stempel garamond

Stempel
Garamond

A typographic explanation
of the fundamental processes
that govern our world.

04 — Contents
06 — Chaos Theory
08 — Aa
10 — Bb
12 — Cc
14 — Dd
16 — Ee
18 — Ff
20 — Gg
22 — Hh
24 — Ii
26 — Jj
28 — Kk
30 — Ll
32 — Mm
34 — Nn
36 — Mandelbrot
38 — Oo
40 — Pp
42 — Qq
44 — Rr
46 — Ss
48 — Tt
50 — Uu
52 — Vv
54 — Ww
56 — Xx
58 — Yy
60 — Zz
62 — Garamond
64 — Stempel Garamond

noun
noun: chaos theory
The branch of mathematics that deals with complex systems whose behavior is
highly sensitive to slight changes in conditions, so that small alterations can give
rise to strikingly great consequences.

The images in this book have been inspired by
the story of ‘Chaos Theory’ and how it has come
to explain some of the most basic questions that
mankind has been asking for thousands of years.
Many of the images are developed from what are
called ‘Mandelbrot Sets’; a stage on the path to our
understanding that produces some truly fascinating
images. The wider story however is set out as an
accompaniment to the images.

For hundreds of years figures of religion,
philosophers and academics have
attempted to answer the fundamental
question: How did we get here? But in
recent years science has overtaken religion
and philosophy in daring to answer this
most fundamental of questions.
The story involves a series of mysterious
and interconnected discoveries that start to
explain how life on our planet has evolved
from the basic particles of inanimate matter
that science has helped us to understand.
Woven into nature’s simplest and most
basic laws is a power to be unpredictable
and yet, almost simultaneously, inanimate
matter can spontaneously create order and
exquisite beauty. The same laws that make
the universe chaotic, spontaneous and
unpredictable can turn simple dust into
human beings.

The natural world is just one great mess of
buzzing confusion. It is a mess of quirky
shapes and blotches. What patterns we see, are
never quite regular and never repeat exactly.
The fact that scientists now think that all this
irregularity is determined by mathematical
rules is at odds with our previous knowledge,
scientific laws and understanding.
Until the early 1900’s Newtonian rules of
understanding explained the workings of the
universe as a giant clockwork type mechanism
based on predictable mathematical rules that
can’t change. But Alan Turing, famous for his
code breaking exploits during the 2nd World
War, was the first person to question whether
the laws of nature could also be understood
using mathematics.
Turing was interested in the idea that
mathematics could be used to describe
biological systems and ultimately intelligence.
This fascination gave rise to the modern
computer, and later in Turing’s life, an even
more radical notion that simple mathematics
could be used to describe the mysterious
processes that take place in an embryo, called
‘Morphogenesis’.
The cells start out identical, but then start
to clump together and change. How do
cells know what part of a being to become,
an eye or an ear or what? This was an
example of something spectacular called
‘self organization’.
Turing published his paper in 1952
explaining through mathematics how
morphogenesis worked. Turing’s equations
described for the first time how biological
systems could self organise. An example of
self organisation is how a sand dune which
is made up of billions of identical sand
particles that have no knowledge of what
shape they are formed into can organise into
ripples and waves and dunes as a result of
the wind. In the same way, chemicals seeping
across an embryo can make identical cells
self organise into different organs. The same
processes explain the markings on animal
skins such as cows and leopards and zebra.

Turing’s work was tragically curtailed
when he was convicted of gross indecency
following an affair with a younger man,
and as a sentence had to undertake a course
of unproven female hormone drugs.
This sent him into a spiral of depression
and he committed suicide soon after. This
is regarded as one of the most shameful
episodes in the history of British science
and the resulting loss to science remains
incalculable. Turing was only 41 years of
age when he died.
Before Turing scientists saw the universe as a
giant complicated machine. The idea was that
the universe is a huge intricate machine that
obeys orderly mathematical rules.
If you knew the rules then the machine
should behave in an entirely predictable way.
Find the rules and then you can predict
everything – this was Newtonian physics.
Irregular behavior was explained by outside
forces. Self organisation seemed absurd.
In the second half of the 20th century,
starting with Turing’s work, the Newtonian
dream was shattered and the scientific
community was literally plunged into chaos.

Another scientist, Edward Lorenz began
working on weather systems using
mathematical systems that could predict
the weather. He started by using traditional
thinking in a Newtonian manner, but
he found he could make no reliable
predictions. Lorenz hit upon the idea that
very small changes in the starting position
of a prediction could result in very major
differences further down the road.
He captured his ideas in a now famous
lecture called, ‘Does the flap of a butterfly’s
wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?’
This led to a new phrase in our language,
‘The Butterfly Effect’.
The discovery of chaos was a real turning
point in the history of science and the tearing
down of the Newtonian dream. Scientists
started to look carefully at Turing and others
work, and the sense that there could be links
between the chaotic nature of the butterfly
effect and natures strange power to self
organize began to grow.

Benoit Mandelbrot was a largely self
taught mathematician and a maverick,
but had a talent for seeing patterns and
form in things where others saw just
chaos. Mandelbrot’s belief was that there
was some unique equation that described
all the shapes in nature. He believed
that underlying nearly all the shapes in
the natural world lies the mathematical
principle of self similarity. The same
shape is repeated over and over again
at smaller and smaller scales. The idea
applies to trees and leaves and blood
vessels in our bodies. Mandelbrot realised
that self similarity was the basis of a new
geometry and gave this a name, ‘Fractals.’

Mandelbrot took up a job at IBM in the
late 1950’s to use the latest in computing
power to continue to study nature.
He drew the Mandelbrot set, which has
been called the thumb print of God.
Baby Mandelbrot’s feeding on themselves
going on for ever all coming from one
very simple, equation z = z 2 + c.
Complex systems thus can be based
on simple rules. A flock of starlings is
a classic example, each bird follows a
simple set of rules but the whole mass
moves unpredictably and without any
bird taking the lead.

Evolution has capitalised on natures self
organising patterns and built on these
by moulding and shaping these complex
systems to match our environment.
Evolution is based on simple rules
and feedback. The simple rule is that
the organism replicates with a few
random mutations every now and then
with feedback that comes from the
environment which favors the mutations
that are most suited to it.
Modern computers have been used to
mimic evolution to demonstrate that
using simple rules, evolution can modify
software automatically and unconsciously
to produce computer simulations much
more superior than man could have
designed or programmed.

Our journey through the work of Turing,
Lorenz and Mandelbrot has shown how
far science has come in explaining what has
historically been the territory of philosophy
and religion. The end result is the evidence
that our ever evolving complexity is
produced without thought or design.

There is a common misconception which
still abides today regarding Garamond
typefaces: that all Garamond types were
based on the typefaces cut by Claude
Garamond in the sixteenth century.
In fact, the Garamond label is quite often
a misnomer, as many of the Garamond
fonts in existence today were in fact
modeled after a later contributor to the
world of type: Jean Jannon.
Jannon, an engraver by trade, was born in
1580 in Switzerland – exactly one century
after Garamond and nineteen years after the
famous publisher’s death. His typographic
life began after he decided to create his own
type to avoid having to have an alphabet
shipped from Paris or Germany which at
that time was quite difficult. His existing
type was also wearing out; a brand new
typeface was finished around 1615, based on
the Garamond of the previous century.
Thus, the confusion around Garamond
and Jannon began. Misidentification of the
Jannon type as Garamond’s work, while
flattering, was later proven inaccurate.
Therefore the many Garamond variations
in existence today are often based on
Jannon or are a typographical hybrid of
the Jannon/Garamond types.
The many users of Garamond include the
Nvidia corporation, who employ the font
for their PDF science publications.
The 1985 Nintendo games console used an
italic variant of the font after the NES text
to describe the individual console types.
DTP Types – a British foundry – have
produced an Infant version of Garamond,
though it is hard to find. The Dr Seuss
books are set in Garamond, as are all of the
American versions of J.K. Rowling’s Harry
Potter series. In fact, the Garamond type is
an extremely popular font for print and has
been since its original conception almost
five hundred years ago.
In 1984, the growing Apple computer
company prepared to launch a range
of computers known as the Macintosh.
They would require marketing material
production and after a number of attempts
at manipulating the existing Garamond
font, Apple commissioned ITC and
Bitstream to create a condensed version for
corporate use. The result was a font which
kept the attractive characteristics of the
original Garamond, while delivering the
versatility necessary. The font delivered to
Apple was named Apple Garamond.
[credit: www.fonts.com/font/linotype/stempel-garamond]
However, the Stempel Garamond font was
based on a 1592 Garamond specimen by
printer Egenolff-Berner, so the inspiration for
it was indeed the original engraver and not
Jannon. The Monotype Garamond font
family, released three years earlier (1922) is an
example of a Jannon-based typeface.

Roman
A B C D E F G H I J K L M
N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 , . ? ! ( ) ; : & “
Italic
A B C D E F G H I J K L M
N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 , . ? ! ( ) ; : & “

Bold
A B C D E F G H I J K L M
N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 , . ? ! ( ) ; : & “
Bold Italic
A B C D E F G H I J K L M
N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 , . ? ! ( ) ; : & “

Design does not need an active interfering

designer…
it’s an inherent part of the universe.