REFERENCE SOURCES
1. Baskerville, the Man, the Typeface and a Strange, Sad Story 2010, suite101.com, viewed 5 September 2010, Http://www.suite101.com/content/baskerville-the-man-the-typeface-and-a-strange-sad-story-a248215#ixzz0yZRFb8Dx
2. Caslon, W 2010, Encyclopaedia Britannica Online Library Edition, viewed 19 September 2010, http://www.eb.com.au/eb/article-9020630
3. Dean, P 2008, eXtreme Type Terminology Part 1: The Detection of Types, ilovetypography.com (ILT), viewed 15 September 2010, http://ilovetypography.com/2008/03/21/extreme-type-terminology/
4. Dean, P 2007, Who Shot the Serif?: Typography Terms, ilovetypography.com (ILT), viewed 18 September 2010, http://ilovetypography.com/2007/08/26/who-shot-the-serif-typography-terms/
5. Font Designer-Pierre Simon Fournier 2010, Linotype GmbH, viewed 18 September 2010, http://www.linotype.com/711/pierresimonfournier.html
6. Fonts by name-Bodoni 2010, Identifont, viewed 18 September 2010, http://www.identifont.com/find-font.html
7. Fundamental Document Design 2010, Bastoky Design, viewed 29 August 2010, http://www.bastoky.com/Typo.htm
8. Graphic design 2010, Encyclopaedia Britannica Online Library Edition, viewed 19 September 2010, http://www.eb.com.au/eb/article-242766
9. Transition to modern type: 17th and 18th century 2010, Wikipedia, viewed 14 September 2010, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Western_typography
10.Type and Typography 2010, Encyclopaedia Britannica Online Library Edition, viewed 19 September 2010, http://www.library.eb.com.au/all/comptons/article-209160
11.William Caslon 2010, Linotype GmbH, viewed 18 September 2010, http://www.linotype.com/348/williamcaslon.html

Post 2: After Gutenberg - From the Roman typeface to Garamond

A high-art, aesthetic style characterised early printing and means that examples of these early works are prized possessions of the modern libraries that are fortunate enough to own them. By the late 15th century printing presses had spread throughout Western Europe and most of the fashionable and influential printing was being done in Italy.

Roman Style

In Italy printing flourished in a number of locations but Venice, known for the quality of its printing, became the centre. While the blackletter typeface was retained in Germany for cultural reasons, humanist and the revival of classical influences in Italy led to the development of transitional typefaces and then to several sub-styles. For example, Venetian influences ca 1486 led to the formation of a half Gothic type, called Rotunda, by Erhard Radolt. Inspiration was also found in Roman inscriptional capitals found on Roman buildings. The lettering featured contrasting thick and thin strokes and serifs [a serif is a line or curve that finishes off the end of a letterform]. Lowercase letters where sought to match the capitals. Carolingian minuscules from 300 years earlier were used, although the ascenders and descenders were lengthened. The typeface developed by Nicolas Jenson was based on the stylisation of the Roman inscriptional capitals and the humanistic minuscules. The result was a typeface that was open, elegant and easily-readable with an evenness of colour in mass. Jenson's Roman typefaces were important models for Roman letters of later design. The importance of Venice in typeface design ended when the sack of Rome in 1527 concluded the Renaissance in Italy. 

Italic Type

The Italic type was based on a slanted style of handwriting known as 'cursiva humanistica'. The popularity of this writing style may have resulted in demand for this style of typeface. Francesco Griffo was commissioned by the publisher Aldus Manutius to develop the 'Aldino' italic typeface. Griffo's invention featured varying slant angles, uneven height and vertical position, and unslanted small Roman capitals. The slanted letters took up less space on the page allowing books to be smaller in size, and accordingly less expensive. The Griffo italic style was popular until Arrighi, a Vatican chancellery scribe, designed an italic typeface with a more standardised structure. The use of the italic style declined by the middle of the 16th century. It continued to be used where added emphasis was required, and for abbreviations and in-line referencing.

Printing in France

Printing in France began with undeveloped Roman and half-Gothic typefaces. Lyon and Paris developed as centres of printing and the format established in Italy began to be adopted. Estienne and Augereau typeface designs had a distinctive French style and became accepted as an art form, forming the basis of post-Renaissance typography. They were then copied for the next 150 years. Claude Garamond developed a Greek typeface for King Francis 1 in the 1540s. His Roman serifed typeface is considered one of the most legible [serif] typefaces for text and was widely influential. Much of his design for lowercase letters was based on the handwriting of Francis 1's librarian, but he was also influenced by Griffo. Most contemporary Italics are based on the Italics of Garamond's assistant, Granjon. Garamond was the first independent typefounder - he was the first to make type available to printers at an affordable price.
Note: Garamond's typeface has been the subject of a number of revivals but has become confused with the work of Jean Jannon despite retaining the Garamond name.

Description of the Research Process for the Second Post

• Identified existing research data that was appropriate to this post
• Undertook further research where I didn't have enough to cover this week's topic
• I decided to put in more images so I went to Wikipedia to access images there under Creative Commons
• Wrote this week's text

Reflection on the Research Process for the Second Post

• The posting process is still taking longer than I expected
• I have found that my record keepingis not accurate enough to help me save time later on - I must fix this because I'm wasting too much time
• I found that my blog was looking very plain and boring so I looked for more images to increase the level of aesthetic interest

Discoveries for the Second Post

• Regarding the posting process - the most efficient procedure I have found is to prepare the whole post in advance, typed in Notepad
• YouTube - has lots of useful videos that can help explain my topic in an interesting, different format
• Other blogs about typefaces, typography and so on ...
• This week I discovered "I love typography" by John Boardly. It's been going since 2007 and is full of fantastic information. Highly recommended!
• Check it out at http://ilovetypography.com/

REFERENCE SOURCES
1. Bamber, G 2001, History of Printing, HistoryWorld, viewed 13 August 2010, http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?groupid=1951&HistoryID=ab78&gtrack=pthc
2. Fundamental Document Design 2010, Bastoky Design, viewed 29 August 2010, http://www.bastoky.com/Typo.htm
3. Garamond 2010, Wikipedia, viewed 14 September 2010, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garamond
4. History of Western typography 2010, Wikipedia, viewed 14 September 2010, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Western_typography
5. McLean, R 2010, Typography, Grove Art Online, Oxford Art Online, viewed 1 September 2010, http://www.oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/article/grove/art/T086759
6. Printing Press 2010, Wikipedia, viewed 14 September, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutenberg_press#Gutenberg.27s_press
7. Typography 2010, VLetter,Inc.,viewed 29 August 2010, http://www.vletter.com/aboutfonts.htm viewed 29/8/2010
8. Typography 101 2010, pointlessart, viewed 29 August 2010, http://desktoppub.about.com/gi/o.htm?zi=1/XJ&zTi=1&sdn=desktoppub&cdn=compute&tm=62&f=00&tt=14&bt=0&bts=0&st=25&zu=http://www.pointlessart.com/education/loyalist/typeTalk/garamond/history.html

Post 1: In the beginning...

An inventor! 

Johannes Gutenberg (c.1400–1468) was a trained goldsmith who arrived in Strasbourg in c.1428 C.E. as a political exile. While there he learned printing and began experimenting with movable type.  By 1448 Gutenberg had returned to his home town, Mainz.  The financial backing he obtained from lawyer, Johannes Fust, allowed Gutenberg to commence a printing business using the movable metal type and typecasting machine he had devised. 
Movable Metal Type
Previously printing type had been made from wood and so Gutenberg's raised metal type, of equal length and thickness, produced a clearer image.  The durable metal letters could be used again and again, and being separate they could be rapidly reassembled so that, suddenly, books could be printed more quickly and at such a reduced cost that reading and knowledge became widely available and were no longer restricted to the rich and powerful. 
Gutenberg Bible 
Gutenberg's famous "42-line Bible", the first full-length book ever printed comprised of 1286 pages in 2 volumes. Completed in 1455-6, it gets its name from the number of lines per column to each double-column page.  The Bible is also known as the 'Gutenberg Bible' and also the 'Mazarin Bible', for a copy in the library of Cardinal Mazarin.  Forty-nine copies of the bible still exist of the 180 originally published. 
Blackletter Typeface 
Gutenberg and his colleagues, notably the calligrapher Peter Schöffer, meticulously copied the letters originally drawn by the scribes.  The style of type became known widely as "black letter" or "Gothic" and remained popular in Germany until the mid-1940s.

 Description of This Week's Research

• Continued my general research covering the whole topic.

• Identified the more important typesfaces and when they were first introduced.

• Formed my data into a timeline, starting with Gutenberg.

• Divided the information roughly into 6 separate posts.

• Wrote the text for the first text.

• Created the blog.

• Posted the first post.

• Edited post and added further information.

Reflection on the Research Process for the First Post

• I did not read the Assignment instructions carefully enough and, although I started early, I did not have sufficient research done or organised for this post.

• I searched the SLV databases for suitable images but could not find any.

• By focusing on early printing, i.e.Gutenberg, I was able to easily to identify 6 books that looked to have good information, but realised later that the depth of information they contained was probably not needed.

• I had earlier found an image of an early printing press but wasn't able to publish it as part of the initial post. I will keep trying. I might need to put the image into Picasa first.

• I had an enormous amount of trouble trying to save my first post. I kept getting a message saying that there were 'form' errors. Information from Blogger Help pointed to the problem being the use of MS Word because of the embedded formatting. The advice was to cut/paste into 'Notepad' and then cut/paste from there into Blogger. This still created problems with HTML formatting. The answer was to ignore the option to save a draft and just to publish - which I did.

Discoveries for this Week's Post

• It is better to type the information to be posted directly into Notepad, cut/paste into the Blogger text box and then apply formatting. I found it best to avoid Word altogether. When saving is problematic, publishing without saving first seems to have worked fine.

• SLV was a good source of information for my topic. I searched the catalogue and found 6 six books easily (and could have asked for several more appropriate items if I wanted to ask for them to be retrieved from the remote store). SLV also has great databases. The ones I found useful were 'Grove Art Online: Oxford Art Online' and the the 'Oxford Companion to Western Art'.

• I did not expect my topic to have never been studied previously, but when I did a Blog Search for my Blog I was quite unprepared for the huge number of blogs, on exactly the same subject, already in existence.

REFERENCES SOURCES
1. Fundamentals of Document Design 2010, Bastoky Design, viewed 29 August 2010, http://www.bastoky.com/Typo.htm
2. Garland, H & Garland, M 1997, The Oxford Companion to German Literature, Oxford University Press, State Library of Victoria, viewed 1 September 2010, http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t189.e2005
3. McLean, R 2010, Typography, Grove Art Online: Oxford Art Online, viewed 1 September 2010, http://www.oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/article/grove/art/T086759
4. Schlager, N & Lauer, J 2010, An early printing press Science and Its Times, Gale Science in Context, viewed 19 August 2010, http://ic.galegroup.com:80/ic/scic/ImagesDetailsPage/MLA7CitationWindow?displayGroupName=Images&prodId=&action=2&catId=&documentId=GALE%7CCV2210042649&userGroupName=yarra_plenty&jsid=73c688f4bc9f2ed5fbcddec72613187b
Gale Document Number: GALE|CV2210042649
5. Venzke, A 2003, The Oxford Encyclopedia of Economic History, Oxford University Press, State Library of Victoria, viewed 1 September 2010,