Chapter 8

Chapter eight talked about the graphic design of the eighteenth century. Romain du Roi was the new typeface at the start of the century made specifically for the King and his printing press. Pierre Simon Fournier le Jeune based his own typeface off of the royal font and pioneered standardization typeface proportions during the rococo era, which is named for the French art and architecture of the time. War and government control over printing had put a halt to most graphic innovation until William Caslon took up type design. He designed an Arabic font followed by Caslon Old Style with italic. His fonts were used in the American colonies and was even used in the Declaration of Independence. John Baskerville was also a popular type designer. He was involved in the printing process and a manufacturer before creating type designs that were wider than older types, but were elegant and light. He also chose not to include the intricatly decorated initials in his printing for a pure typographic print. Baskerville became known for his handmade paper that was smooth and glossy because of the way he hot-pressed the paper. Information graphics were developed with the help of philosopher and mathemetician, Rene Descartes. He came up with the Cartesian grid and coordinates for line graphs that William Playfair worked more with. Playfair is also responsible for the modern pie chart. Giabattista Bodoni and Francois-Ambroise Didot were two more printers that were big names. Bodoni took Fournier le Jeune's typeface and evolved it into the modern style. He also redesigned the roman letterforms, making the serifs more delicate and thin. Didot brought out a paper similar to that of Baskerville's and the maigre and gras type styles that are comparable to our condensed and expanded type styles.
I found the section about Informational graphics the most interesting since I used to be a total math nerd and enjoyed hearing how Descartes had an influence on graphic design in some way. I also like hearing that graphics are always pretty and sometimes need to display important information, like a pie chart or line graph.
What does "japanned ware" mean?