Material Literacy: Alphabets, Bodies, and Consumer Culture

This dissertation posits that a new form of material literacy emerged in the United States between 1890 and 1925, in tandem with the modern advertising profession. A nation recalibrating the way it valued economic and cultural mass consumption demanded, among other things, new signage – new ways to announce, and through those announcements, to produce its commitment to consumer society. What I call material literacy emerged as a set of interpretive skills wielded by both the creators and audiences of advertising material, whose paths crossed via representations of goods. These historically situated ways of reading and writing not only invited Americans to interpret a world full of representations of products, but also to understand – to read – themselves within that context. Commercial texts became sites for posing questions about reading behavior more generally, and they connected members of various professions who stood to benefit from that knowledge. In this dissertation, I explore how reading and consumption converged for advertising experts, printers, typographers, and experimental psychologists. Despite their different occupational vantage points, their work intersected around efforts to understand how modern Americans decoded printed texts, and how this behavior might be known and guided. To establish their professional reputations, the authors I study positioned themselves as being uniquely capable of observing and interpreting the behavior of readers. The body served as a key site, and metaphor, for their inquiries – a means of making both literacy and legibility material

The Contributions of Linn Boyd Benton and Morris Fuller Benton to the technology of typesetting and typeface design

The relative obscurity of Linn Boyd Benton and Morris Fuller Benton, is investigated. The two men, father and son, made significant contributions to the technology of typesetting and to typeface design, yet they are not now well known in the industry. Linn Boyd Benton invented a pantographic punch-cutting machine, which he later modified to engrave matrices. This machine made the Linotype machine practical, since it took the tedium and great expense out of the making of Linotype \u27mats.\u27 Benton\u27s machine was and still is used at the American Type Founders Company, and was copied for use at type founding companies and composing machine manufacturers around the world. Morris Fuller Benton was the first type designer to develop the concept of the type family, and also revived many beautiful types like Baskerville, Bulmer, Bodoni, and Garamond. He designed more types than any other American type designer, and many of them are still in wide use. Benton\u27s father collaborated on the original Century type, and Morris Benton designed Century Expanded, Century Oldstyle, Century Catalogue, Century Schoolbook, and all the italic, bold, condensed and extended versions that went along with them. He designed a variety of types, from gothics to moderns to classic revivals. Some of Benton\u27s types became popular right away, and others, like Souvenir, became popular years after Benton died. The Bentons were written about in the printing literature of their day, but only a few recent and fairly obscure articles have mentioned them. It is shown that the reason for this is most probably due to the modesty and reticence of the Bentons. Both father and son worked for the American Type Founders (ATF) Company, which did not promote its employees but instead advertised its products. So while ATF became the most influential type founding company in the country, the Bentons remained relative unknowns. The story of their professional and personal lives, and the story of ATF\u27s rise and decline are included. Morris Benton\u27s type designs are discussed, and the ATF method of making type is given

A Study of how Teachers Evaluate Handwriting

It was the purpose of this study to identify the problems teachers encounter as they evaluate handwriting products, to determine how effectively and consistently teachers can evaluate handwriting products, to determine what methods teachers use to evaluate handwriting products and to ascertain the need for a handbook to be used by third grade teachers and students in the evaluation and corrective teaching of cursive handwriting. Special emphasis will be placed upon the consistency of evaluation by the teachers and their attitude toward the teaching of handwriting

Cognitive and social effects of handwritten annotations

This article first describes a method for extracting and classifying handwritten annotations on printed documents using a simple camera integrated in a lamp. The ambition of such a research is to offer a seamless integration of notes taken on printed paper in our daily interactions with digital documents. Existing studies propose a classification of annotations based on their form and function. We demonstrate a method for automating such a classification and report experimental results showing the classification accuracy. In the second part of the article we provide a road map for conducting user-centered studies using eye-tracking systems aiming to investigate the cognitive roles and social effects of annotations. Based on our understanding of some research questions arising from this experiment, in the last part of the article we describe a social learning environment that facilitates knowledge sharing across a class of students or a group of colleagues through shared annotations

Drawing, Handwriting Processing Analysis: New Advances and Challenges

International audienceDrawing and handwriting are communicational skills that are fundamental in geopolitical, ideological and technological evolutions of all time. drawingand handwriting are still useful in defining innovative applications in numerous fields. In this regard, researchers have to solve new problems like those related to the manner in which drawing and handwriting become an efficient way to command various connected objects; or to validate graphomotor skills as evident and objective sources of data useful in the study of human beings, their capabilities and their limits from birth to decline

Legibility in typeface design for screen interfaces

This thesis explores the considerations related to the design of a typeface specifically for the use in interface typography. The genre of interface typefaces is outlined and essential attributes and requirements of this category of typefaces are inspected from the viewpoints of legibility, readability and type design practices. The research is based on the analysis of interface typeface samples, interviews with type designers as well as empirical findings documented by designers. These trade practices and design artefacts are contrasted with findings from cognitive psychology and legibility research. Furthermore the author’s design of the «Silta» typeface and its creation process are used to scrutinize and validate these observations. Amongst the crucial factors in the design of interface typefaces the legibility of confusable characters is extensively analysed. Furthermore, the rasterized on-screen rendering of outline based fonts is identified as a major contributing factor requiring special attention in the design, technical production and testing phases of modern fonts. Additionally, the context and use of interface typography and how users interact with interfaces are identified as the cornerstones influencing the design decisions of a typeface for this use. Finally, the aesthetics of interface typography and the motivations for developing specific interface typefaces are touched upon. As evident from the reviewed material, branding and visual identity often appear to be a driving force in the creation of new interface typefaces. However, the necessity for technological innovation and its demonstration equally inspire new design solutions. While technological limitations stemming from digital display media are increasingly becoming of less importance, the changes in reading behaviour and adaptive typography drive current development

Courier, Vol.XI, No.3, Summer 1974

The William Morris Collection at Syracuse University, p.3 -- Thomas James Cobden-Sanderson: A Study Based on His Journals / Elizabeth Mozley, p.21 -- From the Collector\u27s Library: Swinburne in Miniature / John S. Mayfield, p.39 -- Codex Atlanticus / Carol Hanley, p.41 -- News of the Library and Library Associates, p.4

Character Recognition

Character recognition is one of the pattern recognition technologies that are most widely used in practical applications. This book presents recent advances that are relevant to character recognition, from technical topics such as image processing, feature extraction or classification, to new applications including human-computer interfaces. The goal of this book is to provide a reference source for academic research and for professionals working in the character recognition field

An examination of quantitative methods for Forensic Signature Analysis and the admissibility of signature verification system as legal evidence.

The experiments described in this thesis deal with handwriting characteristics which are involved in the production of forged and genuine signatures and complexity of signatures. The objectives of this study were (1) to provide su?cient details on which of the signature characteristics are easier to forge, (2) to investigate the capabilities of the signature complexity formula given by Found et al. based on a different signature database provided by University of Kent. This database includes the writing movements of 10 writers producing their genuine signature and of 140 writers forging these sample signatures. Using the 150 genuine signatures without constrictions of the Kent’s database an evaluation of the complexity formula suggested in Found et al took place divided the signature in three categories low, medium and high graphical complexity. The results of the formula implementation were compared with the opinions of three leading professional forensic document examiners employed by Key Forensics in the UK. The analysis of data for Study I reveals that there is not ample evidence that high quality forgeries are possible after training. In addition, a closer view of the kinematics of the forging writers is responsible for our main conclusion, that forged signatures are widely different from genuine especially in the kinematic domain. From all the parameters used in this study 11 out of 15 experienced significant changes when the comparison of the two groups (genuine versus forged signature) took place and gave a clear picture of which parameters can assist forensic document examiners and can be used by them to examine the signatures forgeries. The movements of the majority of forgers are signi?cantly slower than those of authentic writers. It is also clearly recognizable that the majority of forgers perform higher levels of pressure when trying to forge the genuine signature. The results of Study II although limited and not entirely consistent with the study of Found that proposed this model, indicate that the model can provide valuable objective evidence (regarding complex signatures) in the forensic environment and justify its further investigation but more work is need to be done in order to use this type of models in the court of law. The model was able to predict correctly only 53% of the FDEs opinion regarding the complexity of the signatures. Apart from the above investigations in this study there will be also a reference at the debate which has started in recent years that is challenging the validity of forensic handwriting experts’ skills and at the effort which has begun by interested parties of this sector to validate and standardise the field of forensic handwriting examination and a discussion started. This effort reveals that forensic document analysis field meets all factors which were set by Daubert ruling in terms of theory proven, education, training, certification, falsifiability, error rate, peer review and publication, general acceptance. However innovative methods are needed for the development of forensic document analysis discipline. Most modern and effective solution in order to prevent observational and emotional bias would be the development of an automated handwriting or signature analysis system. This system will have many advantages in real cases scenario. In addition the significant role of computer-assisted handwriting analysis in the daily work of forensic document examiners (FDE) or the judicial system is in agreement with the assessment of the National Research Council of United States that “the scientific basis for handwriting comparison needs to be strengthened”, however it seems that further research is required in order to be able these systems to reach the accomplishment point of this objective and overcome legal obstacles presented in this study