The project
The TYPOlab project was developed for the "Information Modeling and Web Technologies" course of the Master Degree in Digital Humanities and Digital Knowledge of the University of Bologna.
The purpose of the project was the creation of six typographic themes that are immediately linkable to the style of a document in a specific historical period.
The first step was the choice of the reference period and the following research which enabled us to find and observe the documents of that time, to manage to capture the style, the colors, the dimensions. Once obtained the necessary information, we tried to recreate the typographic styles using the CSS.
We applied the resulting themes on six documents of different lengths and nature; nonetheless, the peculiarity of these themes is their ability to fit every HTML document, provided that it is written using generic tags. Our CSS files very often employ selectors and pseudo-classes which enable the reproduction of the themes even on documents which they were not designed for.
Our themes
Clicking on the dates on the timeline below, it is possible to visualize a description of the related theme and at the same time also see its geographic provenance on the map.
This theme tries to reproduce the so called “edizioni aldine”, the books printed by Aldo Manuzio, one of the major publishers of all time and one of the first modern publishers in Europe.
Place: Venice, Italy
This theme is inspired by the newspapers of this epoch which was greatly influenced by the automatic creation of paper at low cost since we had the second industrial revolution. Due to this, there was also a massive growth in overall circulation as major events and improved communications developed the public's need for information with literacy rising sharply. This favored the outburst of many newspapers such as The Times, The Courier and The Daily just to name a few.
Place: England and America
A theme inspired by the design of Bauhaus school, founded in Weimar in 1919 and active until 1933, in particular according to the vision of László Moholy-Nagy, one of its most important teachers.
Place: Germany
The second half of the 20h century marked a new beginning for the African continent and most especially for the countries which moved from the status of colonised countries to independent ones. This trend was celebrated by the people through the creation of Commemorative Textile African Type which inspired creation of this theme.
Place: Africa
We recreated the look of the first websites, those of the 1990s, which were pure experimentation of a totally new world. The elements present in these "prehistoric" sites are what is most far from the concept of the web that we have today.
Place: USA
Set in a dystopic megacity of 2030s, the theme recreates the holographic projection of a minimal typographic style. This is enriched by natural elements from the forest landscape, in the attempt to offer to the future's reader a quiet shelter from the surrounding environment.
Place: China
