The personal computer changed typography in the 1980s and we continue to adjust even today. Emblematic of this change, I think, were several experimenters who, rather than replicate the old, sought to embrace the digital much like designers in the Bauhaus era embraced new materials and mechanical techniques.
Foremost in my mind is Zuzana Licko at Emigre who challenged conventions and upset the basic "morality" of type design.
Erik van Blokland and Just van Rossum at Letterror, brought coding to typography creating faces like the randomly-influenced Beowolf.
Zenith of this experimental period was the early to mid-1990s with type distributors like Fuse (produced by Neville Brody) and T26 (run by Carlos Segura) entering the scene.
These efforts continue. The designers at House Industries have introduced a customizable face Ed Interlock which reconfigures itself depending on the relationships of the letters within the word. Here is a discussion by the programmer involved.
Here is an interesting article from AIGA Voice which catalogs many other examples of technology impacting typography.
Blast from the Past — Hypercard. After MacPaint, and the revolution in desktop publishing, came design for "new media" or "interactive multimedia" or something along those lines. Hypermedia offered non-linear linking, integrated graphics and audio, and a simple scripting language. Of course, there was no WWW yet so these "stacks" lived locally on your hard drive.
Similar to the ideas proposed decades earlier by Vannevar Bush in his classic essay, "As We May Think".
Bill Atkinson, one of the core Apple staff, was behind Hypercard's development. In 1987 he wrote "The art of creating software that is usable by individuals is a communication skill. It is not a programming skill".
Here is a recent blog post about Hypercard.
Link: Hypercard/Wikipedia
I had my eye on the Apple Lisa selling for about $10,000 and then along came the Macintosh in 1984. I remember the superbowl adverstisement.
Here is the inspiring Stanford commencement speech (15 mins) where Jobs talks about typography, business innovation, and life. And here is Steve in the 1990s being a bit nasty about his competition, Microsoft. Ouch. In the clip he points out a truth about technology: that *culture* must be part of it. You can also read some more of his views at the Smithsonian website.
I guess today its all about the second-generation of Apple. Jonathan Ive and the iPod and such. Read more about the early days at Apple.
Link: Apple Inc.
Fun and Inventive. Take a look at animator Adam Pesapane, aka PES. Of particular note is the stop-motion titled Kaboom! Even more interesting is the artist's description of how it was made.
Link: Films of PES
I've heard it described as a collection of art, design and media in service of ideologies. Brilliant! If you happen to be sunning on South Beach, you are only steps away from the Wolfsonian Museum. The collections roughly cover 1850-1950 European decorative art objects and media.
Link: Wolfsonian Museum
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