For my contextual reference for this brief I chose type surrounding religious structures related to several types of religion. I thought this could be interesting to compare the use of type and the kind also within different cultural atmospheres. I started of documenting these simple carvings in several churches. These were carvings made by the original architect of the building and state the name of the creator and the date the church was built. The type has been carved into the stone carefully by hand and uses a sans serif font. This is interesting given the fact they were carved into the stone at least two hundred years ago. The same type has been used on each church also. This perhaps shows it was used for simplicity as it is a less detailed type in comparison to a one featuring serifs, making it way easier to chisel with tools.
Then I took a few photos of the type used on mosques, which was of course incredibly different to the previous carvings. This type is in a different language using completely different typography and design this type is suited to the people of that religion. Given the fact the creation of this type is completely different to the one I am familiar with, I could still point out a few similarities. For instance, there is a clear demonstration of ascenders and descenders being applied within a grid during the creation of this type which is also obviously used in other type design. Other than this the type here is very stylistic, using lots of curves, straight lines and small accents to define itself. It almost seems like a hand rendered type created using some sort of calligraphy method.
After this I looked at the type on gravestones. There was a massive difference here compared to the original carvings seen in the same churches. This was probably because these graves were paid to look good in honour of the dead. A few different forms of typography can be found on them depending on the time period they were made and which bit of the gravestone you look at. Around the border of the older graves there were usually these massive bold pieces of type with a very definitive style that wouldn’t match any other or in fact be repeated again. For instance the letters seen here, ‘MT’ and ‘IHR’ are very well crafted and placed in such an important spot. Im not sure what they mean, if they are the initials of the craftsman or some kind go family heirloom. This type once again is very stylistic but this time more gothic and calligraphy based. Looking at more simple gothic type you can see that these have been heavily inspired by them.
The rest of the graves were covered mainly in gothic type, carved by hand into the stone. However, if you look at the more recent graves the type becomes a lot more simple until it is no longer a gothic type and just a straight up sans serif font. The calligraphy is obviously a very stereotypical thing to see in a place like this which dates back hundreds of years. It’s bizarre to see this and the a sans serif type used in the same context. It even gets to a certain point on one grave where gothic type, sans serif type and an italic type are all used on one stone which looks absolutely ridiculous.
Finally, I looked at modern signs and advertisements in and around christian churches. These were quite ironic I find because they are so poorly produced and the type is so bad its almost shaming these buildings which were created so very delicately by hand craftsmen. One side of the building you see carefully produced calligraphy and the other, all of this awful randomly sized type advertising Sunday ceremony.
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