The Modern Alphabet

The modern alphabet, otherwise known as the Latin alphabet, consists of fifty-two upper and lowercase letters,

 Uppercase

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Lowercase

a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z

ten numerals, a variety of other symbols such as &, %, and @, punctuation marks, and accent marks for different languages. The uppercase letters were developed first and then came the lowercase which formed out of the uppercase from cursive versions. Not all alphabets are the same. A lot of European alphabets are Latin based but some have more letters than others. For example Spanish has four more letters than English, while Italian has five less. 

Accents and stresses:

Theses are some examples of how languages uses accent marks and stress with the latin characters that provide a visual guidance to the pronunciation of letters and words by indicating how the letter sound should be modified, where the stress should fall in a word, pitch or intonation of a word or syllable, emphasis in a sentence, vowel length, and distinguishing homophones.

Some of the languages written with the Latin alphabet

Abenaki, Afaa,Oromo, Afar, Afrikaans, Akan, Albanian, Aleut, Alsatian, Apache,Aranese, Arapaho,

 Aromanian, Arrernte, Asturian, Aymara, Azeri, Bambara, Basque,Belarusian, Bemba, Bikol, Bislama,

 Breton, Burushaski, Catalan, Cayuga, Cebuano,Chamorro, Chechen, Cheyenne, Cimbrian, Chichewa,

 Chickasaw, Choctaw, Comanche,Cornish, Corsican, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Delaware, Dholuo,

 Dinka, Drehu, Duala,Dutch, English, Esperanto, Estonian, Ewe, Ewondo, Faroese, Fijian, Filipino, 

Finnish,Folkspraak, French, Frisian, Ga, Gagauz, Galician, Ganda, Genoese, German,Gooniyandi, 

Greenlandic, Guarani, Gugadja/Kukatja, Gwich’in, Haida, Haitian Creole,Hän, Hausa, Hawaiian, Herero, Hiligaynon, Hixkaryana, Hopi, Hotcąk, Hungarian,Icelandic, 

Ido, Igbo, Ilocano, Kapampangan, Indonesian, Interglossa, Interlingua, Irish,Kaingang, Kala Lagaw Ya, Italian, Jèrriais, Kabyle, Kapampangan, Karakalpak, Karelian,Kashubian, Kinyarwanda, Kiribati,

 Kirundi, Klallam, Klamath, Kurdish, Kwakiutl, Lingala,Latin, Latvian, Lingua Franca Nova, Lithuanian, Livonian, Lojban, Lombard, Low Saxon,Luxembourgish, Maasai, Makhuwa, Malagasy, Malay, Maltese, Manx, Māori, Marshallese,Meriam Mir, Mi'kmaq, Mirandese, Mohawk, Montagnais, Murrinh-Patha, Nahuatl, Nama,Naskapi, Navajo, Naxi, Ngiyambaa, Noongar, Norwegian, Novial, Occidental, 

Occitan,O'odham, Old Norse, Ossetian, Papiamento, Piedmontese, Pirahã, Pitjantjatjara, Polish,Portuguese, Potawatomi,

 Quechua, Rarotongan, Rotokas, Romanian, Romansh, Romany,Rotuman, Saami/Sami, Saanich, 

Samoan, Sango, Sardinian, Scots, Scottish Gaelic,Serbian, Shavante, Shawnee, Shona, Sicilian, Sioux, Slovak, Slovene, Slovio, Somali,Sorbian,

 Southern Sotho, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tagalog, Tahitian, Tatar,Taiwanese, Tlingit, Tok Pisin, Tongan, Turkish, Turkmen, Tuvaluan, Tuvan, Twi, Uyghur,Venetian, Vietnamese, Volapük, 

Võro, Walloon, Warlpiri, Waray-Waray, Welsh, Wik-Mungkan, Wiradjuri, Wolof, Xhosa, Yapese, Yindjibarndi, Yolngu, Yoruba, Zhuang, Zulu

Did the uppercase letters develop from the lowercase, or  did the lowercase develop from the uppercase?

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/latin.htm#modern

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_alphabet

Definitions

Absolute Measurement: Are measurements of fixed values.

Relative Measurement: A series that defines relationships in character spacing, that are linked to type size.

Points: The measurement for specifying typographical dimensions.

Picas: A measurement for specifying line lenghts.

x-height: The height of the lowercase 'x' of a given typeface.

The em: Unit of measurement derived from the width of the square body of the cast upper case.

The en:  Unit of measurement equal to half of one em.

Dashes (hyphen, en em): Short horizontal rule that serve various specific functions such as em rules, en rules and hyphens.

Alignments: Refers to the position of type within a text block, in both the vertical and horizontal planes.

Justification- Allows the appearance of rivers of white space to appear.

Flush Left- This alignment follows the principle of handwriting, with text tight and aligned to the left margin and ending ragged on the right.

Flush Right- Less common as it is more difficult to read. It is sometimes used for pictures captions and other accompanying tests as it is clearly distinct from body copy.

Letterspacing: The space between letters that can be increased.

Kerning: The removal of unwanted space between letters.

Tracking: The adjustable amount of space between letters.

Word Spacing: Adjusts the amount of space between words.

Widow: A lone word at the end of a paragraph.

Orphan: Is the final one or two lines of a paragraph separated form the main paragraph to form a new column, and should be avoided at all costs.

Leading: The space between lines of type measured from baseline to baseline.  It is expressed in points.

Indent: Some or all of the text lines are moved in from the margin by a specified amount.

First Line Indent: The text is indented from the left margin in the first line of the second and subsequent paragraphs.

Hanging Indent: The first line of the text is not indented, but the rest is.

Who is Adrian Frutiger? What makes Univers "unique"? What is the Univers grid?

Adrian Frutiger is one of the most well known typeface designers of the twentieth century, and is now helping to influence the direction of digital typography into the twenty-first century. Adrian is best known for creating the typefaces Frutiger (named after himself) and Univers.  As a boy in Switzerland growing up, he experimented with inventing scripts and stylized hand writting as a reaction to his dislike of the formal, cursive penmanship required in the Swiss school he attended.  By the age of 16 he was working as a printer's apprentice near his hometown. 

He loved sculpture and that is his true passion behind his type forms, but he was discouraged to sculpt as a profession by his father as well as by his secondary school teachers.

He attended Kuristgeruerbescne (school of applied arts) in Zurich, where he studied primarily calligraphy, a craft favoring the nib and the brush, instead of drafting tools.  Frutiger created the Univers typeface in 1956.  What makes the Univers grid so "unique" is that different weights and variations within the type family are designated by the use of numbers rather then names, but in the Univers family, the typeface names include both number and letter suffixes.

http://typophile.com/node/12118

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Frutiger

Who is John Baskerville? What makes Baskerville "unique"?

John was a printer in Birmingham, England, as well as a typographer.  He was also a writing master and stonecutter, but he was not known as well for this.  He first worked as a writing master and headstone engraver in Birmingham, than went to japanning (coating with black varnish) trays and snuff-boxes.  He then set up a printing business in 1750, and hired John Handy as punch cutter.  

In the few years after he produced a book, during which he found out how to make printing ink blacker, more even, and quicker-drying, paper making where he wove instead of laid, and invented many letter designs.

He was an atheist yet he printed a great folio Bible in 1763.  His work in England was not as admired as it was in the United States.  It was said his printing damaged the eyes.  His fonts were brought to the United States of America by Benjamin Franklin, who was a member with him in the Royal Society of Arts, where they were for many of the federal government publishing.

What makes Baskerville "unique" is that his work mostly went unnoticed or disappeared until it was revived in the 1920s and is still used in variations of printings today.

http://en/wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Baskerville

http://www.myfonts.com/person/baskerville/john/

Why do we (designers) use grids?

We (designers) use a grid for many reasons.  We use it for organizing multiple things onto a page, while still being able to use creative, and in the end product it will be appealing to the viewer.  The benefits and functions are the keep it appealing to the eye and keep it not sloppy or overdone, while keeping balance.  There are plenty of grid a designer can use for any sort of project, but no matter which one it will be a tool to make the ending piece appealing.

 

http://www.designbygrid.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_(page_layout)

Paul Rand