1980s Design

Technological advancements, especially the laser printer, allow from less expense and greater digital experimentation in typefaces. This leads to the development of Arial.
The Face, a magazine designed by Neville Brody, pushes the boundaries of type in scale, proportion, and legibility, revolutionizing magazine design. In the late 1980’s, David Carson also experiments with magazine type. With Desktop publishing, these experimentations are made easy.
Bitstream becomes the first digital type foundry in 1981. It develops digital fonts like Charter and Verdana.
Postmodernism, a time when society disobeys authority and structure and celebrates expressionism and fragmentation, creates Template Gothic, a vernacular typeface.
Macintosh makes computers user friendly, for both designers and amateurs. Citizen typeface arrives due to the printing methods Macintosh provides. The Mac is still one of the most widely used tools in graphic design today. In 1984 Bert Monroy discovers Macintosh and begins exploring this new tool. He has become a foundation in the design world, introducing software such as Photoshop, VideoWorks, PixelPaint, and ImageStudio.
Fontographer allows anyone to manipulate existing fonts.
Haus der Kulturen der Welt, an institute in Berlin, creates a hand drawn logo made with a unique color system.

SGI computers are able to create the first 3D computer graphics.
Beginning in the 1980’s GUI (graphical user interface) is used to produce symbols and pictures rather than text.


Key Facts:
Arial Black, Robin Nicholas and Patricia Saunders, 1982: a sans serif design with softer and fuller curves with a less mechanical appearance.


Charter, Matthew Carter, 1993: a typeface with open letterforms used for printing.

Verdana, Matthew Carter, 1993: a typeface developed for screen use.

Template Gothic, Barry Deck, 1990: a typeface that seems to have imperfections, embracing the vernacular, or dialect, of low culture.


Citizen, Zuzana Licko, 1986: a typeface with stair step pixels arranged in smooth diagonals.

Stone, Stumner Stone and Bob Ishi, 1987: a typeface designed to maintain legibility at many resolutions.


Trxie, LettError, 1989: a typeface with a rough dirty typewriter look is designed.

Quiz Question
What magazine was the first to push the boundaries of type design?

http://abduzeedo.com/ultimate-80s-inspiration
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics