Alphabet
Success thanks to a few charactersThe term alphabet is generally used today to mean the same as script. Unlike the characters used in hieroglyphics or ideogramic systems, the characters of the alphabet represent the smallest sound units of a language that are free from meaning.
Avant Garde
An unusual font for print mediaIn the 1960s, the idea for an art and political magazine titled Avant Garde was hatched. Herb Lubalin was in charge of the graphic design.
Bänkel
What does a Bänkelsänger have to do with a bench? Stories in music, word and imageBänkelsänger were important colporteurs of news. They spread political news and reported on natural disasters, but also told entertaining and sensational tales of horror and murder. To be seen and heard better by the crowd, they would stand on wooden benches..
Bargain Books
Reading material for the mass marketAlthough the centuries-old practice of copying books by hand had become obsolete with the invention of the printing press, books remained rare commodities for a long time. The expensive manufacturing and the low levels of alphabetisation meant the number of potential readers was very limited at the beginning.
Bestsellers
From the Bible to Harry PotterBestsellers are often the starting point for a whole range of additional products. A wealth of accompanying merchandising products contributed to the cross-media success of literary blockbusters such as J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series with its eponymous young magician.
Bodoni-Antiqua
Perfectly shaped classical fontAntiqua is among the typefaces that have been stylistically embellished and varied by countless punchcutters and printers since the 2nd half of the 15th century. In addition to Nicolas Jenson, Aldus Manutius, Claude Garamond and others, Giambattista Bodoni concerned himself intensively with Antiqua.
Book Art Movement
The book as an entire work of artThe Book Art Movement was a movement that proceeded mainly from England at the end of the 19th century and lasted until roughly the 1930s.
Book burnings in history
Freedom of thought in flamesThe public burning of provocative books stands as the ultimate form of literary censorship. Over the course of history, the practice has been used by state and religious authorities and ideological opponents as a sign of protest.
Book cover
Craftsmanship and artWith the emergence of the codex, it became necessary to protect and support the text block with a cover. The earliest binding of handwritten texts took place in monasteries. Starting in the Middle Ages, the craft of book binding developed into an urban commercial industry.
Book printing and reformation
A media revolutionThe publication of Martin Luther’s 95 Theses in Wittenberg on October 31, 1517 signalled the beginning of the Protestant Reformation in Germany. Although he had initially only exchanged his ideas verbally and in letters with scholars and theologians, Luther quickly realised the potential that printing held for the dissemination of his ideas.
Bookmarks
Bookmarks in various formsToday, bookmarks exist in a wide variety of forms. From free cardboard strips printed with logos and advertising slogans, the range extends to exquisitely designed bibliophile variants featuring artwork, designs or inspirational quotes by famous personalities.
Bookplates (ex-libris)
Ownership labels for booksUntil the introduction of industrialised mass printing in the 19th century, a book was, beyond its intellectual content, also a valuable object in its own right.
Books as a good
Commerce – Trade Fairs – Assortment After the invention of printing with movable type and, with that, the possibility of mass producing identical copies of a printed work, the book medium developed into a major trading commodity in Europe. Trade fairs began to feature printed works alongside their more customary goods.
Books as cultural artefacts
Saying goodbye to a technology that cannot be improved?The world of books has changed since computers and the Internet as a technology and medium began their victory march. Whether in production, marketing and sales, the types of access to books and other published knowledge resources, in the organisation of libraries and archives and, last but not least, in reading behaviour – the effects of digitalisation and networking have penetrated all major spheres of activity in the book arena.
Braille
Reading with your handsSymbols and script are fundamental elements in our society for recording and passing on information. The saying “to have something in black-in-white” best describes in what form people with an intact sense of vision perceive script – optically, as “black” characters on a “white” background.
Camouflaged publications
Explosive contents in harmless packaging Camouflaged publications represent a special form of literature. In order to get around the banning of texts by the censor, highly charged material was given an unprepossessing appearance with innocuous titles or faked mastheads.
Cancellaresca italica
Cursive script for scholars and artistsCancellaresca is the name of the handwritten, cursive lettering of the 14th and 15th centuries that was used in scriptoria and chanceries – including the Vatican chancery – for official documents. Under the influence of calligraphy, this cursive type spread throughout Europa and became a popular form of handwriting among scholars and artists.
Capital
The A-Z of industrialisationCapital, in addition to labour (Division of labour, Wages), is one of the main factors of production. It is invested as real capital in the means of production such as buildings (Factory), machines (Technology), etc. or is used in the form of monetary capital to finance operative business.
Caricatures of censorship
Poking fun at the authoritiesCaricatures are extremely well suited to staging a critical confrontation with repression and the banning of unwanted publications. Censors and their edicts are put on view in exaggerated and distorted images drawn with a sharp pen.
Cases of censorship today
Freedom of the press as a fragile goodThe widespread processes of liberalisation and democratisation over the last 250 years have brought freedom of the press to most areas of central Europe. In Germany, Article 5 of the Constitution contains the unequivocal statement. “There shall be no censorship.”
Censorship in the First World War
The book inspection department of the Deutsche Bücherei 1916-1918Formal press freedom was suspended at the outset of the First World War. Control of the media was passed over to 62 various censor’s offices in the military, which acted independently of one another.
Chronometer
The A-Z of industrialisationChronometers, time-keeping devices or clocks provide an abstract framework for coordinating procedures of all kinds. The uniformly rhythmic measurement of time that passes irrespective of day or night, summer or winter, urban or rural environment, allows for the successful operation of railway systems (Networks), factories (Factory) and universities (Science).
Colours for word and image
In the eye of the beholderSubstrates for writing can be painted, written or printed on, or stamped using chalks and charcoal, inks, Indian inks, paints or varnishes. This is done freehand using tools or using forms made for the purpose such as stamps or stencils.
Colportage
Literature “worn around the neck”In addition to lending libraries, book stores and reading clubs, colportage was one of the sources of literature in the 18th and 19th centuries. Door-to-door salesmen carried all manner of books, brochures and booklets in hawker's trays and baskets which they offered for sale primarily to poor country folk. The reading materials ranged from religious booklets to schoolbooks and “Volksbüchlein” containing popular stories.
Commerce
The A-Z of industrialisationBusinesses refer to commercial activities in the manual crafts and industry that are operated on their own expense to make a profit (Capital). Economic freedom means having the right to freely choose one’s profession, a training facility and a place of work. Businesses can not only be operated in factories (Factory), but also in the open air (agriculture, forestry, haulage companies) or at home.
Computer as a universal machine
Considered the paragon of human technological evolution, the modern high-performance computer is the product of a long chain of discoveries and inventions. The roots of the modern computer lie in mankind’s use of numbers and mathematical calculations
Copyright
The A-Z of industrialisationCopyright is the exclusive right an author has to his or her own intellectual creations. The author decides on the type, form and point in time for publishing and grants the publisher the corresponding rights of use, which must be paid for.
Copyright law in the digital age
In the shortest space of time, the digital media revolution has shaken up distribution channels that have been around for decades. Never before has it been so easy and convenient to publish, copy, edit and distribute both one's own content and content generated by third parties – at the most rapid of speeds and beyond national borders.
Covers – Provenance
Where does a book come from?The provenance, i.e. the origin of printed works, is an important component in the indexing of individual books. After formal and content-based categorisation, this is the third level of indexing depth.
Cross references
The A-Z of industrialisationCross references link up text sections (Networks) in reference works and documents.
Cuneiform script
One of humanity’s earliest forms of writingThe proto-cuneiform script of the Sumerians, one of humanity’s earliest scripts, emerged in the late fourth century BCE as high culture developed in Mesopotamia.
Digital library
Information available onlineWith the technological triumph of the Internet and the associated rapid increase in electronic publications, the old library culture which had survived for millennia saw itself rapidly confronted by an unprecedented herculean task. Beyond local stock management in communal, university and other research and archive institutions the promise of a digital network raised public expectations of online libraries where access was not limited by time or location.
Digitalisation
The media world strives towards the immaterialDue to its widespread relevance, which affects almost all traditional communication channels, the process of digitalisation represents the conceptual keynote of the current media epoch. The switch from analogue to digital systems in the last 30 years has consigned numerous old media to irrelevance at breakneck speed while giving rise to others.
DIN 1451
Standardised font leaves its mark on everyday life in GermanyIn DIN standard 1451 of 1936, the DIN typeface was standardised for the fields of technology and transport. As the chairman of the DIN committee, from 1925 Siemens engineer Ludwig Goller was responsible for the development.
Division of labour
The A-Z of industrialisationDivision of labour is an important element in the industrial landscape. It involves a specialisation in the vocations (Businesses), the commercial sectors (Trade) and the sciences (Science).
Duplicating
The copier as a cultural technologyHectographs (gelatin duplicator) made it possible, as the name implies, to produce hundreds of copies and thus short print runs. In addition to this, various methods were developed from the 19th century onwards, to produce print templates for lithography, stencil printing and transfer lithography.
Dystopia: a world without books
A bibliophile’s nightmareFor bookworms, a world without incessant reading is unthinkable. Even the fact that the amount that can be read is limited by one's lifetime gave the German author Arno Schmidt cause for worry: "If we say 1 new book every 5 days," he muses in his book Aus Julianischen Tagen, published in 1961, "then this leads to the distressing state of affairs that one is only capable of reading 3,000 books in a lifetime."
Education
The A-Z of industrialisationEducation is developing one’s own personality. It is based to a great extent on attaining an understanding of the world, something that each person has to achieve individually, by reading (Journal, Newspaper) and writing (Script) or travelling (Travelling) and involves technical (Technology), scientific (Science), ethical and aesthetic (Ornament) aspects. Unlike vocational training, education is not driven by purely economic interests (Capital). Education enables people to transcend social barriers and has a powerful emancipatory influence.
Egyptian script
Hieroglyphs and other ancient scriptsEgyptian hieroglyphs are among the first written creations of humanity, a system which arose from an image script around 3100 BCE. Their usage in monuments, as a ceremonial script for veneration and glorification of gods and pharaohs, is seen within the sphere of the temples’ dominance, for example on buildings, steles, as well as items of ritualistic and everyday use.
Electronic Global Village
Global communication in realtimeIn his books The Gutenberg Galaxy, which was first published in 1962, Marshall McLuhan formulated his famous prediction that the world would become a global village as a result of increasing intercontinental networking.
Elementary typography
Jan Tschichold’s ideas about book design, 1925In 1923, typographer and book designer Jan Tschichold visited the first Bauhaus exhibition in Weimar; he was highly impressed by the exhibition which, as he wrote himself, gave a completely new direction to his creative development.
Encryptions and secret messages
The cryptological search for the right code To understand a script, you must understand its code. You have to know what meaning is hidden behind a character and what rules a string of characters follows.
Energy
The A-Z of industrialisationEnergy as understood in the natural sciences (Science) means the capacity to perform work (Businesses). Motors (Technology) transform forms of energy in such a way that they can be used commercially in production processes (Factory) and to transport goods and convey information (Networks). Hydropower and steam power transformed into electrical energy are a vital force driving the industrial society
Eternal truths?
The Nebra sky disk and the Voyager Golden RecordThey are seen as bearers of eternal truths and were designed to survive for more than 500 million years and/or outlast humanity. One is the Nebra sky disk, which was made in the Bronze Age, the other comes from our era of space travel, and is the Voyager Golden Record.
European type printing
Success from the serial production of movable typeThe invention of printing using movable type by Johannes Gutenberg marks the beginning of a far-reaching technical/industrial and scientific/cultural revolution in the early modern era. Gutenberg needed about ten years to find the suitable working materials for type printing and to try out tools and work steps.
Eurostile
A font like a tube televisionThe predecessor of Eurostile was the Microgramma type of 1952, which was designed by Alessandro Butti and Aldo Novarese as an uppercase typeface for bank printing purposes. Ten years later Novarese added the lowercase letters and called the typeface Eurostile.
Export stamps in the First World War
Censorship by the High Command, 1914-1918 Many books, pamphlets and magazines from the years 1914 to 1918 display a mostly unimposing mark of “Z XI”, “Z XIX”, “By”, a stylised Monument to the Battle of Nations or many other markings in a small circle or triangle o the title page. This stamp or stamp-like mark signifies that the piece of printed matter had been checked.
Factories
The A-Z of industrialisationFactories are large commercial enterprises in which semi-finished or finished goods are made ready for the market (Trade) in a process organised on the basis of a time schedule (Chronometer), with a & division of labour and the help of motors (Energy) and machines (Technology) in closed spaces. Investments (Capital) are needed to build and operate factories. The workers, educated to different degrees (Education), are paid different amounts (Wages) for their work.
False reports and newspaper hoaxes
Carelessness or deliberate trick?The history of false reports is presumably as old as the history of media itself. As far back as Antiquity the renowned, usually very vague prophecies of the Oracle of Delphi could hardly justify their at times considerable historical relevance.
FE-Schrift
Number plate font that is difficult to forgeThe FE typeface, developed in 1978-1980 by Karlgeorg Hoefer for the German Federal Highway Research Institute, has been used as the typeface for German vehicle number plates since 1994. This typeface has no uniform proportions.
Flyers
“the simple printed scrap of paper”Short messages and notes have a special attribute – they are characterised by extreme mobility, and contain information that is usually only relevant for a short time. They are written easily and quickly and tend to deal with practical aspects such as price and availability at the right time and in the right place.
From the virtual library into the matrix
“Library 2.0” as a new area of knowledgeVirtual libraries are all about the availability of knowledge through the universal medium of the Internet and a new area of knowledge that is networked and multimedia-based. At the same time, the virtual library is a universal presentation based on the traditions of a millennium-old history of books and writing: it creates access to the most varied of media form and it embodies an old utopia – access to encyclopaedic knowledge.
From TV to search engine
A tailor-made media centreJust as the Internet has forever changed the novel ways in which book culture, the world of the newspaper and the music industry can be used, so television, which was previously a guiding medium, is increasingly struggling in the competition for real-time interaction. The TV guide of the future may very well become an on-demand service whose contents can be played on any connected and mobile technology the user chooses.
Futura
Modern font using geometric formsInformed by the sober and functional style of the Bauhaus movement, the Futura font was created by Paul Renner in 1928. It stands as a text book example of a sans-serif typeface.
Garamond
Elegant, easy-to-read Renaissance fontClaude Garamond, a French type founder, typographer and punchcutter created the Renaissance Antiqua named for him around 1530. His Antiqua and cursive forms are based on the typefaces previously created by Francesco Griffo for the Venetian publisher and printer Aldus Manutius as well as the alphabets of Ludovico Vincentino degli Arrighi.
Helvetica
Worldwide popular all-round fontIn the 1950s, the sans-serif typefaces from the H. Berthold Type Foundry in Berlin were particularly successful. In order to have an equally successful sans-serif in Switzerland as well, the commercial artist and typographer Max Miedinger collaborated with Eduard Hoffmann, the head of the Haas Type Foundry near Basel, to create a new sans-serif typeface.
History of the Bibliographisches Institut (Bibliographical Institute)
From Joseph Meyer to the 21st CenturyThe Bibliographical Institute was started as a publishing house in Gotha in 1826 by the writer and businessman Joseph Meyer. Two years later, he moved the company to Hildburghausen, before finally settling into a modern, newly constructed building in Leipzig in 1874.
Human-machine interface
Media’s promises between science and science fiction The relationship between humans and machines is growing closer and closer. Computers are becoming a fixture not only of our everyday lives, but of our very bodies. Mini-computers on the body can register emotions, communicate with users and connect with them.
Illiteracy
Everyone has the ability to read!We live in a world which is characterised by letters and characters. Whether it’s forms, letters, Internet sites, SMS, newspapers, books, timetables, operating instructions or street signs – orientation can be very difficult for anyone who can’t read.
Illustration
The A-Z of industrialisationIllustrations are graphic images accompanying a text. Illustrations can be produced using various graphic techniques (Technology) and reproduced using different printing methods (Printing methods). They take on special signifi cance in scientific text books (Science).
Imprimatur
Censorship in the GDR Officially, no book in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) could be published without the state’s prior consent, which practically amounted to a form of pre-censorship. This control of the media was, however, euphemistically called “Appraisal” and “Approval” rather than “Censorship”.
Industria
Decorative geometry for titlesThe British graphic designer and type designer Neville Brody was the art director of the British magazine The Face from 1983 to 1987. His Industria typeface was created at that time and was used for headings in the magazine from 1984.
Initials
Beautiful first lettersOrnamental letters that introduce a book, mark off chapters or take up an entire page as a form of jewellery are something of a rarity in today’s world of books.
Johnston’s Railway Type
A font for London’s local transport systemThe Underground Group, operators of the London underground rail network, needed a typeface for informational signs that would not be mistaken for advertising. At the same time – thus the conception of the responsible manager Frank Pick – the typeface should unify and strengthen the brand’s public image.
Journal
The A-Z of industrialisationJournal refers to the diary in which businessmen and -women (Trade, Factory) record all transactions as part of their bookkeeping, allocating items either to debit or credit. Entering income and expenditure opposite one another results in the profit and loss account (Capital).
Kleopatra
Labyrinthine display typefaceKleopatra is a typeface by the German graphic designer Erhard Kaiser that emerged from a 1985 ideas competition for new display typefaces. Kaiser submitted seven entries to the competition and took first place with his typographic homage to the famous ancient Egyptian queen.
Korean type printing
Pioneering technology of the lost formThe first experiments using movable type made of clay and later of wood began in China in the 11th century. The use of metal letters is known from 1234 onwards in Korea.
Languages of the world
The glorious variety of human communicationCapacity for language – the varied and nuanced output of sounds by the anatomically complex interplay of the throat, mouth, nostils, gums, lips and tongue – is one of the most significant unique characteristics of humans. Linguistic communication occurred relatively early in the development of civilisation. Anthropologists believe that languages have been around for roughly 100,000 years and that they came to exist in their current form at the latest 40,000 years ago as a result of an enormous leap in technological and cultural development.
Learning to read
Reading aidsThe origins of the first written characters can be found in images. Pictures, signs and symbols can help to communicate textual content to those with both developed reading skills and those with no acquired literacy, in some cases acting as a replacement medium for the learner. Long before they learn to read for meaning, children are capable of understanding situations, images and pictograms.
Learning to write
Basic education for writing culturesWriting is a cultural technique, not an ability we are born with. Nevertheless, the ability to learn is with us from the cradle, and so we work hard and with patience to acquire the skill of writing. Gaining a command of writing implements is a process in which we exercise our fine motor skills intensively and it is something that we need in many different contexts in the world we live in.
Lending libraries
Books for borrowingLending libraries were commercial enterprises that loaned out books for a fee. The rising demand for reading materials beginning in the 18th century led to the establishment of such institutions spreading popular literature in almost every German city.
Letters
From the closed envelope to emailLetters are often of a private nature and are traditionally hand-written by a sender to one or more recipients. Letters have a medium life term, longer than a scribbled note, more short-lived than a legal document, and are not time-consuming to write.
Letters of indulgence
Early printed materials and objects of dispute during the ReformationThe issue of letters of indulgence was a very common practice in the Catholic Church just before the Reformation. After confessing or doing other godly work, the faithful received a decree exempting them from punishment for their sins.
Librarians
Image between bookworm and modern data managerAs the protector and administrator of acquired knowledge, the librarian is among the oldest vocations known to humanity. Although in antiquity it was often slaves, and in the middle ages primarily monks, who tended the libraries, after the invention of the printing press the task increasingly became a bourgeois profession.
Libraries
Archives of human knowledgeLibraries have been projection surfaces for human desires and dreams since the beginning of written records.
Linotype Spacera
Technoscript for futuristic applicationsThe American type designer and illustrator Louis Lemoine developed the Spacera typeface in 2002 for Monotype GmbH, which went by the name Linotype until 2013. This typeface belongs to a collection of 182 experimental modern fonts suitable for futuristic uses.
Mailart Typeface
Every letter a little work of artMail art is letters, objects and documentation of art projects produced, sent through the postal service and archived by mail artists. British designer Keith Bates created a typeface based on this self-creative patchwork process consisting of letters, numbers, characters and symbols.
Major media events
Collective states of emergencyDue to the massive interest shown in them beyond specific target groups by a large part of the population, media mega-events stand out from the diffuse communication bombardment that we are subjected to on a daily basis. Recurrent spectacles such as the Olympic Games and the FIFA World Cup and European championships, as well as royal weddings, celebrity deaths and disasters have stood out as prototypical reference points of a gigantic public interest in the past.
Manipulation of the media in the Nazi era
Propaganda on all channelsImmediately after the nomination of Hitler as Reich Chancellor in January 1933, the Nazi regime began to systematically streamline the entire German media and culture industry under the leadership of propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels. After a flurry of early separate bans, the Reichskulturkammer was established in September 1933 to regulate access to all cultural activities.
Markings
Spraying, tatooing, drawingLike thousands of years ago, people also mark their living environment using symbols today. Stone-Age rock paintings and large city graffiti are both expressions of this impulse. A desire that human beings have had since time immemorial to make their mark on the world and leave traces of their life behind.
Mass society
An outdated notion?The concept of the era of mass media is rooted in the concept that there is a nameless mass to which one should appeal to through communicative means. Theoretical use of the term began in the 19th century.
Mechanised writing
From the hand to the machineThe writer of texts internalised every single character in its consummate form by practicing for such a long time that he could write it down freehand at the right place when needed. The first step towards mechanising writing was to establish the most perfect written form in stencils and other resources.
Media convergence
An increasingly multimedia worldIn the modern media age, the once rigid boundaries between traditional media channels are gradually being broken down against the onslaught of media convergence. Films, literature, radio and television broadcasts are no longer consumed in their traditional original media, but rather as parts of a tailor-made data package.
Monasteries as centres of book culture
Spirituality, science and art in the Late Middle AgesIn the European monasteries, which were centres of education in the Middle Ages, a great deal of reading and writing was done. Large monasteries maintained a school for Latin, a library and a scriptorium.
Moving Pictures
From photography to filmIn the 19th century, industrialisation brought about a large number of technological developments. In 1826, Frenchman Josep Nicéphore Niépce took the first photograph on his parents’ estate, the first surviving daguerreotype depicting people was taken twelve years later.
Museum
The A-Z of industrialisationA museum is an educational (Education) place dedicated to the arts, culture and the sciences (Science), in which collections of interesting objects are presented to the public. Since the 19th century, museums have been facilities that collect, store, carry out research and communicate.
Nature printing
Rise and fall of a printing techniqueNature printing is a simple printing process that nevertheless allows for very accurate illustrations of botanical and zoological objects. Leonardo da Vinci was one of the first to experiment with impressions of plant leaves.
Networking – the global brain
Global data access via digital cloudsPeople working together online form complex social entities, which have often been ascribed – perhaps too enthusiastically at times – to the advantages of digital swarm intelligence. One brilliant textbook example of jointly exerted effort is Wikipedia, the international encyclopaedia of knowledge, which is open to contributions from anyone and continues to grow by the year.
Networks
The A-Z of industrialisationNetworks consist of nodes that are connected to one another. Railway lines that run between two railway intersections make it possible to transport trading goods (Trade) or people (Travelling); telegraph lines allow news and information to be transmitted, and pipelines enable the transport of liquids and gases (Energy).
New printing processes for mass production
Reproductions for everyday useUntil the end of the 18th century, only two procedures were used in Europe for creating print products. Alongside relief printing as a traditional book printing technique based on raised letters, intaglio developed from the artistic precursors copper engraving, etching and photoengraving.
Newspapers
The A-Z of industrialisationNewspapers are printed products that appear periodically containing up-to-date information. Newspapers finance themselves by selling single issues, through subscriptions and through advertising. Newspapers depend on efficient printing methods and reasonably priced paper.
Newt Juice Fill
Graffiti font for pupils to colour inAmerican graphic designer Todd Dever designed this unconventional, playful typeface in 2003 for decorating skateboards. This was never actually done in practice, but the letters were interesting enough for an entire typeface, which he drew by hand with a pen.
Old memory techniques
Saving information before writingHumans were using tally sticks, knotted strings, message sticks, figure chains and many other such items as tools for communication in the early stages both prior to writing and in the early stages of its development. These artefacts (sometimes referred to as “object script”) served as mnemonic devices.
Optima
Liaison between Antiqua and sans-serifIn the post-War period, the German typographer Herman Zapf was commissioned by the D. Stempel type foundry to design a commercial typeface. The first sketches of the typeface were done in 1950 at the cemetery of the Santa Croce Franciscan church in Florence as Zapf examined the types on the gravestones.
Oral traditions of storytelling and cultural transmission
Singers, rhapsodists, troubadoursLong before writing entered common use, ideas of religious, historical, and everyday practical importance were passed on orally from generation to generation. The typical forms of this oral memory culture include myths, fairy tales, legends, riddles, proverbs, prayers and songs.
Originals and copies
On the value of authenticityReproducing a second version of a text that is preferably identical – a copy or duplicate – is an age-old desire in cultures that use the written word. In correspondence, sender and recipient want to access the same document, whether an attestation, contract or certificate.
Ornament
The A-Z of industrialisationOrnament is a form of decoration that is usually repetitive and it can be of a representational or abstract nature. Unlike other graphic or figurative images (Illustration), it is only of low informational value, and yet it lends products, especially those manufactured in mass production processes (Factory) and under the division of labour a distinctive nuance.
Palatino
An easily legible book type for offset printingBetween 1948 and 1950, the German type designer Hermann Zapf designed a typeface family called Palatino well-suited to the planographic printing method and low-quality paper used in the post-War years. It was first tested in a booklet commemorating the 200th anniversary of Goethe’s birth, and from 1955 was used in the renowned Gutenberg-Jahrbuch series.
Paper
The A-Z of industrialisationPaper is a material made of prepared plant fibres that acts as a substrate for writing and graphic images. Paper types with different properties are created by dyeing, adding fillers and size, pressing and smoothing.
Pixels
Joined up picture elementsImages can be made up of individual picture elements. The design of an image, ornament or type face is broken down into pixels (picture elements).
Places to read
Read wherever you can in Alaska, in Bed, while Camping, in the Doctor’s waiting room, while Eating, in your Flat, in the Garden, lying in a Hammock, on an Island, on the Job, in Kenya, on a Lilo, on your Mattress…And where do you read? Send us photos of you’re the most unusual among your favourite places to read to dbsm-info@dnb.de and we will publish it in our virtual exhibition.
Printing methods
The A-Z of industrialisationPrinting methods are a collective term for technical processes (Technology) used to duplicate publishing products (Publisher) such as books, journals (Journal) and newspapers (Newspaper) by reproducing texts (Script) and images (Illustration). New printing methods are subject to patent protection (Copyright) in the beginning and often require new types of print media (Paper).
Publishing house
Publishers are companies in the book trade that reproduce works of literature, art, music or science or articles in a journal or newspaper and sell these commercially (Trade). The publisher procures the rights of use to a work in the form of a contract, while the author or his/her heirs are the holders of the copyright.
Quadraat
An encounter with the tried and tested and the originalAlthough Quadraat is a digitally created typeface, it is based on manual drawings done by Dutch designer Fred Smeijers in his office in the early 1990s. He followed Antiqua archetypes, but ultimately created an original italic typeface in Quadraat Italic.
Radio as a mass phenomenon
Radio as a media beacon of hope or a propaganda instrument?The discovery of electromagnetic waves by the German physicist Heinrich Hertz in 1887/88 paved the way for wireless telegraphy and, ultimately, the development of radio. Following pilot broadcasts during the First World War, a Christmas concert was broadcast on 22 December 1920 from Königswusterhausen as the first German civilian broadcast.
Red Tape
A design typeface like sticky tapeGerman graphic artist Gert Wiescher created the Red Tape typeface in 2004. The idea came to him while travelling in the US.
Roman Index
Censorship in the name of the Catholic Church, 1559-1948What is the connection between Alexandre Dumas, Heinrich Heine and Martin Luther? All their works were banned by the Catholic Church and found their way into the Index librorum prohibitorum.
Sabon
A uniform typeface for all systemsAt the beginning of the 1960s, efforts were made to find a typeface that was suitable both for Linotype and Monotype typesetting machines and could also be used in manual typesetting. The objective was not a completely new typeface but a printing type that was fully interchangeable and combinable in all three typesetting systems.
Samisdat newspapers in the GDR
Sneaking past printing permissionThe word samizdat comes from Russian and means “self-publishing agency”. Wladimir Bukowski, a Russian dissident of the Soviet system, described the concept as follows. “You write yourself, you edit yourself, you censor yourself, publish yourself, distribute yourself and serve the (prison) sentence for everything you have done yourself”.
Science
The A-Z of industrialisationScience is the knowledge that humankind gains through systematic and methodical research and it is taught within an institutional framework in schools, colleges and universities.
Script
The A-Z of industrialisationScript is used to record, save and copy written information which can be passed on to and decoded by others. Having a command of writing is the basis for education, business (Businesses), trade and science
Spread of printing
Offizins (printing offices) at around 250 European locationsAfter printing technology had initially been kept secret by Johannes Gutenberg and Johannes Fust, this innovation began to spread in the German language territories from 1460 inwards. After Mainz, where Gutenberg was based, Bamberg, Strasbourg, Cologne and other sites in southern Germany and Italy followed suit.
Stiftung Buchkunst (Book Art Foundation)
Honouring Germany’s most beautiful booksThe German Book Art Foundation was established after the International Book Arts Exhibition in Leipzig in 1927.
Technology
The A-Z of industrialisationTechnology in business (Businesses) and art means handling a material using processes and methods of a scientific nature (Science). Technology forms the basis for organised mass production in factories (Factory).
Television as a leading medium
Trends and formats After technically immature beginnings under the Nazi dictatorship, television established itself as a mass medium in Germany in the 1960s. In 1952 there were already 15 million Americans watching television but only around 300 Germans, their number growing to 1 million in 1957.
Theatre play before the courts
Scandal surrounding Arthur Schnitzler’s ReigenViennese writer Arthur Schnitzler originally had the play Reigen printed in a private edition of 200 copies in 1900. His German publisher S. Fischer having decided that the play was too risky to have on its roster, the first public edition was issued by an Austrian publisher in 1903.
Times
Typeface widely used in newspapers and computersAt the end of the 1920s, the British typographer and historian of printing Stanley Morison was commissioned to revise the graphic design of the world-renowned London daily newspaper The Times. In the role of artistic adviser, Morison worked together with the commercial graphic artist Victor Lardent to create a new typeface named Times New Roman, which from 3 October 1932 – exclusively for one year – came to define the new appearance of the paper.
Tour of the Bibliographisches Institut in Leipzig
Groundbreaking production site of renowned German reference booksIn 1873/1874, modern new premises for the Bibliographisches Institut were built in Leipzig – a publishing house founded almost 50 years prior in Gotha by Joseph Meyer, which had in the intervening years published several reference classics such as Meyers Konversationslexikon. In 1890 the growing Leipzig operation was again expanded to include a print shop and bookbindery.
Trade
The A-Z of industrialisationTrade is exchanging goods for other goods or money. Goods are purchased, transported, stored and sold. The wholesale business sells to other traders, while the retail sector sells to end customers.
Travelling
The A-Z of industrialisationTravelling is when one or more people move from one place to another with a certain destination in mind. It can be done on foot or using methods of transport that operate at regular intervals as part of a public system (Networks) and according to a timetable (Chronometer), or using individually organised forms of transport.
Unger Fraktur
A Fraktur as an alternative to AntiquaDuring the enlightenment and the French Revolution, many European writers and publishers began to push for a clear, simple Fraktur. This impulse gave rise to the development of a “new kind of German letters” by the well-known printer and publisher Johann Friedrich Unger and his employee Johann Christian Gubitz.
Universal language – a utopia?
Dreams of the redundancy of translation The universal language was an idea that had already occurred to the German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in the 17th century – as a system of characters with which objects and their relations, laws, etc. can be communicated. Against the backdrop of the varied international interdependences of today, the search for an international language is on once again and is receiving new impulses through the use of universally understandable forms, pictograms and symbols.
Venezia
Typewriter script in italic graceVenezia is one of three designs that the commercial artist, illustrator and typographer Axel Bertram developed from 1976-1979 for the Erika travel typewriter from the Schreibmaschinenwerk Dresden. The typewriter typeface is based on the classical italic typefaces of the Italian Renaissance, in particular the fonts created by Francesco Griffo around 1500 for the Venetian publisher Aldus Manutius.
Wages
The A-Z of industrialisationWages are the compensation paid for a regularly performed work activity. In a production site (Factory) organised with the division of labour, those performing work activities are paid di_fferent wage amounts depending on their profession, the work performed, age and sex. A difference is made between a time wage, which depends on the number of hours worked, and piece or task wages, which depend on performance.
Weiß Rundgotisch
A return to Gothic formsThe emergence of Gothic art gave rise to the Gothic script and after about 1450 the rotunda or round Gothic typeface, both of which are blackletter typefaces. A defining characteristic of the typeface is the connection of the Gothic letter form with rounded, unbroken bowls on the lowercase letters.
When literature offends
The fight against supposedly trashy and dirty writings“The law is against us. They say Buffalo Bill but mean the truth.” With these words, Bertolt Brecht criticised the Law to Protect Youth from Trashy and Dirty Writings, which was passed in 1926.
Wiring up the world
The origins of the intercontinental communication networkThe largest ship of its day for an epic task: At 211m in length and with six masts, the Great Eastern was an iron sailing steam ship with a combination of paddle wheel, helical wheel and sail propulsion. It was launched in 1857 and carried 4,000 passengers.
Word and hand
Writing: a complex processRecording text or images has mostly been a manual process. Whether embossing, scribing, applying colour directly or using stencils - the human hand is indispensable as a gripping tool.
Writing beyond script
The poetry of the punch cardIn the age of technical media, which require more than just paper and a pencil, many recording procedures have nothing to do with traditional methods. Procedures for recording sound, data and images, for example, have given rise to a number of different information carriers.
Writing systems of the world
Communicating and rememberingCompared with language, writing developed much later, initially as an independent character system that served the purposes of communication and especially of recording: early aids such as tally-sticks, knots and string and non-verbal gestures led to the development of representational characters in which the intended meaning was first depicted in actual pictures and then with abstract symbols.
Written Chinese
Characters in abundanceWith its bewildering variety and characteristic graphic features, the Chinese script has been in constant use for almost 4,000 years. Oracle inscriptions on tortoise shells and bones are the oldest known surviving examples of the script.
x/y
The A-Z of industrialisationThe coordinate system of independent and dependent variables became a significant indicator of the industrial age. Time is often depicted on the x-axis and, dependent on this, the course of revenue and profit as well as exchange rates (Capital), changes in the size of the workforce (Factory) and transport services (Networks) are depicted on the y-axis.
Xerox
Modern Antiqua in a flattering formThe Xerox typeface was created in 2007 as part of the corporate design of the eponymous printer manufacturer. It is based on the predecessor font FS Albert by the British graphic designer Jason Smith and has a soft, friendly form.
Ysobel
Text font and award-winning typeface in oneThe Ysobel typeface released in 2009 was designed by American designer Robin Nicholas. The design was inspired by the soft and rounded Century Schoolbook typeface created in New York at the beginning of the 20th century.
Zeppelin
Lively play with geometric formsIn the late 1920s, typographer and calligrapher Rudolf Koch surprisingly developed a sans-serif made of geometric shapes for the Klingspor Type Foundry in Offenbach. As a master of blackletter typefaces, he had previously strictly refused to design sans-serifs.
