Finding My FontA Grand Tale of Lucid Communication!

•We become speakers, •using mouth and ears •time & place unified

With speaking, we

We represent meaning visuallyusing our hands and tools!

Speaking>skill & art, > text to preserve

Chirography

• Language no longer just

transitory;• selections of language can

outlive creators!

• Voice separated from words

• Tools for recording!

• Eyes and symbols carry the meaning

Centuries Pass ...Books are rare.

Very few can read or write.

Texts are copied by hand.

Texts with information and wisdom are sometimes lost or altered.

But much knowledge is preserved and passed on!

Time and space no longer imprison person’s / culture’s ideas & information

The Invention of Type!

• Type - individual letters organized into words and sentences.

• Mechanical production, not by hand.

• Many more books.

• Many more steps between author and reader’s text.

• Multiple identical copies of texts.

The Printing Press Leads to

• posters and more politics

• authorized versions of texts

• authorized translations of the Bible

• the goal of universal literacy

Because of the Printing Press,

•we developed

• alphabetic indexes

•modern science

•modern poetry and novels

•the quantification of knowledge

•dictionaries

•privacy and plagiarism!

Because of the printing press

• The expense & bureaucracy of publishing limits who can get published

• Type itself gives off a sense of authority to readers’ eyes/understanding

• Manuscript is further separated from printed text

• One hand, pen, paper > machinery > text on paper for eyes

More steps

between writer’s hand and tool and readers’ eyes

Separation

• Writers are distanced from creating a meaningful text

• handwriting has no authority

• printed text is hegemonic

Visual (still & moving) and Aural Representations -

20th Century - Mass Media

My world starts with books, photos, radio, records, movies, television, (eye/symbol, eye, ear, ear & eye)

I despise my handwriting

• I can’t type without multiple errors

• My composing and publishing are alienated!

• I don’t try to publish

Technology Liberates!

Word-processing and the Bank Street Writer

+My first writing group

=Neatly printed text I

created directly (with 2 hands and my writing machinery)

I shape my text directly

and

my appetite is whetted for a beautiful appearance to equal my meaningful

composition of words

A student points to a book on typography

This new tool gives me control over my text’s appearance!

With control comes responsibility!

I study layout, page design and

Fonts

• I use my new tool to write and publish

• I use my new tool to apply to OISE

• I use my new tool to study how to learn to use this new tool

• I use my new tool to write a thesis about learning to use this new tool!

• I found my font - Lucida Grande

• I created my beautiful and meaningful thesis using my 2 hands & my laptop

• I put it online - accessible beyond time and place

• So what’s next in my (our) grand communication adventure? - A hint ...

Bibliography & Image Credits Available on Request

joan.vinallcox@gmail.com

For More About Joan’s Work,http://joanvinallcox.wordpress.com/my-e-portfolio/

andhttp://jnthweb.pbwiki.com/

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Canada

License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/license/results-one?

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