Chapters 6 and 7

We were only required to go over certain parts of Chapter six, which discussed printing in Germany. From the invention of typography by Gutenberg until the end of the fifteenth century, the German writers called their books incunabula, which is Latin for "cradle". Broadsides were also popular during this time. They were single-leaf pages that were only printed on one side and evolved into posters, advertisements, pamphlets and newspapers. Printing was spreading very quickly and led to overproduction and the end of many printing firms. Only ten out of over one hundred firms survived the fifteenth century. Albrecht Durer was a printer in German and Latin and illustrated his book The Apocalypse with a new graphic expressivness that got him famous throughout Europe. He also wrote a book on the Italian text and printing and worked out a text using a square and a one-to-ten ration of the heavy stroke width to height. Martin Luther also was part of the graphic expressions, inspiring scenes of Christs life because of his work with the Catholic church and his theses.
Chapter seven talked about graphic design during the Renaissance, meaning the period of revival and rebirth of the arts and sciences. Floral designs and decorations were popular during this time, especially in the manuscript. Erhard Ratold took steps to bring those designs into the printing process as well as the text, to print the entire book. He had become the first to have a book with a completed title page and used a three-sided woodcut border as a kind of trademark of his works. A great harmony of typography and illustration was met in The Dream of Poliphilus printed by Aldus Manutius. New fonts were designed based on the Roman inscriptions as wall as the pocket book. Church and state battled with censorship, making it difficult for scholar-printers. Two major designers of France became popular for their works, Geoffry Tory and Claude Garamond. Tory was famous for his series of initials set in black squares with meticulate designs and ornamentations perfect for the Roman type by Garamond, who is credited with the evolution of the roman typeface.
I found the problem with printing during the fifteeth century interesting. It spread so fast that it wound up becoming too much and printers had to stop. I also like how broadsides became posters and advertisements or a pamphlet, from folding it differently, just from a single sided print of a book.