much differently.

Another point the authors make is that italic type is, "not simply a slanted version of the roman; it incorporates the curves, angles, and narrower proportions associated with cursive forms" (15). I took a careful look at italic Times New Roman after reading that passage, and I took notice to things that I otherwise may never have noticed. For one, the letter "a" looks different in italic type ("a"). It does not look like that in the italic version of every font, but it is something that I either never noticed, or something that I always overlooked.

I think I also enjoyed reading these sections because I enjoy learning about the history of the Early Modern world, and much of the readings were about the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and how fonts have evolved throughout history. However, when the authors started getting into the technical terms--x-height, line weight, leading, etc--I lost focus. I am not very familiar with this jargon, and it was difficult for me to comprehend because I don't have any prior knowledge of the subject.

An interesting point that was brought up was the redundancy of paragraphs (94). Paragraphs are traditionally marked by both a line break and an indent--and besides that, paragraphs are wholly invented by the literary world and do not occur in nature. I had never thought of this before, but it is true--it is an essential part of how we make sense of communication. Similarly, in my opinion, true sentences do not occur naturally either. When people speak, it is often simply a very long run-on, littered with "um"s and "uhh"s that take place for proper punctuation. It is interesting, though, that it is acceptable for the redundancy of paragraphs, but verbal redundancy is frowned upon ("past history," etc). I wonder why redundancy in design and organization is more acceptable.