Reading Reflection For Ch: 7

Chapter 7

Typographic Technology 

It's interesting to read about the hand composition process and thinking about the many things that the process was utilized with and how painstaking some things must've been, especially if an error was found, but maybe there were far less errors because of this. While I'm all for new technology and innovations, it's nice to know that the art of doing some things, like hand composition, isn't completely dead. Seeing the shift from manual work, to gradually becoming faster and less personal in typesetting puts how we type into perspective. One of the things I noticed are the years these inventions where invented it and sort of relay it back to history and what was going on during the time and being even more impressed that people were doing this at those times, but not totally shocked - people are constantly trying to find ways to make life easier no matter what the circumstance. I love how photography mixed with typography, how technologies mix and intertwine to continue moving forward. "The digital computer in combination with the high-resolution cathode ray tube and laser revolutionized the communications industry"  - every industry, really. Like being able to digitally scan paper to get the type from on it, it almost reads like something science fictional just because we don't normally read about this and we don't think about how digital typesetting started out. As I got closer to the end of the chapter, I started reading about things I new about more and more and how computers and digital technology write and read. As it segued into software, the information because relevant to things I, and my classmates are learning about and doing right now.  Talks about drawing and painting programs like Ps and Ai, while the page-design would be InDesign and how they each have their specific jobs to do. Technology continues to advance, now needing to think about mobile and pad devices when coming up with layouts and books is a thing of today and designers need to keep on top of all of it seems insane, but also so natural to us.

I relate this picture to the chapter because it shows how the branding for Nivea changed over the many years, going from something that was probably (since Nivea was founded in 1882) done by hand composition to digital. It's great seeing the progress AND the styles change with the passing time.