THE EFFECT OF GLOBALISATION
ON TYPOGRAPHIC PRACTICE
Katy Mawhood
Word count 10,216 (excl. footnotes)
Type-set and formatted by the author. Images sourced, scanned
or adapted by the author from referenced sources.
Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master
of Arts in Typeface Design, University of Reading, 2014
ABSTRACT
Mawhood. K., ‘The effect of globalisation typographic practice’ (unpublished MA
Typeface Design, University of Reading, 2014)
Globalisation represents the compression of the world and the intensification
of worldwide relationships. Its influence is significant to economic, political,
cultural and social facets of global culture. Globalisation is largely mediated
through media and communication channels, including the written word.
Literate cultures profuse globally: visually manifested as different writing
systems, signs and scripts that embody idiomatic conventions and features.
Typography, as the written organisation of writing, is inseparate from these
literate cultures. As global society emerges, texts are deployed with greater
quantity, immediacy and frequency across national barriers. The typographic
practice of non-native users, by accident or design, can be insensitive to the
needs and desires of their audience. This discussion analyses the development
and interaction of groups, identities, preferences, perspectives, conventions
and beliefs. It considers the motives of differing typographic practices, their
reception and interpretation. It synthesises the theories and studies of different
disciplines within a linear argument to assess more thoroughly the true extent
and effect of globalisation on typographic practice.
WORKING PROCESS
In his provocative assessment of the six critical drivers of global change,
The Future, Al Gore comments that:
By dividing and endlessly subdividing the objects of our research and analysis,
we separate interconnected phenomena and processes to develop specialised
expertise. But, the focusing of attention on ever narrower slices of the whole
often comes at the expense of attention to the whole, which can cause us to miss
the significance of emergent phenomena that spring unpredictably from the
interconnections and iterations among multiple processes and networks.1
Undertaking an overview on the discussion of globalisation in a typographic
context created many obstacles. The greatest was the diversity of material and
the number of disciplines that it traversed. The author has done her best to
cover some of the important issues at hand, but acknowledges that there are
always further questions to be answered. Analysing and selecting which topics
to discuss is a complex process in itself: within the following text there is a
small selection of the many discussions that relate to the subject at hand. The
investigation required concise language to cover as many aspects as possible
within a limited word count: some arguments are implicit. The text attempts
to refrain from unnecessarily complex, or subject specific, language. It tries
wherever possible to take a bottom-to-top approach: describing the meaning
of specific words as they arise. Great efforts have been taken to communicate
simply – using everyday words – to facilitate access to the reader. Images are
sized according to the document and may vary from original sources.
1 Gore, The Future, p.ii
CONTENTS
1.0 INTRODUCTION
1.1
1.2
1.3
1.4
1.5
Literate culture 1
The object of literacy 2
Writing systems and scripts 3
Movable type 4
Digital encoding 5
2.0 TYPOGRAPHIC PRACTICE
2.1
2.2
2.3
2.4
Definition 8
Rhetoric of typography 9
Author-text-reader 11
Strategies for effective practice 12
3.0 COMMUNICATION HISTORY AND THEORY
3.1
3.2
3.3
3.4
3.5
3.6 Linguistic concepts 14
Spatial relations 15
The subtlety of sameness 16
The invention of writing 17
Linguistic and supra-linguistic 19
Phonological abstraction 20
4.0 GLOBALISATION
4.1
4.2
4.3
4.4 4.5
4.6 4.7
International integration 22
English hegemony 23
National identity and cultural pride 25
Appropriation 26
Semiosphere 27
Hierarchy 28
Classification and shape 28
5.0 CONCLUSION 30
References 32
1.0 INTRODUCTION
1.1 LITERATE CULTURE
Typography and literacy lead an interrelated co-existence. Literate culture
necessarily involves and develops the systems and processes of typographic
practice to support its function. Typographic practice enables access to and
dissemination of literate culture worldwide. The increasing pervasion of mass
literacy is rendering reading as a ‘core human competency’.1 Coulmas states
that ‘writing establishes the great divide between those who have and those
who do not have access to knowledge in objectified form’.2 Access is facilitated
by transparency and visibility; as ostensibly ‘natural’ signs are ‘naturally’
interpreted ‘without any need to be conscious of them’.3 Yet notably, writing
is an artificial invention. Writing is rendered accessible by typography.4 Its
structural organisation concealed by habitual use: it is taken for granted.5 But
when typography proves inadequate to its purpose and audience: it can puzzle,
frustrate and repel. Typography has the power to support or disrupt literate
culture. And, its practice is human.
Discourse is social. It is not confined to one community, one country
or one culture; but is tackled by people of many nationalities. Its function,
tasks and dimensions are universal and do not vary from country to country.
But, its practice is strongly influenced by cultural traits, traditions, history –
and sometimes defined by them. Within a society there can, and frequently
does, exist more than one literate culture.6 Several societies may belong to
one general literate culture that is large and amorphous. Some systems and
individual signs, that overlap and sometimes combine with other systems, seem
to pervade all literate cultures. Highly specialised and technical communities
have specialised sign systems that act as direct conduits of information,
exemplified by mathematical, scientific and musical notation. Different genres
– as leaflets, academic papers, magazines, or manuals – are similarly influenced
1
Berry et al., Now Read This, p.3
2Coulmas, Writing Systems of the World, pp. 5–6
3Norman, The Design of Everyday Things, p.4
4
Walker writes that typography ‘is being used increasingly to refer to the visual organisation
of written language however it is produced… “Typography” in this context is concerned with
how letterforms are used: with how they are organised visually regardless of how the letters are
produced.’ Walker, Typography and Language in Everyday Life, p.2
5
For example, Lee suggests that ‘we take it for granted that a composition of Beethoven interpreted
by Toscanini will give us a richer experience that the same work performed by a conductor of no
creative ability; yet we are expect to believe that a literary work of art is best served by an innocuous
mechanically adequate printing job. The outstanding characteristic of all modern design is the
independent, creative approach to the individual problem, as opposed to the application of
formulas and conventions.’ Lee, M., ‘What Is Modern Book Design?’, p. 20. Another entry argues
that ‘no technology is more ubiquitous than the printed word; we often take reading for granted.’
Schilit et al., ‘As We May Read’, p.65
6Danesi, Messages, Signs, and Meanings, p.35
the effect of globalisation on typographic practice1
by both technically specialised and cultural standards. Typography serves a
social function, embedded in a tradition of values, customs and beliefs.
1.2 THE OBJECT OF LITERACY
Artificial signs and their spatial-physical relations are mutually important.
The defined boundaries that group or divide clusters of signs play a role of
equal importance to their shape and form. Without spatial-physical relations,
isolated signs and sign clusters behave as disparate meaningless units. Orality
resides as a perceptual movement: it behaves as a series of events spread over
time; literacy assumes the quality of an object: stable and tangible. This object
may assume the form of a clay tablet, flyer, book, newspaper, academic journal,
website, powerpoint presentation or led screen. The object is a user interface
to its content.7 Its audience, as individuals or groups, interact with the object to
extract this content. The content stores information independent of its author
and transmits it to a reader across spatial-temporal dimensions. Place-holding,
annotation and indexing are further examples of user interactions with the
objects of literate culture.8
Objects use modes that include, but are not limited to, textual-graphicspatial. This discussion focusses on the textual-spatial with limited discussion
of graphic and other multi-modal elements such as video, sound and hyperlinks. Textual elements gain meaning through their semantic divisions and
graphic contrasts. Twyman makes a useful distinction between extrinsic and
intrinsic features. Intrinsic refers to the internal features that reside within
each sign of a system: such as its weight as regular, bold or italic; its size and
style. Extrinsic refers to the external configuration of these signs: such as their
colour or the space between them. Two levels of spacing are distinguished.
Micro-spacing describes the spatial relationships between small groups of
signs, combined as ‘words’ or ‘sentences’. Macro-spacing describes the spatial
relationships between larger groups, combined as paragraphs, chapters,
captions or footnotes.9 Consider the content of an object: it is rarely limited to
a single line of linear continuous text.10 Line-breaks and semantic divisions are
profuse throughout literate culture.
The concept of ‘visual language’ is widely disparate from verbal and
sign language. Language – as a vehicle of communication11 – subsumes all
channels. Yet, literate culture only represents a fragment of oral culture and
7
For example, ‘a book can be considered a user interface to its content… a technical research paper
can be seen as a user interface, that to succeed must take account of its intended user community…
almost anything can be seen as a user interface; doing so will highlight certain issues of design
and representation that might otherwise remain obscure,’ Goguen, ‘An Introduction to Algebraic
Semiotics’, p.243
8
Pearson et al., Designing for Digital Reading, pp. 47–91
9
Twyman, M., ‘The Graphic Presentation of Language’, p. 11
10 The concept is completely unfamiliar, Nash states ‘to have an unbroken text in prospect is to have a
perplexing burden on the mind’. Nash (1980) cited in Hannigan, ‘Is This a Paragraph?’, p. 11
11
Twyman, ‘A Schema for the Study of Graphic Language’, p. 118
the effect of globalisation on typographic practice2
Language
Aural
Visual
Graphic
Verbal
Non-graphic
Pictorial
Hand-made
Schematic
oral communication practices. Oral culture has similarly little representational
power for literate culture. Bringhurst articulates that ‘typography is the craft
of endowing human language with a durable visual form, and thus with an
independent existence’.12 Ultimately, ‘writing cannot substitute for speech, nor
speech for writing, without serious disservice being done’.13 Visual language
refers to a wide class of phenomena including images, maps, graphs, circuit
diagrams, timetables, comics, musical notation and hand-writing. In Twyman’s
classification, visual language > verbal graphic language.14 [fig 1] Verbal
graphic language supports the transmit of spoken language, but is not wholly
defined by it. Non-linguistic elements and relationships are prominent within
the majority of texts.
Machine-made
1.3 WRITING SYSTEMS AND SCRIPTS
Adapted from Twyman’s diagram. It is
an attempt to combine the approaches to
language of both linguistic scientists and
graphic designers. The words ‘Language’,
‘Graphic’ and ‘Verbal’ explain the derivatives
‘Visual Language’ and ‘Verbal Graphic
Language’. See Twyman, ‘The Graphic
Presentation of Language’, p. 7
FIG 1 Textual-spatial modes are guided by a writing system that uses a specific
script. A writing system is a set of rules for using one or more scripts to write
a particular language.15 For example, the Japanese writing system uses the
scripts: Kanji, Hiragana and Katakana; whereas the English writing system uses
only Latin script. A script is the collection of written signs used to represent
textual information in one or more writing systems.16 For example, the Latin
script supports the writing systems of most western languages and some others:
including Afrikaans, Basque, Breton, Catalan, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish,
French, Gaelic, German, Icelandic, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Norwegian,
Portugese, Sami, Spanish, Swahili and Swedish.17 Many modern scripts of the
world share a common ancestry. And, the form and spatial-physical relations of
genetically related scripts reflect their familial connections. But, the rules that
apply to writing systems of unrelated scripts can vary dramatically.18 Variation
to any system can hamper communication and even prevent intelligibility.
It is important to highlight that the ancestry of scripts and writing systems
do not always match, or can be distant from, the ancestry of oral languages.
Their complex interaction overlaps, weaves, integrates, divorces and divides.
The Dravidian languages – including Tamil, Telegu and Malayam – are closely
genetically related; but can be written using scripts that are distantly related to
one another. For example, spoken Tamil is supported by both the Arabic-based
Arwi script and Brahmi-descended Tamil script. Arabic-based scripts support
some languages that are not genetically related. For example, the Arabic-based
12Bringhurst, The Elements of Typographic Style, p. 11
13Crystal, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language, p. 180
14 Twyman, ‘The Graphic Presentation of Language’, p.7
15 ‘Writing system’, Glossary of Unicode Terms
16‘Script’, Glossary of Unicode Terms
17 ‘Character Sets’, Adobe
18 Moreover, as Herrick identifies ‘Linguists, typographers, and others who work with written
language do not presently have any adequate system of classification for describing similarities
and differences among the alphbaets and scripts which are used to write languages’. Herrick, ‘A
Taxonomy of Alphabets and Scripts’, p. 5
the effect of globalisation on typographic practice3
creole19 languages – Babalia, Juba and Nubi – are not genetically related to
the Afro-Asiatic descended Arabic language or the Indo-European descended
Sorani, Urdu and Pashto languages. Akkadians adapted the Sumerian
cuneiform script to their language, but kept words of Sumerian as fossilised
logograms. Similarly, the Hittites adapted the Akkadian script – descended
from Sumerian script – to their language, keeping both sumerograms and
akkadograms. Bringhurst articulates that ‘when exported from one language
to another, a writing system almost always undergoes some change.’20 Sociopolitical events often determine script utility within each literate culture. For
example, the Novi Sad Agreement of 1954 – with intentions to build linguistic
unity within Yugoslavia – insisted on an equal status for Cyrillic and Latin
script to support a single language: Serbo-Croatian.21 The result was a literate
culture interchangeably proficient in both variants. Pronunciation from
reading either script was identical.22
1.4 MOVABLE TYPE
The mechanisation of writing was achieved in two ways. The first is described
as an analog mechanism, where an immutable image is exactly repeatably
reproduced.23 This image can include or be writing. The earliest examples
originate in China around the 7th century AD.24 Typically, an image would be
engraved onto an object, such as a wooden block, inked and printed. Movable
type represents the second mechanisation of writing. Its invention is generally
credited to Gutenberg’s printing press of the mid-15th century; although the
mechanisms and processes for movable blocks had also emerged in 11th century
China and circa 14–15th century Korea. Movable type uses a system of discrete
physical parts that are assembled or ‘type-set’ together. The meaning can be
modified mechanically: mistakes can be corrected and changes made. When
the text is finalised it becomes fixed as an analog device or object, such as an
ebook, a type matrix or a printed sheet.
The adoption of printing is pivotal to each literate culture. Printing confers
an ability to capture, replicate and distribute information en masse. In the
19 The Oxford English Dictionary defines creole ‘a language that has developed from the mixing of
two or more parent languages and has come to be the first language of a community, typically
arising as the result of contact between the language of a dominant group (historically often a
European colonizer) and that (or those) of a subordinate group (often the colonized people, or a
slave population).’ ‘Creole, n. and adj.’, definition 2, OED Online
20 Bringhurst, ‘Voices, Languages and Scripts Around the World’, p. 11
21 Feldman et al., ‘Serbo-Croatian: a Biscriptal Language’, pp. 769–72
22 This situation is described as digraphia. Dale considers it as ‘the use of two (or more) writing
systems for representing a single language’, and DeFrancis as ‘the use of two or more different
systems of writing the same language’. Dale (1980) and DeFrancis (1984) cited in Chiung, ‘Digraphia
with and Without Biliteracy’, p.1. The situation is further discussed in Magner, ‘Digraphia in the
Territories of the Croats and Serbs’, pp. 11–26
23 The invention and evolution of the ‘exactly repeatable pictorial statement’ is discussed
in Ivins, Prints and Visual Communication
24Crystal, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language, p. 194
the effect of globalisation on typographic practice4
mid-15th century, German type-cutters imitated the manuscript book-hand
in order to gain acceptance and customers.25 Despite the inferiority of typeforms to deft scribe writing – as distorted impressions were constrained by
early technological limitation – the printing press was a success.26 In the late
15th century, Francesco Griffo is credited to have reinvented Latin forms to
exploit the advantages of print technology. The characteristics of his forms still
embody many modern typefaces.27 The first specimens sheets for non-Latin
scripts, called exotic types, were produced by papal printers in the early 16th
century. 28 Sephardi printers introduced Hebrew type to the Islamic world circa
1490.29 But, some literate cultures with strong calligraphic traditions – such
as Arabic – resisted the transition to movable type for several centuries.30 In
these cultures, scribes considered their calligraphy an artistic expression of
cultural and spiritual value. The functional limitations of printing technology
not only threatened script appearance but also their industry and scholarly
establishment.31 Their eventual appearance as type was a compromise between
art and technology. Daniels claims that by the early 19th century movable type
was available for the majority of scripts.32
1.5 DIGITAL ENCODING
Digital encoding is necessary for digital type-setting. Digital signals are
expressed as a binary series of the digits 0 and 1, typically represented by
values of a physical quantity such as voltage. The signal is either off [0] or on
[1]. Binary representation is exemplified by Braille: a tactile writing system for
the blind and visually impaired. Braille is constructed from a rectangular ‘cell’
of six raised dots, three-by-two. The presence or absence of each dot within a
6-dot cell enables 26 (64) unique combinations. The principle is analogous33
to the digital plain-text encoding of ASCII (American Standard Code for
Information Interchange), where 7-bits enable 27 (128) unique combinations. In
both instances, each unique pattern – or code point – is assigned to a specific
character. A character describes the discrete unit, that resides as a machine
encoding or unprinted metal-type, that is assigned to a specific alphabetic
25 Baines and Haslam, Type and Typography, p. 48
26 Although, Febvre importantly notes that ‘Gutenberg’s contemporaries may have accepted printing
as no more than a device for reproducing mechanically the texts most in demand” in Febvre and
Martin, The Coming of the Book, p. 248
27 Bigelow and Seybold, ‘Technology and the Aesthetics of Type’, pp. 4–5
28 Daniels, ‘Analog and Digital Writing’, p. 885
29 Simon (2011) cited in Conidi, ‘Early Arabic Types in Europe and the Middle East’, p. 3
30 Daniels, op. cit., p.885
31 Roper (1982) cited in Conidi, op. cit., p. 6. Also see Scheuren, ‘Khmer Printing Types’, pp. 13–15
32 Daniels, op. cit., p.885
33 There is no direct lineage between Braille and ASCII. Braille is a writing system and its binary
representation is spatial; ASCII is a digital character encoding and its binary representation is serial.
Serial means the elapse of one symbol at a time in an agreed sequence. ASCII’s history is rooted in
the development of serial communication that is linked more closely to Morse, Baudot and ITA 2.
the effect of globalisation on typographic practice5
‘letter’, numerical digit and punctuation symbol. ASCII also assigns code-points
to control characters, such as a carriage-return. ASCII was originally based
on the American English alphabet. Variations were developed by differing
standards bodies and corporations to accommodate the characters used by
other writing systems. But, many of these adaptations were incompatible with
one another.
In 1987, the ISO 8859 encoding standard introduced a series of 8-bit byte
encodings that enabled 28 (256) unique combinations. Its sixteen mapping
variations extended the script coverage of ASCII to support more Latinbased systems and for non-Latin scripts such as Greek, Cyrillic, Hebrew,
Arabic and Thai. But, many of the world’s writing systems require more than
256 characters. Unicode 1.0, published 1991, was produced as an industry
standard for consistent encoding for 216 (65,536) code points. It was developed
to overcome problems encountered in multi-lingual computer programs,
including conflicting character code points and overloading of the font
mechanism. Its release was an important technological development for
globalisation: digital type-setting was now possible for the majority of scripts
and systems under a single unified standard. The digital type-setting of
polylingual resources no longer hampered by conflicting, inconsistent and
incompatible encoding variations. Unicode 7.0 – published June 2014 – caters
for over 120 scripts and has over a million code points available.
Unicode does not directly address the challenges of typographic
sophistication across scripts.34 But by providing ‘robust and unambiguous
plain text encoding it provides a firm foundation for even the most complex
typography’.35 It is implemented by a plain-text encoding, such as UTF-8.36
UTF-8 was engineered so that legacy ASCII documents would be compliant
with it. ASCII is a subset of UTF-8. Plain-text does not cater to typographic
sophistication or the visual expectations of complex scripts, such as Arabic.
Their display as ‘rich’ formatted text is achieved via fonts and text layout
engines. Hudson explains that ‘text layout engines are character-handling and
display software, which may be resident at the operating system level or within
individual applications’37, such as web browsers and word processing software.
The assignment of responsibilities to engines and fonts – to handle typographic
sophistication and the complex relationships of some non-Latin scripts –
depend ‘on the writing system used as well as the philosophy of the particular
text-display architecture.’38 Today, the digital display of many non-Latin scripts
34 The Unicode bidirectional algorithm does provide plain-text level information to render
bidirectional layouts correctly: such as when combining right-to-left writing systems – including
Arabic, Hebrew and Syriac – with right-to-left words or numbers.
35 Hudson, ‘Unicode, from Text to Type’, p. 31
36 ISO-8859-1, Windows-1252, and the original 7-bit ASCII were the most common character encodings
until 2008 when UTF-8 became more common. See David, ‘Moving to Unicode 5.1’
37 Hudson, ‘Global Text and Type’, p. 20
38 Ibid., p.20
the effect of globalisation on typographic practice6
remains inadequate. But, Fiona Ross argues that ‘the potential for non-Latin
typography to gain comparable quality and status to that of Latin is achievable
in the 21st century’.39
39 Ross, ‘An Approach to non-Latin Type Designs’, p. 74
the effect of globalisation on typographic practice7
2.0 TYPOGRAPHIC PRACTICE
2.1 DEFINITION
There are many definitions40 of ‘typography’, a few examples include:
• The art or practice of printing.41
• The action or process of printing; esp. the setting and arrangement of types
and printing from them; typographical execution; hence, the arrangement and
appearance of printed matter.42
• The art, craft, or process of composing type and printing from it.43
• The style, arrangement, or appearance of printed matter.44
• The art and process of designing typeset material, including the choice of fonts
(see also typeface personality), legibility, leading, kerning, layout, and the use of
white space.45
• Arrangement and specification of type in preparation for printing. Traditionally
associated with printing from metal type… now equally applied to typesetting
produced by any type composition system.46
The emphasis of these definitions lies distinctly on printed form. But,
typography – from the Greek roots τύπος (typos): ‘impression’ and -γραφία
(-graphia): ‘writing’ – accords no preference to any specific production
process. Its value lies in its impression: the visual manifestation of marks
on a substrate. It can be represented as print, hand-writing, led, Fascimile,
Teletex; on the screen of a word processor or the code that awaits compilation
as a computer program. Paper is not the panacea. There is some ambiguity
between typography and lettering: a tactile craft that includes sign-painting
and calligraphy. Baines and Haslam differentiate between the two, articulating
that ‘typography means writing using repeatable units, [whereas] lettering
is unique’.47 Their definition of typography as ‘the mechanical notation and
arrangement of language’ implies a connection with machine automatisation.
Typography is traditionally associated with design that uses type and the
design and production of type. Type refers to an exactly repeatable contrastive
graphic unit: including alphabetic ‘letters’, numerical digits or punctuation
symbols. A complete typeface – such as Comic Sans or Calibri – is the name
that unifies an overall design of differing sizes, styles and weights: such as
bold, italic and regular weights. The term ‘font’ identifies a complete set of
40 Some of the following definitions are shortened versions.
41 ‘Typography, n.’, definition 1a, OED Online
42 ‘Typography, n.’, definition 2a, OED Online
43 ‘Typography, n.’, definition 1, Collins English Dictionary
44 ‘Typography, n.’, The Penguin English dictionary
45
Chandler and Munday, ‘Typography, n.’, definition 1, A Dictionary of Media and Communication
46 ‘Typography, n.’, definition a, The Thames & Hudson Dictionary of Graphic Design and Designers
47 Baines and Haslam, Type and Typography, p. 10
the effect of globalisation on typographic practice8
type that is often a sub-set of a larger typeface. Within the physical constraints
of metal type, one ‘font’ would refer to a set size and weight of a typeface:
such as 12pt Bold Times New Roman. Digital fonts accommodate
a range of sizes. Digital font formats – such as OpenType, aat, Graphite
and TrueType – can have a processing and shaping ‘intelligence’ critical to
typographic sophistication and the accurate display of some complex scripts.48
But, ‘typography’ is increasingly used to refer to the ‘visual organisation
of written language however it is produced’.49 It is not concerned with the
production of letter- or type-forms50 – by hand or by machine – but solely with
the articulation of meaning. Visual organisation achieves meaning through
differing levels of complexity and hierarchy: as a sequence of ‘letters’, sentences,
paragraphs, titles, columns, footnotes, captions, pagination and much more.
2.2 TYPOGRAPHY AS RHETORIC
Rhetoric and discourse are interlinked. Rhetoric aims to improve to capability
of a speaker or writer to inform, persuade or motivate particular audiences in
specific situations. Design elements do not transmit a text passively: ‘they are
rhetorically active because they affect the reader’s reception of the message’.51
Kent defines rhetoric as the moves we make playing a game: different to the
system of rules involved in the game. He argues that both the production
and reception of discourse are paralogic in nature and ‘cannot be predicted
in advance… codified or conventionalised in any meaningful way.’52 By this
rationale, heuristic strategies of learning are more appropriate. Heuristic
describes a ‘hands-on’ approach that enables a person to discover or learn
something for themselves. Many designers consider their decisions the
result of intuition cultivated by good taste and judgement.53 But, Bringhurst
intelligently argues that ‘instinct, in matters such as these, is largely memory
in disguise. It works quite well when it is trained, and poorly otherwise’.54 The
solutions of intuitive models may not always be optimal.
The purpose of most typography is utilitarian. It largely conveys
linguistic information. Feedback driven analysis provides a real basis for
the interpretation process of intended audiences.55 Empirical studies are
increasingly providing a rational basis for typographic practice.56 Interestingly,
the conclusions of such studies – at the time of publication – often agree
48 Hudson, ‘Global Text and Type’, p. 20
49 Walker, Typography and Language in Everyday Life, p. 3
50 It can even be argued that ‘spatial arrangement is probably more important than font
differentiation in revealing structure’. Luna, ‘Not just a pretty face’, p. 852
51 Kostelnick, ‘The Rhetoric of Text Design in Professional Communication’, p. 189
52 Kent, ‘Paralogic Rhetoric’, p. 13
53 Schriver, Dynamics in Document Design, pp. 158–159
54 Bringhurst, The Elements of Typographic Style, p. 143
55 Schriver, op. cit., pp. 160–163
56 See www.usability.gov as an excellent resource.
the effect of globalisation on typographic practice9
with contemporary models and practices. But ultimately, typography so often
demands ‘great subtlety of design, exquisite refinement of detail, and exacting
precision of execution, all seemingly disproportionate to the mundane task
of marking down signs that have no apparent value in themselves, but exist
only to represent the elements of speech and language.’57 Typography is often
considered subservient to its content and some argue ‘should be judged by
whether it honours, dishonours, enhances or expresses the emotions, meanings
and intentions of the author.’58 Every feature of design – texture, material and
format – can be used to convey mood and stimulate interest. Discourse exists within a shared and perpetually changing world. Bakhtin’s
concept of a dialogic discourse discusses the complex interplay of differing
influences on language and provides analogy to other forms of communication:
The word in language is half someone else’s. It becomes ‘one’s own’ only when
the speaker populates it with his own intentions, his own accent, when he
appropriates the word, adapting it to his own semantic and expressive intention.
Prior to this moment of appropriation, the word does not exist in a neutral and
impersonal language … but rather it exists in other people’s mouths, in other
people’s contexts, serving other people’s intentions; it is from there that one
must take the word, and make it one’s own… Language is not a neutral medium
that passes freely and easily into the private property of the speaker’s intentions;
it is populated –overpopulated – with the intentions of others. Expropriating
it, forcing it to submit to one’s own intentions and accents, is a difficult and
complicated process.59
The notion of emergent grammar suggests that regular structure emerges from
discourse and ‘is shaped by discourse as much as it shapes discourse in an ongoing process’.60 Familiarity is significant: we read best what we read most. A
reliance on prescriptive rules61 of conventional practice eliminates variability
but enhances mutual intelligibility: a necessary condition for effective
communication. People ultimately act to satisfy beliefs and preferences that
are modelled on subjective probabilities and utilities.62 Schiver suggests that
contemporary rhetorical approaches to design and typography were led by
‘educators realising that the needs and desires of readers are frequently at odds
with those of designers’.63 Personal taste has many dangers and may ignore
the identity and conventions of audiences from different disciplines, sub- and
cultural contexts. Ultimately, preferences – of designer, author or reader – are
an essential but inexplicable feature of an identity: formed individually or
57 Bigelow, ‘Introductions’, n. pag
58 Serafini and Clausen, ‘Considering Typography as a Semiotic Resource’, pp. 22–38
59 Bakhtin, ‘Discourse in the Novel’, pp. 293–294
60 Hopper, ‘Emergent Grammar’, p.142
61 For a good discussion of prescriptivism in socio-linguistics see Kiełkiewicz-Janowiak, ‘The Status of
Prescriptivism in Sociolinguistics’, pp. 177–88
62 Dietrich and List, ‘Where Do Preferences Come From?’, pp. 613–614
63 Schriver, Dynamics in Document Design, p. 89
the effect of globalisation on typographic practice10
Information
source
collectively, under uncertainty or complete information and on the basis of
self-interest or motivated by other means. To consider the needs and desires of
an audience and remove your subjective opinion entirely is a difficult task.
2.3 AUTHOR-TEXT-READER
Message
Transmier
Noise
source
Signal
Recieved
signal
Reciever
Message
Destination
Adapted from Shannon’s schematic
diagram of a general communication system.
The model is sometimes criticised for its
lack of human context. See Shannon, ‘A
Mathematical Theory of Communication’,
p. 381
FIG 2 In this discussion, an ‘author’ acts as a collective term that includes all persons
that contribute to the production of a text. All texts are embedded within
objects. There are two separate relationships in any text. One is the author-text,
the other is the text-reader. In creating a text, the author embeds a message
within an object; in studying a text, the reader uses the object to interpret
the message.64 No object or text is a perfect identity to any author’s thought.
Meaning resides within the object alone. As Jeanette Winterson – a professor
of creative writing at Manchester University – states, ‘I don’t give a shit what’s
in your head. By which I mean if it isn’t on the page it doesn’t exist. The
connection between your mind and the reader’s mind is language. Reading is
not telepathy.’65 To communicate effectively, an author must establish their
audience and function. Visual communications possess meaning by virtue
of their relationship to the recipient. Different functional types or genres
influence which processing strategies are engaged by the reader. For example,
the activity of studying a textbook differs from reading a novel, or finding a
word in a dictionary.66
The basic author-text-reader model manifests as differently embellished
versions in different hypotheses.67 Shannon and Weaver’s mathematical
model – that describes the transmission of electronic signals – is among the
first to embody the basic premise [fig 2]. Later scholars adapted this primary
model to consider the influence of differing languages, conventions, sub- and
cultural contexts – between author and reader – upon transmission, reception
and interpretation. Heidegger’s neologisms ready-to-hand (zuhanden) and
present-at-hand (vorhanden) are relevant to interaction and interpretation.
Ready-at-hand (zuhanden) describes the scenario where users are unaware of
the mechanics that facilitate their ability to perform a task. Presence-at-hand
(vorhanden) describes a scenario where users are too conscious of the physical
object that facilitates their task.68 Effective typography should be ‘invisible’ to
enable the user to engage with the primary task.69 Appropriate employment
64 Duchastel, ‘Textual Display Techniques’, pp. 168–170
65 Winterson et al., ‘So You Want to Be a Writer…’
66 Duchastel, op. cit., p. 170
67 A selection of the models are represented and discussed in Waller, ‘The Typographic Contribution
to Language’, pp. 162–191
68 Pearson et al., Designing for Digital Reading, p.39
69 Norman argues that invisibility enables users to lend more time and attention to the task at
hand. He writes that ‘when I use a direct manipulation system – whether for text editing, drawing
pictures, or creating and playing games – I do not think of myself not as using a computer but as
doing the particular. The computer is, in effect, invisible. The point cannot be overstressed: make
the computer system invisible.’ Norman, The Design of Everyday Things, p.185
the effect of globalisation on typographic practice11
of script and system – and adherence to genre conventions – engages the user
in their task and reduces the distraction of unexpected visual stimuli. This
sensitivity towards user expectations embodies the concept of ready-to-hand
(vohanden). A state of flow is optimal: to render an experience ‘so enjoyable that
people will do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.’70 Ultimately,
reading is a voluntary act. As Redish clarifies, readers ‘are continually deciding,
consciously or subconsciously, whether more time and effort with a document
is worth the additional benefit in learning or understanding’.71
2.4 STRATEGIES FOR EFFECTIVE PRACTICE
It is articulated that ‘composing signs from other signs is a fundamental
strategy for managing the complexity of non-trivial communication, regarding
complex signs at one level as individuals signs at a higher levels.’72 Kostelnick
outlines intra-,inter- and supra-textual structuring. Intra-textual variation
concerns local changes in typography, such as capitalisation applying weights
such as italic and bold. Inter-textual variation includes alphanumeric cues
[headings, numbers], spatial cues [horizontal and vertical distribution of text
on a page] and graphic cues [bullets, arrows, lines on tables]. Supra-textual
structuring relates to the document globally – from page to page and section
to section. The alphanumeric mode here includes section titles, page headers
and tabs; the spatial mode include page size, orientation and placement of
extra-textual elements [data and images], the graphic mode includes icons,
page colour, lines, textures, and marks.73 Together these graphic and spatial
cues can be considered as a structured field of interacting ‘rhetorical clusters’.74
Bad typography is not functional.75 Bonsiepe argues that that order and beauty
often coincide.76 It may be possible verify the hypothesis ‘designed beauty if a
function of designed order’ as a logical framework .
But, ‘practice’ is the actual application or use of an idea or method – as
opposed to the theory or principles of it.77 It is concerned only with the
product, its effect and efficiency and the processes that contributed to its
development, delivery and widespread use. Practice precludes distinction
between standard and non-standard usage; between expert professionals or
amateur laymen. Within a single community multiple practices may co-exist
with equal utility but introducing an exogenous practice may hamper utility.
Communication does not exist in isolation, but is situated within a social
70 Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, p. 4
71 Redish, ‘Understanding Readers’, pp. 15–41. Please note that the pagination of the accessed version
differs from the published article. Accessed version, p. 3
72 Goguen, ‘An Introduction to Algebraic Semiotics’, p. 245
73 Kostelnick, ‘The Rhetoric of Text Design in Professional Communication’, pp. 189–202
74 Schriver, Dynamics in Document Design, pp. 343–4
75 Ovink, ‘After All, What Does “Functional Typography” Mean?’, p. 19
76 Bonsiepe, ‘A Method of Quantifying Order in Typographic Design’, pp. 203–220
77 ‘Practice, n.’, Definition 2a, OED Online
the effect of globalisation on typographic practice12
context. Effective practice exploits the conditions – resources, social context,
geographical location – of the community it serves. Any person that writes
a message or creates a shopping list – by electronic device or by hand – is
engaging with and practising typography. The global revolution of desktop
publishing has fostered typographical variety. Movable type is no longer the
exclusive domain of trained typographers and typesetters, but is available to
anyone who has access to a personal computer.
the effect of globalisation on typographic practice13
3.0 COMMUNICATION HISTORY AND THEORY
3.1 LINGUISTIC CONCEPTS
Communication describes the transmission of information encoded
via a specific channel. The verbal-auditory channel is expressed by the
study of phonology analogous78 to the linguistic study of graphology79,
or grammatology, in the visual-graphic channel. Other channels of
communication include the visual-manual exemplified by sign language. A
grapheme is the minimal semantic unit of graphology analogous to a phoneme.
Graphemes are contrastive members of a closed system of meaning;80
components include alphabetic ‘letters’, punctuation marks and numerical
digits. The study of graphemes is called graphemics81, or graphematics, and is
concerned only with the abstract value of a grapheme.
The physical representation of a grapheme as a visual mark is called a
graph or a glyph. In typography, a glyph refers to a unique mark that can be
composed within a line of text; whereas in linguistics, a graph may include any
graphic mark including punctuation symbols, a line that divides a section,
or an arbitrary stroke that ostensibly holds no meaning. The study of glyphs
and graphs is called graphetics. In this discussion, the term glyph is used to
identify the visual marks of literate culture. Glyphs that belong to and are
variants of the same grapheme are called allographs.82 The Latin alphabet uses
standardised allographs as graphic contrasts that express semantic contrast
within a text, including italic, bold and capitalisation. In Arabic, the visual
mark of graphemes are conditional to their connection with an adjacent glyph,
depending on whether their disposition in a word is at the beginning, middle
or end. For example, the grapheme <hā> uses the allograph forms ‫ﺢ‬ (final),
‫ﺤ‬ (medial), ‫( ﺣ‬initial) or ‫( ﺡ‬isolated). Reading embodies a process that decodes a
glyph from its graphetic sign to its graphemic value; writing embodies a process
that encodes a glyph from its graphemic value to a graphetic sign.
Glyphs may be simple or compound (sometimes called digraphs); for
example in Hangul, 休 is a compound of the simple graphic units 人 and
木. The units of a compound may align together vertically or horizontally or
both: ㅟ is a combination of ㅜ and ㅣ, which may then be connected with
ㅋ to form 귀. Units connect as compounds through a mixture of spatial
78 The analogy is discussed in Pulgram, ‘Phoneme and Grapheme’, pp. 15–20, and Crystal,
The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language, p. 196
79 Not to be confused with the psychological study of graphology that analyses handwriting.
80 Buccellati, ‘Studies in Ebla Graphemics I’, pp. 39–74.
81 The suffixes -etic and -emic were coined by Kenneth Pike to indicate the perceptual distinctions
between data. See Pike, Phonemics
82 Pulgram elaborates that ‘no matter how a person’s handwriting realises the grapheme of, say, the
Latin alphabet, no matter what style or font a printer employs, each hic et nunc realisation of
a grapheme, which may be called a graph, can be recognised as belonging to a certain class and
therefore deciphered by the reader. All graphs so identifiable are allographs of a given grapheme.’
Pulgram, ‘Phoneme and Grapheme’, p.15
the effect of globalisation on typographic practice14
and physical connections. In some systems, diacritics are used to change the
semantic of a glyph. A diacritic is a mark that can be placed above, below,
through or anywhere around the glyph. The status of diacritics as compounds
or independent graphemes is ambiguous and controversial. Some diacritics
are spatially separate from the character: a hamza diacritic, is combined with
the dotless <yā> to form ‫ئ‬. Other diacritics are physically connected to the
glyph and may be identified as an independent grapheme: <ç> is graphically
represented as a compound of <c> and the cedilla diacritic.83 Diacritics
receive linguistic status equal to any grapheme; omitted diacritics can lead
to severe miscommunication, and their visual form should be ‘strong and
unambiguous’.84
3.2 SPATIAL RELATIONS
The semantic value of a glyph develops through its general disposition as a
component of a larger collective in a text. Spatial organisation is significant
to the conveyance of semantic contrast. Anderson’s essay on localist case
grammar indicates that all grammatical relationships are abstractions of spatial
relationships.85 Semantic relations are basic to both the lexicon and the syntax,
with morphology acting as only one expression variant. His arguments offer an
analogy to the spatial relationships of typography. The functional theories of
grammar describe the phonological, semantic, syntactic, and pragmatic levels
of language. This grammar, though biased towards phonology, has some causal
connection to graphology and typographic practice. Their commonalities are
more significant than their differences. The semiotic study of syntactics reveals
further that relations among signs in formal structures are abstract. Could even
an analogy to Chomsky’s syntactically valid but meaningless ‘colourless green
ideas sleep furiously’86 be visually manifested within typographic practice:
where a syntactically valid typographic solution serves no semantic purpose?
At the sentence level of many systems including English, it is visual
propinquity that identifies connectivity as ‘words’ or isolated units.87 The
system of graphetic signs is open to a infinite range of marks – spatial
relations are equally infinite in their visual manifestation. But, arguably an
optimum spatial value can be both stylistically and culturally determined.
83 ‘Letter’ values and their adaptation within scripts are further discussed in Mountford,
‘A Functional Classification’, pp. 627–32
84 Gaultney, ‘Problems of Diacritic Design for Latin Script Text Faces’, p.16
85 Anderson, ‘Case in Localist Case Grammar’, pp. 121–35
86 Chomsky (2002) cited during an informal conversation with Mitchelmore, a Ph.D student of the
Horizon Doctoral Training Centre at the University of Nottingham.
87 Halliday states that ‘sentences follow sentences, words follow words and letters follow letters in a
simple sequence; they do not overlap, nor does anything else occur in between. The spaces that
separate them - narrow spaces between letters (at least in print), wider spaces between words, and
still wider spaces with accompanying full stop, between sentences - serve to mark the units off
one from another. The spaces and stops are not part of the substance of writing; they are signals
showing how it is organised.’ Halliday, An Introduction to Functional Grammar, p. 1
the effect of globalisation on typographic practice15
The Typographica polyglotta88 comparative study in multilingual typesetting is
attempts to unify the visual appearance of many scripts. One native reader of
Hangul criticises the study: arguing that the uniform approach to polylingual
typesetting is inappropriate and ignores the differing conventions critical to
the legibility and readibility of each script and system.89 The typographic
parameters that affect the space, and visual features of each script, should
be investigated carefully when handling space and designing bilingual, or
polylingual, texts.90 Spacing works at different unit levels, including between
glyphs, ‘words’, lines of text and paragraphs. To prevent the ‘crashing’ of glyphs,
line spacing must correspond to the maximum vertical proportions of a text.
In Devanagari and Tibetan vertical ‘stacking’ of glyphs necessitates a very
different approach to line spacing than other systems and scripts.
3.3 THE SUBTLETY OF SAMENESS
A letter concept is an abstract, shapeless
notion that can be informed by categories.
The vertical categories illustrate the diversity
of forms identifiable by humans to be the
same ‘shape’ or letter. Whereas the horizontal
categories share a similar ‘spirit’ or ‘artistic
style’ that links them visually to other letters in
the same horizontal category. Image scanned
from Hofstadter and McGraw, ‘Letter Spirit’,
p. 418
FIG 4 A typographic system designed for
research in visual pattern identification.
The typography enhances the main graphic
features of letters and each letter is repeated
where is occurs. From Brooks (1977), image
scanned from Crystal, The Cambridge
Encyclopedia of Language, p. 211
FIG 3 A grapheme is perceived as a single configuration or shape; its recognition
is determined by the notion of distinctive features. Hofstadter’s study of
the ‘spirit of the letter’91 investigates fundamental forms and indicates the
connotative reliance of distinctive features: illustrating that a form may be
recognisable within a harmonised sequence of ‘letters’, but is rendered illegible
when viewed in isolation [fig 3]. Brook’s study in visual pattern identification
[fig 4] suggests that even sequence and harmonisation could be insignificant.92
Shape analysis attempts to determine the salient parameters of contrast that
indicate distinctive features intrinsic to recognition. But Hofstadter, whilst
referring to indicators of form ‘A’ [fig 5], concludes that in fact ‘no single
feature, such as having a pointed top or a horizontal crossbar (or even a
crossbar at all) is reliable’.93 94 The perception of two or more non-identical
objects as being the ‘same’ at some abstract level is described as ‘analogymaking’.95 Copycat, a program whose task builds perceptual structures from
possessed concepts, demonstrates the overwhelmingly global behaviour that
emerges from local interaction among many simple components.96
Kant argues that when an agent perceives an object it becomes changed by
88 Sadek and Zhukov, Typographia Polyglotta
89 Hwang, ‘An Investigation of Bilingual Typography’, pp. 3–10
90 Ibid., pp. 3–10
91 Hofstadter and McGraw, ‘Letter Spirit’, pp. 407–66
92 Brooks (1977) cited in Crystal, D. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language. Cambridge University
Press, 2010, 211
93 Hofstadter, Metamagical Themas, p.242
94 This differs significantly from Euclid’s Elements that discursively describes certain concepts, such
as defining <triangle> as a rectilinear figure contained by three straight lines. It is important to
note that even in these cases, universal truths cannot be derived from reasoning that depends on
a particular representation. The rendering of an individual triangle, in magnitude of angles and
sides, is entirely different to its ability to exhibit the general concept <triangle>.
95 Michell, ‘Analogy Making as a Complex Adaptive System’, p. 336
96 Hofstadter, ‘The Copycat Projects: An Experiment in Nondeterminism and Creative Analogies’
the effect of globalisation on typographic practice16
thought. Comprehension is directly related to an individual’s worldview, which
is subjective and based on experience. There are two forms of any object; the
object itself: noumenon, and the perception: phenomenon. The noumenon
describes the attributes of an object that exist but cannot be perceived by
our limited consciousness.97 The phenomenon – our perception – is distinct
from the object itself. Under this description, phenomena appear ostensibly
analogous, if not directly linked, to graphetic definition and noumena with
graphemic. Gaultney’s excellent study into diacritic design establishes the
effect of differing cultural preferences and the influence of standardised
sequence upon their optical enhancement in a line of text.98
The empirical objects of perception are in an infinitely divisible space
that is indefinitely complex. Any spatial region an object occupies can be
divided and subdivided into endless subregions.99 Any single infinite system of
graphetic signs is causal to its finite system of graphemic values. The number
of values is an ‘accident of history’100: to simplify consider the English alphabet
numbers 26; Greek 24; Hebrew 22; Russian 32; Arabic 28.101 Chinese hanzi, or
Japanese Kanji, number tens of thousands of units.102 The infinite graphetic
value ‘x’ of any individual writing system is conditioned with respect to its
finite graphemic value ‘y’; thus comparison between the infinite graphetic value
of any one system to another can be analysed. But despite infinite complexity,
the amount that any individual can perceive – as graphetic phenomena – is
finite and has an upper limit. Such conclusions are further complicated by
cultural and social code implications wherein one could propose that any visual
system is differently infinite depending on cultural interpretation. For example,
it seems likely that the visual interpretations of the abstract units of Latin
script, as fonts and lettering, number more than any other script.103
3.4 THE INVENTION OF WRITING
The collection of As indicates the ease
that people can identify different versions
of the form ‘A’. The ability to recognise
the letter ‘A’ in such diverse forms requires
highly sophisticated analogy-making ability.
Image captioned as ‘a page of ‘A’s in different
typefaces from a recent Letraset catalog’.
Image sourced Hofstadter (1985) reprinted
in Michell, ‘Analogy Making as a Complex
Adaptive System’, pp. 335–60. Please note that
the pagination of the accessed version differs
from the published article. Accessed version,
p. 2
FIG 5 Text consumption and production has progressed from a preserve of the
elite to a fundamental mark of civilisation pervasive throughout everyday
life. The first literate cultures – for which we have clear evidence – emerged
in Mesopotamia around 5,000 years ago (3,200 bce).104 Surviving text from
this era primarily records public affairs, administrative information and
97 Watson, The Philosophy of Kant Explained, p.75
98 Gaultney, ‘Problems of Diacritic Design for Latin Script Text Faces’
99 Parsons, ‘Infinity and Kant’s Conception of the “Possibility of Experience”’ p. 185
100 Daniels and Bright, The World’s Writing Systems (Oxford University Press, 1996), p. 883
101 Ibid., p. 883
102 Unicode version 1.o allocates 75,963 glyphs to the Han alias (that supports Hanzi, Kanji, Hanja).
103 It is worth noting that the contemporary digital typeface design – using the grid-based format
of the em-square with either 1000 units or 2048 units – effectively limits the visual form of any
abstract unit to a finite number of possibilities. Although, this number is so great that it holds little
relevance to pragmatic application.
104 Chiera (1938), Kramer (1981), Oppenheim (1964) and Green (1981) cited in Coulmas, Writing Systems
of the World, p.8
the effect of globalisation on typographic practice17
legal decrees. These texts marked on the durable substrates of stone and fired
clay tablets have endured the millennia while other substrates have largely
perished.105 Navigation and the ergonomics of reading evolved with innovation
of tool and change of substrate, including the adoption of portable papyrus
in Ancient Egypt and the bound paginated codexes of the 3rd century ce that
superseded the scroll. Writing evolved from a largely pictorial system of signs
– epitomised by Egyptian and Mayan hieroglyphs – to more abstract forms
including Cuneiform106 and Demotic text.
The invention of writing, like speech, is rooted in myth and legend; often
of divine character and origins.107 There is no evidence to support a theory
of a common origin of writing.108 Instead, evidence suggests that writing
was invented several times independent of imported models; emerging at
different times in different parts of the world.109 Each invention of writing
visually manifests itself as a conventional system of signs. Its notation
agreed in meaning by all persons that use it. The meaning of these signs is
taught to the successors of their creators in an effort to overcome temporal
obstacles. Acquisition is significant. Writing has been reinvented often and
circumnavigated the globe through missionaries, traders, administrators,
conquerors and refugees. The early systems have evolved over time to support
many major languages globally. Even today, new systems continue to be
invented and the ongoing evolution of existing systems is inevitable.
Language is a system of communication that uses arbitrary signals – such as
speech, writing and gestures – linked to a specific community or country. Each
language serves the specific needs of its community. As these needs develop,
change and grow more complex, the language evolves to support them. The
shift from oral to literate culture is repeatedly documented to coincide with
the development of increasingly complex forms of organisation.110 Text is a
familiar feature of modern society; Coulmas identifies that without writing:
…There would be no books, no newspapers, no letters, no tax reports, no
pay checks, no identity cards, no lecture notes, no street signs, no labels on
commercial products, no advertisements, no medical prescriptions, no systematic
education, no dictionaries or encyclopaedias, no instruction manuals for radios,
cars or computers a very different kind of religion, a very different kind of law and
no science in the proper sense of the word; there would be no linguistics either. A
non-literate modern society is a contradiction in terms.111
105 Pearson et al., Designing for Digital Reading, p.10
106 It is important to note that Cuneiform first emerged as a representative pictorial system and
gradually evolved into abstraction over time.
107 Jensen (1925) and Firth (1930) cited in Coulmas, Writing Systems of the World, p.5
108Crystal, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language, p.198
109 According to Ong ‘many scripts across the world have been developed independently of one
another… Mesoptoamian cuneiform 3500, Egytian hieroglyphics 3000 BC, Minoan or Mycenean
‘Linear B’ 1200 bc, Mayan Script ad 50, Chinese script 1500 bc, Mayan script Ad 50, Aztec Script Ad
1400.’ Ong, Orality and Literacy, p.84
110Coulmas, Writing Systems of the World, pp. 6–7
111 Ibid., p.4
the effect of globalisation on typographic practice18
3.5 LINGUISTIC AND SUPRA-LINGUISTIC
Modern consumption of text is composed of both linguistic and non-linguistic,
or supra-linguistic, signs. Musical, scientific and mathematical notation are
considered non-linguistic because they do not depend on reference to any
specific language. Their spoken equivalent varies from language to language,
such as ‘2’ and its phonological equivalent as ‘two, dos, deux, zwei, ni, δύο
or ‫םינש‬.’112 In linguistics, non-phonological systems describe systems that
use graphemes to present a recognisable picture of entities as they exist in
the world. Although the majority of scripts depend on units that bracket the
graphemic and phonemic registers, there are a few scripts with remaining
pictographic residue. In Chinese, most linguistic units are categorised as
xingsheng that combines a ‘radical’ – semantic element – with a phonetic
element. The Chinese grapheme <mā> combines the radical 女 with the
phonetic indicator 馬 to form 媽. But others types have a purely semantic
connection: huiyi, for example, combines three 人 pictographs – each meaning
one man – as the compound 众 for ‘crowd’ . Other logographic types in Chinese
include xiangxing, jiajie, and zhunzhu.
Japanese kanji is historically derivative of Chinese and similarly
combines a radical with a phonetic indicator. Spoken Japanese is inordinately
homophonous – with some homophonous sets as great as 18 members.113 A
homophone is a ‘word’ that is pronounced identically to another word, but
differs in meaning or spelling, such as ‘two’ and ’too’ in English. The abilities
of readers to differentiate between phonologically identical glyphs indicates
a separation between graphemic and phonemic registers. However, it is
important to note that even non-phonological systems, or those with some
phonological links, could still be defined as linguistic. Alphabetic and syllabary
orthographies are two classes of systems that overtly exploit grammatical rules
that generate phonetic representations.
Graphemes of punctuation are non-phonological, but indicate links and
boundaries between units essential to linguistic comprehension. Punctuation
is often culturally derived. A good example to illustrate this is the variation
between quotation marks: in English orthography we use ‘…’ in French
« … », and Japanese 「…」 . Appropriation of punctuation between scripts
is common, with many non-Latin based systems using Latin punctuation to
expand the range of their own system. The inclusion of some ideograms within
text, such as emoticons and symbols, maintain a non-linguistic description
because their semantic association is not limited to a single language.
However, the topology of contrast labelling sets that use ideograms can become
ambiguous in meaning as a result of differing cultural connotations.114
112 Bringhurst, ‘Voices, Languages and Scripts Around the World’, p. 18
113 Erickson et al., ‘Phonetic Activity in Reading’, p. 387
114 Watson, ‘Contrast Set Labelling in Information Design’
the effect of globalisation on typographic practice19
3.6 PHONOLOGICAL ABSTRACTION
In the early 20th century, Ferdinand de Sassure’s Course in General Linguistics115
defined the linguistic sign as the intimate union between a concept and a
sound-image. A sound-image is an abstract term that refers not to a material
physical sound but to the psychological imprint of sound. The relationship of
concept and sound-image is analogous to the respective signified and signifier.
The linguistic sign – and its union between the signified and signifier – is
arbitrary: the sound-images from which a concept is interpreted have no
intrinsic meaning. Language is a system of linguistic signs. It exists by the
virtue of a mutual agreement for the arbitrary meaning underlying the system.
Language is not owned by any one individual but is a shared possession of a
social institution: a product that is passively assimilated by the individual for
social purposes.
Writing is artificial – an artefact of cultural achievement absent from
many societies. It is both a tool that shapes and a product that has been shaped
by modern civilisation and is critical to the history of Eastern and Western
civilisation. The fundamental objective of writing is ambiguous and unlikely
to have been clearly defined: its invention a common solution to a number of
practical problems, including record keeping, accounting and the conveyance
of indirect messages.116 Writing is the visual manifestation of language served
by a conventional system. Sassure states that the visual-graphic linguistic
channel is, like speech, arbitrary and informed by a mutual agreement of
meaning underlying the system. Yet, Sassure’s ideologies and distaste for the
‘tyranny of writing’117 led him to conclude that ‘language and writing are two
distinct systems of signs; the second exists for the sole purpose of representing
the first.’118 The basic linguistic human chronology – that demonstrates oral
culture precedes literate culture – supports his argument.
The debate surrounding this hierarchical system – where writing is
subservient to speech – is enduring and traverses disciplines that include
linguistics, philosophy and cognitive science. Gelb’s A Study of Writing (1963)
coins the term Grammatology119 – the first true parallel to phonology – and
indicates that the provenance of any writing system is neither derived nor
linked to the verbal-auditory channel. He concludes that the evolution of the
visual-graphic linguistic sign occurs in a single direction, for example from
a logographic to an alphabetic or syllabic system.120 In 1967, Derrida directly
critiques Sassure by suggesting that writing is not a derivative of speech but a
legitimate independent signifier.121 Waller’s selective literature review of 1987122
115 De la Saussure et al., Course in General Linguistics
116Coulmas, Writing Systems of the World, p. 9
117 De la Saussure, op. cit., p.31
118 Ibid., p. 23
119Gelb, A Study of Writing, p. 23
120 Paper, ‘The Study of Writing’, p.91
121 Derrida, ‘Linguistics and Grammatology’, pp. 27–73
122 Waller, ‘The Typographic Contribution to Language’, pp. 11–56
the effect of globalisation on typographic practice20
offers an excellent summary of linguistic thought surrounding the discussion
highlighting scholars including Vachek: who provides a functional analysis
of writing and speech as respectively ‘phonically manifestable language’ and
‘graphically manifestable language’; indicating differences as ‘dynamic’ for
spoken and ‘static’ for written.123
Graphemic and phonemic encoding hypotheses attempt to describe the
psychological processes that occur in ‘word recognition’. Since the 1970s, the
majority of modern cognitive psychology has graduated towards an acceptance
that phonological information plays some role in word recognition124, whether
for silent reading or for a range of literate abilities. Many of these studies are
based on English language, but even scripts of pictorial residue, such as kanji,
do not provide any compelling evidence that the two channels are mutually
exclusive. Even some studies of supra-linguistic signs indicate phonological
priming: Klapp demonstrates that the identification speed for a two-syllable
number ’15’ was measurably shorter than for a three-syllable number ’17’.125
Ultimately, graphemics is not completely autonomous of phonemics; yet,
neither does a perfect synonymy exist. Daniels stipulates that ‘the number of
languages with a ‘phonemic’ orthography approaches zero’, recognizing that
though ‘language changes, spelling doesn’t, so orthography soon diverges
from pronunciation’.126 The grapheme is not and cannot be considered as
‘exterior’ or ‘subservient’ or ‘autonomous’, but is better understood to be
equal or complementary to the phoneme as a form of expression. Crystal
suggests that even if writing does derive from speech in some form, ‘in modern
society dependence is mutual.’127 In an increasingly globalised world, the
linguistic conditioning of an author may differ from their target audience.
The acquisition of spoken language and its phonological relationship to
writing differs even between languages that share the same script. In such
circumstances does phonological priming become an aid insignificant in
meaning to the interpretation of a text?
123 Waller, ‘The Typographic Contribution to Language’, p.47
124 There are many many papers on visual word recognition. Relevant areas of study include the
development of dual-route theory (Coltheart, 1978, 1993, 2001); evidence of phonology in isolated
word recognition (Rubenstein et al., 1971; Van Orden, 1987; Lesch & Pollatsek, 1993;); and evidence
on assembled phonology in visual word recognition and phonological priming (Perfetti & Bell,
1991; Ferrand & Grainger, 1994; Brysbaert 2001; Lukatela & Turvey, 1994; Drieghe & Brysbaert, 2002;
Rastle & Brysbaert, 2006; Frost, 1998). A good overview of the issues can be found in Carreiras et al.,
‘Sequential Effects of Phonological Priming in Visual Word Recognition.’, pp. 585–89
125 Klapp (1971) cited in Erickson et al., ‘Phonetic Activity in Reading’, p. 390
126 Daniels, ‘Re: 6.1094, Qs: Phonemicity of Writing’
127Crystal, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language, p.181
the effect of globalisation on typographic practice21
4.0 GLOBALISATION
4.1 INTERNATIONAL INTEGRATION
Globalisation has many facets: economic, political, cultural and social. It refers
to the process of international integration as national and cultural resources
and ideas are shared between all members of the world.128 Before this century,
sustained cultural interaction was largely achieved by military and missionary
efforts to expand their nation or religion. The connection between any socially
or spatially segregate groups was bridged at great cost and sustained with great
effort.129 The gradual technological developments of transport and information
– including the production of text in print and on screen – have increasingly
reduced costs and facilitated globalisation. More recently, worldwide relations
are increasingly mediated through communication processes that evade the
limitations of even time and space.130
In human history, text has played a significant role in the transmission
of information.131 It has spread knowledge and fostered intellectual growth.
The printing press and the internet, two important and revolutionary
methods of communication, rely largely on text to produce and disseminate
information. As global communication infrastructure develops, it facilitates
global information flows.132 Most theorists agree that globalisation and
communication are deeply interconnected.133 The world is populated by
a diverse range of languages that that rely on writing systems and scripts.
Electronic communication facilitates global communication in a wide range of
languages. Language barriers are increasingly overcome with the developments
in sophisticated translation tools and script conversion products.134 For
example, a writer in Tamil, but a speaker of Hindi, can write a Hindi-language
message in Tamil script and have it automatically converted to the more
pervasive Devanagari script.135
128 Roland Robertson – considered a key founder of the concept of globalisation – describes it as ‘the
compression of the world and the intensification of the consciousness of the world as a whole’.
Robertson, Globalization, p.8
129Appadurai, Modernity at Large, pp. 27–28
130 Terhi Rantanen defines globalisation as a ‘process in which worldwide economic, political, cultural
and social relations have become increasingly mediated across time and space’ Rantanen, The
Media and Globalization, p.8
131 Mountford argues that ‘considering its significance in human history, it is surprising that the
transmission of language in the form of writing continues to receive comparatively little concerted
attention. Perhaps the disunity of the many disciplines concerned with writing under its admittedly
diverse aspects, both practical and academic, has contributed to the rise of what might be called
‘speculative mediastics’ in recent years.’ Mountford, ‘“Writing” and “Alphabet”’, p. 221
132 Flew (2007) cited in Movius, ‘Cultural Globalisation and Challenges to Traditional Communication
Theories’, pp. 6–18
133 Ratanen articulates that ‘most theorists agree that there is practically no globalisation without
media and communications’, Rantanen, The Media and Globalization, p.4
134 Paulson, ‘Translation Technology Tries to Hurdle the Language Barrier’, pp. 12–15
135Warschauer, Technology and Social Inclusion, p. 103
the effect of globalisation on typographic practice22
The term ‘non-Latin scripts’ is an artificial grouping.136 Each script and
writing system differs vastly. The prevalence of the term lies in its negative
prefix. The global adoption of English – the most ubiquitous writing system
to use the Latin script – first pervaded as British colonial expansion. Today, its
status is largely sustained by ‘the preeminent position of the United States as
a world political, economic, scientific and technological superpower.’137 Many
global literate cultures do not express themselves using the English writing
system. In spite of this, the large majority of typefaces available for digital
text composition cater solely to Latin script. Many early digital typefaces that
still cater to non-Latin scripts can be described as conversions of ‘less-thansatisfactory’ metal or film fonts.138 Yet the problems that rendered metal and
film fonts inadequate are being overcome with technological advance. The
only remaining constraints are our ideological incapacities. Herbert Simon –
considered one of the most influential social scientists of the twentieth century
– articulates his view on social planning and the design of the evolving artefact:
As we contemplate the tasks of design that are posed in the world today, our
feelings are very mixed. We are energised by the great power our technological
knowledge bestows on us. We are intimidated by the magnitude of the problems it
creates or alerts us to. We are sobered by the very limited success – and sometimes
disastrous failure – of past efforts to design on the scale of whole societies.139
4.2 ENGLISH HEGEMONY
The ASCII digital encoding, upon which computing and the Internet were
founded, is based on the US English alphabet. It caters to no other Latin-based
systems nor to any non-Latin scripts. Users unable to decipher Latin script
were placed at a distinct disadvantage. Domain names were only available in
Latin script. Thus, a user had to type a web address in Latin script to access a
non-Latin script website.140 For many years, the rendering of non-Latin texts
online proved difficult and cumbersome for users. Web producers were forced
to convert the content of certain scripts, such as Arabic, into slow-loading
images to guarantee accurate display.141 An English-speaking elite evolved
online: the affluence of their class afforded computer access. One survey of
Internet use among Egyptian professionals observed that 70% of participants
used English exclusively in formal e-mail communication142, although at the
time only an estimated 3% of the population spoke English.143 Writing systems
136 Shaw, ‘Non-Latin Scripts and Printing Technologies’, p.13
137 Ibid., p.13
138 Ross, ‘An Approach to non-Latin TypeDesigns’, p. 74
139Simon, The Sciences of the Artificial, p. 187
140 Block, ‘Globalization, Transnational Communication and the Internet’, p. 30
141Warschauer, Technology and Social Inclusion, p. 101
142 Study cited in Warschauer, Technology and Social Inclusion, p. 100
143 Cited in Warschauer, op. cit., p. 100
the effect of globalisation on typographic practice23
dependent on diacritics – such as French, Italian, Portuguese, or Spanish –
were forced to eliminate these from their repertoire. Only with the emergence
of idns (Internationalised Domain Names) in 2010144 were web addresses able
to use Latin diacritics, some special Latin script characters – such as <eth> ð or
<eng> ŋ – and non-Latin scripts.
The developments of online communication have recognised an
‘intensification of worldwide social relations’.145 Human activity is linked with
immediacy across regions and continents. Yet electronic propinquity does not
bridge the barriers between differences of language, script, system and culture.
The idea of a universal language realises unprecedented possibilities for
mutual understanding. But its implementation is an excessive homogenisation
that undermines the value of local diversity.146 One wonders whether such
homogenisation could even be maintained? Both Pieterse and Robertson
indicate that Globalisation embodies a synergetic relationship between global
and local as individuals, rather than a dominance of the former over the
latter.147 Gerry Leonidas argues that combinations of parallel identities can
create internal conflict.148 The emergence of a globally indiscriminate internet
calls for collective efforts to overcome linguistic and cultural barriers. Users
should have the facility to effectively browse, navigate, access and retrieve
information in their native system. Sensitive graphic identity is essential to
orientate texts in the environment that they are read. Castells, helps to define
the role of identity:
In a world of global flows of wealth, power, and images, the search for identity,
collective or individual, ascribed or constructed becomes the fundamental
source of social meaning. This is not a new trend, since identity, and particularly
religious and ethnic identity, have been at the roots of meaning since the dawn of
human society. Yet identity is becoming the main, and sometimes the only, source
of meaning in a historical period characterised by widespread restructuring
of organisations, delegitimisation of institutions, fading away of major social
movements, and ephemeral cultural expressions. People increasingly organise
their meaning not around what they do but on the basis of what they are.149
144 IDNA (Internationalizing Domain Names in Applications) is a mechanism coined in 2003.
Applications needed to develop support for non-ASCII characters before domains names that used
non-ASCII could go live and be accessible for all users. The first ‘top-level’ IDNs were implemented in
May 2010. Davies, ‘First IDN ccTLDs Now Available’
145Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, p.64
146 Crystal highlights the two perspectives in Crystal, English as a Global Language, p. xiii
147 Pieterse (1995) and Robertson (1995) cited in Block, D., ‘Transnational Communication and the
Internet’, pp. 24–25
148 Leonidas discusses the conflict many individuals face between two parallel identities: English and a
regional historical identity. The latter identity is ‘the language of your laughter, your exasperations,
and your tears. Overwhelmingly, this is not English, and quite likely it is is not in letters of the Latin
script’. Leonidas, ‘Slanted Babylon: An Essay by Gerry Leonidas’, p.12
149Castells, The Rise of the Network Society, p. 3
the effect of globalisation on typographic practice24
4.3 NATIONAL IDENTITY AND CULTURAL PRIDE
Throughout most of human history, nation-states were not the dominant
form of political organisation. As Al Gore describes: ’empires, city-states,
confederations, and tribes all coexisted in large areas of the Earth for
millennia’.150 Anderson theorises that nation states exist as ‘imagined
communities’. Members imagine their affinity within a perceived group
limited by ‘finite, if elastic boundaries, beyond which lie other nations’.151 His
hypothesis argues that nation-states were made possible as a result of ‘Print
capitalism’.152 The adoption of a shared national language for each national
territory offered economic imperatives: printing media in a single vernacular is
a pragmatic choice to maximise the ease and cost of production, dissemination
and circulation. The internal cohesion of nation-states is further strengthened
by many events and developments: including elected national legislature,
dissemination of national news and the introduction of a national curriculum
in schools.153 National languages, histories and cultures develop from the
emergence of nation-states.
Printing, typography and script connect with national identity and cultural
pride. New scripts have been invented to cater for national identities and the
requirements of shared national languages. For example, the invention of
Armenian script fostered a a distinct Armenian identity within the Persian
Empire; Hangul script was invented to overcome the limitations of Chinese
graphs to better represent Korean oral language.154 New scripts have also
been developed external to their nation: the inventors of Cyrillic, Inuit and
Vietnamese scripts were not native to the communities that use them.155
Subtleties of design can be dependent on cultural preference: even the basic
shape of an ‘ogonek’ diacritic is different between Polish and Lithuanian
systems.156 Ultimately, the concept to design a single ‘plan-vanilla’ typeface
to support a writing system lacks sensitivity to history, culture, tone and
hierarchy.157 The Noto font158 – designed by Google – attempts to visually
harmonise all scripts. Its result has a certain technological imperialism that
could unwittingly impose undesirable forms159 or embody inconsistent
levels of script expertise and formality.160 Efforts to create and theories that
150Gore, The Future, p. 127
151Anderson, Imagined Communities, p. 7
152 Ibid., pp. 37–46
153 Gore, op. cit., p. 128
154 Shaw, ‘Non-Latin Scripts and Printing Technologies’, pp. 16–33
155 Maxim Zhukov’s response to an inquiry in Grace,‘Considerations for the Design of Foreign-script
Typefaces’, p. 15
156 Twardoch, ‘“Ogonek”, Polish Diacritics: how to?’
157 Leonidas, ‘Slanted Babylon: An Essay by Gerry Leonidas’, pp. 12–16
158 ‘Noto: Fonts That Support All Languages/characters in Unicode’, Project Hosting on Google Code
159 ‘Issue 39: No Support for No Nastaliq for Urdu’, Noto: Fonts that support all languages/characters in
Unicode
160 Sonnad, ‘What Fonts Tell Us About the Global Economics of the Internet’
the effect of globalisation on typographic practice25
conceptualise a ‘global village’161 are criticised because media seems to create a
communities with ‘no sense of place’.162 In 1996, Appadurai articulated that:
The world we live in now seems rhizomic… even schizophrenic, calling for theories
of rootlessness, alienation, and psychological distance between individuals and
groups on one hand, and fantasies (or nightmares) of electronic propinquity on
the other. Here we are close to the central problematic of cultural processes in
today’s world.163
4.4 APPROPRIATION
Early instruction of English as a vernacular language appropriated Latin
resources. Scholars feared that the instability of English ‘could destroy the
relative ease of clear and exact communication afforded by the stable classical
language’.164 But to force the same clarity of logic suited to classical languages
was to be unconscious of the perpetual change a living language endures.
Nevertheless, by 1650 as many as 10,000 Latin words were added to the English
vocabulary.165 English was strictly compared to latin. The distinction of
Latin script as superior to non-Latin scripts reflects a similar situation. The
Indic vernacular scripts, emblematic of the cultures they represented, were
considered ‘barbarous’ and ill-adapted to the ‘progressive spirit of the age’.
The complexities of the scripts favoured analog printing mechanisms, such
as lithograph, for ease of production. But, this choice of print process – as
different to movable type – compelled negative critiques, arguing that ‘it is
impossible that such a cumbersome, impracticable, and illegible character
should ever find acceptance, where another, so superior as the Roman [Latin],
was available’.166
Languages including Konkani – local to the Goan region – and Vietnamese
were given new writing systems based on the Latin alphabet. These replaced
established systems that used other scripts.167 The social and cultural origin
of a script determines its aesthetic model. Visual manifestation is largely
influenced by the advantages and limitations of the tools and substrate
available. For example, the application of a stylus to palm leaves produces an
aesthetic characterised by unmodulated curves168, necessary to protect the
substrate from cracking. Frutiger says that ‘scripts have always been among
161 The ‘global village’ fosters the idea of a unified global community. The term is generally credited to
Marshall McLuhan.
162Meyrowitz, No Sense of Place
163Appadurai, Modernity at Large, p. 19
164Finnegan, Attitudes Toward English Usage, p. 19
165Bambas, The English Language, p. 134
166 Reverend J.S. Woodside’s comments on Nasta’liq at a Punjab missionary conference in 1862, cited in
Shaw, ‘Non-Latin Scripts and Printing Technologies’, p. 27
167 Shaw, ‘Non-Latin Scripts and Printing Technologies’, p. 26
168Ghosh, An Approach to Type Design and Text Composition in Indian Scripts, p.17
the effect of globalisation on typographic practice26
the most important carriers of culture’.169 The dissolution of the Soviet
Union in 1991 urged a change in script in its former colonies as ‘an assertion of
independence’.170 The affected nations reintroduced the Latin script, except
Tajikistan which held preference for the Arabic script. Preference for some
models and disdain of others feels largely politically driven. The notion that
any single script or system serves a superior model is vehemently insensitive
to the complex evolution and cultural value of all other scripts. Appropriation
can dramatically weaken natural formations. But, ultimately people ‘will adapt
to typographic stimuli around them and often modify their tastes, eventually
becoming comfortable with what they encounter most.’171
4.5 SEMIOSPHERE
The semiosphere – coined by Lotman in 1982 – defines the sphere of semiosis in
which sign processes operate.172 Semiosis means ‘sign-activity’. It includes any
form of activity, process or conduct that involves signs. Examples of semiotic
processes are reading and writing. The semiosphere becomes relevant when two
or more umwelten – surroundings or environments – interact. The concept relies
on the notion of an imagined boundary that cannot be precisely visualised. Its
boundary ‘points’ are instead ‘represented by the sum of bilingual translatable
“filters”, passing through which the text is translated into another language (or
languages), situated outside the given semiosphere’.The diverse formations
exist as different levels of one organisation. Its value is to unify seemingly
detached units as a ‘whole’. Its periphery holds structures less organised and
more flexible: the ‘semiosphere repeatedly traverses the internal borders’.173
In essence, audiences should not be characterised ‘as vague abstractions or as
constellations of demographic features but as thinking and feeling individuals
who actively engage with the prose and graphics of documents.’174
Linguistic relativity describes the principle that ‘users of markedly different
grammars are pointed by their grammars toward different types of observations
and different evaluations of externally similar facts of observation, and hence
are not equivalent as observers but must arrive at somewhat different views of
the world.’175 The participants of any single ‘world view’ are not aware of the
idiomatic nature of their communication channels and regard them as logical
inevitabilities. But, a person accustomed to a different language and culture
may disagree and hold a different ‘world view’. The visual literacy of any
culture includes both visual analysis, comprehension and also the parameters
of distortion that maintain meaning. Non-native readers ‘apply terms and
169Frutiger, Signs and Symbols, p.146
170 Shaw, ‘Non-Latin Scripts and Printing Technologies’, p. 28
171 Grace, ‘Considerations for the Design of Foreign-script Typefaces’, p. 7
172 Lotman, ‘On the Semiosphere’, pp. 205–29
173 Ibid., pp. 208–209
174Schriver, Dynamics in Document Design, p. xxiv
175 Whorf and Carroll, Language, Thought, and Reality, p. 22
the effect of globalisation on typographic practice27
descriptions rooted in and suited to their own native script’.176 Their judgment
of legibility, meaning and tone can be insensitive to cultural differences and
superficial. In one case study, American readers examined Japanese annual
reports translated into English. Japanese documents embed concepts different
to American documents. The study concludes that the documents lacked
sufficient visual cues necessary to the mental models of American readers.
Some images that held important values to Japanese readers were interpreted as
‘flashy’ and nonfunctional.177
4.6 HIERARCHY
Complex systems are constructed in a hierarchy of levels. The basic idea is
that several components perform particular sub functions that contribute
to the overall function. The efficacy of complex structure is delivered by its
decomposition as semi-independent components that correspond to its many
functional parts. The design of each component can be carried out with some
degree of independence to the design of other. Each will affect the other largely
through its function and independently of the details of the mechanisms that
accomplish the function.178 The writing system determines several functional
components, whether as bicameral contrast – using upper and lower case – or
through differing weights, such as italic and bold. Conventions for baselines,
paragraph breaks, bullets, headers, footers, hyphenation and punctuation
are inconsistent between scripts.179 In Hangul there are relatively few variant
conventions and thus substitute conventions – such as underlining or
integrating different typefaces – are adopted.180 Devanagari has no single fixed
convention for specific levels of information and uses italic, bold or spatial
contrasts for identical means.181 The more complex a text is, the more variants
are required. Dictionaries, for example, embody an extensive hierarchical
structure.182
4.7 CLASSIFICATION AND SHAPE
Typeface design is fundamental to movable type: the discrete mechanism
of industrialised literacy. Fiona Ross states that the first consideration is the
definition of character-set: the repertoire of units necessary to a writing system.
The task is rendered complex when considering scripts with no finite character
set, such as Indian scripts that introduce new ligated forms through different
combinations of consonantal clusters (conjuncts). The repertoire required
in many non-Latin scripts exceeds 256 characters. In the era of metal-type
176 Nemeth, ‘Harmonization of Arabic and Latin Script’, p.4
177Hilligoss, Visual Communication, pp. 3–4
178Simon, The Sciences of the Artificial, p. 128
179 Priest, ‘Challenges in Publishing with non-Roman Scripts’
180 Hwang, ‘An Investigation of Bilingual Typography’, p.45
181 Singh, ‘Devanagari in Multi-script Typography’, p.10
182 Luna, ‘Not Just a Pretty Face’, p.853
the effect of globalisation on typographic practice28
economic necessity inspired the dissection of characters into separate portions:
identifying common components that could be used in a multiplicity of
situations.183 Difficulties relating to joining scripts or the accurate positioning
of subscripts and superscript acted to further impede the synopsis of non-Latin
scripts as movable type. Each script is different. Arabic types are complicated
by their connected structure; subject to ‘intricate shaping rules that balance
between assimilation of distinct letters and dissimulation of featureless
letters’.184
The celebrated work of the illiterate punchcutter Ravji Aaru – who cut
original types for many of India’s scripts in the 1800s– is perhaps the most
dramatic example that linguistic comprehension is not an essential to typeface
design.185 Ruder observes that ‘unfamiliar writing forms hold an appeal for
us even if we cannot read them; we enjoy them as formal patterns’.186 But,
arguably the priority of most type and typography is to facilitate access to
literate cultures. Grace articulates his view that ‘the most important aspect of
type is its linguistic component; without it, type no longer retains its name in
a semantic respect but is, instead, reduced to forms.’187 Certain typographic
principles are universal: their deployment limited only by the capabilities of
the designer. But, designers native to a script possess advantages: their culture
serving ‘as an unconscious guide that often provides natural and appropriate
direction’.188 Script familiarity in a linguistic context provides the necessary
experience to tackle the requirements fundamental to the success: its legibility
and readability. Readers are sensitive against type and typography that
hampers intelligibility. The success of designers that lack linguistic and cultural
insight are forever dependent on vernacular models and/or the guidance of
native readers and script experts.
183 Ross, ‘Translating non-Latin Scripts into Type’, p. 75
184 Milo,, ‘Arabic Script and Typography’, p. 120
185 Bringhurst (1996) cited in Hudson, ‘Sylfaen : Foundations of Multiscript Typography’, p. 2
186 Ruder (1981) cited in Grace, ‘Considerations for the Design of Foreign-script Typefaces’, p. 2
187 Grace, ‘Considerations for the Design of Foreign-script Typefaces’, p. 2
188 Ibid., p. 1
the effect of globalisation on typographic practice29
5.0 CONCLUSION
Globalisation and typographic practice are two changing phenomena.
Typographic practice represents an evolving facet of the visual-graphic
mode, open to infinite variation. Globalisation is an ongoing emergence of a
completely new reality.189 Their interaction is necessarily rich and difficult to
underpin. The evolution of literate culture – including scripts, writing systems
and their acquisition – has been influenced by economic, social, political and
cultural parenthesis throughout history. The transition from literate culture
to electronic culture is embodied by the concept of electracy, as a supplement
to orality and literacy. Ulmer writes ‘what literacy is to the analytical mind,
electracy is to the affective body: a prosthesis that enhances and augments
a natural or organic human potential.’190 Digital composition and scriptprocessing software has ‘had a profoundly liberating effect’.191 The former
paucity of fonts available for non-Latin scripts is being steadily overcome.
Economic and technological change – reflected by the internationalisation of
font production and online resources – indicates a transition towards a truly
global internet. Advocates of culturally sensitive type and typography are
challenged to design with fidelity to indigenous calligraphic traditions in the
context of modern requirements. This is a difficult balance to fulfil.192
Whether by accident or design, subversion of typographic conventions
particular to each culture may disrupt and eliminate the critical signposts
of that culture’s literacy. It can hamper communication and even prevent
intelligibility. User interface issues – that include text-based objects – ‘are
exceedingly common, despite a persistent tendency to ignore them, to
downplay their importance, or to minimise their difficulty.’193 According to
theories derived from Pierce and other influential social scientists, linguists
and semiotic scholars: ‘signs, meanings, and referents only exist for a particular
semiosis, which must include its social context; therefore meaning is always
embedded and embodied.’194 In the theoretical sense, signs do not have a
representational theory of meaning, but rather a relational theory of meaning
that is inferred by the social conditioning of their interpretants.
Multicultural society continues to develop and deploy text among its
audiences. Language representation online has diversified from the largely
monolingual environment, estimated at over 80% English-language websites
in 1997,195 to thousands of languages. The presence of languages online
increasingly reflects global communication offline. There is no obvious
189Gore, The Future, p. 5
190Ulmer, Internet Invention, p. xi
191 Shaw, ‘Non-Latin Scripts and Printing Technologies’, p. 32
192 Sonnad, ‘What Fonts Tell Us About the Global Economics of the Internet’
193 Goguen, ‘An Introduction to Algebraic Semiotics’, p. 243
194 Ibid., p. 244
195 Babel (1997) survey cited in Block, ‘Globalization, Transnational Communication and the Internet’,
p. 33
the effect of globalisation on typographic practice30
direction of convergence. The decisions that now confront our world cannot
be made by any single authority. Socially considerate communication is a
powerful tool for cohesion and relationships between and within communities.
Its relevance – as the emergent phenomenon of globalisation realises its
identity – is becoming increasingly visible. As Al Gore says, ‘the entire global
economy has been knit together much more tightly than ever before.’196 The
effect of globalisation on typographic practice is dictated by the interaction of
groups, identities, preferences, perspectives, conventions and beliefs. Global
society is a term that unifies literate individuals disparate of script and system
knowledge. Gradually our ability to identify, respect and accept our differences
is growing.
196Gore, The Future, p. 5
the effect of globalisation on typographic practice31
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THANK YOU FOR READING.