Thursday, February 23, 2012

The Roman Alphabet | 7th Century BC

What was the basis of the Roman uppercase alphabet?
A variant of the Greek Alphabet

What were the purposes of the formal and informal styles of lettering?
Formal- Used for important manuscripts and official documents
Informal- Used for letters and routine types of writing

Why is the Roman alphabet the most widely used and what contributions did it make?
Contributions- Serifs, institution of the baseline in typography and penmanship (perfectly aligned rows of type)

From where did serifs originate?
Originated with the carving of words into stone, where stonesman added little hooks to the tips of letters to prevent the chisel from slipping

When and where did lowercase, or minuscule, letters develop?
These letters developed with the Roman institution of the baseline

What is a ligature and why were they utilized?
Ligature is the connection of type, but I am not sure why they were utilized, as it does not say in the podcast. But I would assume that they were utilized to help with penmanship and readability of a text

Post an example of the Roman alphabet in visual form.
Here is a fancy Roman alphabet design thing:

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