La Typographie Moderne : Un Essai D'histoire Critique

Description

Drawing on Ju¨rgen Habermas's postulate that modernity is an "unfinished project," Robin Kinross locates the beginnings of a truly modern practice of typography around 1700, with the publication in England of the first treatise on typography, Joseph Moxon's Mechanick Exercises (1683-1684), and the creation of the King's Roman in France. Here he presents a history of modern typography in a broad sense, well beyond formal modernism, by focusing on the approaches and practitioners who, in Europe and the United States, were able to articulate knowledge and practice - like the English reformers or the members of the new typography. By taking into account the technical advances and the context in which typographers operate, Robin Kinross thus emphasizes the social, political, technical and material aspects that inform their practice. The originality of this essay lies on several levels: it is a lively and critical account of the development of typography over the centuries, enriched by representative examples, rarely shown before, and offers an opening for further investigation.