Discussion Point: Elise Bouchard

Since the emergence of digital technologies, print media has been able to evolve by becoming a lot more experimental and unique. When comparing and contrasting letterpress prints to digital ones it is evident that digital technologies have enabled the production of much more freer grid systems and more complex visual hierarchies. The following examples of ‘The New York Times’ from 1863 and ‘The Creative Review’ from 2010 demonstrate this move away from the constraints that letterpress placed on print.

 'The New York Times' 1863

'Creative Review' 2010

Traditional letterpress relied solely on the arrangement of text to grab the viewers’ attention. Print had a very formal and linear structure, which meant that factors such as font weight, typeface and leading were crucial to create texture and grab attention as prints often consisted purely of written information and readability was critical. After digital technologies emerged, print was given a number of tools, which allowed design to become a lot more visual, free and unconstrained. Digital technologies meant that format and layouts could quickly and easily be changed which led to grids becoming more complex, interesting and free. Prints also became a lot more visually appealing as colour and image were factored in and were incorporated into establishing visual hierarchy. Unlike previously in letterpress when visual hierarchy relied on the typeface, setting and size of text, print had a lot more ways to do this. Digital technologies allowed access to numerous fonts, colours and images creating endless possibilities whereas letterpress commonly used one colour and two typefaces as this was the most economically sound solution when it came to time and money.

As seen in the New York Times example above, the article relies solely on the dominating title in sans-serif font to first draw your attention to the newspaper. After your attention is there you are directed to next important aspects being the sub headings where some are done in capitals, bold and printed bigger, to stand out from the consuming body text. In the second example various fonts, colours and images are all competing against each other to grab the viewer’s attention and draw interest to the article. Numerous typefaces and an experimental grid have been used to direct the viewers’ interest around the page. Because of this it is clear that digital technologies have assisted with the evolution of print media from simple and traditional constrained grids and visual hierarchy to very experimental, complex and expressive solutions.

References:

Pensom, P. (2010), ‘Create Review: From Folding Plugs, to Typographic Trees’, Creative Review, http://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2010/march/cr-april-redesign?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

‘The New York Times 07-10-63’ (2012), Historic Newspapers and Early Imprints, http://www.historicpages.com/